“Nah, forget it, we’re actually breaking and entering here, Katie. Hang on just a second. What’s this?” Sherlock pulled two tie racks aside. She found a button and pushed it. A cabinet opened up. It was deep, maybe five feet high. On the left, there was an array of whips, artistically displayed. Next came a block of wood topped with thick fur, a netful of small silver balls, nearly a dozen dildoes of different sizes, shapes, and colors.

Near the top of the cabinet was a wide shelf with at least a dozen vials neatly lined up on it. “Illegal drugs?” Katie said, reaching for one. “If so, maybe I can figure out how to get a warrant.” She read the label. “Tears.”

“Tears? What could that be?” Sherlock reached out for the vial. She unfastened the round top and sniffed the liquid. “Phew!” Immediately she started to tear up. She swiped her fingers across her eyes. “It makes tears all right, Katie. Essence of onion?”

“Probably, but for what?”

“Well, maybe if she’s not crying enough while she’s being whipped, he gives her a whiff of this.” She refastened the cap and set the vial back on the shelf. She picked up another. “Look at this one. Of all things it’s called Man’s Instrument. I guess that says it all.”

Katie opened the lid and sniffed. “I wonder if a guy drinks it or rubs it on.”

Sherlock said, “Probably drinks it. Here’s one called Woman’s Gift. Pills, big red pills. I wonder what they’re for?”

“Maybe these pills assist the Man’s Instrument?”

“Viagra?”

“Could be.”

Katie said. “Well, it looks like there’s more to this than I’d ever imagined. Nothing illegal, though.”

“Even if we’d found a ton of cocaine, we couldn’t arrest him for it. Let’s go, Katie. I’d just as soon not be caught here by either the reverend or his wife.”

“There’s a thought that makes me shudder.”

Sherlock said as she closed the cabinet doors and rearranged the tie racks, “I guess everybody has their own version of hair rollers.”

They checked the third floor—former servants’ quarters, what looked like an old schoolroom, and an unfinished attic, filled with enough old stuff for a garage sale, but no Clancy.

As they let themselves out the back door, Katie said, “Whatever I saw in that window, I guess it wasn’t Clancy. I was just hoping for a sign of him, anything.”

“I know. I wonder what you did see.”

Katie shrugged. “Thanks for breaking the law with me, Sherlock.”

“No problem. Let’s just keep it between the two of us.”

They were back in Katie’s truck and in the McCamy driveway a good ten minutes before they saw Sooner and his wife drive up in their white Lincoln Town Car.

Sherlock said, “You’ll note that the car’s white, not black.”

“These people,” Katie said slowly, “aren’t exactly your garden-variety preacher and spouse.”

“You’re right about that. Savich isn’t going to believe this.”

“I hope he doesn’t laugh so hard he bursts his stitches. Okay, you up for a chat with Reverend McCamy and his sex slave?”

16

Sherlock was fully prepared to greet Rasputin. She wasn’t far off, except that Rasputin had been ill-kempt with long black matted hair, and evidently didn’t bathe often. Reverend Sooner McCamy was dark, those eyes of his nearly black, as a matter of fact. He was charming, if on the aloof side, and that was a surprise to Sherlock. He made eye contact, shook her hand firmly. He was courteous, offering coffee and some cheesecake his wife had made that morning, before church. But somehow he just didn’t seem to be quite all there with them. He was away somewhere, in his head. And what was he thinking? He had a smooth deep voice—charismatic, that voice, it compelled you to listen. It was hypnotic, almost, and after hearing him speak for a few minutes, Sherlock understood his power over people.

This man appeared to have boiled himself down to the very essence of what a man of God should be. He frightened her for the simple reason that she could imagine some people hanging on his every word, maybe doing things they wouldn’t normally do. Or maybe he gave them permission to do things they shouldn’t want to do. Did disobedient wives listen to that voice and jump back on the straight and narrow?

Or was she over the top here? Sherlock didn’t know. But he sure didn’t seem like a man who would open any of those vials and apply the contents to either his wife or himself. He didn’t look like a man who would whip his wife with one of those riding crops with their beautifully braided handles. If he was a Rasputin, if he was evil on the inside, he kept it hidden real deep. Sherlock had to remind herself that there were more layers to people than you could ever guess.