Ms. Patti took a long swallow of her tea, and set the glass gently on the table. “I remember reading about the manhunt for him after they blew up the synagogue in Amarillo. Isn’t he responsible for more than bombings?”
“Yes. For a long while, nobody was safe from Big Jim’s reach. He’s careful and smart. He never writes anything down and doesn’t use computers, at least not personally. Others do the dirty work for him, while he keeps his hands clean. Don’t doubt for an instant he isn’t the mastermind behind everything. He’s a monster.”
“Oh, Serena. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this.”
Serena glanced down to see while she’d been talking, she’d completely destroyed the muffin. It lay in tiny pieces atop the wrapper. Funny, she hadn’t even realized she’d done it.
“I honestly can’t say there was any one single thing that opened my eyes, made me see the truth about him and the rest of the family. They blindly followed everywhere he led them. As far as I know, they still do. At least the ones who aren’t in prison. I haven’t talked to them since…” Her words trailed off as she thought back to the trial. “Anyway, little things started bothering me. The way he treated people he supposedly loved. His sister, his children. Even my mom. When he wanted somebody watched, all he had to do was snap his fingers, and he’d have a dozen volunteers genuflecting and begging to do his bidding. I knew it was only a matter of time before somebody got killed, either in one of the buildings his followers bombed, or one of them taking things too far with their threats and intimidation.”
“Did you leave?” Ms. Patti’s question was voiced softly, and Serena glanced up, noting the sympathy and understanding in her gaze.
“I wanted to. Heck, I probably should have. Instead, I went to the feds. The FBI.”
“Good.”
Serena laughed, and the sound rang hollow to her own ears. “That’s what I thought. I told them what my uncle and his group was doing, and what their plans were. Big Jim wasn’t content with small time attention anymore. He wanted to make a statement. One big enough so nobody could ignore him anymore, and would shoot him right to the top. Who knows how many people would have been hurt or killed? So I turned him in to the feds, but they said they needed proof—and I didn’t have any. Nothing but what I’d seen and heard.”
Ms. Patti scrubbed a hand over her face. “Lemme guess. They wanted you to go back in and get them proof.”
“Bingo. I was stupid. Naïve, stupid and gullible. They spent days convincing me to go back to Big Jim’s compound—what I’d taken to calling it—and find them something to hold up in court. They didn’t understand Big Jim. Not at all. The man has the brain of a genius and the cunning of a shark. I mentioned he never personally puts anything on a computer. Doesn’t mean he didn’t use others to deal with his online activity, but nothing tangible the feds can track back to him. A couple of my cousins are experts when it comes to computers. Big Jim paid for them to go to M.I.T. so they could handle all his finances and investigative work online. If he made notes or wrote anything down, once the cousins finished entering the data, the paper evidence was immediately burned. Nothing could be traced back to Big Jim. And my word alone wasn’t enough to even indict him.”
Ms. Patti stood and quickly cleaned up the mess Serena had made of the muffin, and swept it into the trash. Placing another muffin in front of Serena, she resumed her seat and placed another one in front of herself. “Knowing you, it didn’t take much to convince you to go back in.”
“I thought I could help. I hoped I’d be able to open the eyes of some of my family, make them see my uncle for who he really is, not the beneficent patriarch he pretends to be. You have to understand, he’s not your typical homegrown terrorist or religious zealot. He believes his own rhetoric, and is charismatic enough and rich enough for people to believe him.”
“People like your uncle are more dangerous than most folks imagine, because they believe their own hype.”
“Uncle James’ family has money. Lots of money. The land’s been in his family for generations, has gas and mineral rights, oil wells. Having wealth and power was never the real issue, although he loves to think he’s more important any anybody else.”
Serena curled her hands around her tea glass, because she’d already torn apart another muffin wrapper, and a pile of crumbs sat neatly stacked in a tidy mound. Ms. Patti must’ve noticed she needed something in her hands, to keep her talking, and handed her a kitchen towel. “You can tear this one up. I’m not too fond of it.”
“I didn’t have a problem being assimilated back into the fold. My parents are devoted to Uncle James. My dad worked with him closely, helping oversee the day-to-day management of the business. He’s particularly good at balancing the books, though he’s never been one of my uncle’s favorites. I think there was some kind of falling out between them years ago, and he’s never let my father forget about whatever happened. Always with subtle jabs, but I could tell there was history, if not outright animosity between them. My mother is Uncle James’ stepsister.”
“I did wonder at the
