Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
He thanked Wade but headed right to where Harry was standing.
Harry handed him some protective gear. “For your boots, and need you to put on some gloves. It’s been processed, but protocol.”
Hutch put on the shoe protectors and gloves then walked into one of the houses on The Lion and The Lamb compound.
He whistled.
It wasn’t big but it had a big flat screen. Game console. Nice carpet. Roomy furniture.
And a mess of someone who packed quick and got the hell out.
“I’ll take you to one of the flock’s houses next,” Harry told him. “But safe to say, Enstrom, Burress and their boys didn’t rough it as much as the rest of the congregation did.”
“How did they hide this shit from the others?” Hutch asked.
“They didn’t,” Harry surprised him by saying. “And you got two different takes on that from the men and the women. The men, it was obvious their leaders would need to remain plugged into the outside world and keep abreast of what was happening. They were devout, but they weren’t Amish. And anyway, Enstrom convinced them the more you turned your back on worldly things and became one with nature and God, the more grace you’d be earning. Though, somehow those men thought he was godly, and didn’t put it together he wasn’t doing the same thing.”
“And the women?”
“Varied. Those two I mentioned who I thought had Stockholm Syndrome actually didn’t. Found out, they, too, were true believers. Head down. Do your work. Take care of your man. Raise your community up. All that shit. The others thought this,”—he threw up a hand—“was just more proof their men were brainless idiots.”
“But those soldiers you talked about lived like this?” Hutch asked.
“The stuff wasn’t as nice, but yeah.”
“How did they explain why those guys had this stuff, and they didn’t?”
“They were unmarried. You only swore off that stuff when you accepted the blessed sanctity of a woman’s hand in marriage. Marriage was the threshold you walked over to start down your righteous path.”
It would never stop surprising Hutch the extent to which people would go just to belong.
Especially if they were conned into thinking they belonged to something important.
“We’re sorting things out,” Harry told him as he motioned Hutch to the door and they both made their way out. “The most recent drama is four of those men experiencing utter heartbreak when they learned the women Enstrom married them to weren’t legally their wives, considering Enstrom wasn’t ordained. Those unions are not valid under the eyes of the law, and as such, they have no claim on their women, who have now all taken their chance to get the fuck out of Dodge. They’re off to the four winds with family having picked them up, hopefully taking them direct to their first session with a therapist.”
Hutch stopped on the way to another house, and Harry stopped with him.
“They’re gone?”
Harry nodded. “They’ll come back to testify. All but the two true believers have left. The believers asked to return to their homes here to await their men who’ve been charged and have no hope of making bail. They’re concerned about the animals. They’re concerned about the garden. They just want to come home.”
Harry looked across the space to where the animals were kept, and Hutch followed his eyes.
He saw instantly the coop and the pigsty had no activity.
“You rehome them?” Hutch asked.
Harry nodded. “They were moved out on Monday.”
“Those women coming back here?” Hutch asked.
Harry shook his head, and Hutch saw then why he was so good at his job.
This whole thing was dicked up, but he felt compassion for those women who’d swallowed a lie.
More of the fallout of Enstrom’s bullshit, because Hutch couldn’t understand being a follower to that extent.
But he did know that those women learning they could never go “home,” and further, that home was never really their home, still had to be heartbreaking.
“As they don’t own these properties, and it’s now up for serious debate who does, I was obliged to say no. They’re currently over at the shelter in Colby. Their husbands are being charged with trespass, lumber poaching and unlawful imprisonment, because, even if their wives wanted to be here, they were actively involved in keeping all the women here. But again, unless they can get their families to step up for them, which so far they haven’t, they’re so horrified by what those men were involved in, those men are gonna stay in jail awhile. They have no money. They all have no money.” Harry looked to Hutch. “Before they were accepted into the community, they turned it over to Enstrom.”
“Jesus,” Hutch said through clenched teeth, hoping they found that guy and soon. He was a massive dick.
“Yeah,” Harry agreed.
Hutch started them walking again. “How’s that all playing out?”
“The drama before this latest one was it dawning on all those men they’d been conned. Enstrom and Burress deserting them. Us finding the drugs. They were so openly upset and disturbed by that, I decided to set up a suicide watch.”