2
“Good,” she said, breathing out in relief.
“You….” He paused as he pulled creamer out from the fridge. “In case Rebekah or I have never told you, you are a very good mother.”
He heard her surprised gasp as he moved to the counter and his own enormous trough of coffee. How he yearned for the taste of tea again—but not this week.
“That’s a beautiful compliment,” she said, “from a son who has made me proud every day of his life.”
Ellery swallowed hard and moved to the table to sit across from her. “What do we do next?”
“With the Stepford Dragons or Jackson?” she asked, her lips twitching as she attempted to lighten things up.
Ellery grunted. “Since Jackson plans to be up and running in a couple of hours, let’s start with the case so he has a thing to do.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “You do know him well, don’t you?”
Ellery shrugged. “Same way I passed the bar exam in three states.”
“Study, study, study,” she supplied and nodded to the laptop she’d been scrolling on as he’d walked in. “Which is what I’ve been doing this morning.”
He gazed at her for a moment, at the weariness in her brown eyes. “Did you sleep at all?” he asked.
She flashed him a quick grimace. “Unlike you and Jackson, I’ve had adequate rest over the last few months.” She swallowed and looked away. “I’m not so impervious that last night left me unmoved.”
“I….” Ellery let out a short laugh. “It’s funny. He spends all his time worrying that he won’t be enough for me, but I’m the one who needs help with his care and feeding.”
“Ellery, when your father and I met, we were both in law school. We’d both come from prosperous families with a solid work ethic and a trust in the government and in education. I thought he was the dearest man I’d ever met, kindness to my sharpness, and….” She smiled fondly, because Ellery’s father, with his wildly curly hair and abstracted air of absolute brilliance inspired that sort of emotion, even in Taylor Cramer. “And falling in love with him was as easy as breathing.” Her eyes, dark and sharp and bruised with lack of sleep, met his. “I can’t tell you that I couldn’t have loved him just as much if he’d had the same damage as your beloved. But I can tell you that I would have called my mother and begged her to be kind to him when I brought him home, and if she hadn’t been kind—she wasn’t always—I would never have spoken to her again. As it was I simply brought him home, and we both got hugs and congratulations, but you….” Her smile turned sad. “You chose a much more difficult path. It’s one I’m very proud of, but I couldn’t call myself a mother if I didn’t help.”
Ellery must have been raw from the night before because his eyes burned. “I’m so very glad you do,” he said, and then, after clearing his throat a couple of times, he added, “If you get a house on the beach, get it in Mendocino County. It’s closer, and there are mountains as well as the ocean. I haven’t taken Jackson there yet—I think he’d love to see it.”
“I’ll make a note of it,” she said, and there was a tone of normalcy in her voice as they both tried to shake off the terribly personal confessions over coffee. “I also have some ideas that may help Jackson when he’s ready to listen to them. But in the meantime, would you like to hear what I’ve learned about Stepford Dragon Incorporated?”
Had it only been yesterday? It felt like eons ago that Ellery had asked his mother for information on their favorite pearl-and-twinset-wearing monsters.
“Absolutely,” Ellery said, taking a fortifying sip of his coffee. “Although….” He shuddered. “After what Jackson and I saw last night, if you tell me anything short of them drinking the blood of newborn babies on the rooftops of brothels under a horned moon, it’s going to feel awfully anticlimactic.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Have some faith in me, Ellery. I didn’t swoop in here just to screech like a dockworker at you and your fiancé in the dark hours of the night. I came with facts , and they’re important, so listen up.”
Ellery took another sip of coffee, pretty sure he’d won the parental lottery—twice.
“I’m all ears.”
“First of all,” she said, “Do you recognize that name?”
Ellery’s eyebrows raised. “Gannett Hoover—guy with two last names and no personality. He’s a local politician,” he said slowly. “A state assemblyman.” Ellery frowned because he did recognize the name. “He ran under the auspices of the progressive ticket, but when Jackson and I were doing a deep dive on him—”
“You do a deep dive on your local politicians?” Taylor asked politely.
“Don’t you?” he replied. “I like to know who’s beholden to whom.”
“Indeed,” she said. “I couldn’t be prouder. But continue….”
“He’s getting his money from a conservative Super Pac,” Ellery said, the information flooding back. “He was a plant. I remember because it was a scandal two years ago, and he’s back up for reelection, and getting out the news that he’s a fake Democrat is brutal—people are afraid of betraying the party. Why?”
“Because he was the assemblyman who presented the Educational Organization of the Year award to your Stepford Dragons. The award was in the stack of paperwork Jackson emailed you last night, which goes to show your young man knows his scoundrels. What can you tell me about his district?”
“He represents the fourth district,” Ellery said, thinking hard. “He’s got property out in Sonora, I think it is—some enormous monstrosity of a house. Anyway they’re very red, and apparently that was how he got elected. Put D on his papers, flew a certain candidate’s flag on his truck and in front of his house. It was a big joke to his constituents. He’s spent his entire term trying to rescind free school lunches and dispossess the already homeless. Ha ha.”
His mother’s upper lip curled in a devastating sneer. “Hilarious.”
“Agreed,” Ellery told her. He and Jackson had been distracted during that election, but he still felt the outrage. “So… did he recruit the Stepford Dragons or—”
“Oh, son. Have some faith.” She reclaimed her laptop and began to open files. “Now, I looked at what you’d sent me yesterday while I was on the plane. Do you remember where all these women seemed to come from—their point of meeting before they changed their names and started trying to rip books out of schoolchildren’s hands?”
“Florida State,” Ellery said.
“Do you recall any men involved in their little group? Any names―”
“Conway Schmitt,” Ellery supplied promptly, and that made her sit up.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Ellery said. “Because one of the women was known to all the kids as ‘Twitty.’ And it was driving us crazy until I got Piper Lutz to make the connection. Conway Schmitt, Conway Smitty—”
“Conway Twitty,” his mother finished dryly. “Yes, I get it. Poor man. The singer, not this piece of work. But yes. Tell me what you know about Conway Schmitt.”
Oh God. Yesterday—it might as well have been eighth grade. He sucked in another long draught of coffee and tried to make his brain fire. “He was arrested,” he said after a painful moment. “For”—he wrinkled his nose—“—child molestation. He was a preacher who reached out to touch his choirboys. He’s in jail—”
“Oh no, he’s not,” his mother said, and Ellery set down his coffee cup.
“But he was sentenced to fifteen years.” Oh God. He saw where this was going.
“In an extremely conservative state in the Bible Belt,” his mother said grimly. “He was paroled in five. And… you’ll never guess what he did when he got out.”
“Left the state and changed his name?” Ellery had a thought. “He’s not Gannet Hoover, is he?” And then, answering his own question, “No, no…. Hoover is about ten years too young.”
“No, not Hoover,” his mother said. She turned her laptop around again. “Here’s a picture of Hoover giving his award to the Stepford Dragons. What do you see here?”
Ellery studied the picture, a smiling, dapper Hoover, poster boy for the straight white male with his perfectly coiffed trophy wife next to him as they presented the certificate to Valerie Trainor on stage at a luncheon.
And there in the corner of the stage—balder, paunchier, and not smiling—was the man Ellery recognized from his own research that afternoon.
“Prison was not kind to him,” Ellery murmured. The man who had been sentenced to prison had been smoothly handsome, slender, with a high forehead and a rather rakish blue-eyed gaze. The man who had emerged from the crucible was beefier and thicker, from his biceps to his lips, and his bulldog expression did nothing to make him less of a bruiser. His nose had been broken, and a cheekbone as well, and Ellery would make a bet that he was wearing dentures from the small number of teeth the man was showing in lieu of a smile.
“No,” his mother acknowledged. “And….” She frowned. “There’s… something. Something between Gannett Hoover and Conway Schmitt.”
“What’s his name now?” Ellery asked, scanning the article and not finding it before returning the laptop to his mother.
“Newton Dwayne,” she said absently, and Ellery frowned.
“Okay, that’s… that’s weird. That both names are almost the names of old country singers. Conway Twitty, Wayne Newton—”
“Oh Lord,” his mother said, glancing at him sheepishly. “That didn’t even occur to me.”
“You do need some sleep,” he told her kindly, but part of his brain was occupied elsewhere. “What do you mean there’s something between Hoover and Schmitt/Dwayne, whatever.”
“Well, Hoover was a used car salesman,” his mother said. “In Nebraska. But his address was the first address Schmitt listed when he was serving his time as a parolee, which he did for two years before being discharged from the system, when he promptly changed his name and the two of them—plus Hoover’s new wife, Virginia—moved to California.”
Ellery’s eyes went wide. “That’s… well, very organized,” he said. “Also it implies that Gannett Hoover and Conway Schmitt had some prior association before Schmitt went to prison.”
“But Schmitt is at least ten years older than he is,” Taylor muttered. “I keep searching for Gannett Hoover’s family, but I can’t find them , and it appears as though the man has changed his own name, but—Jackson, do you mind?”
Ellery glanced up to see Jackson staring over his mother’s shoulder. “Lucy,” he said, “do we have a criminal profile of Conway Schmitt’s victims?”
Ellery and his mother both stared at the man, who was wearing his own sweats plus the T-shirt from last night and one of his oldest, most raggedy sweatshirts—a Sac State hoodie with frayed sleeves and a frayed hood edging and almost no ribbing left on the hem—that he’d probably put on for comfort.
“You are quieter than the cats,” Ellery’s mother said, sounding stunned, and Ellery thought that she really should go back to bed for a few hours.
“Godzilla is quieter than Lucifer,” Jackson said dryly. “Please God, tell me there’s more coffee in the pot.”
“There should be a whole new fresh pot,” Ellery said, staring at him as—carefully avoiding everybody’s eyes—he made his way to the kitchen to pour himself his own double-sized mug of the stuff. Plus about half a cup of chocolate-caramel-flavored non-dairy creamer that Ellery would be willing to bet could also double as a substitute for formaldehyde.
“Awesome. Lucy Satan, are you looking?”
“For what?” Ellery’s mother said, sounding truly off balance.
Jackson shot her an arch glance. “Sweetheart, you have got to be on your game if you’re putting together puzzles with Ellery. He’ll logic you blind. Now that profile of Conway Schmitt’s victims. I know they’ll have sealed the identity, but do we know what they looked like? What their age range was? When he picked them out? I know they were all choirboys, and probably white, fatherless, vulnerable….” Jackson grimaced. “There’s a definite profile for the boys sexual predators go for, but what’s their age? What’s this scumbag’s specialty?”
“Uhm….” Ellery’s mother scanned through files on her laptop. “Twelve to sixteen,” she said, and then, as though thinking, “Sixteen is a little old for most pedophiles. He prefers his victims….”
“Autonomous,” Jackson said, coming to sit next to Taylor so he could peer over her shoulder. Ellery noticed that he was still carefully avoiding eye contact, and his heart gave a big throb. Jackson was acting as though everything was normal, but he didn’t feel that way. “He wants the illusion that they were giving consent. I would bet,” he murmured, pulling the laptop gently from Ellery’s mother’s fingertips, “I would just bet that… yes. Here we go. His defense was that the boys initiated the affairs. That’s how he phrased it too. Affairs.” Jackson nodded and took a slurp of his coffee. “It fits, right? Books turn kids gay, these kids turned him gay. I would bet that his wife—”
“They divorced,” Ellery said, trying to get some control back over this narrative, which was getting uglier and more convoluted by the heartbeat.
For the first time Jackson met his eyes. “If you believe that, I’ve got some beachfront property in Kansas to sell you,” he said. “She’s in Sacramento , and he’s not far off.” Jackson made a few more clicks on the computer and turned the picture back to Ellery and Taylor. “See this? This happy little function? These people know each other. I would bet—and Lucy Satan, you’ll have to back me up on this because this isn’t my forte and I wouldn’t know where to look—but I would bet this award was cooked up by Gannett Hoover’s campaign staff exclusively for Valerie Trainor’s organization. I would bet it came with a big fat monetary grant—”
“Three million dollars,” Taylor said, proving that she was awake now , although she’d been close to sleep before Jackson had surprised them both.
“Some of that probably does keep that organization running,” Jackson agreed. “But some of that is laundered money. For what? What are they selling that would get them extra cash?”
“Trafficking?” Ellery asked, the word hurting his mouth. They’d worked with traffickers before, and that case had fucked hard with both of them.
“Mmm… no,” Jackson murmured.
“Probably not,” Taylor said at the same time. Jackson nodded to her, and she took the explanation. “From what you both have said, the children were being religiously programmed. This would be a very impractical way to groom trafficked children. While it would make them docile and subservient—to a point—it would also make them resistant to things they’d been told were perversions. And,” she murmured, “more easily broken. If you’ve just been programmed that sex is bad , it doesn’t matter who’s telling you to have it with whom, you’re not going to respond well when forced to do a one-hundred-eighty-degree pivot, particularly when your personhood is being violated again .”
“A bad idea all around,” Jackson agreed. “No. The kids are… well, I don’t know what they are yet. You’ve got the Stepford Dragons, whose mission is to ‘clean up’ local schools and, of course, to spread the word that the alt-right should have control of the minds of young people. And you’ve got the young people themselves, who’ve been conned from parents to be indoctrinated. As gross as it is, this smacks of… of belief somehow. It takes some solid belief to rip a book out of a kindergartner’s hand while you’re telling your own class full of teenagers that they’re going to hell. There is some zealotry here, and it’s gross and disgusting, but at least it’s sincere , you know?”
Ellery and his mother both nodded, staring at him. Ellery was, as always, in a bit of awe of his reasoning, and he could see the same awe in his mother’s eyes.
“What about Gannett Hoover?” Ellery asked, not wanting to interrupt his flow but unable to put it together himself.
“Hoover and Schmitt are something else,” Jackson muttered. “They’re a sort of unholy alliance. They give money to Trainor’s causes, but they’re in it for… well, the money,” Jackson said, sitting up straight. “Quick, Lucy—we know Hoover’s funded by a Super PAC, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “An alt-right one.”
“Do we know anybody else giving his campaign money?” Jackson asked. “Any cause? Is he the NRA’s favorite camper? Big oil? Mineral rights? I mean….” Jackson frowned. “Sonora. Known for wineries, railroad museums—”
“Right-wing documentary films,” Ellery said, having pulled out his own phone.
For the first time, Jackson stared at him in surprise. “Really?”
Ellery shrugged and held up his phone. “Some guy out there making those icky ones, using AI to make rotting old white guys appear virile and potent. You’ve seen them on clickbait, right?”
“Oh my God,” Jackson said, his brain obviously whirling on super-coffee speed. “Okay. Okay. We’re cooking. We need to ask Crystal to check into Hoover’s financials and to see if there’s anything hinky going on with that film company—Russian money laundering, anybody? Or something equally Bond villain, but I’m feeling it.”
Ellery and his mother simply nodded. He knew he felt a little bit like he’d been picked up by a tornado and shaken, hard , but then Jackson’s brainstorms were frequently, well, stormy .
“Okay,” Jackson continued, standing up and pacing. “Good. Good. While Crystal is looking into that, somebody needs to go have a chat with Gannett Hoover to have a gander—”
“I can do that,” Ellery’s mother said smoothly. “Ellery, you come with me. Jackson, what will you be doing?”
Jackson grunted. “Checking out the grounds. Henry and I—”
Everybody stopped. Stopped breathing. Stopped moving. Stopped everything but staring at each other, big-eyed, waiting for that wound to open, waiting to accommodate the near miss, the worry, the fear. There was a collective gulp, and Jackson’s jaw firmed.
“Cody,” he said with a deep breath. “When Cody gets here, he and I will go take a look at the grounds. Scout around the outside. You two scout around the inside. See if you can get a bead on Conway Schmitt or whatever his name is. Because, people, we know the following things.”
He straightened and ticked off on his fingers.
“We know Cowboy witnessed a murder, and the body was taken somewhere. We know Shitbag Retty was taken to the same place—probably a good place to hide a body. There’s a lot of empty property out in Sonora. It fits the bill. We know that the pray-the-gay-away bullshit was not the Stepford Dragon’s primary business. They are getting political money, probably laundering it, but it’s coming from somewhere and going somewhere. We know Gannett Hoover and Conway Schmitty—goddammit, even I am doing it—have been in bed together….”
He stopped, like he’d been hit by a sandbag.
And then Ellery got hit by the same sandbag.
“Oh my God,” Ellery said softly.
“Welp….” Jackson shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor Cramer said. “You lost me on that last one, son.”
Ellery stared at his mother, and she scowled back.
“It happens,” she defended. “What do you mean by that?”