Walk the Wire (Amos Decker #6)(12)

“These days everybody keeps things from everybody else,” noted Decker. “Anything on your end?”

“I’ve got an interview lined up for us with Cramer’s landlady. I was going to go see her when I found out you were coming to town. So I held off.”

“We appreciate that. Did Cramer have a job other than being an ‘escort’?” asked Jamison.

“She did actually, a pretty important one,” replied Kelly. He paused and said somewhat haltingly, “She worked as a teacher with the Brothers.”

“The who?” said Jamison.

“The Brothers. They’re a religious group. Branch of the Anabaptists.”

“Care to elaborate?” said Decker.

“They’re sort of like the Amish, only they can drive cars and use heavy machinery and stuff. They’re farmers and also do some manufacturing. Communal living is their standard. They take it straight from the scriptures. Good people, but they keep to themselves.”

“So an escort was employed as a teacher by a religious group?” asked Decker with a pair of hiked eyebrows. “How the hell does that work? And why didn’t you tell us that last night?”

“Well, they obviously didn’t know that she was also an escort. Plus, she was apparently a really good teacher and got along well with the kids. They’re going to be devastated by her death. I’ve already talked to Peter Gunther, the minister, though I didn’t tell him about Irene’s ‘other’ job or what had happened to her. And I was working up to tell you. I just couldn’t find the words last night. You Feds coming to town was a little bit of a surprise. I hadn’t decided how to handle it.”

“Minister? Like a preacher?” said Jamison curiously.

“No, as in the leader of the organization.” He eyed Jamison. “The Anabaptists are a male-led sect. The women do a lot of the work, including all of the butchering, cooking, cleaning, and sewing. But the men are the leaders.”

“Welcome back to the 1950s,” said Jamison drily.

“They’re good people, like I said,” replied Kelly defensively.

“How do you know so much about them?” asked Decker.

“My grandparents used to belong to the sect when I was a kid” was Kelly’s surprising reply.

“And they got tired of communal living in an age of male dominance?” retorted Jamison.

“No, but my parents did, apparently. They left after my grandparents passed on, when my sister and I were still kids.”

“Do your parents live here?”

“Nope. They retired to Florida about three years ago.”

“And your sister?” asked Jamison.

“She passed away a few years ago.”

“I’m so sorry. She was really young then?”

“Yeah. She had a rough life.”

“What else can you tell us about the Brothers?” asked Decker after a few moments of silence.

“They’re antiwar pacifists. Some of the Hutterites, the largest branch of Anabaptists in the country, were persecuted for that stance during World War II.”

Decker nodded. “So that covers her place of lodging and her work as a teacher. What about her work as an escort? You said you weren’t sure if she actually was one, even though you recognized her from the website. But are you sure it was her?”

“I am.”

“How?”

“I contacted her through the site. I made arrangements to meet with her. It was at a flophouse on the other side of town. I got there before her. Badged her when she showed up.”

“Did you arrest her?” asked Jamison.

“No.”

“Why not?” asked Decker. “You’re a cop. She broke the law. Seems pretty simple.”

“Look, I was trying to help her out. She didn’t need a prison sentence. She just needed some positive reinforcement and guidance. Only it looks like I failed on both counts.”

“But when you met with her did she confirm that she was selling sex?” said Decker. “Because earlier you intimated that you weren’t sure what she was up to.”

“She never admitted to being a prostitute, or an escort. She did say she was lonely and that while she admitted to arranging to meet men from the website, she never took any money from them. And they didn’t always have sex. Sometimes they just talked.”

“Right,” said Decker skeptically. “I’m sure they did.”

“And she wasn’t dressed like most hookers I’ve run into. Her outfit was pretty normal.”

Their meals came and they ate fast, with a lot of work ahead of them.

As they prepared to leave Decker said, “You ran her prints through IAFIS, right? To see if she had a record?” He was referring to the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

“I did, but how’d you know that?”

“It’s the only reason we’re here. When her print came through it obviously dinged some pretty high-up corridors at the Bureau. You said it was a request from the Feds that sent your reports to DC. That had to be how they knew.”

“So she was important?” said Kelly.

“They’re all important,” retorted Decker.

“But we didn’t get any hit on our submission,” said Kelly. “As far as the FBI was concerned, they had no criminal record of Irene Cramer.”