“Ganz’s taking his disciples with him. Maybe he left some instructions for them to join him. Even if he didn’t, there’re bound to be a few unbalanced individuals in there who could play follow the leader.”
“A few unbalanced individuals?”
Decker raised his eyebrows. “Look, if adults inside want to kill themselves, I’d try to stop them, but you can’t save the world. In this case, though, there’re kids involved. That concerns me.”
Little made a face. “Now that’s a very good point.”
Decker rubbed his forehead, wondering how he could possibly ensure the kids’ collective safety. As always, responsibility weighed him down, much more than his two-hundred-plus poundage.
A silver van was approaching from the other side of the fence. When it stopped, a girl of around twenty stuck her head out. No makeup or jewelry. She had a heart-shaped face and a smooth complexion. Her murky pond-colored eyes were swollen, her nose was red and drippy. Her hair was tied up in a bun and covered by a white, crocheted net. She wiped her nostrils with a tissue and said, “How many more of you are coming down?”
“Pardon?” Decker asked.
“Police,” she sneered. “How much longer must we put up with this invasion of our cherished privacy? What we do is no one’s business but our own.”
Decker didn’t speak for a moment, letting the silence hang in the air. Pausing always helped him to deflect anger and control his tongue. Finally, he said, “Ma’am, are you supposed to direct us to the compound’s entrance?”
“I am not Ma’am! I am Terra!”
“Okay,” Decker answered. “Terra! Are you supposed to direct us to the compound’s entrance?”
She nodded. “Yes, I am.”
Decker opened his car door. “So why don’t you do just that?”
Ignoring hostility was part of the profession. Decker was used to stony glares and the occasional hurled epithet. But there was something disconcerting about the group. So many disciples, all of them displaying a curious mixture of fury and fragility. Or maybe it was the white cotton robes they wore, making them look like zombies housed in shrouds.
He thought a moment.
That wasn’t fair. Jews also wore white robes—kittles. Men wore them when they married, during the High Holy Days, and at the seder—the festive Passover meal. The garment was also used in burial. A morbid association, but Decker couldn’t help thinking about it.
Most of the sect members simply stared as Decker, along with Oliver, draped the yellow crime tape across the temple door.
Brother Pluto, on the other hand, expressed himself verbally. “Is that yellow ribbon really necessary, or are you two just looking for something to do until that doctor is done?”
He was thin and short and balding. He also wore a robe, but his was blue and appeared to be fashioned from silk. He had a belt on it, but it was partially open. Underneath, Pluto wore a white T-shirt and jeans. The acting head guru was irritated. He spoke in a reedy voice. If Decker were to personify him as a planet, Pluto would have been the logical choice.
Decker finished pinning the tape and straightened his back, towering over the little man. “Sorry about spreading the investigation all over the place. Since the body was moved, we can’t confine ourselves to just the one room—”
“A clear violation of our civil rights!”
Decker smoothed his mustache, then said, “Tell me whose civil rights are being violated and I’ll put a stop to it!”
Pluto spoke bombastically. “You know what I mean! Your people questioning our grieving family.”
Oliver ran his hands through his black hair, wondering if the guy really was an alien. He sure as hell looked like one. “We’re trying to find out what happened to your leader, sir. Don’t you want to know?”
“But we do know, Detective! Our Father Jupiter has gone to a better place.”
So why all the grieving? Decker glanced upward at a peaked skylight of stained glass—swirls of blue, yellow and orange. It looked like something Van Gogh would have designed. Huge mother. It was supported by beams of steel and wire mesh.
He returned his eyes to Pluto and said, “Spiritually, I’m sure you’re right, sir. Unfortunately, we need to know what happened physically—”
“Spiritual and physical are one and the same. Of course, the violators will never understand that. Society’s thinking has been fractured irreparably, constantly separating the soul and body. Just as you’ve done now, Lieutenant. It’s not your fault, though. You’ve just never been schooled.”
Decker said, “Perhaps, at another time, you can enlighten me.”
“You’re being sarcastic. Your attitude is typical for a violator. Even more in sync with your work as a policing agent.”
Pluto’s vitriolic words had drawn a little crowd. It was growing by the moment.
Now what was the friggin’ purpose of all that? But of course, Decker knew the purpose. To embarrass him, to make the outsider—the violator—look like the ignorant fool. Still, he held his tongue. He wasn’t about to start a riot for what appeared to be an open-and-shut case of suicide.
“I’m not trying to be contentious. Just curious. If I were an outsider interested in joining the Order, how would you explain to me the true nature of the universe?”
Pluto sneered. “Our philosophy is not a parlor game, Lieutenant!”
“I didn’t say it was. Tell me your philosophy. And if we have time, I’ll spout off a few theories of my own.”
Pluto seemed amused. Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned against the temple door, breaking the crime ribbon. “Very well. We’ll trade philosophies. But you two go first—”
Oliver’s brown eyes darted across the masses. He held his hands up. “Hey, leave me out of this one.”
“As you wish.” Pluto turned to Decker. “Lieutenant.”
Spitting out the title as if it were a swear word.
Decker picked up the yellow tape and tacked it back onto the door, aware that the gathering was waiting for him to begin. “Interesting that you should mention the universe. Because I remember reading one of Ganz’s—”
“Father Jupiter,” Pluto interrupted.
“Excuse me.” Decker was deferential. “I was reading Father Jupiter’s lay articles on the universe … back when he was a cosmologist.”
Like Pluto, Decker knew he was playing to an audience. He divided his glances between the cotton-robed followers and the silk-robed Pluto.
“As an observant Jew, I was struck by one of Jupiter’s statements—that the universe has neither a past nor a future. It was something that just was … or is. Sort of flies in the face of the Big Bang theory—”
“The Big Bang?” Oliver smiled. “I like the sound of this theory.”
Decker held back laughter. “It stated that the universe came from one massive explosion.”
“Explosion of what?”
“An explosion of … stuff.”
“How’d the stuff