Shred of Evidence

I

“I should have done this a long time ago.”

“Yes, you should have.”

Dennis gripped the steering wheel tighter and shot a reproachful look at Angela. She raised her gloved hands blamelessly. “Hey, I agree with you, boss,” she said brightly.

“Don’t call me that,” he snapped.

“Yes, sir.”

“Angela.”

“Sorry, Dennis.” Her voice dropped back into its usual coolly eloquent tone, the one she employed in board meetings, and they drove on in silence.

A few minutes later, Dennis said, “I’m not upset with you.”

Angela turned and looked at him. She was wearing the sunglasses Dennis didn’t like. He thought they looked like the eyes of some giant insect. “Why would you be?” she said.

“I’m just frustrated,” he continued. “I’ve played this scenario over in my mind a hundred times, and I still don’t know what to expect. Or what to do, really.”

“Isn’t that why you brought me along?” she asked guilelessly.

“Yeah,” Dennis said, sounding unsure. “It’s just that… I don’t even know what I’m going to say to this fucking guy.”

Angela folded her hands decorously in her lap. “First, you’re going to introduce yourself. You’re going to shake his hand if he offers it, which he probably will. All men, even the ones who hate each others guts, will often begin with a handshake. Then you’re going to tell him your purpose for coming all the way out here. You tell him we are here to pick up your sister.”

“We?”

“Yes. That’s how you introduce me. That’s all. Don’t tell him my name, don’t even motion in my direction. Pretend you’re alone, that I’m nothing more than your shadow.”

“Some shadow.”

“I want him to notice me, nothing more. If we’re lucky, and if this guy is as stupid as you believe him to be, he’ll dismiss me just as quickly.” She paused, as if for effect. “And that will be his mistake.”

“Just like that,” Dennis said dubiously.

“Every business situation is black and white; it’s the people involved who make them gray.”

Dennis gave her a sidelong look. “You’re quoting me back to me?”

“Only when you need reminding. You’re used to obstacles, Dennis. You created a company whose sole purpose is to chomp and devour smaller companies. Resistance has become a natural part of your life.”

Dennis brooded on that for awhile. His gaze drifted to the window and the view of the Laramie range on the western horizon. An early-morning mist made the mountains looked hazy and indistinct, like a faded watercolor painting. He glanced briefly at the empty stretch of road ahead, then looked back at the mountains. He allowed himself to appreciate the view, something he wouldn’t have done seven months ago. It’s amazing all the things you can do once you resign as CEO of your own multi-billion-dollar company. The corners of his mouth turned up in a humorless grin. If you don’t have a company, then why do you still need a personal assistant? He looked over at Angela. She was dressed in the type of stylishly authoritative suit she wore while walking the halls at Cineron. Because this is personal, he thought. And I need her.

He didn’t know exactly how he needed her, but he thought he would find out very quickly. The people whom he’d been referring to these past months as “that farm cult in Wyoming” weren’t going to let Jean go without a fight. The question was whether that fight would be verbal or physical.

He shook his head. I should have done this a long time ago. That’s what they’re going to write on my tombstone.

As the road continued to unwind before them, Dennis’s mind drifted back six weeks ago.

The episode of Jean and the farm cult started with three phone calls. The first one Dennis had been expecting for months: Jean calling to tell him she was leaving the Chicago apartment he had been paying for the last two years. As usual, she gave no explanation for leaving, just that she had to go.

The second call came a week later, with Jean informing her brother that she had closed both her checking and saving accounts and was transferring all of her funds to Everlast Farm. Dennis didn’t bother asking why. The “why” was inconsequential. Jean had been sending money to questionable institutes and organizations, usually those of a religious bent, since she dropped out of college fifteen years ago. Dennis theorized that Jean used these calls as a kind of confession, so he always kept his mouth shut and let her talk. There was nothing he could do to stop her, anyway. That was why she made the first call, to tell him I’m gone and you can’t stop me no matter what I do.

The third and final call—the cherry on top of a shit sundae, was how Dennis put it to Angela—came two weeks ago. Jean told her brother she had signed over her power of attorney to one Nahum Lowe. Again, Dennis didn’t ask any questions, just said Okay, Jean, thanks for calling, and hung up the phone. Then he buzzed Angela and asked her a question. She nodded, left the office, and an hour later came back holding a piece of paper. Nahum Edward Lowe, aka Neil Edward Lowe, Wyoming state driver’s license, mailing address: Everlast Farm, RR 3, Traynor, Wyoming. Five criminal charges, three fraud, two sexual abuse of a minor, no convictions. Angela said the FBI had a couple of feelers on him. She didn’t get that from the paper, and Dennis didn’t ask her about it.

“So what are you going to do?” she had asked him.

“Something I should have done years ago?” he had replied.

Dennis had done his best to keep an eye on his sister over the years, but it wasn’t an easy task. Building his company took up most of his time, and trying to stay abreast of Jean’s activities was like trying to predict the next big earthquake. It was only in the last few years that he really began to worry about her sanity. And now here it was, the big one.

On the day he was supposed to begin the vacation celebrating his early retirement from Cineron, Dennis instead bought two plane tickets to Wyoming. One for himself, one for Angela. He told her she didn’t have to come, but she had offered, and the truth was Dennis was glad for her company. There were a lot of reasons why he was glad, and he didn’t want to think about any of them.

Dennis had hired a private investigator to drive out to Traynor and photograph every square inch of Everlast Farm. He had the photos in a manila envelope, along with a detailed map with directions to the farm, when he and Angela boarded the plane. They flew into Cheyenne, rented a car, and headed north on the I-25.

“Not much life out here.” Dennis muttered. “Heartland of American, my ass.”

“Wyoming isn’t the heartland,” Angela corrected him. “We’re a little too far west.” She reached into her inside coat pocket and took out a pair of pamphlets. One of them said EXPERICENCE WYOMING!, the other said EVERLAST IS THE WAY!. She opened the tourism brochure. “Did you know Wyoming is the least populated state in the Union? And the first state to extend suffrage to women.”

“Good for them.”

“Whereas according to this”—she picked up the tract—”Everlast Farm is the gateway to the Kingdom of Heaven.”

“Praise God,” Dennis grumbled.

“From their spiel I get the impression these people didn’t read much past the Old Testament. Which makes it rather ironic that they decided to settle in Wyoming.”

“You think their have antiquated views on women’s rights?”

“Oh, Dennis,” she said with a little laugh, “I’m counting on.”

II

At Angela’s direction, Dennis turned off the interstate and drove along a rolling dirt track. The rental car dipped and bumped over ruts and washboards. The mountain view was ahead of them now, framed perfectly in the windshield.

“Do you think there’ll be trouble?” Angela asked.

Dennis considered the question. “Well, I don’t foresee any trouble, but I figure there’ll be some attitude at the very least. It all depends on whether or not this particular group has taken a vow of nonviolence. Some of them do. Of course, some of them also stock rifles. Either way the intimidation factor will be high.”

Angela huffed at that.

“I think they’ll want to talk, if only to give themselves time to properly check us out. They might even pat us down if they think we’re armed.”

Angela nodded. She had wanted to bring her gun—just as a precaution—but Dennis said it wasn’t necessary. You’re my gun, Angela. If can’t do this ourselves, then we’ll bring in the police. Angela didn’t like it, but she agreed with his reasoning. Her official title was Executive Assistant, but like most titles it didn’t describe the full scope of her duties. Angela preferred to think of herself as a Swiss Army Knife—a multi-tool with a variety of functions. She had an eidetic memory and could recall over five hundred addresses and phone numbers. She made excellent coffee. And once, at a press junket, she dislocated the shoulder of a man who had pushed his way to the front of a crowd to throw a rotten tomato in Dennis’s face. The tomato ended up on the ground, the man ended up in the hospital.

“—shouldn’t be any friction,” Dennis was saying. “I doubt if an agrarian sect is stocking rifles.”

“I bet they said the same thing about the Branch Davidians in Waco.”

“Yeah, but we’re not going to shake up the hornet’s nest. That’s why it’s just the two of us. Unarmed.” He gave her a sly glance and she smiled thinly.

“Just out for a ride in the country.”

“Exactly.” He sighed heavily. “But if they do give us any guff, we’ll have to move fast. We’ll need to grab Jean as fast as we can and get out before they have a chance to organize.”

“Are you even sure she wants to be rescued?” Angela asked in softer tone.

“Of course she wants be rescued,” Dennis snapped. “We may have to drag her kicking and screaming out of the damn place, but deep down she knows it’s for the best. She was programmed to believe whatever garbage they’re feeding her, and she can be deprogrammed, too.”

“It’s not always possible,” Angela said quietly. “Too much time may have passed. I’m not saying that to be negative. I just want you to acknowledge it as a possibility.”

“It’s acknowledged,” Dennis groused.

The house appeared on the horizon: a small square on the left side of the road. To Angela it looked like the focal point in one of those depressing paintings of pioneer life in America. As it grew larger in the windshield, the picture got a bit better. She could make out a barn and some smaller outbuildings. Everything appeared to be well-maintained and in good shape.

Dennis turned into the dooryard and parked in front of a huge oak tree, its autumn-denuded branches tapping the roof of the car as he turned off the ignition.

They got out of the car and looked up at the house. It was the sort of place a realtor would describe as “rustic,” but it wasn’t in bad shape. It had been painted sometime in the last few years, and repairs had clearly been made. The shiny yellow of new wood stood out in sharp contrast against the old.

Dennis looked around the yard. The investigator’s photos of Everlast Farm had been extremely detailed, but he still expected to see a church or a shrine or some other place of worship. Where do these yahoos do their praying? In the barn?

The screen door opened with a wheezy screech and a man came out onto the porch. He was tall and blond and tanned—a veritable poster-child for clean country living. He was wearing faded jeans and a paisley buttondown shirt. The rolled up his sleeves as he came down to meet them.

“Hi there,” he said in a bright, friendly voice. “Did you lose your way?”

Dennis thought: This guy talks like his fucking tracts.

“My name is Dennis Bannister,” he said, and extended his hand as he had done a thousand times before at a thousand business meetings. “I’m—”

“Jean’s older brother.” Nahum showed no surprise, not even a moment of hesitation. He shook Dennis’s hand with a firm grip. “She’s told me so much about you, I feel like I already know you.”

Dennis felt some unpleasant emotion rising on his face. He turned his head so Nahum wouldn’t see it and found himself looking at Angela. She was smiling.

III

“I hope you didn’t have any trouble finding the place.”

“We had good directions,” Dennis replied.

“You must have,” Nahum said. “We’re really out in the willy-wags. But we like it fine.”

“Do you have any cattle?”

“There aren’t any animals at Everlast,” Nahum said. “We don’t believe in exploiting any part of any of God’s creatures.”

Angela made her huffing sound and Dennis shot her a look.

The screen door opened again, and a tall, gangly kid with a ponytail came out. He was holding a spade. There was a scared, suspicious look in his eyes that Dennis didn’t like. His grip on the spade tightened as he came down and stepped into one of the gardens on either side of the porch steps.

“Look, Lesley,” Nahum said. “We have guests!”

The kid said nothing, just glared at them with eyes that seemed to jump in their sockets.

Nahum led them up to the front door. Angela followed, keeping one eye at the kid who almost certainly wasn’t planting bulbs in October.

The inside of the house was dark, then Dennis realized: no electricity. Nahum seemed to read his mind.

“Strange, isn’t it?” He smiled at them. “When was the last time you walked into a house that didn’t have any technology?”

Without waiting for a reply, he led them through an archway and into a quaint living room dominated by an enormous cast-iron woodstove. Situated on a brick platform it looked like an enormous black throne. A trio of rocking chairs were positioned around it. Dennis pictured the women of Everlast Farm rocking and knitting or rocking and reading while the stove glowed balefully behind them like some darkly watchful idol.

“Where is everyone?”

“Out in the fields,” Nahum said immediately. “Taking in the pumpkin harvest.”

He led them through across the room to a dining area with a long table and several mismatched chairs. He motioned for them to sit.

“Is that how your people pay the rent here?” Dennis asked. “By working the land?”

“There is no payment here,” Nahum explained. “We’re performing the Lord’s work in order to save a place for ourselves in His kingdom.”

“Sounds like payment to me.”

Nahum shrugged. Believe what you will, that gesture said.

“So you help them find Jesus?” Dennis asked.

“Jesus is anywhere and everywhere,” Nahum said vaguely. “I like to say he’s easier to find than your car keys.”

He gave them a winning smile—the one, Dennis thought, that he used to win over his followers, the one that said he was just a man like you or me, he wasn’t anything special, but if you wanted to help out, if you had a couple bucks to spare or some free time, he’d be more than happy to accept it.

“Mr. Lowe,” Angela said suddenly, “what are you thoughts on suffrage to women?”

Nahum’s smile trembled slightly. “I know our behavior may seem old-fashioned to you, but as strict followers of the teachings in the Old Testament, I can assure you we do not agree with suffrage of any kind.”

Angela’s eyebrows went up. “You don’t?”

Nahum shook his head critically. “None of God’s children, man or woman, should be made to suffer.”

Angela’s mouth fell open, and Dennis gave her a quick jab with his elbow before anything could come out.

Nahum didn’t seem to notice.

“We have purged ourselves of the trappings of society,” he said. “The tools we do employ—the machines to grow our crops, the trucks to take our goods into town—are used only out of necessity. When they’re not in use, we keep them locked away. Out of sight is out of mind.”

“Speaking of that,” Dennis slid in smoothly, “where’s my sister?”

Nahum lowered his gaze. The house made a low creaking sound, and Angela turned her head at a listening angle.

“Jean says you’re a business man—a successful one, too. So I’m not surprised by the way you phrase your question.”

Dennis steepled his fingers. “Please, Mr. Lowe, enlighten me.”

“You ask for your sister, Mr. Bannister—your sister—as if she were property. Your property. But she’s not. She’s one of God’s children, and none of us belong to anyone but Him.”

Dennis absorbed this silently. Angela’s head was still turned away, as if she were listening to a conversation taking place in the next room.

“We are not a possessive people,” Nahum continued. “We do not use words like his or hers or even ours. We don’t own this land and we don’t own each other. We give ourselves freely to our cause, just as we give ourselves freely to the Lord. I may not be a blood relation, but I am her legal guardian. It’s an act of trust, Mr. Bannister. Her Father—”

“Her father is dead,” Dennis cut in.

A board creaked behind them.

“I was referring to God,” Nahum stammered. “If we don’t trust in Him—”

“I trust in God, Nahum, but I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t believe—”

“I don’t care what you believe or don’t believe. The only thing you need to do is hear me when I say I’m taking Jean out of here. I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re her lover, her euchre partner, or her legal guardian. I’m her brother and she’s coming with me. And if you get in my way, I’ll break you in half. It’s as simple as that.”

Nahum tried to maintain his calm demeanor. “I don’t think I could allow that.”

The board creaked again.

Dennis stood up—in the business world, it was a gesture that said This meeting is over.

“You don’t need to allow it because I’m not asking your permission. Now tell me where she is. If I have to go looking for her, I might end up making a mess.”

Nahum stood up as well, knocking over his chair. In a strident voice he called out: “Jacob!”

Dennis turned around as an enormous man in denim suspenders strode boldly into the room. He had a brief image of an elephant stampeding toward him, then he was grabbed by the scruff of his shirt and hauled off his feet. He looked over at Angela, but her chair was empty. Swiveling around in Jacob’s grip, he caught a glimpse of her standing off to the side. They locked eyes for a moment and some signal passed between them.

Stepping smoothly and quickly forward, Angela raised her hand and pressed two fingers against a spot directly below Jacob’s thickly bulging left arm. He made a deep, breathless sound—Uh!—and released his grip. Dennis landed clumsily on his feet and put a discrete distance between himself and denim-clad behemoth.

“My oh my, they sure grow them big in Wyoming,” Angela said, fingers still poised. “He sure wasn’t in the brochure.”

Jacob tried to turn around. Angela applied more pressure and let out a high, wavering scream.

“I can make it hurt worse,” she informed him.

The expression on Nahum’s face had undergone a drastic transformation in the last forty-five seconds.

“Where is she?” Dennis demanded.

“I… I don’t think…”

“You got that right.”

With her fingers still firmly planted in the sweet spot under Jacob’s arm, Angela watched as her boss moved quickly across the room, caught Nahum in a one-handed chokehold, and slammed him against the wall.

“I’m only going to ask you one more time, then I’m going to start to squeeze and it won’t matter if you talk because I won’t be able to hear you.”

Nahum made a wet, choking, gurgling sound that could have been assent, or just the sound of someone having his throat crushed.

Dennis relaxed his grip. “Where is she?”

“Up…upstairs.” Nahum gasped for air. His face was the same color as the tomato that prick at the press junket tried to throw in his face a couple of years ago.

“Good enough.” Dennis let go of his throat, and Nahum slid down the wall on legs that would no longer support him. He had pissed himself, too.

Dennis stepped past Angela and Jacob, the latter was trembling so bad the sweat on his forehead was jumping like water on a hot skillet.

“You okay here?” Dennis asked her.

“I’m fine,” Angela replied. “A little thirsty.”

Dennis snickered and ran up the stairs in the main foyer to the second floor.

He found Jean behind the third door he kicked opened. She was sitting on a wire-frame cot and reading a bible. When the door flew open, she dropped the book and leapt off the bed like a soldier called suddenly to attention.

“Dennis?”

He almost said I’m here to rescue you, but couldn’t get past the inherent stupidity of such a remark. He settled for “I’m here to take you home.”

“What? Dennis, this is my home. I sold the apartment.”

“I know.” He stepped forward and grabbed her by the arm. He started pulling her toward the door. “I’ll get you a new one. Something closer to me.”

She jerked out of his grip and looked at him with an expression of confusion and hurt.

“You’re not hearing me, Dennis. You never hear me. This is my home now. I live here.”

Dennis raised his hands and she flinched, almost cowered, away from him. He came toward her slowly and cupped her face in his hands. “Jean, I’ve been keeping tabs on you. I know what’s going on. You’ve been brainwashed, or something, I don’t know. But you’re not thinking clearly.”

She pushed his hands away. “I’m thinking clearer that I have in years, Dennis. And now you just want me to leave?”

“I’m asking you to come and talk to me about it. Away from here.”

“You’re not asking,” she spat. “You never ask. You’re the big successful businessman. You’ve never asked for anything in your life. You take.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Dennis said thinnly.

He didn’t move as fast or as smoothly as Angela, but he managed to grab Jean again and pull her out into the hallway and down the stairs. They looked like a pair of dancers who had tried to execute some complicated maneuver and gotten stuck. He urged her down one step at a time, moving slowly so they didn’t fall and break their necks.

He didn’t see the young man with the spade standing at the foot at the stairs.

When Dennis reached the bottom, he heard a loud gasping sound, and looked around with wide, panicked eyes. The kid with the spade crumpled to the floor at his feet.

Angela was standing behind him, dusting off her gloves.

“Let’s go,” she said. “I’m bored.”

IV

Dennis backed out and swung the car onto the dirt road. In the back seat, Angela was turned around and staring out the rear window, watching the farmhouse. But no one came after them.

Dennis dropped his foot on the accelerator pedal and a dust cloud bloomed behind them. Everlast Farm became as indistinct as the mountains on the horizon.

Jean began to weep—low, almost apologetic sobs muffled by her hands. “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” she whimpered. “Why do you care? Why do you care?”

“It’s for your own good,” he told her.

“My own good? Where were you ten years ago, Dennis? Where was my own good then?”

He looked at Jean in the rearview mirror. She was wiping furiously at the tears running down her cheeks. But something was wrong. Her tears were red.

Dennis slammed on the brakes. Angela snapped forward, and threw her hands out to keep from slamming into the dashboard.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

She looked in the back seat and saw Jean clawing at her face, making long red furrows in her cheeks.

“Why do you care? Why do you care?”

Together they pulled Jean’s hands away from her face. They grappled with her until she let out a long, shuddering sigh like a piece of exhausted machinery and sagged back against the seat. Her scrawny arms fell limply to her sides. Her chest hitched and the tears coursing down her face left gruesome pink trails.

“Why do you care?” she croaked, and fell silent.

Dennis turned back around. He gripped the steering wheel tightly. He looked into the rearview mirror and saw his sister. Not as she was now, but how she would be the next time he left her alone. In the mirror she wasn’t sitting in the back seat; she was sitting in a bathtub full of blood-stained water, her wrists slashed and a plastic bag wrapped around her head.

He blinked and saw her as a bloody smear on the pavement in front of the building she had thrown herself from.

He blinked again and saw her lying in bed next to a nightstand loaded down with dozens of prescription medicine bottles.

He closed his eyes, but that didn’t make the images go away. It would happen, one way or another. He knew it. It was only a matter of time.

He took a deep breath and turned around in his seat. Jean cringed as he leaned toward her, then he reached past her and opened the back door.

She stared at him suspiciously.

“Go on,” he said.

Jean slid halfway out, then stopped. “You should have done this a long time ago,” she said in a hitching voice.

The door slammed shut. Dennis watched her walk back to the house in the rearview mirror.

They sat in silence for a long moment. Finally, Angela said, “I’m sorry, Dennis.”

“Me, too.”

Silence again. Then Dennis looked at his watch. “Our flight isn’t until nine.”

Angela regarded him steadily. “Yes.”

He looked at her. “We still have time to grab some dinner,” he said. “If you want.”

“Sure,” she said. “Plenty of time.”