The Soul Catcher (19 page)

Everett’s Compound
at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains

J
ustin Pratt jerked awake at the sudden blast of music, almost falling off the narrow army cot. Had he done so, he would have crashed on top of several members stretched out in sleeping bags. He knew he should be grateful to have a cot in the cramped sleeping quarters that housed almost two dozen men. After his probationary period—whenever the hell that ended—he was certain he would be on the floor with the rest of them.

It wouldn’t matter, with the little sleep they were allowed. And then to wake up to that god-awful music over the loudspeakers. It sounded like an old scratched LP of “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” No, he shouldn’t complain. He needed to remember to be grateful. At least, until Eric got back. Then they could figure out what to do together. Maybe they could hitchhike to the West Coast. Although he wasn’t sure how they’d survive without a fucking dime. Maybe they could go back home. If only he could convince Eric. He wouldn’t leave without Eric.

He rubbed the blur from his eyes. Shit! It felt like he hadn’t even slept. Out of habit, he looked at his wrist before he remembered that the expensive Seiko watch his grandfather had given him was gone. It had been just one of the hedonistic material things confiscated for his own good. Like knowing what time it was would fucking send him straight to hell.

Now Justin wondered if perhaps the real reason Father didn’t allow them to keep anything of value was to make them dependent on him. And they were. For everything. Everything from that buggy rice to the scraps of newspaper they used as toilet paper.

“Get up, Pratt.” Someone shoved his shoulder from behind.

Justin felt his hands ball up into fists. Without looking, he knew it was Brandon. Just once he’d like to slam a fist into that smug, arrogant face. Instead, he pulled a clean pair of underwear and socks from the clothesline in the corner. Brandon had been good enough to share it with him, because it seemed that even something like a cheap piece of fucking clothesline was a rare commodity around this place. The socks were still damp, which meant that once again his feet would be cold all day.

He took his time dressing while the others scurried to get in line for the showers. From the small, single-paned window, Justin could see the line forming. It curved all the way around the concrete building’s corner. He combed his fingers through his greasy hair. Fuck it! Maybe he could sneak in a shower later. He was tired of waiting in line after line. Besides, he was starving, and his stomach reminded him with a rumble that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s lunch.

Justin headed for the cafeteria, looking around as he walked across the compound. That’s what they called it, a fucking compound. The only other time he had heard someone refer to a place as a compound was on a cable special about the Kennedy family and their estate; an estate that they called a compound. So, of course, when Eric had told him about the compound, Justin had imagined something similar with servant cottages and horse stables and a huge mansion. But this place looked like army barracks—stark, metal and concrete buildings surrounded by trees and more trees, secluded in the Shenandoah Valley.

Piles of brush and uprooted trees were stacked on the south side where they had bulldozed and cleared just enough land to set up their compound. It didn’t seem very organized, either. Wells hadn’t been dug deep enough and many of the buildings didn’t have plumbing. There certainly was never enough warm water. And hot water? Forget about it.

The whole place looked temporary, and Justin had heard rumors about Father building a new compound somewhere else, some paradise he was promising everyone. But after last night, Justin wasn’t about to trust the asshole or anything he said. The pervert was a fucking hypocrite. Not like he had trusted him much before. Trust was a rare commodity with Justin. He should have known from his first week that the guy was nothing but a fraud.

That first week, Eric had taken him to what Father called a cleansing ritual. All of those who attended had to write down their most embarrassing moment, as well as one of their deepest fears. They were supposed to sign the papers, too.

“No one else will see these confessions,” Father had assured them in his smooth, hypnotic manner. “The signatures are strictly an exercise for you to own up to your past and face your fears.”

The folded papers were then collected in a black, square metal box. Justin had been asked to collect them and told where to set the dented box, back behind Father’s huge wooden chair. A chair that looked more like a throne and was flanked by his Cro-Magnon bodyguards. At the end of the evening, Father brought out the black box with all those confidential secrets. He threw a single lit match into the metal container, setting the confessions on fire. There had been sighs of relief, but Justin couldn’t help noticing that the black box no longer had a dent in it.

Later, when Justin told Eric about the miracle of the disappearing dent, his brother had practically snapped his head off.

“Some things require faith and trust. If you can’t accept that, you don’t belong here,” his brother had told him in a pissed-off tone he had never used with him before that night. Justin remembered thinking that Eric sounded like he wasn’t just trying to convince him. That maybe he was trying to convince himself, too.

Justin took a shortcut to the cafeteria, hopping over some sawhorses and wandering through a maze of stacked lumber and archaic construction equipment. He couldn’t help thinking that a couple of pairs of Father’s solid-gold cuff links could probably buy a small new forklift that would put the old John Deere tractor with the front loader and rusted plow hitched behind out of its misery.

He could smell the garbage dump and decided his shortcut wasn’t such a hot idea. No wonder everyone avoided this area. Just as he was weaving his way back to the main path, he saw several men digging behind the piles of garbage. Maybe they were finally burying the smelly mess. But as he stopped, he saw that they had several strongboxes they were lowering into the ground.

“Hey, Justin.”

He turned to find Alice waving at him over the stacks of lumber. She was making her way through the maze. Her silky hair glistened in the morning sun, and her clothes were crisp and fresh. No way were
her
socks still damp. Suddenly, he wished he had taken the time for that cold two-minute shower. When she looked up at him, her face immediately scrunched into that cute little worried expression.

“What are you doing, Justin? No one’s allowed back here.”

“I was just taking a shortcut.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here before someone notices.” She took his hand to lead him away, but he stayed put.

“What are those guys doing over there?”

She frowned at him, but put a hand to her forehead and squinted into the morning sun, taking a look at where he was pointing.

“It’s none of your concern.”

“So, you don’t know?”

“It doesn’t matter, Justin. Please, you don’t want to get caught back here.”

“Or what? No one will talk to me for weeks? Or no, maybe I won’t get my week’s ration of gummy rice and beans.”

“Justin, stop it.”

“Come on, Alice. Just tell me what those guys are burying, and I’ll go nice and quiet like.”

She dropped his hand, practically shoving it away, and suddenly he realized how stupid he was being. She was the only person he cared about, and now he was pissing her off, just like he seemed to piss off everyone else.

“They’re burying the money we collected at the rally last night.”

At the end of each rally, about a half-dozen wicker baskets were passed around for what Father called a “gratitude offering” to God. Those baskets usually ended up overflowing.

“Whaddya mean, they’re burying it?”

“They bury all the cash we take in.”

“They’re putting it in the ground?”

“It’s okay. They put mothballs in the boxes, so the bills don’t get all moldy.”

“But why bury it?”

“Where else would they put it, Justin? You can’t trust banks. They’re all controlled by the government. ATMs and electronic transfers—all of that stuff is just so the government can monitor and take your money whenever it wants.”

“Okay, so why not at least invest some of it, like in the stock market?”

“Oh, Justin, what am I going to do with you?” Alice smiled and patted his arm as though he had made a joke. “The stock market is controlled by the government, too. Remember reading in your history classes about the Great Depression?” She was using her calm teacher voice with him. At least the worry lines had left her face for the time being. “Anytime the stock market takes a plunge, it’s the government causing the decline, stealing people’s hard-earned money and making them start all over again.”

Justin hadn’t really thought about it before. He knew his dad got really pissed when he lost money in the market. Alice knew so much more about this stuff than he did. History had never been one of his strongest subjects. He shrugged, pretending it didn’t matter to him. This time when she took his hand to lead him away, he let her and enjoyed the feel of her soft skin. He wanted to ask her about last night, about Father and the perverted moves he had made on her. Yet, at the same time, he didn’t want to talk about it. He just wanted to forget it had ever happened. Maybe it was best that they both did.

As they walked to the cafeteria, Justin decided instead to think about how much money must be buried in that hole. He couldn’t help wondering how many others knew about it. When they decided to leave maybe he and Eric wouldn’t need to hitchhike, after all.

FDR Memorial
Washington, D.C.

B
en Garrison put his gloves back on and slapped the back of his camera shut on a fresh roll of film. He certainly didn’t want to waste any time or give Detective Racine a chance to change her mind. He stepped in closer, focusing on the woman’s face. She looked so peaceful, almost as if she were simply sleeping, despite being set up against a tree. Ben was fascinated by the blue tint of her skin. Had it been caused by the cold last night or a delayed reaction to the strangulation?

Even more fascinating were the flies, hundreds of them, persistent despite the activity of officers and detectives examining the area around them. They were huge and black, not your ordinary houseflies, and they seemed to be taking up residence in every one of the body’s orifices, especially the warmer, moist areas like her eyes and ears. Her dark pubic hair looked alive with them. Already Ben could see what had to be milky gray eggs nestled in the mass of thick hair.

Death and its rituals and all the natural processes that went along with it amazed him. No matter how many dead bodies he saw, he continued to be fascinated. Less than twenty-four hours ago something warm and pulsating had been housed within this body. In New Caledonia the old men called this a word that meant
shadow soul.
The Esquimaux of Bering Strait referred to it as a person’s shade. In Christian faith it was simply referred to as the soul. But now, whatever it was, it was gone. It had disappeared into thin air, leaving behind an empty, hollow carcass for insects to feed upon.

He remembered reading somewhere that in a week’s time, a human cadaver could lose about ninety percent of its original weight when left exposed to insects during a hot summer. Insects were certainly efficient and predictable. Too bad human beings weren’t. It would make his job so much easier.

“Hey, watch where you’re stepping!” a uniformed cop yelled at him.

“Who the hell are you, buddy?” a guy in a navy windbreaker and baseball cap wanted to know. He looked more like a third baseman than a cop. When Ben didn’t answer and continued to snap shots, the man grabbed him by the elbow. “Who let this guy back here?”

“Wait a fucking minute.” Ben twisted free and was immediately accosted by two uniforms. Now he could see the white letters on the back of the guy’s windbreaker: FBI. Shit, how was he supposed to know? The guy looked like a clean-cut, fucking Boy Scout.

“It’s okay.” Racine finally appeared to rescue him. The knees of her carefully pressed trousers had leaves sticking to them and her short blond hair had been tangled by the wind. “I know the guy. He used to shoot crime scenes for us before he became a big-shot freelancer. Steinberg isn’t here yet. He’s across town at another scene. We’ve gotta get some shots before the rain starts. Hell, we lucked out. Garrison just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

The officers let go of Ben’s arms, giving him a shove just as a reminder that they could. He checked his camera settings to make sure they didn’t get all fucked up. Assholes. He was doing them a goddamn favor, and they still treated him like shit.

“Come on, boys. Show’s over,” Racine told the mobile-crime-lab guys who had stopped crawling around in the grass to watch the commotion. “We’ve got to hurry up before our evidence gets washed away. That goes for you, too, Garrison.”

He nodded but wasn’t paying much attention. He had only now noticed that no matter where he stood, the dead woman’s eyes seemed to follow him. It had to be one of those strange illusion things, right? Or was he getting paranoid?

“Hey, camera guy,” the FBI agent called to him. “Get a shot of this.”

The guy stood behind Ben, pointing to a spot on the ground about five feet away from the body.

“The name’s Garrison,” Ben said, waiting for the guy to meet his eyes, and when he did, Ben made it clear that he wouldn’t proceed until the guy acknowledged him with a little respect.

He tipped back his baseball cap and smiled. “And you just happened to be in the neighborhood, is that what Detective Racine said?”

“Yeah. What about it? I was getting some fucking stock shots of the monuments.”

“On a Sunday morning?”

“Best time to do it. No oddballs monkeying around, thinking it’s funny to screw up my shots. Hey, I’m helping you guys out here. Maybe you could quit busting my balls.” Ben kept his tone calm, confining the anger, when he really wanted to tell this guy to go fuck himself.

“Okay, Mr. Garrison, could you please take a shot of these indentations in the dirt?” He pointed to the ground again. He was tall, over six feet, and lanky but athletic-looking. The sarcasm and his eyes told Ben he’d better not push it. Fucking feebie. Ben glanced at the guy’s windbreaker and wondered where his gun was hidden. He bet the asshole wouldn’t be such a macho prick without his government-issued Glock.

“No problem,” Ben finally said. He checked out the area where the agent pointed. Immediately he saw two, maybe three small circular indentations in the ground. They were about five to six inches apart.

“What is it?” Racine joined them, looking over Ben’s shoulder just as he felt the first raindrops on the back of his neck.

“Not sure,” the agent told her. “Something was set down here. Or maybe it’s some sort of signature.”

“Jesus, Tully, you’re always thinking serial killers, aren’t you? Maybe the killer set down a suitcase or something.”

“With little circular feet?” Ben laughed and snapped a couple of more shots.

“Everyone’s a goddamn expert.” Racine was getting pissed.

Ben smiled, his bent back to her and his face to the ground. He liked when Racine got pissed, and he imagined her mouth making that sexy little pout.

“That should be enough photos, Garrison. Now, play nice and hand over the film.”

When he glanced up at her, she was holding out her hand.

“I didn’t get very many angles of the body,” he protested. “And I have a few more exposures left.”

“I’m sure we have enough. Besides, the medical examiner’s here.” She waved to the small, pudgy man in the houndstooth jacket and wool cap making his way up the overgrown incline. The guy took small, careful steps, watching his feet the entire time. He reminded Ben of some cartoon character with a little black bag.

“Come on, Garrison.” Her hands had moved to her hips while she waited. Maybe she thought it made her look authoritive. Racine had boyish, straight hips, probably even wore men’s trousers with those long legs. What she lacked in hips, she made up for in tits. He stared at them now as she waited. Something about those soft tits next to that holstered metal gave him a hard-on every time. He wondered if she knew and liked it, because she didn’t budge to close her jacket. Instead, she stood there, same stance, pretending to get impatient but not denying him access.

“Garrison, I don’t have all fucking day.”

Reluctantly, he tapped the release button and rewound the film, snapped the camera open and handed her the roll. “No problem. Not like I don’t have better places to be.”

She stuffed the film into her pocket, then buttoned the jacket as if to tell him the show was over now that she had what she wanted.

“So you owe me one, Racine. How about dinner?”

“In your dreams, Garrison. Just send me a bill.” She turned to meet the medical examiner, dismissing Ben as though he were one of her lackeys.

Ben scratched his bristled jaw, feeling like he had been sucker punched. The ungrateful cunt. One of these days she wouldn’t get away with jacking men around. Actually, Ben had heard rumors that she did the same thing to women. Yeah, he could see Racine doing both, maybe even at the same time. The thought threatened to give him another hard-on. He felt the feebie staring at him. It was time to get the hell out of here. After all, he had gotten what he wanted.

He started down the path, knowing without looking where to step so he wouldn’t slip. Before he turned around the granite boulders, he glanced over his shoulder. Racine and the rest of them were already occupied with the medical examiner. Ben stuffed his hand deep into his pocket, found the smooth cylinder. Then he smiled as he squeezed the roll of film into the palm of his hand. Poor Racine. It had never occurred to her that he may have taken more than one roll.