I took a deep breath. “How about trauma sites beneath the char?”

“Looks the same as Sandoval: Randomly distributed injuries inflicted before death.”

“Locations?”

Ava held up a page holding anterior and posterior outlines of a body. She’d inscribed X’s at sites she found or suspected she’d find trauma. I saw nine marks: Two on the head, three chest or left side, four upper back or right side.

“Note there are as many posterior strikes as anterior.”

“Usually when someone beats a woman, it’s from the front.”

Ava nodded concordance. “Unless she was surrounded by assailants. I’ve never seen anything quite like this. And I’ve seen a lot of beatings.”

“Got a conjecture, Dr Davanelle?” I said.

She stared between the actual body and the X-marked outlines as her brow furrowed in thought.

“Offhand, Carson, it looks like she ran a gauntlet.”

15

A cobalt-blue Towne Car with smoked windows entered the drive of the house behind the Schrum residence The owner was a retired timber baron from Vancouver who occupied the home November through March, leasing it out the remainder of the year. The spacious home was now the province of a half-dozen administrative workers from the Crown of Glory network, those in the public relations department, mainly, and several of the upper-level financial and accounting types essential to a business deriving the bulk of its operating expenses from donations.

The vehicle stopped behind the impromptu operational center for the COG network and a powerfully built driver exited to open the rear door. A man in a smoke-gray suit emerged, slipping on sunglasses against the raw morning sunlight. His name was Hayes Johnson, and though the most fervid viewers of the network would not have recognized Johnson’s name, it often crossed the lips of network employees, though rarely louder than a whisper.

Another man emerged from the other side of the vehicle, small and round, his blue suit rumpled, brown eyes squinting against the sudden sunlight. He patted his balding head and sneezed, stopping to dab his nose with a tissue. He frowned as if forgetting something, then reached back into the vehicle to retrieve a slender briefcase.

“Got everything, Cecil?” Johnson called across the roofline. “The numbers?”

The round man nodded, lifted the briefcase, and sneezed again. Hayes Johnson bent to the passenger window to address his driver, Hector Machado, now cleaning his nails with a knife, the five-inch switchblade looking like a penknife in Machado’s huge and tattooed hands.

“Get coffee if you want, Hector. I’ll be a while.”

Hector Machado’s eyes scanned up and down the street, taking stock of the neighborhood. “If you’re here, Jefé, I’m here.”

Johnson nodded and angled toward the back yard leading to the Schrum house, crossing the yards with surprising litheness for a man of his size, the round man trudging several steps behind, the briefcase tucked to his chest.

Hayes Hayworth Johnson was the CEO of COG Enterprises and credited with turning the network into a conservative broadcasting powerhouse. Johnson was fifty-five, an ex-college lineman, and ducked to enter most doors, the only person in the network taller than Amos Schrum. An ordained minister, Johnson had failed at several businesses before creating a line of vitamins and herbal supplements in a tiered distribution system often derided as little more than a pyramid scheme, but heavily promoted in the Bible Belt as a way to create a second income. He’d sold the business after eighteen years for a profit of eleven million dollars.

The round man, Cecil Brattson, was Johnson’s half-brother, different mothers producing sons of surprisingly different physiognomy. Brattson was the accountant at Hallelujah Jubilee, a Christian theme park near Lakeland, Florida. Listed as a non-profit “educational” entity, Hallelujah Jubilee had been started by Amos Schrum and was overseen by the Crown of Glory network. Brattson had held the job since Hayes Johnson took the helm of the network.

The door was opened by Roland Uttleman, gesturing the men to the expansive main room, a light and airy space with high ceilings.

“Good to have you here, Hayes. Where you staying?”

“I’ll be keeping a suite at the Marriott until this, uh, event is over. Cecil has the latest numbers. He’s heading back to the park this afternoon.”

Uttleman raised a questioning eyebrow at Cecil Brattson’s briefcase. “Good month?” he asked the accountant.

“Donations are up thirty-seven per cent. I attribute it to the Reverend’s illness.”

Hayes Johnson took the briefcase from his half-sibling. “I’ll take it to the Reverend in a bit, Cecil. Could you give Roland and me some time to discuss, uh, health matters?”

Cecil sniffled away, muttering about pollen. When he was out of earshot, Hayes Johnson turned to Uttleman. “You look worried, Roland.”

“It’s Amos. He’s—”

Uttleman broke off as a trio of young staffers at the network, arms piled with work materials, entered from the front door. When the newcomers saw Uttleman and Johnson they stopped in their tracks, eyes wide. “Sorry,” one woman whispered, a mortal in the presence of Titans. “We didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Johnson crossed to the woman, pretty. His hand took hers as the other found the small of her back, his finger tracing a line down her spine.

“Not a problem, young lady,” Johnson said. “We were about to pray for Reverend Schrum. Let’s bow our heads and lift our words to God.”

“We never stand so tall as when we bow to God,” the woman said, awed at being allowed into a prayer circle with the man one step below Amos Schrum at the Crown of Glory network.

The prayer over, the staffers continued to the solarium to meet and work. Johnson’s eyes following the young woman as she walked away. “A lovely child,” he said, turning back to Uttleman. “Is she from the park?”

“I don’t know, Hayes,” Uttleman said, irritation creeping into his voice. “It’s not big on my mind right now.”

“What were you about to say about Amos?”

“He’s morose, peeking out the window and muttering to himself.”

“He’s got himself to blame. Have you tried to talk to him about—”

“Eliot Winkler was here this morning. He’s staying in Key West. He’s not happy.”

Johnson grimaced. “And?”

“Amos told Eliot he couldn’t handle the project. He was too old and sick.”

“Too fucking hungover, maybe. He’ll change his mind, Roland. He’ll get tired of hiding after a few days. You wouldn’t believe how much money is coming in. That should cheer him up, make him want to—”

“He’s adamant about not completing 1025-M, Hayes.”

“The damn thing is halfway there. Why kill the project now?”

“The size of it, maybe. The need for secrecy. That and the whole idea is just so …” Uttleman threw out his hands. “Maybe Amos figures he finally got in over his head.”

“I give it three days. He’ll have an epiphany … and then a Heaven-sent recovery.” Johnson grinned and winked. “Just like before.”

Uttleman walked to the window. “Something’s different, Hayes. I haven’t mentioned it, figuring it’d go away, but it started after the heart attack, the operation, got worse after the promise to Eliot. It’s like Amos has become, I don’t know … reflective.”

“The Reverend’s getting old, Roland. It’s natural to reflect on his life.”

“He’s only seventy-six, and his mind is sharp as a tack. There’s something else at work. It could even be …” Uttleman paused, as if fearful of using a taboo term.

“What?”

“Guilt.”

Johnson’s face darkened and he selected his words like a surgeon choosing the perfect scalpel. “And why do you think such moments of, uh, reflection might make Amos morose, Roland?”

Uttleman answered by peering over the tops of his glasses.

Johnson sighed and shook his head. “He’s had these little depressions before, Roland. The mind of a man as, uh, pious as Amos will at times gravitate to …” Johnson again struggled for words. “To moments when his feet were in the clay.”