After our respite we headed to HQ to write reports and jump on the phone inquiries. Belafonte started to call Hallelujah Jubilee just as Roy walked by. I ran to the hall.

“Menendez?” I asked. “Tell me MDPD’s got a lead that’s not in the papers.” I worried about Vince living the Menendez case twenty hours a day.

“Not that I’ve heard. How about you, Carson? Anything on the burned hookers?”

“They were likely stoned to death, Roy.”

A confused stare until it sunk in. “Like with rocks? You’re keeping this one far from the press, I hope.”

“They’re fixated on Menendez. It’s our only break, if you could call it that.”

Roy blew out a breath and looked at Belafonte, lowering his voice to a whisper. “How’s she handling the hooker angle … holding up OK?”

An odd question. “Fine, I guess. Why?”

“I checked out her vita last week, under the radar. Her mother died years before and she and an older sister were raised by Papa, a cop. You know that’s no guarantee against bad stuff, right?”

“What happened?”

“The sister fell into an ugly crowd, got hooked on smack and ended up in the life to pay for the habit. It wrecked the father’s health, he had a breakdown, was sent by the doctor to Miami to get help from a specialist at the U. Miss Belafonte came to be with her father and watched him decline over four years.”

“The father die?”

“He’s in an institution, hopeless. A political family friend back in Bermuda greased the citizenship papers. Belafonte had been looking at a law-enforcement career, put it on ice until her father was basically a vegetable. Started back up a few months ago.”

I recalled talking to Belafonte about her history at our initial meeting, how she’d changed the subject. Now I knew why.

“The sister?” I asked.

“In a grave in Hamilton. OD’d years ago.”

I shot a glance at Belafonte and wondered if Vince had installed her as liaison solely due to the Sandoval connection, or if he saw something in her and wanted to see if I saw it, too. I did, and in retrospect realized Vince had done me a favor.

“Keep pounding, Carson,” Roy said, patting my shoulder. “It’s always darkest before dawn.”

“I’m not sure we’ve gotten to midnight, Roy.”

He headed to the elevator and I turned back as Belafonte hung up the phone. “That was odd.”

“What?”

“Hallelujah Jubilee. I got human resources and asked about the employment dates of Darlene Hammond. The first thing out of the woman’s mouth was, ‘Oh! There’s no one by that name ever worked here.’” Belafonte changed her voice on the Oh, going up a register.

“Oh?”

“Like she was chirping. I said, ma’am, we have it on pretty good authority that Miss Hammond was employed at Hallelujah Jubilee. “‘Oh!’ she says. ‘I may have misspoken myself.’ Then I said, ‘Oh! … could you please check your records?’ She said she would, but it would take a while and she’d have to get back to me.”

“Any idea when?”

“She’s not sure they can give out personal information. She’d have to check.”

“Oh!” I said. “Hand me the phone.”

I got a nice lady named Molly, who sounded young and I used a pleasant voice. “Hi! This is Detective Carson Ryder, Senior Investigator at the Florida Center For Law Enforcement. You just spoke to my assistant.”

“Oh! I did. I told her we might have employed someone of that name, but then I told her I’d have to check with—”

“To every thing a season, right?” I interrupted.

“Excuse me?”

“A time to reap and sow? A time to talk and a time to listen? It’s now time to listen, Molly: I need to talk to someone way above your pay grade. Have someone in authority – not your boss, maybe your boss’s boss – get in touch with me before the end of the day. Write this down …”

I gave her my number and had her read it back.

“Oh!” I said. “Perfect. I’ll be waiting.”

We returned to the investigations, checking recent prison releases of sexual offenders, talking with parole officers, then tracing offenders and verifying whereabouts at the time of the crimes. Eleven releases in the last six months, eleven alibis that checked out.

Dead end again.

39

Roland Uttleman was sitting in the deserted kitchen of the Schrum home, bored and passing time by sifting through the daily mountain of mail sent to the Reverend. Most offered prayers or homilies, or spoke of how the writer had been touched by Schrum at some point in his long career. Many cards and letters were from churches and signed by the congregation. Some writers – conditioned by Schrum’s years of entreaties for cash for his various projects – sent cash or checks. Uttleman set aside the checks and pocketed the cash.

He was alone in the downstairs, lesser employees of the network in the leased house, the low-wage worker bees and volunteers writing donation requests, updating program schedules, or praying for their spiritual leader, often for twenty or more minutes, which Uttleman was beginning to suspect was a form of malingering.

Uttleman cocked an ear upwards and heard singing, Andy Delmont with Schrum. Delmont had not done a single performance at COG since Schrum had sent himself into exile. The dim-bulb man-child was getting a salary of a hundred-twenty grand a year to perform, peanuts compared to what he made from record sales. It was time for the kid to go back to work at the studios in Jacksonville. The only problem was the singer relaxed Schrum. Uttleman recalled a newspaper story about high-strung thoroughbred horses made less skittish when a goat was in their stalls, a “calming goat” it was called.

Andy Delmont, calming goat.

Still, the songs were driving Uttleman nuts. And the room-rattling thumps when two-hundred-sixty pounds of Schrum would drop to his knees above, praying with Delmont.

Uttleman opened another letter and a twenty fell to the table. He gave a cursory glance at the page, pencil on yellow notepad.

Dear Reverent Schrum – I am sory you are sick and I pray four you a hundret times ever day. I now you will git well like you did the last time Praise God!!!! I have the sugar reel bad and the docters have to take off my other leg. Pleese sir If you have the time to pray for me I would apreciat it. I inclose an offering.

Uttleman sighed. The halt and lame were always wanting Schrum to send prayers their way, like the guy could beam them on demand. He pocketed the bill and pitched the letter into the trash as Hayes Johnson came in the back door, his face pensive.

“What is it, Hayes? You look distracted.”

“I just got a call from Tawnya. An agent from the FCLE called, asking about Darlene Hammond.”

“Who answered the phone?”

“Molly Holcomb. Since it was about employees, Holcomb told Tawnya.”

Uttleman forced his face to remain calm. “What were they asking about Hammond for?”

“The cop, a woman, said it was an inquiry into former employment, wondering if she’d ever worked at Hallelujah Jubilee. There was a second call. A man, a senior agent. He wanted to be called back today.”

“What will you do?”

“Tell him the truth: Darlene Hammond worked with us for a while over two years ago. That she was, uh … a fine employee who decided to move on.”

“I wonder what the little bitch got herself into?”

“I don’t want to know,” Johnson said.

Uttleman sat quietly as Johnson tapped out the number, said, “Detective Carson Ryder please. Oh, it’s you? I hope I’m not bothering you, sir, but this is Hayes Johnson from Hallelujah Jubilee. How are you this fine day? Excellent to hear. I got word that you were looking for some information on a former employee, a Darlene Hammond …?”

Uttleman couldn’t hold in the smile; Johnson’s sincerity was glorious, the voice of a man born to sell.

“I had the records sent to me. It seems Miss Hammond worked for the park for just over five months. Yes, the dates were …”