Chapter 24 Mutiny #2
Left, security ID from a hospital of maybe a doctor or nurse.
Right, the woman he’d seen chat with and kiss Burress on the compound.
Again, same woman.
“Samantha Schrier. Midwife at a hospital in Seattle,” Harry said.
“Or she was. One who fortunately had an outstanding traffic ticket. So I got on the line with them, told them what we got going here, and asked them to head out on the routine administrative task of reminding Ms. Schrier she needed to handle her ticket.”
Hutch wondered if cops spent time on such routine administrative tasks, and maybe they did.
But it wasn’t priority.
“They go visit her parents,” Harry kept on.
“And those parents don’t ask questions as to why the cops are asking them about their adult daughter’s ticket.
They immediately hurl ample attitude. Not aimed at our boys, aimed at their Sammy.
Apparently, also about five, six years ago, she ran off with her boyfriend.
A man they did not like or trust. He had a good job, but they thought he was shady.
They warned her against him, repeatedly.
There were fights. And they reported to the cops they had no idea where she was, they hadn’t heard from her since she left, and they weren’t surprised, considering they had a helluva fight about her going.
Told the cops Sammy could hold a grudge.
But it seems all the Schriers can hold grudges, because those boys told me her parents shared they didn’t give much of a shit she dropped off the face of the earth.
She deserves what she gets for being stupid. ”
“And the guy with the good job is Heath Burress,” Hutch said.
“Yep,” Harry confirmed.
“Any connection to Enstrom, outside the business with the will?” Hutch asked.
“Yep,” Harry said. “Attorney on record for some scrape Enstrom got into in Seattle. Supposed misunderstanding about a tab at a bar. Burress got him off.”
“So if Buress is in this mess, I know he’s a licensed attorney, but does he also have a record?” Hutch asked.
“Nope,” Harry answered. “But cops have occasion to know the attorneys in town, sometimes well, and I asked. He’s known as an avid outdoorsman to the point he’s an adrenaline junkie. Ziplining, canyoning, white water rafting, paragliding, backslope skiing. Whatever brings a rush, he’ll do it.”
Hutch had no idea why this was important, so he looked to Cade to see if he’d figured out this mess.
“You got a take?” he asked.
Cade turned to Harry. “Bring up the boys.”
A change on Harry’s screen, and then there was a photo lineup of all the men at the compound. Not with beards and long hair, but with conventional head and facial hair styles.
“One glance, you see three things immediately,” Cade started. “They’re all white. They’re all young, late twenties to late thirties. And they’re all more than conventionally good-looking.”
Hutch didn’t know what to think about this, but he didn’t like where his thoughts were going.
“Enstrom has a recruitment tactic,” Cade said. “With specific qualifications.”
Hutch still didn’t know what to think of this.
“I don’t have a lot to go on,” Cade continued. “They worked hard at that. But what I do have makes me think they felled those trees. And at least some of them did it just for shits and grins. The thrill. Because Lars Enstrom and Heath Burress pathologically get off on the thrill.”
Cade sat back in his chair and kept talking.
“At least for Enstrom, he also gets off on control. He’s about as religious as George Carlin.
Three takes on the way that compound presents.
The first, it’s a diversionary tactic learned from being born Amish.
They’re a protected community. People understand and the majority respect their way of life and their right to live it.
It’s a big ‘don’t look here, we’re calm, peaceable people who serve God and live off the land.
’ And their choice of location, rural Washington, is not by accident.
They wanted to be around people who revere privacy, and don’t like folks poking their nose into things.
Primarily, the government. But they do like folks who think the same way they do. ”
“The second?” Hutch asked.
“The second, he’s just falling back on what he knows. And the last goes back to control. He’s built his own little fiefdom. The younger, more attractive men he targets can first, attract women, and second, provide a bigger rush to Enstrom that he’s maneuvered them under his thumb.”
It was beginning to piece together.
Cade kept on.
“Once he gets them, then it’s, ‘You live how I tell you to live.’ Deprivation is often used in torture, definitely a part of indoctrination and mildly used in interrogation.
All are other versions of one person exerting control over another.
Withhold access to water. Curtail bathroom breaks.
Isolate someone in a room. Then reward. Police can and do use all of these tactics with suspects.
” Cade paused, “But if I had to place a bet, for Enstrom, the way that place is set up involves all three of these.”
“And what they have going on there?” Hutch asked.
Cade looked to Harry again. “Can you pull up the diagram of the compound, Harry?”
A few clicks of the mouse, and a well-drawn map of the basics of the compound came on screen.
Jesus.
Irrefutable proof that Harry and Rus had not been sitting on their hands.
Cade leaned in and said, “What’s gonna interest you is gonna be here,”—he tapped a finger on the fortified shed at the southeast property—“or here.” Another tap on the pole barn.
Cade sat back. “As you know, Flannery’s money, nor those people’s jam, built that outfit.
I’d surmise that the deputies Harry sent out will definitely find some landowners have discovered there’s been illegal logging on their land.
But it’ll amount to what built the totality of that fence, and the firewood that warms their homes.
That isn’t their game. It’s a rush, but not a big enough one.
Their game is either warehousing drugs coming up from Mexico meant for Canada, and/or the same coming through Canada meant for the US.
Or it could be guns. It won’t be human trafficking because that’s harder to hide and a whole lot messier.
But whatever it is, it’ll be lucrative and illegal. ”
“So what the fuck is he doing with those other women?” Hutch asked.
“Again, a theory, but I don’t think you’ll find any of them have been reported missing.
Enstrom and Buress started a pattern. Those women were either girlfriends, fiancées or wives of the other men.
Another facet of control, playing puppet master.
He controls the men in a way he teaches them, grooms them, and they in turn control their women.
Those women either got talked into it, or conned into it, but in the end, had no real idea what they were getting into. The needles and dirt on those stumps?”
Hutch nodded.
“And Enstrom going to Lug to follow up,” Cade carried on.
“The pie and bread selling. Everything is built around covering their tracks. Gives him space to do whatever he wants. But people look for missing women. Many of them go unfound. Most of those are dead. Live ones are harder to hide. Onward from that, those women might be coerced, or straight up forced, to write, or even call their families to check in, keep in touch, this sharing they’re okay. ”
“So at the very least, they’re holding them against their will,” Hutch said.
“From the pictures you took, outside Taylor and Sammy, those women don’t want to be there.
But they’re walled in. You’re a SEAL, and I’d bet, if you had no gear, you’d struggle with climbing a tarred log fence.
That fence wasn’t only built to hide what’s going on inside, it’s built to keep what’s inside right where they want them. ”
“The front part of that fence is open, Cade,” Hutch pointed out.
“And I’ll bet, it’s also guarded,” Cade replied.
Hutch took that in, then stated, “So they may be making a lot of money and still living relatively rough. I don’t get it.”
“Can I?” Cade asked Harry, indicating Harry’s mouse with a nod of his head.
Harry shifted it over to him.
Cade took control and started clicking through pictures Hutch had taken.
Since Hutch had taken them, he’d seen them all before. They were all of men strolling or chatting.
Cade again sat back. “You didn’t notice, and I don’t blame you. I didn’t pick up on it at first either.”
“And neither did Harry or I,” Rus added.
Back to Cade. “But although you have photos of Enstrom and Burress, they’re either alone or together. None of the other men were snapped standing around talking to those two. Have you noticed any interactions like that?”
Hutch had to think on it and said, “Can’t be sure. But if I saw it, I snapped it. So if it isn’t there, good bet it wasn’t to be had.”
“Right,” Cade replied. “So another theory, the rest of the men are true believers. Enstrom, maybe with Burress as his wingmen, fed them a line. The others are on that compound to serve God and live off the land. They might have been convinced, or brainwashed, into essentially kidnapping and imprisoning their women in their community. But this wouldn’t be hard.
Men who can be that deeply led will want to believe, as to what they think is a man, they have some form of power and control.
And usually, those types of men turn to women to exert their power and control.
She wants to go, you’re the man. You know what’s right.
She stays. She’s a woman, she doesn’t know what’s good for her. But you do.”
Hutch hated it, but he knew this was true and therefore possible.
Cade had more.