Page 35 of Go First
“You kidding?”Mike shot back.“That bullpen’s solid.Just you wait.”
Kate leaned in the doorway, astonished.The tension she’d braced for was nowhere.Instead, the two men were laughing like old friends, trading jabs, the wreck of the evening forgotten.There was booze in the refrigerator, a cassoulet in the oven, a game on the tv…
She smiled to herself.Things rarely went the way she expected.Sometimes, they turned out better.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The State University of Maine campus had that particular stillness that seemed to fall over American colleges on a weekend: wide brick paths lined with bare trees, a few of the most dedicated students trickling past with library books, and the faint hum of a lone lawnmower working over the quad.Kate thought it looked almost too peaceful, too collegiate, as if the violence they were investigating belonged to another universe altogether.And yet here they were, walking up the worn stone steps of the Anthropology Department, their FBI badges tucked away in pockets, already braced for whatever Angela Phillips might throw at them.
Inside, the building smelled of dust and chalk and polish.Old pipes clanged somewhere behind the plaster walls.The security guard—who looked more like a distracted professor herself—barely looked up when Marcus introduced himself and Kate, only lifted a finger towards the far end of the corridor.“Dr.Phillips.Office 217.”
Her voice carried a mix of respect and irritation, as if the Doctor was a faculty member admired and resented in equal measure.
The office was bigger than Kate had expected, though the size was explained almost immediately: four desks, four battered chairs, four professors clearly condemned to share.Only Angela Phillips was working on a Sunday.
She stood at the far window, wiry frame outlined against the glass, gray-streaked hair pulled into a loose bun, sharp glasses perched low on her nose.She turned as they approached, and there was something hawklike in the way her eyes fixed on them—alert, sharp, unblinking.
“Special Agents,” she said, before they even introduced themselves.Her voice was low, clipped, with the faintest trace of the South in it.“I wondered how long it would take you.”
“Dr.Phillips,” Kate said, extending a hand.“We appreciate you making time for us.”
As they sat, Marcus gestured with his eyes to a connecting door at the back, ajar with a nameplate just visible.Dr Philips PRIVATE.So she had her own little office, Kate noted.But she was meeting them out here.What was that about?
Phillips took her chair, folding her hands neatly on the desk.
“You’re here about Whitfield and Harper,” she said flatly.“Both dead now.Not weeping into my pillow about it, I’m afraid.”
It was disarming, the bluntness.Kate let it hang for a moment.“You knew them?”
“I knewaboutthem.You can hardly work in the field I used to work in without crossing their shadows.”
“What field is that, exactly?”
“I provided medical care attached to mission hospitals in Africa and Latin America.Rudimentary stuff – childbirth, childhood illnesses and nutrition, treating infections, minor surgical procedures.”
Kate and Marcus exchanged a glance.The killer knew surgery.If Phillips noticed their heightened curiosity, she gave no sign.
“It felt like running through quicksand.I’m trying to save lives with my limited box of scientific tricks.Men like Whitfield and Harper were destroying them with lies and stories.I buried more than one soul in Africa who died believing that God would heal them if they just donated more money.Meanwhile, Whitfield was buying his fourteenth sports car.”
She said it like an indictment, each word clipped, surgical.
“You wrote about them,” Marcus said, casually leaning against a bookshelf.“Letters toEvangelical ReviewandPulpit, pieces on late-night cable, that kind of thing.”
Phillips’s mouth twitched.“I did.When the shepherds are wolves, someone has to warn the flock.Of course, it cost me.I was accused of bitterness, of jealousy, of betraying the very faith I’d given my life to.So I left the mission field, came back to teach.Anthropology is cleaner.Humans lie, but at least we study the lies.”
Kate nodded slowly.“You seem to know a lot about Whitfield and Harper’s practices.”
“I do,” Phillips said.Her gaze sharpened, as if she was testing whether they would understand.“I’ve spent years documenting it all.Interviewing the families who sold their homes to pay into Whitfield’s Prosperity Funds.Trying to prove the coercion Harper subjected indigenous communities to.But that pair of crooks, they represented just a corner of something much, much bigger.Girls pressured into relationships under the guise of spiritual mentorship.Gentle boys and young men sent to ‘sexuality conversion’ camps and nearly broken.Women groped under the excuse of healing.You think this is just about money?It’s not.It’s about men wielding immense power.And power always corrupts.”
The room felt smaller with each word, the radiator ticking softly beneath her voice.
Kate noticed a mock-up of a book cover amongst the papers on the desk.
“You’re writing a book?”
“Yes, and certainly not for the money,” Phillips said, with a wry smile.“It’s about the entire faith industry.Not just Whitfield and Harper—though they’ll get plenty of inches—but the whole edifice.The men who stand up and call themselves prophets while fleecing or abusing or terrorizing the weak.I have names, dates, accounts, sworn statements.When it’s done, I estimate a good thirty percent of religious leaders will be having sleepless nights.
Marcus gave a low whistle.“Sounds like a bestseller.Or a lawsuit magnet.”