Murder in the Nude Ch. 02

After the orgasms, the three of us just lay together, naked, until we fell asleep. In the middle of the night, someone started pounding on the door to our room. Without even thinking about being nude, we all got out of bed and Meredith opened the door. A State Trooper was outside the door. His eyes widened a bit when he saw Meredith and Patty nude. After a moment, he said, "pull the curtains and stay away from the windows. Go in the bathroom or stay near the floor."

"What's happening?" I asked.

"Rangers found Deputy Owen's car here in the park," the Trooper replied. "I'll be outside the door until its cleared."

We hadn't closed the curtains. Our room looked out on a manmade lake. We didn't think anyone could see in. I pulled the curtains. The three of us sat together in a corner of the room that was mostly screened from the windows by a partition. We talked softly, as if Owen might hear us, speculating about what was going on outside.

Roughly an hour later, we heard several shots outside. A few minutes after that, my phone rang. I walked across the room and answered it.

Bill Canter, with a lighthearted tone, said, "I'm not sending someone to your room again because I understand none of you are decent. We've got a trooper who's still walking around the lodge with a tent pole in his trousers after seeing your friends."

"Bill, what's up?" I asked. "It's 4:30 in the morning!"

"Shawnee County Deputy Sheriff Abigail Owen is dead," Canter said. "We found her car in the lot for the stables, about a mile from the lodge, around 3:00. The hood was still warm when we found it. We put a couple of armed rangers with the car in case she came back. We had people all over the park looking for her, but she went back to her car. The rangers say she came out of the woods in an all-black special forces type get up, carrying a rifle. When she saw the rangers, she raised the rifle and shot. The rangers returned fire. Owen's shot missed. The rangers didn't miss."

"Christ!" was all I could say.

"I don't think he was anywhere near Eagle Run State Park tonight," Bill retorted. "When it gets light, I want the three of you to come to the stable parking lot to see if you can ID the car as the one that shot at you. Please be dressed, all three of you."

We were dressed when we went to the parking lot just after sunrise. Bill, my old boss, was there. I introduced him to Meredith and Patty. We looked at Owen's car. None of us had any doubt it was the same car which shot at us two days before. The police had found what looked like a bullet hole in the back of the car.

Bill said, and we agreed, that it was safe for us to go home. None of the three of us ever thought about Patty going anywhere else than to Glenda's house with Meredith and me. Back at Glenda's house, Patty stopped using the guest bedroom. We all liked it much better when Patty slept with Meredith and me.

Bill and Lew were nice enough to keep me informed as the murder investigations wrapped up. Ballistics tests confirmed that the rifle Abi Owen had when she died was the same gun which fired the bullets that killed Alison Rowe, Leah Carney, and Guy Roberts, and wounded Renee Fuller and her husband. Owen's car had gas and fast- food receipts that put her in Atlanta when Alison was shot and in Dayton when Leah and Guy were shot. That Owen was the shooter became more strongly confirmed over time as there were no more attacks on people connected with the Daughters of God.

Despite some scary moments, the case was basically good for Meredith and me. Meredith had material for a book. Much better still, Meredith and I had acquired a beautiful, intelligent, enthusiastic, and very likeable young woman as our live-in lover.

Beyond our narrow interests, the College of the Word/Daughters of God scandal and murders harmed many people. Four people were dead. Two had been seriously injured. The employees of COW had abruptly lost their jobs and incomes. COW students had been ripped off for tuition, room and board, and fees; and had their educations disrupted. Least bad, in my view, the Governor was tainted by his connection to the scandal. He had been term-limited as governor. The picture of him being handed a drink by a nude Leah Carney reappeared statewide when he tried to run for the Senate. Leah looked great in the picture, but I thought it was a sad memorial to her.

After a few months, the Attorney General surrendered control of what little was left of College of the Word to a court-appointed trustee. Mainly, what was left were claims against Ezekiel and Madeline for stealing over $ 60 million. I assume they thought they raised the money, so it was justly theirs. In truth, much of the money was raised by the Daughters of God, who got none of it.

Ironically perhaps, the trustee hired Hellman Investigations to try to find any of the money Ezekiel and Madeline had taken from COW. For the first time, investigating the COW scandal was formally my case. We eventually determined that the Walshes and at least $ 20 million reached Venezuela. At that point, we hit a solid wall. Whether Ezekiel and Madeline Walsh are even still alive is unknown.

We found solid evidence that Mark Albindisi had been with Ezekiel and Madeline, and former DOG Lisa Farmer, in the Caribbean for several months just after fleeing the U.S. We were certain that Albindisi had between $ 10 million and $ 20 million of COW money. We tracked Albindisi and Farmer to Lebanon, Albindisi's ancestral homeland. The information we gathered indicated that Albindisi and Farmer were living in a part of Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah. I think "fuck off" is the English translation of what Hezbollah told us when we asked them about Albindisi and the money.

For me, Ezekiel and Madeline Walsh were just scammers using religion, more successful than some but part of a long tradition of fraud. The person who truly offended me was Mark Albindisi. He probably killed Patty's mother. In substance, he made Patty a whore. He stole a large amount of money. Neither Meredith nor I understand how that piece of shit had such a great person as his daughter.