The Bone Field by Debra Bokur (top e book reader txt) 📕

botched knee surgery wasn’t botched at all—rather, it was proof that God didn’t want the young soccer player to play college-level sports, and had prevented the surgery from being successful in order to prevent a future that he wasn’t meant to have.

“I’ve heard that a lot of successful surgeons come with—or develop—a kind of God complex.” She thought for a moment. “I think if I had to have major surgery, I’d want the doctor with the scalpel to be as confident as humanly possible.”

“Yes, but maybe not crazy with power,” said Walter.

“I guess a name change helped create distance from his sports surgeon identity and any negative publicity surrounding what happened.”

“That,” agreed Walter, “plus the Biblical name fed into his project here. In fact, all members of the commune adopted the last name ‘Waters,’ and many of them, like Waterson, made it a legally recognized change.”

Kali pondered the information Walter had gathered. “So, tell me how a successful surgeon parlays his skills into running a commune?”

“Easy. As we know now, Waterson was pretty religious already. His daughter’s named for someone from the Old Testament, and he was very active in a number of Christian groups connected to his church. He had plenty of well-heeled friends who lined up to donate money after he pitched the idea of establishing a Christian wellness retreat on Lna‘i. Bobby says that for a while it even became a haven for wealthy creative types—musicians, actors, artists—flying under the public radar for a little rest and rejuvenation. For a while, Waters kept the religious aspects very subtle, and offered things like meditation and healthy cooking courses for guests, along with evening seminars on how to achieve goals. Life coach stuff. Hard to say when the shift occurred into cult and commune, but gradually that’s what it morphed into. He kept it small, and maybe that was a deliberate ploy to keep from attracting national attention.”

“Where’s this guy now?” she asked.

“No one’s quite sure. Bobby says he and his followers annoyed and/or offended too many people on Lna‘i and got run out of town.”

“Before or after Greene went missing?”

“Not until a few years later.”

Kali was silent, considering all that Walter had just shared.

“I still don’t see a strong connection between all of these things,” she finally said. “Did Waters have some connection to the Shandling pineapple operations?”

“No record of that, but his daughter had an after-school job there for a while, before the commune was good-sized. She was pretty young. She was thirteen when the Shandling company closed up shop. Bobby says he thinks Waters planted her there to entice people to check out the retreat—so it’s likely that at least a few people who lived at Eden’s River over the years had jobs connected to pineapple production.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs. She felt agitated, and wasn’t exactly sure why.

“By establishing it as a church, Waterson was able to stay tax-exempt, and all those donations from visitors and residents added up. There’s no official estimate about other valuables that may have been given to the organization, like jewelry or art. He also ran a Bible-based school attended by his kid and a few of the children of commune members.”

“Was the proselytization just about lending credence to the church claims?”

Walter laughed. “Probably didn’t hurt the image, but Bobby told me the funny thing is, the members really bought into the agenda. He said they could be annoying as hell spreading their message, and that the locals didn’t like the whispers about Abraham’s policy of sexual freedom, but that they also did a fair amount of good. Donated tons of food to the local food bank, helped some of the older local citizens run errands and do yard work.”

“What went wrong?”

She could hear the grimace in his voice as he answered.

“Seems like too much free love comes with a price. There were a lot of younger women that became followers. The doctor was quite a looker. Movie-star handsome. Some of them joined up after leaving behind concerned parents or pissed-off husbands. Several of those people made the trek to Lna‘i to entice their loved ones home, and things got ugly. Police had to be called to break up fights and shouting matches.”

She looked at her phone, pulling up the photo that Walter had sent of Abraham Waters. She estimated that it had been taken when he was in his late forties. He was classically handsome, and she wasn’t surprised that he found it easy to influence women. “Okay. So it all goes belly-up on Lna‘i, and Waters moves his operation elsewhere, but keeps it on the down-low.”

“No proof of that, but that’s what I’m betting on.” He sighed. “I guess you could say not enough went wrong to keep him from carrying on. Nothing, at least, that smacked of a potential Heaven’s Gate or Jonestown.”

“Can you find him?”

“Looking for him right now. Hara’s got a short list of past members; it shouldn’t take long to find a trail.” He yawned. “You coming back tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I’m going to check in with the search crew in the morning just in case there’s anything else to see, then head for the harbor.”

“Roger that. Get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 12

It was late afternoon the next day by the time Kali arrived back at the harbor on Maui. She was completely drained. There had been an exhaustive search of the remaining fields. The discovery of the trio of skeletons had galvanized the crews, and extra help had been brought over from O‘ahu and Maui, including Hara, who had been given the task of keeping the public at a distance from the field. Tomas had gathered additional trusted volunteers from the community, and an intensive search had commenced. Nothing more had been found.

Her last night at the hotel had been marred by disturbing dreams: a pineapple field filled with upright corpses instead of pineapple plants, each one faceless, each