Page 56 of Shadow of Death
“I think he wanted to offer me adecentlifestyle,” Magda said. She shook her head. “I don’t do anything evil. I don’t even do lap dances, but the girls who work with me who do aren’t doing anything horrible, either. The club has all kinds of rules. But I guess sex is just evil to some people. I have a boyfriend who knows what I do, and he comes in sometimes. Most customers know who he is. And he thinks...my dad has money. He’s offered to pay for me. But I want to make my own way—and I swear to you, I don’t do anything illegal or even morally wrong! All right, to some people maybe showing lots of the body is wrong? Whatever! I think I’m going to go home for a while. To my folks’ place in LA. I’ll be far from all this.”
“That’s not a bad idea. But let the agents here look out for you for the next few days, until you’re really on your feet and...”
Magda looked at him and shook her head. “I am grateful. I can’t tell you how grateful. But it seems like this... I don’t know. It may go on a very long time. And back in LA, my dad’s house—well, my folks’ house, but my dad is the dude who made all the money. Don’t get me wrong, my mom is great, just not a tech mogul. The house is safe. It has an incredible alarm system. And we have two giant Doberman dogs that patrol. And Dad is a crack shot. I can’t live the whole rest of my life in fear,” Magda said. “I need to feel something a little bit normal.”
“That’s admirable. I’m glad you can go to your dad’s house—or your parents’ home—and it’s a well-guarded place. But let the agents here get you home, watch until you’re up to par, and see you get there safely,” Hunter said.
She smiled. “I will. I owe you two—and I promise.”
Amy smiled and told her, “That’s nice. You don’t owe us—you owe you. Go forth and live a great life. Well, okay, you take care. We’ll still check up!”
They said their goodbyes to her and left. They spoke briefly with the agents in the hall and headed on out of the hospital.
“Wow!” Amy murmured, looking around. “It’s dark again!”
“Yeah, that happens when you shift your hours around.”
They had slept in that morning. Then, before heading to the hospital, they’d gone into headquarters to have their sessions with the psychiatrist.
“And I’m hungry,” Amy said.
“Me, too.”
“And frustrated.”
“Me, too. I mean, as far as the case goes.”
He glanced her way with a grin. She punched him lightly in the arm before walking around to get into the car. “Okay, then, somewhere for dinner, and then we figure out where to go from here? There are more men and women who were brought in from the cliffs. I’m thinking we could talk to more of them. And I know the ME’s office has been working to identify the dead so we can get a better grip on victimology. They’ll find out who Mateus was and where he came from, and there could be some leads in his background.”
“Right,” he murmured and started the car.
Amy looked at him with a frown as they pulled out. “What are you thinking?”
He shrugged. “Okay, at a recent conference of psychiatrists, they had a number of speeches on ways to helpun-brainwash people. Those speeches indicated there really is no proven data on how to help, and a lot more needs to be done. Sometimes, you get a leader who is just a magnet—so charismatic people flock around them. And then they discover they can make people do things. Often, they do have an ideology. Many are truly believers. Some come to believe they are messiahs or angels or someone above all others. My personal opinion of Jim Jones is he was a horrible human being. His mass suicide wasn’t for a good reason—it was just because he knew he was going to go down. And if so, well hell, he’d make them all go out in a blaze of cyanide. Just my opinion. You have the Heaven’s Gate situation where they all seemed to believe they were going to a higher level. And there have been smaller cults in which someone was truly religious. The groups started off in constant Bible study, then the leader decided he was special. And if you were against him, you were evil and then worthy of death. If you made a move against the core, you deserved punishment—death. And if you weren’t one of the family, you were a sinner and deserved death. But—”
“But?”
“You also have people who learn how to manipulate others with promises and amazing speeches—with nothing but their own gain in mind.”
“And,” Amy said, “another quote here from John Edward Acton in 1887. ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ These guys get a taste of power, and it’s pure euphoria.”
“Okay, so in my opinion, an experienced one in many ways, whoever is behind this whole thing doesn’t have an iota of holiness in his agenda and doesn’t even delude himself into believing he does. There’s anendgamein his plan, far more so than the concept ofEnd of Days.I’m even starting to wonder if Magda Kenward was taken because she was a stripper and she worked crazy hours that allowed for a quiet street, or because there might have been the sheer power of killing the daughter of a prominent man in a brutal and bizarre fashion.”
“It’s all about money?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know if it’s money or power. Or both,” Hunter said. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard and said, “All right. Dinner already.”
“Or lunch, since we had breakfast at about twelve,” Amy said. “And then we could—”
“Amy, we started off with the shrink. We’ve talked with Carey, Magda, and Peggy. Last night, we interviewed the one wacko who is convinced he’s still going to be swept up in the Rapture while the rest of us will burn forever. As we said earlier, these guys have forgotten all about ‘thou shalt not kill.’ Some are convinced it’s really the thing God would want them to do. I’m going to say we’re at a dead end until we get more information on Mateus and the others who have been found in the pits and in the crevice up on the cliffs. We won’t stop. I promised Carey and I mean it. But I’m thinking dinner, a normal bedtime, and an energetic start in the morning.”
She nodded. “Did they find whatever cell phone Mateus was using?”
“Not that I know of—not yet. It wasn’t on his body.”
“Then whichever of his followers moved the body knew enough to make sure he wasn’t found with his phone. That suggests to me one of the people brought in knows something about whoever Mateus spoke to on the phone.”
“Or one of the people who didn’t get swept up,” Hunter reminded her.
