“I have nothing concrete,” she continued, “just a feeling.”
Charlie’s eyes squinted in a quizzical fashion.
“You know that feeling you had back on the beach when you knew we were about to get company―you know―a hunch?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the feeling I get when I think of Marilyn.”
Charlie stroked his beard and nodded. “I’ll work on it. A first name isn’t much to go on, but I’ll run the name through my software and see if I get any hits. If I get any, I can compare the pictures to the one’s the FBI has on file.”
Sin just stared at Charlie. “You can do that?”
Charlie nodded. “Back at the house I can. It might take a couple of days for the software to run through all possibilities, but I’ll see what I can do. It’s a long shot.”
“But it’s a shot,” Sin said.
“Yep, it’s a shot,” Charlie said as he focused on his keyboard and began to type in all the information needed to try and track Marilyn.
In Sin’s mind, it just looked like a bunch of numbers and symbols.
She squeezed his shoulders lovingly. “You need to teach me all about your setup.”
Charlie finished his command, tapped the ‘enter’ key, and stood up to freshen their coffee. “Why? You plan on staying in Tumbleboat when this is all over?”
Sin shrugged. “I’m not sure, but either way, I want to know how you do what you do.”
Charlie chuckled. “It would be my pleasure, but right now, I have something else to show you.” He reached to the left of his desk and grabbed a set of plans for the Cessna. Sin was about to say something smart when he turned them over. On the back was a blueprint of the slab and framework of the Church of the New Son.
It was now Sin’s turn to laugh.
The two of them spent the next two hours going over every square inch of the plans. She pointed out the rooms she had been in and described what each was used for.
Charlie put a red X through each room Sin spoke of. When they were finished, there were two rooms unaccounted for. One was located on the opposite side of Heap’s office from the waiting room, Sin and Troy sat in, and the other was located behind the fellowship hall of the church. It was on the south side of the building, facing the cemetery where Sin’s mother was buried.
Charlie swung his chair back toward his keyboard and pulled up a list of all the architectural plans. He scrolled down the list and clicked on the electrical schematic. “The wiring and materials used in the first room,” Charlie said, “are standard building code. It’s probably just another office, but it needs to be checked. This one,” Charlie tapped the plans with a callused index finger, “is much more interesting.”
“How so?” Sin asked.
“I did some further checking after finding the building plans and discovered that Heap bought a lot of audio and visual materials about a year ago. That in and of itself is no big deal,” Charlie said. “Heap broadcasts his sermons throughout the southern U.S. and Central America. What made me suspicious was that all the new materials are state of the art―HDTV, but . . .” Charlie’s left eyebrow rose in a knowing expression, “he doesn’t broadcast in high definition.”
Sin plopped down in a chair in seeming frustration. “What does it all mean?”
“I don’t know, Sinclair,” Charlie said, “but there is one way to find out.”
Sin jumped up as if she main-lined a Red Bull. “We need to get inside,” she said.
“Yes, but we need more intel before we make a run at the church,” Charlie said. “You know what it takes to run an operation, this is no different. We have a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up before we act.”
“Let me work on tying up some of those loose ends, while you do your Get Smart routine,” Sin said.
“All right, ‘Agent 99,’ where would you like me to begin?” Charlie joked.
“Try and track Veloz since I busted him, and see if there are any signs that he is still in the skin trade.”
“And you?” Charlie asked.
“I’m gonna see if Troy would like to take me to church tomorrow.”
21
Miller answered his phone before the first ring was complete. “What did you find out?” a voice said.
“My boys tell me she spent the morning at the orphanage and the afternoon at the airport visiting some old man.”
“You say that like it means nothing.” The voice rose in amplitude.
“I didn’t say it meant nothin’. You asked me to follow her, and I did. This was what my boys told me.”
“Did you know that she attacked York at the orphanage?”
“Attacked? I heard she saved his life. Something about him having some kind of fit.”
“You really are a dumb southern cop,” hissed the voice. “Keep an eye on her and report back to me tomorrow!”
The sound of the phone being slammed hurt Miller’s ear as he jerked his arm away from his face. He walked out of his office and faced Bubba sitting in the waiting room. He was engrossed in the “Hidden Pictures” page in a Highlights magazine.
Moron, he thought. He gets that from his mother’s side.
Miller quickly went from being reprimanded to doing the reprimanding. He ripped the magazine out of his son’s hands and threw it across the room. “You have some unfinished business to attend to,” he drawled. “You need to keep a better eye on O’Malley.” His disposition darkened as he paused to take a breath and wipe his bloated face with his shirtsleeve. “I don’t just want to know when that bitch eats, but what she eats and how many times she chews each bite before
