Shadows of the Dead Read online

  Shadows of the Dead

  by Lee Perry

  INTRODUCTION

  “Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man

  have come through people feeling quite certain about something

  which, in fact, was false.”

  - Bertrand Russell

  “A cult can be either a sharply-bounded social group or a diffusely-bounded social movement held together through shared commitment to a charismatic leader. It upholds a transcendent belief system (often but not always religious in nature) that includes a call for a personal transformation. It also requires a high level of personal commitment from its members in words and deeds.”

  - Janja Lalich

  Fountain Hills, AZ

  “Please don’t do this. Don’t go.” Ordinarily he enjoyed sending texts and emails; he loved how his fingers made the words flow smoothly on the screen, but now he was scared and his fingers trembled violently. He tapped the send key and waited only a few seconds, staring at the specially encrypted text program he designed before again frantically tapping the letters, “Come here. It’s only a five hour drive. Please!” He tapped the arrow icon to send it, and after carefully laying the phone on his desk, he rested his forehead on the edge and watched his right leg bounce and twitch convulsively.

  His hands tightly clenched each other on his lap and tears welled in his blue eyes and dripped on his running shoes. Oh, please…

  Henderson, NV

  He clicked on his turn signal and swung onto Pajaro Dunes Road. He took his foot off the accelerator, driving between the Taco Bell and 7-11 that would, one day, experience a huge spike in sales. He yawned, letting his pickup coast to a stop at the chain link fence at end of the street and threw the column shift into park. He opened the door and slid out of the truck, his booted feet dropping with audible twin thuds onto dusty asphalt. He sighed as he fished the padlock key from his jeans pocket and shuffled to the gate. He was the project manager for this housing development, but after cutting in the dirt roads and laying out hundreds of wooden stakes outlining dozens of homes to be built, the city planning commission shut the project down. I’m not the boss of this site, he lamented silently, I’m the fucking security guard.

  Because Henderson was adjacent to Las Vegas, powerful business owners and ordinary residents of both cities joined in a pitched legal battle to fight the Pajaro Dunes property development, determined to stop it from adding to the area’s already strained and dwindling water resources. His employer had deep connections to organized crime and a reputation for getting things done, and for more than eleven years he successfully kept himself a loyal but distinctly incurious employee. But as months passed he became increasingly bewildered and impatient when no settlement was reached and members of his crew starting quitting. Two fucking years to get the green light! He grumbled, And the shit I been through these past weeks trying to get a whole new fucking crew hired…

  He got to the gate and stopped, his hands raised for a padlock that wasn’t hanging from the latch. His eyes scanned the ground until he saw it, and he stared down accusingly at the severed hasp, lying in the dirt.

  “Goddamfuckin’…” he muttered. He flipped up the U-shaped latch and pulled open the gate connected to the chain link fence that surrounded the entire housing project. This was the fifth lock kids had cut off over the past two years; All looking for a private place to get high or get laid.... He climbed back into his truck and drove up the sandy unpaved road, his eyes sweeping briefly over the field of blinding salt white sand that fronted the property; Can’t wait ‘til we scrape that down to the bedrock, he thought absently, and stick in the fake green grass.

  The wheels on his truck spun up clouds of dust in his wake as he drove past groups of short sticks pounded into the dry hard-packed earth the color of the beige sand that covered it, their bright orange florescent painted tops barely visible. He tried to picture the mix of modest homes and McMansions that would be built in their place, and he slowed when he drove past the huge jackhammer used to break up the rock-hard dirt and backhoe used to dig the trenches for the pipes that would bring the hard fought for water, his eyes scanning it for signs of vandalism.

  Pajaro Dunes was built into the side of a large hill, and streets were cut into the hillside like a wide ever-rising staircase that went nowhere. He drove steadily upward, frowning when he saw a glint of metallic blue above him. Don't tell me, he snorted, let me guess, they got blasted and fell asleep in their car. He shook his head in disgust, Like I have time for this shit today! He made the turn onto Whispering Meadow Lane, a mostly imaginary street with only the barest suggestion of an outline since high winds had filled it with sand and dirt, all but obliterating the road cut into the cement-like adobe earth. Owners of the new homes that would one day crowd each other on Whispering Meadow would be more than disappointed when they experienced the hot, blasting winds of summer and unforgiving freezing winds at night.

  He cut the engine and coasted to a stop at least forty feet from the car. Nice… he thought, quietly opening the door and sliding to the ground. The car was a Porsche, That has to be a brand spankin’ new Spyder… his brows quirked in amazement at the shiny car, I wonder if daddy knows sonny-boy took his nine hundred thousand dollar ride out to impress his girlfriend. He walked as quickly and as quietly as he could; past experience told him the teen couple would likely still be asleep this early in the morning, and he fully intended to have a good long look at them before pounding on the window. Although chicks ain’t built like they were back in my day. He smirked again, Now they’re fat… and… He slowed to a stop. Wait… just stop and think a second. His eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. That car could belong to a rich mafia guy’s kid… A heavy sigh escaped him and he approached the car more cautiously. For chrissakes you need to use your goddam brain for shit like this. Just wake them up and tell them to get out before the crew arrives.

  He resumed his approach and as soon as he made a wide turn around the front of the car to the driver’s side, he saw the garden hose connected from the tailpipe to the driver's window. "Oh, goddam son of a bitch to hell!" He muttered and dug in his shirt pocket for his phone and dialed 911.

  “911, what is your emergency?”

  He cleared his throat, “Yeah, I’m at the Pajaro housing project, somebody needs to get out here. Somebody killed theirself in their car.”

  “How do you know it’s a suicide?”

  “Cuz there’s a parked car up here with a hose goin’ from the tailpipe to the driver window.”

  “Alright…”

  He could hear computer keys clacking in the background.

  “Is the engine running?”

  “No.”

  “Can you please tell me if the person is dead?”

  He frowned even as his eyes opened wide in alarm, “No! I am not looking at that.”

  “Look, I have units on the way, don’t touch anything, just look in the window and tell me what you see.”

  He slowly shook his head from side to side in silent protest, his lips pressed together in a thin line of annoyance and fear. The hand holding his phone dropped to his side and he walked slowly to the car. Nice car to off yourself in… He drew a steadying breath as he got closer and slowed, the sound of his boots crunching on the sandy dirt road faded the closer he got and he stopped, his head turning slightly as he strained to hear a noise, any noise beyond the sudden deathly silence. Whispering Meadow Lane had a view of Henderson and surrounding barren desert but the car was parked at an angle, facing the rising hillside, its back to the view. He wanted to laugh but couldn’t. Might as well turn your back on everything if you’re gonna off yourself. There’s nothing to see around here anyway…

  At the driver’s w
indow, he stooped and peered cautiously at the figure inside. He slowly raised the phone to his ear and said, “It’s a man… I guess. Their head’s back and off to the inside of the seat…”

  “Is he breathing?”

  “No.” He turned somewhat mechanically and walked away, “His tongue’s sticking out… he’s dead.” The operator said something else but he disconnected the call with his thumb and slid the phone into his jeans pocket. He continued walking to the far side of the street, stopping at the edge where the property began its steep downward slope. He planted his hands on his hips and stood looking out over the barely visible outlines of streets and property lines below, covered in dust carried on unrelenting winds. “Whispering Meadow, my goddam asshole.” He said in a strained voice, and shut his eyes against the image of the blue face and bulging eyes and protruding tongue. “But people are stupid and will buy any bullshit you tell them as long as it has the right name…” His chin trembled and he nodded. “Doesn’t matter what their goddam eyes tell them is the truth.” He muttered, his voice shaking. “They’ll buy horseshit any day of the goddam week.” Bending at the waist, he placed his hands on his knees. Just breathe… he cautioned, just breathe now. He sank heavily onto his knees on the dusty ground. Breathe and don’t puke… don’t faint like a fuckin’ pussy. He pressed his lips together in a tense thin line but his chin continued to tremble and a sob suddenly erupted from him. “Goddammit!” He muttered weakly and sniffed. Another sob escaped and he clapped a hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that slipped free and streamed down his face as he cried.

  Part 1

  “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”

  - Aleister Crowley

  Checklist of Cult Characteristics:

  The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader (alive or dead) and treats its belief system and practices as absolute truth.

  Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged and/or punished.

  (attributed to Janja Lalich)

  New York City, NY

  She was husky voiced, “Hi,” she shook Jordan’s hand, “Jane Vaccaro.”

  “Pat Blackburn…” the second agent shook first Catherine’s hand then switched with her partner and shook Jordan’s hand.

  “Thanks for coming,” she smiled, “I’m Jordan Hawkins,” she indicated the petite figure next to her, “and this is my associate, Doctor Catherine Bernard.”

  “I’m sorry we’re late, our flight was held up in L.A.”

  “No problem,” Jordan led the way to the elevators, “it’s a long way to come to hand off a murder investigation.”

  “You’re telling me,” Agent Vaccaro motioned for her partner and Catherine to precede her, “we do get murder cases from time to time in the Civil Rights Division but we just don’t have the time to work ‘em.”

  “And given who the victim was,” her partner added, “we didn’t have a choice but to come out.”

  “We’re grateful you did,” Catherine followed Jordan in the elevator, “that whole Church of Transcendence thing always sounded so mysterious.”

  Jordan pressed the button for their floor, “We appreciate you coming to give us a primer.”

  “Well,” Pat gave her partner a look, “this primer is going to take a couple of days…”

  “You’re kidding,” Jordan said with a mix of skepticism and surprise, “For some wacky cult?”

  “Trust me,” Jane’s husky voice was serious, “we could take a week here and still not be done but we have to hustle back, we’re up past our eyeballs in human trafficking cases…”

  The elevator stopped and Jordan led the way to their office, “There’s an auditorium we can use…” She pushed the door open wide, “Go in and make yourselves at home…. I’m gonna grab our tablets.” She nudged Catherine and ducked in their office across the hall.

  “Okay.” Catherine followed the two agents in the auditorium, “The restroom’s two doors farther down the hall…”

  Pat flashed a smile, “Thank you.”

  “And,” she added, “you can hook up to the wall screen at the podium.” Catherine watched as they deposited their bags on the theater-style seats and noted the stark contrast between the two; Pat Blackburn had long reddish gold hair and wore heels, a slinky skirt and silk blouse while her partner, Jane, had long wavy dark hair and wore a black suit jacket over a white blouse, black slacks and black boots. She dresses just like Jordan… she snorted privately, I mean she and Jordan dress like typical FBI agents… Her head cocked to one side, Pat’s so glamorous by comparison, I wonder what her story is.

  Jordan entered and handed Catherine her tablet, “Okay, we can start whenever you’re ready.”

  Pat connected her tablet to the podium and the huge curved wall screen began to glow. “Well, we had a long debate about how to begin…” She gave her partner a shrug. “I’ll start with the victim and work our way back.” Jordan took a seat next to Jane while Pat tapped up the first slide, “This is the latest photo we have of Darius Ziphron and its ten years old.”

  “Camera shy?” Jordan asked.

  Pat smiled. “We’re not sure, his social media pages are full of pictures of racing and other high performance cars, but no people… including himself.” She grabbed the remote and circled a slender young blond man standing in a crowd with the laser pointer. “Thirty-eight years old when his body was found, he was an accountant, IT expert and wannabe racecar driver. He served as the CFO in his father’s church until his death two days ago in a Las Vegas-adjacent town in his very expensive Porsche, victim of an apparent suicide.” Using the remote, she clicked up some crime scene photos of a bright metallic blue car.

  “Apparent being the key word here.” Jane murmured.

  Jordan noted the garden hose in the picture, one end taped to the exhaust, “He had a cause of death other than carbon monoxide poisoning?”

  “He had enough Oxycodone and beer in his bloodstream to knock him for a loop… enough in his stomach to eventually be fatal and qualify as a suicide.” Pat said, “But it was the lack of fingerprints on the duct tape taping the hose to the exhaust, the contusion on the back of his head and bruise on the left side of his forehead that made his death murder.”

  “Because,” Jordan said, “someone sitting in the passenger seat hit him on the back of the head and the force of the blow slammed his forehead into the driver side window…”

  “Yep…” Jane said, “a forehead print was found inside the driver side window. His brain showed enough bruising to indicate he was hit hard enough to knock him out.”

  “So,” Catherine raised her hand, as though she was in school, “the killer knocked him out, then hooked up the garden hose to his exhaust?”

  “Yes.” Pat nodded, clicking through more slides, “Forensics found bleach residue on the car door handles...” She stopped briefly on a slide showing the smudge on the car’s driver’s side window then forwarded to a photo from the autopsy showing a close up of a shaved area of the back of Darius Ziphron’s head. “The contusion left a mark the pathologist said was likely made by the bottom of a beer bottle although no beer was found in the car.”

  “The end of the hose was close to his nose and mouth.” Jane said, adding, “Unconscious from the alcohol and Oxycodone, it probably didn’t take long for him to inhale enough of the CO to stop his heart.”

  “We processed his home in L.A., it was clearly sanitized.” Pat said. “The place was neat as a pin and completely devoid of a computer, laptop, tablet, et cetera.”

  “No devices in the home at all?” Catherine asked.

  “No.” Pat said. “There was a briefbag found jammed behind the driver seat, but it only contained his wallet, toothbrush and other personal hygiene items…”

  “And no cel phone.” Jordan finished for her.

  “We found a burner phone left turned off under the passenger seat.” While Pat spoke, Jane pulled it from an inner pocket of her jack
et and passed it to Catherine. “Here you go… other than Darius Ziphron’s prints we couldn’t pull anything from it as all the calls and texts made and received are encrypted with what our tech guy said is an extremely sophisticated encryption code.”

  Catherine took the phone and shrugged, “Okay.”

  “Now, Darius was the fourth of seven children born to this man,” Pat tapped up another slide onto the wide wall screen. It was a photo of an older blond man, tall, with a sizable paunch and a slight stoop.

  “I know who that is,” Jordan said, exhaling loudly, “J.B. Ziphron; the founder of the Church of Universal Transcendence… or CUT, for short.”

  “Correct.” Pat nodded. “Excepting the FBI’s well publicized raid, Ziphron and his church,” she wagged finger quotes in the air, “have been investigated over the decades by various law enforcement agencies for fraud, inurement, drug transportation and human rights violations, all to no effect.”

  “I remember thinking it made no sense.” Jordan said. “We make this stunning raid, Ziphron’s wife and others go to prison, but the IRS suddenly caves and gives Ziphron’s church the 501-c3.”

  Pat added, “Making it a religious non-profit.”

  “Right.” Jane rasped. “Ziphron had repeatedly applied for 501-c3 status over the years, and when he was repeatedly rejected he became so enraged he ordered Donna, his third wife, then in charge of the church’s covert organization in charge of, well, mostly spying and harassing their enemies, to send trusted members to infiltrate the IRS. They got jobs with the intention of getting dirt on the agency’s bigwigs so they could blackmail them into granting the church tax-exempt status.”

  “That operation was called, Heavenly Justice and Divine Retribution.” Pat clicked up another picture on the screen, “This is Donna Hannah-Ziphron,” she gestured at the faded color photo of a dark-haired woman with dark piercing eyes. “It was an anonymous tip about that operation from someone claiming to be an ex church member that prompted the raid. They got all kinds of files there, beyond recovery of the stolen IRS files. It really is rather amazing the amount of confidential information they stole… there’s a reference in the charges that the total number of stolen files weighed more than two thousand pounds.” She turned back to the screen, “When they found the files for Heavenly Justice, charges were filed against Donna and fifteen others for theft and running that blackmail scam. By the time their case came to trial, the church owed more than a billion dollars in back taxes…”