Michael Palmer - A Heartbeat Away

“In 1982 to be precise. Carl Reiner directed it and cowrote the script with Martin and George Gripe, who died a few years later from an allergic reaction to a bee sting.”

“We can probably do without the trivia right now, Melvin. In case you couldn’t tell, we’re sort of at a serious dead end.”

“Well, there’s a point here.”

“Okay. Sorry. Don’t let me take my grouchiness out on you. You don’t deserve it.”

“But the good thing is I can handle it,” Forbush said, “so you’re forgiven in advance. But listen, Griff. In the film, Martin’s character is investigating the disappearance of Rachel Ward’s father, a scientist named Dr. Forrest, played by George Gaynes.”

“This helps us how?” Griff asked.

Forbush held up a hand to urge patience.

“Hey, easy does it,” he said. “In the movie business, delivery is everything.”

“Sorry,” Griff said again.

“Before he disappeared, Dr. Forrest leaves lists of notes that Martin keeps on finding throughout the film. One list he titled ‘Friends of Carlotta,’ and the other he called ‘Enemies of Carlotta.’ ”

“Go on.”

“The big break in the case comes when Philip Marlowe, who’s played by footage of Humphrey Bogart from The Big Sleep, tips Martin’s character off that Carlotta wasn’t a person. It was a place—an island off Peru.”

Griff’s impatience gave way to intrigue.

“So…”

“So, what if ‘The Certain Path’ isn’t Chen’s way of suggesting that she was on the right track, but an actual place.”

Griff’s eyes narrowed. He pulled his laptop computer over, opened a Web browser to Google, and typed in quotes: “The Certain Path.” He clicked the first link in the resultant set, then leaned back in his chair to study the page. Moments later, a look of astonishment washed over his face.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said.

Griff turned the screen to Forbush, and used the computer mouse to highlight two lines of text. The highlighted words read:

The Certain Path Mission

Wichita, Kansas

The Certain Path Mission Web site was a simple design, featuring a photograph of the building and some modest graphics. Its mission statement was prominently displayed at the top of the homepage.

DRUG ADDICTION AND ALCOHOLISM CAN BE CURED BUT ONLY BY WALKING THE CERTAIN PATH

According to the Web site’s About Us section, the ministry’s founder, Brother Xavier Bartholomew, was a recovered alcoholic/addict himself.

“It says here Brother Bartholomew was on the verge of death,” Griff said. “Drugs had drained him of the will to live. And then he heard a voice, and it saved his life and guided him along the certain path to health and purpose.”

“Let me guess,” Melvin said. “God spoke to him and told him to open a ministry to help other addicts get clean.”

“Have you been to this Web site before?”

“I’ve just seen a lot of movies,” Melvin said. “And as often as not, the characters in those films aren’t who they seem to be. Is there anything on Brother Bartholomew that he wouldn’t want posted on his Web site?”

“Like dirt?” Griff asked.

“If that’s the same as skeletons in his closet.”

Griff did another search, tracking a sequence of links in the search results for more information.

“Seems like we have enough dirt for a landfill,” he said after a short while.

He opened a YouTube video of a Wichita TV news report. The video’s title was an obvious attempt at tongue-in-cheek humor: “The Not So Certain Path.” The reporter was an attractive blond woman, with a short, stylish hairdo, and a scrubbed, corn-fed glow. Griff turned up the volume on his laptop’s small speakers.

“Deb Rosen, reporting from the Certain Path Mission in Wichita, where the ministry’s founder, Brother Xavier Bartholomew, has been arrested and charged with multiple counts of assault and battery. The charges against Bartholomew stem from a complaint filed by this man, Karl Larson, who came to the Certain Path Ministry seeking treatment for his drug addiction.”

The video showed an unshaven man in his fifties, with tangles of gray-black, unwashed hair, and murky eyes that supported the label underneath his picture: “Homeless Drug Addict.” The shot cut back to the reporter at the ministry.

“Mr. Larson,” Deb Rosen said, “claims that Brother Bartholomew offered him help for what he said was a decades-long addiction to narcotics and alcohol. But what Brother Bartholomew was offering turned out to be anything but helpful.”

The video swung to Karl Larson. The street person responded to the reporter’s queries in a gruff, raspy voice.

“I thought the Certain Path was about praying and stuff,” Larson said. “But after a little while I couldn’t do the meditation and the hours and hours of praying. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stay clean and sober. That’s when Brother Bartholomew began to beat me. He put me in a cell in the basement to keep me away from the booze and drugs. Then he’d beat me on my back and butt with straps and ropes and even canes. Sometimes he’d tie me up. He told me it was the only way to get the demon out. We may be homeless and desperate, but we still got pride. And we don’t deserve to be beaten like dogs, even though, as Brother Bartholomew says over and over, it’s for our own good.”

Larson held his tattooed arms up to the camera to show they were bruised and scarred. The next shot cut from the drifter back to the outside of the ministry, where the camera followed the reporter around the perimeter of the aged redbrick building, with a red neon sign running down one corner that read, simply, MISSION.

“According to prosecutors, Mr. Larson was not the only addict subjected to Brother Bartholomew’s unusual brand of aversion therapy.”

The next transition showed the outside of a police station. The bottom graphic identified the officer interviewed as Lieutenant Erik Olsen of the Wichita, Kansas, Police Department.

“We have several alleged victims of Xavier Bartholomew who have come forward to file complaints. The matter is under investigation, so I cannot comment further at this time.”

“And yet, in another twist to this story of good intentions gone bad,” Deb Rosen’s voice said from off camera, “not all of the addicts who have sought out Brother Bartholomew for help have been treated as Karl Larson allegedly was.”

The man in the next shot looked to be everything Larson was not. He was bright-eyed, clean-shaven, well dressed, and smiling. The undergraphic identified him as Paul Silasky, recovered alcoholic/addict.

“I would have died if it weren’t for Brother Bartholomew,” Silasky said. “Same for a lot of others, too. I tried everything, NA, AA. You name the twelve-step program and I did it. Nothing worked for me until I found Brother Bartholomew. I don’t consider the Certain Path’s way a punishment. It’s a path to freedom—a way to life.”

The segment finished with the reporter across the street from the mission. The graphic shown in the upper right corner of the screen was a photograph of Brother Bartholomew, a man in his fifties with a round, cherubic face and a horseshoe head of silver hair, absent in the front, down past his shoulders in the back. He wore a bright, floral-designed shirt underneath a heavy, dark brown wool monk’s robe. Chains of brightly colored beads—turquoise, reds, and blues—dangled around his neck. Some of the necklaces had ornaments attached, but none were of any religious symbol that Griff recognized.