The Scientology Murders. William Heffernan
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a sofa, two reclining chairs, and a large-screen television set. It was every bit as roomy and comfortable as the small beach house he had sold. The sole difference, as far as Harry was concerned, was that instead of having a view of the ocean, he now floated on it.
After boarding, Harry went straight to the chart table and began writing down his notes on the case. As he was finishing, a voice floated in from the dock.
“Hey, boat guy, permission to come aboard?”
He turned and saw Vicky. “Permission granted. And it’s not boat guy, it’s captain.”
“Yeah, sure, Popeye, anything you say.” Vicky stepped on board and came through the open hatch. “How’s your dad?”
“He’s still listed as critical, but he’s going to make it. He’s a tough old bird.”
“And your mom?”
“She’s a wreck, but now that she has him to fuss over, she’ll be okay too.”
Vicky looked around. It was her first time aboard the new trawler. “Pretty nice boat you’ve got here, detective.” She walked aft, then back to the chart table. “I met this strange little guy on the dock. Said his name was Tully and that he ran the place. He was wearing a pith helmet and wanted to know where I was going. I flashed my shield, told him I was looking for Harry Doyle, and he pointed me in the right direction.”
“That was the dock Nazi,” Harry said. “At least that’s what people here call him. His official title is dockmaster and he likes to find things to complain about. Now, with you flashing your tin, he probably thinks I’m a felon.”
“He doesn’t know you’re a cop?”
“I never give out any more information than I have to.”
Typical Harry Doyle; it brought a smile to her lips. “Well, you look like a felon, so he probably thought so anyway.” Her smile widened. Vicky was wearing jeans that she filled out beautifully, a pale tan blouse under a lightweight green jacket, just long enough to conceal the Glock on her hip. “Anything new?” she asked.
“Jocko gave me a description of the shooter. Tall and skinny, about thirty with snow-white hair. Other than that, you know everything I know.”
“I may have come across something.”
“What’s that?”
“It might be a good idea to check out Mary Kate O’Connell’s sex life.”
“Why is that?”
“I was thinking about her last night, about how and why she got tied up with Scientology, and I remembered this girl from my old neighborhood in Tarpon who got mixed up with this guy who was a church member. To make a long story short, she ended up joining too and was a member for a couple of years, then finally told her family that she couldn’t see them anymore unless they joined her church. That did it for her family and they staged an intervention that included a Greek Orthodox priest—a big, burly, bearded one who accosted her on the street in downtown Clearwater, right in the middle of all the Scientology buildings . . . told her to get her little Greek tushie back home so her family could talk to her.”
“And she went?”
“I take it you’ve never been confronted by a Greek priest. You bet she went, and once her family and that priest got through with her, she was home for good. All this happened a couple of months ago.”
“Interesting story, but what’s the point?”
“The point is, I went to see her and told her about Mary Kate. Turns out she knew her, or knew of her. She told me there was some talk going around that Ms. O’Connell had been accused of being gay.”
“Accused, like in a crime?”
Vicky nodded. “In Scientology, at least according to this woman, gay people are labeled as 1.1. That means the church feels they’ve reached a dangerous level of spiritual corruption and need to be audited.”
“What’s that?” Harry asked.
“Well, according to what I’ve read online, it’s some kind of spiritual counseling involving weeks of isolation and talks with church auditors or ministers who use some special tool called an E-meter to try to find and correct problems. Sometimes, in the most serious cases, it’s supposedly done aboard one of the church’s ships by a member of Sea Org, which is someone who has reached that special level in the church. It’s like a religious order.”
Harry let out a long breath. “I’ve got to read up on this church, find out what the hell I’m dealing with.”
“Lucky you, they’ve got a bookstore downtown.”
* * *
That evening Harry was well into the second of three Scientology books he had purchased when Vicky returned to the boat.
“You’re going to love some of the tenets of this religion,” he said as she stepped onto the boat.
“Tell me.”
“Okay. First, did you know that mankind’s problems began seventy-five million years ago when dinosaurs were still roaming the planet and Earth was known as the planet Teegeeack?”
“No, I guess I missed that in my high school history class.”
“Well, according to our Scientology friends, man existed at that time and Earth, or Teegeeack, was part of a seventy-six-planet confederation ruled by a tyrant named Xenu. Much like today, the confederation faced a serious overpopulation problem with a lot of nonproductive people sucking up its resources.” A small smile appeared. “Seems like Xenu solved the problem by trapping the excess people in a frozen compound made up of glycol and alcohol. The people were then transported to Earth, where they were placed at the base of some volcanoes.” The smile widened. “Old Xenu must have been a Republican, because he had H-bombs, more powerful than any we have today, dropped into the volcanoes, killing these excess people and releasing their spirits, which they called thetans. Then they attached themselves to other humans. Later, when those humans died, they moved on to new human hosts and kept perpetuating themselves. Ergo life everlasting or something like that.”
“And they get people to believe that?” Vicky asked.
“Not much stranger than the parting of the Red Sea, or a virgin birth, or angels versus devils, or Christ’s ascension into heaven. I grew up believing all of that.”
“Do you still?”
Harry grinned at her. “At least I question things now. Apparently, the true believers in Scientology accept their tenets, or at least give serious lip service to them.”
“Who dreamed up all that stuff?”
“A science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard, the guy who founded the church. He was later rumored to have said that the easiest way to become rich was to found your own religion.”
“I love it.”
“Yeah, well, love this too. According to what I’ve read, today they’re one of the richest and most powerful religions on earth . . . and the most secretive. And, if you cross them, you better watch your ass.”
“I guess little Mary Kate missed that last part.”
“She sure did,” Harry said. “And so did my dad.”
* * *
The next morning, Harry poured a cup of coffee and went up on deck to plan out his day. Across the floating dock a thirty-four-foot Morgan sailboat was maneuvering into the slip just opposite. The young woman at the helm clearly knew what she was doing as she guided the sailboat bow first into the slip.
Harry stepped off his boat, crossed the dock, and called for a line. The woman threw him one and he quickly secured it to a starboard-side cleat; then called for another. Again she threw one and he secured the port side.
“Thanks,”