Vince continued the narrative, taking her through their arrival in Ephrata, their meeting with Reverend Powell and sifting through the box his mother had buried in her backyard. He told her about the newspaper clippings, the photo albums. “My mom was definitely a member of this cult,” he told her. “She was a bona-fide devil worshipper. I don’t know what prompted her change-of-heart, but something must’ve triggered it. She was afraid of something, and that’s why she took me and fled to California twenty-five years ago.”
“Do you think she knew about these murders?” Tracy asked, fascinated with the story now. “The Manson case and those others?”
“I don’t know,” Vince said. “She may have suspected something. I don’t think she had first-hand knowledge of them, but she wrote notes in the margins of the clippings. Something like, ‘did Sam order this?’”
“And who’s Sam?”
“Samuel F. Garrison,” Vince said. “Some big tycoon. Sits on the board of several major U.S. corporations, including our employer.”
Tracy gasped.
“I know,” Vince said. “It surprised the hell out of me, too.”
“I’m… stunned.” Tracy’s voice sounded like she was surprised, shocked by the allegations. “And the other crimes… the Son of Sam case. You think the Sam in that case was related?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it, but…”
“No, I mean, think about it,” Tracy said. “David Berkowitz was the Son of Sam, right? He originally claimed that ‘Sam’ was a guy actually named Sam, who was a neighbor of his in Yonkers, New York. This guy Sam, his sons were involved in some shady activities themselves, and it was speculated they knew Berkowitz and were involved in a satanic cult with him. It was also believed they may have participated in the Son of Sam killings.”
“How do you know about all this?” Vince asked.
“It was on Frontline last week.” He detected a grin in Tracy’s voice.
“Well, that sounds plausible,” Vince said. “Mom had newspaper clippings on the Son of Sam case in that box.”
“Do you think the ‘Sam’ in the Berkowitz case might be Sam Garrison?”
“Maybe.” Vince suddenly felt thirsty and he reached for a plastic cup and headed to the bathroom to fill it with tap water. “I don’t know what to believe. All I know is that this cult found mom and killed her. And they want me for something.” He told Tracy about the conversation with Reverend Powell last night, then their meeting with Tom Hoffman this morning. When he got to the shootout at the Family Cupboard Tracy gave a startled gasp.
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
“No,” Vince said. He took a sip of water then wrapped up the story, ending with their arrival at the Marriot. “Frank and Mike are probably in Lititz now trying to find this Mary Ann chick. They think this Clint guy may have told her more than Tom Hoffman let on to us at the restaurant. They think she may know more about this Mark Lancaster guy and his sidekick.”
“What about the guys who shot at you?” Tracy asked. “Tell me more about them.”
“There’s not much to tell. They looked young. It happened so fast.”
“They just came out of nowhere and started shooting at you?” It sounded like Tracy still couldn’t believe the sudden violence had erupted a second time.
Vince described the shootout again. “They were definitely after me,” he said. “I crawled under cars to hide from them, and one of them knelt down and tried shooting at me under the car I was hiding under.” He paused, trying to remember. “It was like the minute we stepped out of that restaurant they came out of wherever it was they were hiding and started weaving their way through the parking lot toward me. Luckily Frank caught on early, or the guy he body slammed would have met me between two parked cars and killed me right there and they would have been gone.”
“You’re probably right,” Tracy agreed. She took a deep breath, as if composing herself. “Wow. It just… it’s just so scary to hear about all this. I’m glad you’re okay, though.”
“So am I.”
“So they were young guys? In their twenties, maybe?”
“Early twenties,” Vince remembered. “Blond hair, blue eyes. One of them had brown hair. They were around my height, very slender, in good shape. There was nothing about their dress or mannerisms that really differentiated them from anybody else you would see.”
“In other words, they blended in well,” Tracy said.
“Yes.”
“Did you see a car they might have come out of?”
“No.” Vince tried to remember. He couldn’t remember them exiting a vehicle.
“Are you sure you killed them?”
“Yeah.” There was no doubt in his mind that the three would-be assassins were killed.
Tracy sighed in relief. “Do you think one of them was the guy that shot at us at the airport.”
“I don’t know,” Vince said. He felt better talking to Tracy. “Everything happened so fast, I couldn’t tell.”
“My guess is there might be more of them. You have to be careful.”
“I am. But… I’m also afraid that the police might catch up to me.”
“They won’t. You did the right thing in getting out of Lititz and holing up in Harrisburg. You’re also lucky this happened in a rural community. The cops back there are probably chasing their tails.”
Tracy was probably right. Of course, the Pennsylvania State Police would be involved in the investigation, but he and Mike and Frank were already long gone.
“I just hope Frank and Mike can find out more from this Mary Ann girl,” Vince said. “If they can find her.”
“Maybe they will,” Tracy said. “I do think you shouldn’t mention to them that you called me. They’ll only get mad.”
“And paranoid.”
Tracy laughed. “That, too.”
Vince felt a thousand times better; he relaxed. “I’m so glad I called.”
“I am, too.”
“I still don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said, looking at his reflection in the mirror across the room. “Talking about this helped bring it all in perspective.”
“I think you should come home,” Tracy said.
“I will. Probably tomorrow.”
“You need to come home and stay with me. I’ll take care of you. I’ll hide you from anybody that dares threaten you.”
Vince laughed. The way she had said that was both melodramatic in a corny way, but also serious. She’d sounded so cute to him in that brief minute that he just wanted to reach right through the telephone lines and hug her.
“I won’t be able to call you again until I get back,” Vince said. “Will that be okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “Call me the minute you get home. Cut and run from your friends if you have to, but call me. I need to know you’re safe.”
“I will.” Vince paused. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
They said goodbye and hung up.
Chapter Sixteen
FRANK CALLED FROM Mike Peterson’s cell phone at eight-thirty. “We’re on the turnpike,” he said. “We should be back in about twenty minutes.”
“What happened?” Vince asked. He’d spent the past three hours watching a movie called Grosse Point Blank, which was hilarious. It was about a hired hit man attending his ten-year high school reunion.
“We’ll talk when we get back,” was all Frank would say.
Vince tried to get back into the movie after the phone call, but couldn’t concentrate on it. Finally, when Mike and Frank stepped into the room Vince turned the TV off. “Okay, I’m bursting at the seams here, guys. Talk to me.”