“Thanks for seeing us, Mary.”
“Sure.” She glanced at Jake. “As long as you don’t intend to harass the Krishnas…?”
“This place has been here as long as I can remember, Mary. We know it’s legit.”
She shrugged, looking at him. “I’m not sure what I can say that I haven’t told you many times before.” Her gaze went from Jake to Marty. Marty looked at Jake, realizing that his friend had seen Mary several times during the years that had gone by.
“Anything you can remember. Anyone we might have missed.”
She nodded. “Well…Papa Pierre—sorry, Peter Bordon—always seemed to be the only one really running anything. He preached to us, had the property, brought us in, and yes, suggested that whatever we had must be given up for the benefit of all. What you all don’t see, though, is that he was kind and loving, and we all believed in him. And it was a simple way of life. We worked the garden, growing all our own food, and…” She paused, smiling, “Luckily I’m a vegetarian, because we also ate fish from the canal out back, and it’s likely that half the fish out there were diseased or tainted. To get back to the point, it was a simple way of life. He could befriend men, but in retrospect, he preferred women. And if there was dissent among us—seldom spoken, of course, because of our share-all philosophy—it was over who Peter would have with him each night. I kept house a lot. I was one of his first recruits. And yet, not even I really knew what went on at the house. We slept in the dorms, the cabins on the property. Unless we were chosen for the evening.”
She looked at Jake. “We knew that cars came at night. I heard him talking to people in the house sometimes. But I never knew who was there. And I never suspected anything. When we learned that our friends had been murdered, we were appalled. And truly, we believed that the girls had been killed by people who hated Peter, our way of life, our beliefs. Peter even suggested to us once that we be very careful, because the police hated him, hated us, because they didn’t understand the depths of our faith and how we could live so completely for one another.” She shrugged. “But now…well, it seems so obvious that Peter liked money and sex. And naturally, he didn’t like the police himself, because he did have us all brainwashed. But still…I honestly don’t believe that Peter killed anyone. Or ordered that anyone be killed. He was greedy, he used us, but I don’t believe he was a killer.”
“Mary,” Jake said patiently, “three women were killed. All three were associated with the cult. Peter was the head of the cult.”
“Yes. But…Peter is the one with the answers, if there are any. I told you, people came and went that we never saw. Maybe they came for the money Peter received from us, I don’t know.”
“What about Harry Tennant?” Jake asked her.
“He had no money, so he wasn’t someone you’d expect Peter to foster. He only spent a few nights on the property. Well, that I know of, anyway. In retrospect, Detective Dilessio, the more I think about it, I do believe he might have committed those horrible crimes. He was strange. I mean, really strange. He wanted to be like Peter so badly, maybe not in a religious sense, but…he wanted the power that Peter had over people.” She shrugged. “He wanted women. Sex. He came on to all of us. Peter never discouraged anyone else from soliciting a relationship. It wasn’t as if he felt we were his private harem or anything. And God knew, none of us seemed to know what it was that first brought us into his bed. Every person in the group was interviewed separately at one time or another. One minute you’d be talking about the good that could be done by a simple life…and the next thing you knew, you were exalting in all that was natural and beautiful in human existence. Created in God’s form—we were still mortal, still animals, and natural instincts were not something to be abhorred, but celebrated. So, looking back, it’s easy to see that Harry took a look at Peter, went wild with jealousy and maybe formed a psychotic hatred for the girls for wanting Peter and not him.”
“Mary, I know that you’ve gone over this with us time and again, but please, bear with us, because another girl is dead. When the girls who were killed disappeared, didn’t you worry? Didn’t Peter worry?”
She shook her head. “There were no ties binding us to the place. We were free to come and go as we chose.” She hesitated. “Yes, when the third girl was found, I was afraid. The police started to come by, and Peter encouraged us all to talk, so…Then Harry Tennant killed himself, and…well, you’ve got to understand that when you believe in teachings like Peter’s, deeply believe, death is not the end but a beginning.”
“Those girls were tortured. Murdered.”
“Their ears were slashed,” Mary said.