Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(63)

“I … These are my two days off, my work-around-the-clock days. I haven’t left the apartment. I turn off my ’link. My roommate’s in Ohio for a few days for his great-granny’s hundredth birthday deal. She was murdered? Are you saying Gwen killed her?”

“No.”

“But she’s with the order? I never saw it, never … We didn’t talk a lot. I knew she was slumming—rich uptown girl having a fling with a SoHo artist. No problem. But I see, if that’s the way of it, why the sex had to be so secret. I just figured she hadn’t come out yet.”

Everything about her went hot and tight. “You think she had something to do with Keene?”

“No.” Peabody walked over, sat beside her. “But we’re investigating Ariel’s murder, and we’ll do everything we can to find out about your brother.”

“It’s those fuckers. Somehow, with both of them, it’s those fuckers.”

You’re not wrong, Eve thought.

They walked down, out onto the sidewalk, and stood a moment in a world simply teeming with life.

“A missing brother—and we may never find his body—a missing FBI agent—and same goes. And a dead woman. Common link. Natural Order.”

Peabody remained silent while they walked to the car, while Eve plugged in the route for Wilkey’s HQ.

“I’m going to ask McNab if he can run a search on missing persons, accidental deaths, homicides of members. Say, for two years. And keeping it to New York, New Jersey, and the area of Connecticut where we’re going now.”

“That’s a good thought, Peabody.”

“You had it yourself.”

“I did, which is why I’m saying it’s a good thought. Tag him now, see if he can start it. We’ll correlate it with whatever data we get from the feds.”

“I know she said she thinks they killed him, but part of her—most of her—still hopes to find him.”

“Yeah, I know. We’ll get her some answers. That’s all we can do.”

Stanton Wilkey came to prominence shortly after the end of the Urban Wars while people, still reeling from them, worked to rebuild. While those bitter from them stewed in anger.

He spread his word primarily on college campuses, where young, questing minds sought answers, solutions, and an order many had seen ripped to pieces.

Most who listened disregarded him as a bigoted lunatic, or a joke. But there were always a few, and a few could become many.

He promised a utopia, where there would be no wars, no strife, no struggle. Where each, cleaving to their own kind, would prosper. His fundamentalist and extreme religious views turned many away.

But there were always a few.

It was, he claimed, the mixing of races, diluting their purity, their culture, and the toxic freedom of unbound sexuality, the stain of homosexuality and prostitution, the ambition of women emasculating generations of men that led to war, to strife, to struggle.

He spoke of children, so innocent, so helpless, so neglected by mothers who failed to nurture in their quest for money and power.

As the few became many, he built his order. A small, rented building in the city, a quiet home in the suburbs.

On-screen appearances that led to crowded auditoriums. Seminars that led to retreats. All for a price.

He built his order, and his wealth, step by step.

Eve knew all this when she drove up to the gates of his Connecticut compound.

The walls, a good ten feet of natural stone, stretched a couple of city blocks on either side of the entrance with the wide iron gate flanked by sturdy pillars.

She’d noted the security cams at various points, and imagined the reinforcements included motion detectors, shockers, and infrared.

Beyond the gate, the road split in three directions: straight, right, and left. Trees, flowering shrubs, perfectly landscaped gardens broke up the expanse of green lawns. She spotted buildings of rosy brick or creamy white, all fronted by more trees and flowers.

Just inside the gate sat an actual gatehouse, white like the walls, with a peaked roof and one-way glass windows.

A human voice spoke through the speaker embedded in the pillar.

“Natural Order is closed to visitors. If you wish information on Natural Order, please visit one of our outreach posts. Have a peaceful and fulfilling day.”

Eve held up her badge. “Lieutenant Dallas, Officer Peabody, NYPSD. We’re here on police business.”

A man stepped out of the gatehouse. Tall and burly in a dark suit, he walked to the gate, waited.

“Okay. Sit tight, Peabody.” Eve got out of the car, walked to the gate on her side.

Ex-military, she thought. Not just the high-and-tight brown hair, but his bearing, his dead-eyed stare.

“This is Connecticut.”

“We’re aware. I believe Mr. Wilkey would like to be informed of an active investigation involving one or more of his members, and would cooperate with the authorities before too many details of that investigation and the connection to Natural Order become public.”

“You expect to show up here without going through channels and speak to Reverend Wilkey?”

Eve gave it a beat. “Yeah. Maybe you could ask him if he’d rather we go through channels, get a warrant, bring him into Central in New York for interview rather than do this here and now. Discreetly.”

“Reverend Wilkey is in afternoon meditation.”