Hollis chewed on a thumbnail briefly as she studied her copy of the list. "I know big abandoned buildings are difficult to repurpose, but I'd think some of these would have been somewhere along the way. That or torn down to make way for new construction."
"I might have an answer for that." Jordan was going over a different list, frowning. "Marc, take a look at this. And tell me how in the hell we didn't know about it."
Dani waited until Marc had the list in hand and began to frown himself to ask, "What is it?"
"Looks like about eighty percent of these old buildings have been bought up by a properties-anagement company."
Dryly, Hollis said, "I don't see much management involved. Wait a minute. The same company?"
Marc grunted an assent, then said, "Huh. How about that. The properties-management company is owned by a church."
"A church?" Paris asked. "A single church?"
"Yeah. The Church of the Everlasting Sin."
They all exchanged glances, then Hollis said, "I did a quick recon when I first got here to get the lay of the land, and one thing definitely caught my attention. The Church of the Everlasting Sin. It's currently being housed here in Venture in that onetime grain-storage facility, right?"
"That's the one," Marc confirmed.
"It didn't appear to me to be very wealthy. To say the least."
Jordan looked baffled. "At the last town council meeting, Reverend Butler claimed he couldn't afford to rehab the place. But if his church owns all these other properties…"
Hollis moved to the other end of the conference table, where her laptop lay open and ready. She sat down and typed rapidly, then sat back and waited, her gaze fixed on the screen.
While they waited, presumably for more information, Dani said, "I know I've been away for a while, but as I remember it, the churches in the area have always been sort of… bland. I mean, just straight-up Protestant, mostly Baptist, nothing out of the ordinary."
"We get the occasional outside-the-mainstream church," Marc said. "A small block building goes up, or a trailer, or an old storefront gets a new sign painted on the window. Nothing as extreme as snake-handling, say, or Satanism, but there's been talk-forgive the pun-of speaking in tongues, and we've had complaints from neighbors when the worshipping got a little loud on Sunday. Most of those churches don't seem to stick around long, even though they have congregations."
"Maybe the congregations aren't large enough to support the churches," Dani offered.
"Could be. All I know is, one day they're there, and the next they aren't. The Church of the Everlasting Sin, though, that one has stuck around. At least ten years, I'd say."
"No wonder I don't remember it," Dani murmured.
Marc nodded. "You wouldn't. Reverend Butler set up shop the summer after you left Venture."
She refused to be dragged back into the past, saying only, "I can't imagine he'd have much of a congregation. Unless it's just an ordinary Baptist-type church with an unusual name?"
"I'm not sure what it is, to be honest with you, but the congregation is sizable. We've had a few complaints, especially in recent years, about some of their practices, but nothing I've been able to get any real evidence on." Marc shrugged. "It's a tight-knit congregation, I can tell you that much. And you seldom see any one of them out alone. It's a bit weird, actually."
"Creepy," Jordan translated. "Far as I can tell, you never see one out alone. Well, except for the reverend. Marc, weren't there some rumors about him when he first got here?"
"Yeah, that he killed his wife."
"False rumors?" Dani ventured.
"Depends on your point of view. When I became sheriff, I checked into his background, and what I found was mostly vague except for that single bit of his history. His wife died under mysterious circumstances about fifteen years ago. Investigators were pretty sure in their own minds that he did it, apparently to collect the insurance, but there was never enough evidence to arrest him, much less convict him. Then he got involved with his church and more or less dropped off the map as far as the police were concerned."
Paris said, "I guess it's too much to hope he could be our killer here?"
"He's the wrong age according to the most recent profile we have, he isn't psychic, and as far as I can remember he was in Venture all summer."
"So that would be no," Paris murmured.
"Pretty much," Marc told her. "Which isn't to say he might not know something that could be helpful. Especially since his church seems to own most of the abandoned warehouses and other derelict buildings in Venture."
"Well," Hollis said, "the Church of the Everlasting Sin is wealthy, whether this particular congregation is or not." She was frowning at the screen of her laptop. "The IRS has its suspicions of Reverend Butler even if the police couldn't prove theirs, but it appears he has a very good accountant-in Atlanta-and they haven't been able to pin anything on him. But the church, now that's something different."
"How so?" Paris asked. "I've heard a few wild rumors, but-"
"Maybe not so wild. Says here that the Church of the Everlasting Sin first made an appearance about twenty-five years ago, out west. Gossip had it that among their practices was some kind of supposed cleansing ritual that involved screaming at members-including children-in order to scare the sin out of them."
"I've heard that here," Marc admitted. "But we could never find any evidence of abuse, and neither could Social Services."
"Couldn't find much out west either, according to the FBI files," Hollis told them. "The Bureau was called in initially because a former member charged that the church kidnapped his children, took them across state lines to another-well, they call them parishes, apparently. So what you've got here in Venture is a parish of the Church of the Everlasting Sin. Anyway, turned out the man's estranged wife, still a member of the church, had the kids with her and eventually won legal custody."
Jordan said, "But the FBI kept the case file open?"
"Looks like. Over the years, they had reports from some of the watchdog groups that monitor cults, and complaints from quite a few former members, but so far nothing they could take to court."
"Sounds familiar," Marc said.
"Yeah, only this church doesn't seem to be building its wealth through its members, like most cults do. Nobody signs over their properties or businesses-in fact, that's forbidden. Members are expected to tithe, but no more."
"So how can they afford to buy up all the property here?" Jordan asked.
Hollis scrolled through a few pages, reading intently, then said, "It's one of the reasons the IRS is suspicious. It looks like they use the member contributions to purchase land and other properties, and the member businesses provide donations of goods and services to keep the church and all its parishes running."
Marc said, "Jordan, I can think of at least three local businesses owned and operated by members of Reverend Butler's church; let's see if we can put together a list of the rest." As his chief deputy nodded and left the room, he added, "Not that I see how any of this might help us track a killer."
Quietly, Hollis said, "Well, here's the thing. The church owns an awful lot of the seemingly abandoned warehouselike structures in Venture, yes. The church, in fact, owns lots of those kinds of buildings in other parishes around the country. In plenty of small towns probably like this one. And in quite a few cities. Portland, Kansas City, Cleveland, Baltimore, Knoxville."
It was Paris who guessed "Boston?"
"Boston."
The smell of bleach stung his nostrils, but he breathed it in deeply anyway. He liked the smell of bleach. It was clean.
He liked things to be clean.
His worktable had been scrubbed down, and after he poured the bleach onto the stainless-steel surface, he let it remain there for a while, thoroughly disinfecting, before rinsing it off.