“Richard never knew an enemy, he only knew souls. Richard Scaler saved many souls in his lifetime. Consequently, he had many friends.”

“How much do you make a year, Dean?”

The question jolted him from his reverie. The nose lifted into the air. “That’s my business,” he sniffed. “I run an institute of higher learning and am paid commensurate to my position.”

I figured a half-mil would be about right. With a shitload of perks worth another quarter mil, like the car and driver, paid for by the faithful. Maybe Scaler even cut Tutweiler in on royalties from souls saved.

Tutweiler broke off his pose and looked to Harry. “This video about false friends or whatever – I suspect the recent timing means it was created during Richard’s decline. When he was often distant, distracted. We’ve done much thinking about those days.”

“And what, pray tell, have we thought?” I asked.

“A good preacher speaks in word pictures, creating scenes in the minds of those who listen. But in the past year he sometimes lapsed into speaking of such images as if living them.”

“Like psychotic episodes?”

“Psychotic episodes. Yes, that could well be the answer. He seemed, well, almost delusional,” he said. “That’s the only word I have for it. I blame myself, of course.”

“For his delusions?” Harry said.

“I – we…those who loved him, should have confronted Richard about his problems. He was falling apart and we could have intervened.”

“You didn’t do anything for your good friend,” I said. “Why?”

“Richard had his delusions, we had ours. Our delusion was thinking he’d return to the Richard we knew.”

“Did you know Scaler was beating his wife?”

I expected a What, me? moment. But instead we got closed eyes and a slow-shaking head. “There were times when Patricia was late to a taping; twice she was limping, once the make-up person worked half an hour to cover a bruise on her cheek. She said she’d fallen, bumped into the car door. I didn’t want to believe…” his voice trailed off. “Maybe it was part of Richard’s increasing anger. Or his delusions.”

We said we’d be back with more questions. Tut seemed happy we were leaving. He turned and began striding to the building.

I said, “Excuse me, sir?”

“Yes?” Spoken over his shoulder like he had to keep moving or turn into salt.

“Have you heard anything from Arnold Meltzer lately?”

He froze. Turned. Gave us a full frown with pursed lips.

Said, “Who?”

“Nothing. Just a name.”

Harry got behind the wheel and we pulled away from Kingdom College. Harry shot me a look.

“Indeterminate on the Meltzer ref, maybe he knew it, maybe not. And judging by the age of Scaler in that last video, Tutweiler was with the Rev. for more like thirty years. But what I really found interesting was how the once-immaculate Reverend Scaler seems to have gone from having a few problems to being angry and delusional.”

I nodded. “The man’s not even alive and he’s falling apart.”

Chapter 36

“Where to next?” I asked Harry. He pulled a notepad from his pocket, studied a list of connections.

“A biker wannabe tried to abduct Noelle. Bikers tried to kill us on the return from meeting Sinta-pirininni, checking into Noelle’s start-point. Meltzer controls at least one biker gang. Do you think Ben Belker would have any more info on Meltzer?”

“You can bet he’ll have whatever there is. And it’ll go back years.”

While driving to Montgomery, Harry never mentioned the shrink or intervention or anything related, and I didn’t volunteer info, choosing instead to watch the scenery flashing by. I didn’t know if Kavanaugh was required to report to Tom Mason the details of our truncated session, but I’d done my part by showing up.

We pulled into the strip mall where the SLDP offices were located. Again, I saw the hulking bubba type smoking in a battered pickup in the parking lot, hat low over his eyes. Same plaid shirt, same hard arms blue with tattoos. Same look shot our way.

I’d called and Ben was waiting. He brought Harry and me to his office, closing the door. “We know less about Meltzer than most of the movement leaders. He holds some of the ugliest ideas in a movement filled with ugly ideas, and he has lots of protection.”

“We’re interested in his past. Where’s Meltzer from?”

“He grew up in Noxubee County in Mississippi. Strict and confining childhood, from what I gather. His father was an itinerant preacher and handyman, more the latter than the former. Daddy Meltzer had odd ideas on child-rearing, and was prone to dress little Arnold in girl’s clothes and make him stand one-footed on a stool when he misbehaved. His mother worked as a clerk at Wal-Mart and didn’t seem to have friends. Little Arnie was very bright, but had a speech impediment that may have affected his schooling. His grades were poor.”

It amazed me how many serial killers and sociopaths had the same strange item in their backgrounds: dressed in clothes of the opposite sex.

“In high school Meltzer formed a group called the Alliance, a white, male-only club with secret passwords and handshakes and rituals. It seems adolescent, but…”

“But it gave him something he could control,” I finished.

“The recruits to his club were ignorant and poor. Arnold preferred strong, mean-spirited chest-thumpers. Together they made brawn powered by brains and beat the shit out of anyone who looked at them sideways.”

“He built a tribe,” Harry said. “When they became a tribe, they stopped being lone outcasts and losers, and became a force to be reckoned with. All held together by whatever ideology Arnold invented.”

Ben nodded. “Meltzer grew the Alliance like kids in 4-H grow gardens. After a few years it was a submerged but potent presence throughout a dozen surrounding rural counties; warriors for the white race. In his early twenties Meltzer branched out, writing and printing hate literature. Booklets and pamphlets and such. He’s authored several books. Meltzer’s managed to stay under the national radar, but if there’s a hate site on the web, chances are it’s traceable to him. Either he runs it directly, or has sponsorship.”

“Sponsorship?” Harry asked. “Like advertising?”

“He lets the owners run it free from his server network, offers graphics that put more slick in the sick. He promotes products on the sites. He also sponsors recruiting rallies and even retreats, if you will, where strategy and tactics are discussed. Like what politicians might be useful to the movement – again, under the radar – and deserve help getting elected.”

Harry suppressed a shiver. “You mention Meltzer writing books. Books I could find at the library?”

Ben reached to the bookcase on his wall, plucked out a softcover volume. He tossed it to Harry, who studied the cover.

“I saw this at Bailes’s trailer.”

“It’s a classic,” Ben said. “If you’re into Aryan supremacy.”

Harry held the book up for me to see. Slaves By Nature was the title, emblazoned above a color cartoon of blacks grinning, dancing, eating watermelons and, obviously from the position of the feet under a bush, having sex. The subheading was The Truth at Last!!!

Harry opened the book and started reading:

“The black race is not a true race as such, but a subspecies that, when properly trained, is best suited for menial labor and low-thought operations such as simple assemblage in factories. As for constant revisionist bleatings about the injustices of ‘slavery’, both history and biblical reference instruct us that the Negro actually thrives in such an environment, needing constant oversight and a firm hand in matters of discipline. In this case slavery, far from being an impediment to development, actualizes the Negro…”