Page 32 of Go First
Kate turned to Roberts.“Recognise the box?”
“It’ll be Wiseguys on Huntley Street.The whole outfit runs on Wiseguys pizza.If we ever had to relocate…” Her words died away, realising that, down to the pizza, nothing was ever going to be the same again.
“Did Harper make enemies?”
Roberts hesitated.“Murray could be abrasive.He held everyone to the same high standards he set for himself.But he wasn’t arrogant.If he was wrong, he apologized.He valued input from everyone, and that wasn’t just words.He believed in doing good at every level.Like, we had a couple of summer interns this year.Just kids.We couldn't pay them, against the law.One kid got a ride in with her Dad every day.Murray found out the other one was having to pay bus fare.So he bought him a pass for the last three weeks.So it was fair.He cared enough to do that, and he didn't do it so that everyone knew.It was on the qt.”
Kate frowned.This account was radically different from what she’d learned from Whitfield’s worshippers, who spoke of him as a saint.This felt more credible, yet...something else.Polished?Prepared?As if Roberts had rehearsed her lines.
It wasn’t a eulogy, though.It lacked the hyperbole of Whitfield’s disciples.The intensity, too.Kate knew she was ghostbusting, as Marcus called it, chasing the non-existent, seeing signs and hints that others pragmatically dismissed.
Before she could press LaRonne further, O’Malley arrived with his finance team, laptops and folders spilling across a table.His eyes landed on Kate, hard and unflinching, and he stalked right over so fast that Kate found herself backing up a few paces.
“O’Malley, what’s bitten you?”Marcus growled.O’Malley didn’t even glance at him.
“You arrested Martinez!”he hissed.“Now I’ll probably have to walk away from the group myself.It’s been made clear that no-one there trusts me now.”
Kate blinked.“Wait—I thought you were pointing me to the group because there might be suspects in it.”
His voice cracked like a whip.“Ridiculous!I wanted you to see the lives ruined by Whitfield.By men like him.To see the damage, the struggle to rebuild.If you’d done that properly, you’d know none of them could’ve killed him.”
Kate swallowed hard.“I’m sorry, O’Malley.You know we have to look at every angle.And Hector’s in the clear now.”
O’Malley didn’t soften.He buried himself in unpacking his box, but his voice carried: “Harper was different, yes.No palace.No hillbilly hokum about the stock market or the power of prayer.No army of concubines answering the phones.But don’t think that makes him clean. Twice, the IRS received a tip-off about him cooking the books.Twice, he came out squeaky.”
Kate arched a brow.“Squeaky clean?”
“No.”O’Malley shook his head.“There are three verdicts in this game: bent, not bent, and bent but we can’t prove it.Harper was definitely the latter.Until now.Maybe.”
Marcus returned with an update.“Pizza was ordered at 11:40.Meat feast, jalapeños, Harper’s regular.But the delivery guy, by the name of Meng Lo, got mugged.Took his bike and the pizza.Had to walk back to the shop and report it.They called Harper at 12:15 and again at 12:25, to explain.No answer.”
“So the killer knew his routine,” Kate said.“Studied it.Planned around it.”
“The CCTV goes back a month,” Marcus added.“We might catch them casing the place.”
Kate nodded.“Do it.”
Winters herself arrived on-site—a rare move.Her presence meant pressure.Religious leaders, politicians, senior cops—all demanded progress.The President’s words echoed like a warning:Strike at a nation’s faith, and you strike at its heart.
Kate squared her shoulders, refusing to let the weight show.
It was O’Malley who finally extended the olive branch.He set aside his spreadsheets.“Harper wanted to know who reported him to the IRS.He found out.Dr Angela Phillips.Former medical missionary, turned anthropologist-activist.”
Kate leaned forward.“And?”
“She said that his orphanages, hospitals, schools—they were mostly smoke and mirrors.A few show homes in La Paz and Lima for visiting donors, a model village in the jungle, with a little school and a clinic.But the majority of people were only marginally better off.Worse, says Phillips, when you take into account what he did to their beliefs.”
“Which was what?”
“They’ve got religions in those places that go back thousands of years.Shamans, nature spirits, gods of the trees, the wind and the waves.Harper’s goons strong-arm them into renouncing the old tribal beliefs and converting to his particular brand of Jesus.Only, it’s not strong-arming, it’s something worse.It’s a deal.Give up your old beliefs and you can have the clinic.You can have the water tap.You can have the school, the new road.That would be bad enough on its own, right?But the schools and the clinics and the roads… they’re mostly not being built.Not at a rate that can keep pace with all the souls he’s converting.But Harper doesn’t care.He’s back home in his studio, telling his affluent, fundamentalist customer-base that he’s brought another hundred, another thousand, ten thousand heathen souls into the light of Christ’s promise, and they’re reaching for the check-book to keep the Good Work going.He’s duping them, too!”
Kate felt the air drain from her lungs.Whitfield had been a con artist.Harper had played savior.Both had deceived millions.
“But I’m guessing it’s hard to prove all of this.”
“Various agencies have been on his case, in one way or another, since 2009.He’s got the money to silence witnesses, pay off officials… he can probably make it rain.”
“What I don’t understand is… well, there are several things I don’t understand.Like – what’s he doing with the money?It was obvious what Whitfield did: he wore it, slept in it, ate it.But Murray Harper… where’s the gargantuan villa?He didn’t even have a half-decent watch.”