Brenda Novak - White Heat

Kicking off his flip-flops, Nate found Rachel’s feet under the table and began to play footsie with her. Under the guise of their cover, he could get away with goading her in any number of ways, and messing with her made this assignment a lot more fun. “Did they? Help her, I mean?”

He suppressed a chuckle at the sharp stop it glance he received from Rachel as Thelma shook her head. “No. Once I got out to the commune, Ethan told me I’d have to leave her there if I wanted him to heal her.”

“Leave her for how long?” Rachel kept trying to move her feet out of reach, but he wouldn’t let her. Although he knew he’d pay for it later, he was enjoying getting her riled up.

“A few weeks, at least. But…I couldn’t do that. As far as I was concerned, there was no one to look after her. No one I trusted, anyway.”

Nate thought Thelma’s practical side had served her better than her spiritual side. “So you took her and left.”

“Yes, but…I’ve gone back once since then.”

Pointedly clearing her throat, Rachel moved her feet again. “What happened?”

“They wouldn’t even let me in until I mentioned Ethan’s offer to heal Abby. Then they checked with him, and he gave me an audience. But he told me the same thing as before. We couldn’t come for brief visits. I’d have to trust him, have complete faith, or he could do nothing.”

He was tempted to tell Thelma about Ethan’s correspondence with Charles Manson. Nate also knew a little about Ethan’s mental health or lack thereof—tidbits his father had shared with Milt. But as much as Nate longed to convey the danger, he couldn’t reveal his true interest in Paradise. The best way to protect Abby and Thelma, and everyone else, was to get inside that compound and figure out what was really going on. And that required him to be judicious. “You can’t leave a child in the keeping of someone you don’t know,” he said. “You made the right decision.”

Thelma cast another glance over her shoulder. “It was my only choice. Chaske would’ve gone up there with a shotgun if I’d left Abby. He says there’s no way he’ll ever let her fall into the hands of a cult.”

Rachel finally resorted to pulling her feet up and tucking them under her, effectively ending Nate’s game. “You considered leaving her?”

“More so the second time,” Thelma admitted. “I wish Chaske had been there with me. The Holy One—that’s what Ethan’s worshippers call him—introduced me to several people who say he’s done miraculous things. One said she had cancer until he cured her. Another was in a wheelchair, suffering from multiple sclerosis. Three members of that man’s family told me he couldn’t even feed himself when he first met Ethan. You should see him now.”

“But MS is a strange disease,” Nate said. “It can advance and recede. Maybe his miraculous improvement had nothing to do with Ethan.”

“Then how do you explain the woman with cancer?”

Nate had heard the peddlers of various health tonics claim they had the answer to a whole list of incurable maladies. That didn’t mean it was true. It just meant they had a vested interest in making others believe, and it might be the same here. “There could be a lot of explanations,” he said, “a flat-out lie being the most obvious.”

“Why would they lie?” she countered.

“Because they want to believe what Ethan is telling them, and it builds the group’s credibility to outsiders.”

Rachel frowned. “Did it seem to bother Ethan that you wouldn’t leave Abby?”

“Of course. He told me he could give her a much better life.” Tears filled Thelma’s eyes. “That’s all I want for her—that she’ll be okay when I’m gone. He was disappointed, maybe even a little disgusted, that I wouldn’t trust him.” She blinked several times. “But there are all those rumors about their sexual practices….”

“What rumors?”

“He has some very…liberal ideas. People say orgies go on up there. But who knows? That might be a witch hunt. Most folks around here don’t like him much. The Covenanters are all I’ve heard about since they moved in, and none of it’s been good.”

“Maybe they are having orgies,” Nate said.

“If so, he certainly didn’t talk about it at the Introduction Meeting. And he denied it when I told him that was why I couldn’t leave Abby. According to him, it’s just superstitious folks bein’ scared and talkin’ about things they know nothing of. He said that sex and drugs aren’t part of the religion, freedom and acceptance are. But—” she sighed “—my husband is one of those superstitious people.”

Nate saw Abby going between the restaurant and the store. “Did Abby know he wanted her to stay?”

Thelma straightened her apron. “Oh, yes. She’s very smart. But she wouldn’t have any of it. She clung to me and kept signing that she was fine and wanted to go home to Grandpa.”

Hoping to add a little support to what her husband believed, Nate spoke up again. “Someone else told us about a woman who left the commune. Sounds as if she had it pretty rough when she was with them. Have you heard about her?”

The dishes clinked as she stacked them. “Oh, yes. Her name’s Martha Wilson. She’s not from around here. She came with Ethan from back east somewhere—like most of the Covenanters. Chaske’s mentioned her several times. So has everyone else who hates the church. I think she’s the source of most of the rumors. But who knows if she’s being truthful?”

Nate turned his water glass around and around. “Has she been seen in Portal lately?”

“No. I guess Martha went straight to the police. She’s staying in Willcox now. From what I hear, she’s getting a lawyer so she can fight for custody of her son.”

Nate considered that good information. Maybe they could have a talk with Martha….

“You think she’s lying?” Rachel asked.

Thelma pulled their dirty plates toward her. “I can’t say one way or another. I only know that everyone I saw in the commune looked busy and peaceful. There was no hint of violence or sexual impropriety. Ethan preaches Christian values. He told me so.”

Rachel shoved the salt and pepper and sugar packets against the wall. “Hard to imagine a Christian preacher, at least in this day and age, ordering a person stoned.”

“Chaske doesn’t think it’s so hard to imagine. He keeps saying that what Ethan shows the world and what he does behind those closed gates could be two different things.”

“That’s true,” Nate agreed. But she didn’t seem to be convinced. The dream of fixing her granddaughter held too much allure.

“But he’s never been up there,” she argued, “never seen it for himself. And the police looked into the matter. If Martha was telling the truth, they would’ve done something about it, wouldn’t they? The sheriff and his deputies came in here for lunch not long ago. I asked them about Martha’s accusations and they said they couldn’t prove a darn thing.”

Nate knew police work from the other side. “Investigations rarely occur overnight. There’s the truth. And then there’s proof of the truth. Truth without proof won’t build a case.”

“I guess.” She jingled the change in her pocket. “Chaske keeps talking about Jim Jones and David Koresh and what they got away with. He thinks Ethan’s no better.”

Abby approached with a pitcher of water, distracting Thelma. She touched the child’s face with such love, Nate worried that Thelma’s desire to see Abby healed would eventually overtake her good sense.

“You’re a wonderful child. Aren’t you, Abby?” she said.

The girl smiled up at her grandmother, then refilled their water glasses.

“I’d heard Paradise was a ghost town,” Nate said. “Before we learned about the Covenanters, I was planning to go up that way, take a look around, maybe get some shots.”