Bad Faith

12

“He’ll see you now,” Brother Frank announced as he entered the chapel where David Ellis sat looking at the plain gold cross behind the lectern, wondering what Jesus would say about the Reverend Westlund and his End of Days Reformation Church of Jesus Christ Resurrected. David stood and started to walk past the bodyguard but was stopped by the other man’s hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll need to pat you down,” Frank Bernsen said. He was smiling but his eyes were anything but friendly.

“Why?” David asked sarcastically. “Surely no one would want to shoot the Reverend Westlund, or whatever his name is today.”

Bernsen cocked his head and the smile disappeared. “There have been some threats. Nutcases who resent Brother John speaking out for you and your wife. Don’t take it personally; everybody gets the same treatment.”

“I do take it personally,” David retorted, but he held his arms out to his sides and allowed himself to be frisked.

“Go ahead,” Bernsen said when he’d finished. “You know the way.”

Unfortunately, he’s right, David thought as he walked to the elevator that would take him up to Westlund’s third-floor loft. He and Nonie had been in the building many times since moving to New York City; now he regretted it.

Several months after meeting Westlund, David had been offered a good job with his former company. He’d been thrilled, except that it meant relocating to Manhattan. It wasn’t that he minded the move so much-in fact, he would have been happy to leave Memphis and the reverend behind-but he knew that Nonie was going to balk at going.

And he was right. She adamantly refused and said she would stay behind “until Micah is completely cured.” But he knew it wasn’t just about Micah, who seemed to be improving by the week. She’d thrown herself into her renewed faith and her work for the church-visiting the sick with Westlund or sometimes with other mothers, like Sarah, who had seriously ill children who’d been “cured by God”; attending prayer meetings; and even soliciting “donations” on the street. She was so completely in thrall to Westlund that the first nagging doubts about her marital faithfulness entered his mind. He’d seen the way Westlund looked at his wife, tracing her body with his eyes, though he seemed to have an innate sense of when to pretend that he was merely thinking when he felt David watching him. He wondered if Nonie looked at the preacher in the same way when David wasn’t around.

Yet he loved his wife and knew that if push came to shove, he’d stay in Memphis. But then he’d received support from where he least expected it. After hearing of the job offer, Westlund had told Nonie that it was her duty as a Christian wife to support her husband and go with him to New York. She reluctantly agreed, though her mood turned sour and she was often tearful, until the evening a week later when she came home from a prayer meeting and happily announced that the preacher had decided to relocate to New York City, too.

As she explained it, Westlund had “prayed on it” and decided that he could reach more sinners in the big city than he could in Memphis. “And he’s become so attached to us that he doesn’t want to lose contact,” she said, beaming.

“Praise the Lord,” he replied less than enthusiastically, but she didn’t notice.

Shortly before they were due to leave, Westlund sat them down in their living room to “ask a favor.” He said he’d been receiving death threats-he wasn’t sure of the source but suspected either members of “apostate” churches “or maybe the medical community,” which he said saw him “as a threat to their ill-gotten gains.” So, he said, he was leaving not just Memphis, but his name and the name of his church behind.

“I fear that if they can find me, they will carry out their evil agendas,” he lamented. “It came to me in a dream that I shall now be known as the Reverend C. G. Westlund of the End of Days Reformation Church of Jesus Christ Resurrected. I trust that you, my dearest friends, will understand my reasons and guard them.”

The Ellises had moved and Westlund followed a couple of weeks later, staying with the young family in the tiny apartment on West 88th Street until he could find accommodations, which turned out to be the loft on Avenue A and 6th Street in the East Village. The building was owned by a widow named Kathryn Boole, whom Nonie had befriended one day in Union Square Park. Boole was feeding the pigeons and kept wiping at her eyes until Nonie realized the woman was crying. A gentle soul, Nonie walked over to a nearby coffeeshop and bought two cups-one for herself and one for Boole.

Grateful for the act of kindness, Boole told Nonie that she’d recently lost her husband of twenty years to an illness and that she saw little point in going on herself. Nonie shared her story and the “miracle” of Micah’s recovery, which had continued unabated when they moved to New York.

Nonie introduced Boole to Westlund, who shook his head and lamented that they had not met when her husband was still alive “so that he might have been healed through the power of prayer.” Boole quickly fell under his spell and was soon convinced that the physicians who attended her husband had all but killed him. Before too long, she was even more obsessed with Westlund than even Nonie and seemed to go beyond just reliance on his spiritual guidance. He noticed that she cleaned up, started wearing makeup, and dyed her hair a sort of burnt orange.

As it turned out, Boole’s husband had been a moderately wealthy businessman who dabbled in Manhattan real estate, including the building on Avenue A, an old warehouse that had been converted into a furniture store on the bottom level; the next floor was office space, and the top floor was reserved for a large, three-bedroom loft. While Boole was obviously taken with the preacher, it still came as a surprise when Westlund announced at the beginning of a prayer meeting that the church would be relocating to the Avenue A building. “Our dear Sister Kathryn has been moved by the Lord to offer the building to house our ministry as well as our bodies,” he proclaimed with tears rolling down his ruddy cheeks.

As Westlund went on to effusively praise Boole, David glanced over at the woman. She was blushing wildly at each word of praise. But there was something else. A hunger in her eyes for the preacher. The woman never missed a prayer meeting or a chance to “work the streets” with Westlund.

When Micah became sick again, she’d been the loudest and most invested of those praying. And after his death, she was always at the forefront of the protests against the district attorney. David didn’t like the woman, and yet he felt responsible for her falling into Westlund’s hands because of his wife. It was Nonie who had filled a grieving widow’s broken heart with the “miracle” of Micah’s recovery. But they had both vouched for the preacher’s character; at the time, even David had been won over by his son’s apparent health and wife’s happiness.

We opened the door and let the serpent into Kathryn’s soul, he thought as he rode the elevator up.

David arrived on the third floor and knocked on the door of the loft. There was an electronic buzz and metallic clicking followed by Westlund’s deep voice from within. “Come in, and may the Lord bless you.”

Entering the loft, David was again struck by the opulence of the decor. He was no furnishings expert but he knew expensive when he saw it. He had often wondered if the place was already furnished when Westlund moved in or whether the preacher was living high on the hog off of Boole and donations. And life insurance policies taken out on dying children, he reminded himself angrily.

A policy clearly signed by your wife, who allowed Westlund to forge your signature, said a mean little voice, interrupting his thoughts.

Yes, signed by my wife and Westlund … how do I live with that?

Westlund was rising from a leather chair, a wolfish smile plastered on his face and his arms outstretched as if to embrace David. “Welcome, brother,” the preacher said warmly. “This is an unexpected surprise.”

David stopped with enough distance between them to avoid being hugged. “Where’s my wife?” he demanded.

Westlund’s smile remained on his face but now it more closely resembled a smirk. “She’s not here, brother,” he said calmly. “Did you expect to find her? I don’t believe we had an appointment. Have you checked for her at home?”

“She’s not home,” David spat. He looked behind Westlund toward the bedroom door, which he saw was partly ajar, and tried to move toward it.

Westlund stepped into his path. “I’m sorry, Brother David, but I can’t allow this intrusion into my privacy.”

David attempted to go around the bigger man but was grabbed by the arm. “Nonie!” he yelled. “Nonie, come out!” He tore his arm out of Westlund’s grasp.

“What’s this about?” Westlund demanded.

“What is it about?” David said, stepping back, his lip curling into a sneer. “It’s about you using people’s pain and suffering to worm your way into their lives. It’s about destroying people’s faith. And it’s about this, you son of a bitch.” He pulled the crumpled letter from the insurance company from his jacket pocket and waved it in Westlund’s face.

Westlund looked at the letter, his face growing dark. He was well aware that without medical attention, the children he prayed over would probably die, but that was part of the plan.

When talking to parents of seriously ill children like the Ellises, he always emphasized that only God decided who lived, who died, and when-“Not physicians, who play at God; not even humble servants of the Lord such as myself,” he told them. “However, we believe that if we place our complete and undivided faith in God, we can pray for Him to spare the lives of our loved ones.”

To cover his bases, he cautioned the parents that no amount of praying would save their children. “God teaches through suffering as well,” he warned them, “and if He calls your sweet angel home, in spite of our best efforts, we must accept His will. But you may still be comforted to know that your expression of faith will assure your child a place at Jesus’ table, where you’ll see him again someday.”

Then, if and when the moment was right, he would mention that in the “unfathomable” event of their child’s death, some earthly good could come from their suffering. He hated to ask, he’d say, but if he was going to reach his full potential as a “warrior for the faith” it would take money, and one way to support his work would be for the family to take out a life insurance policy naming the church and himself as the beneficiaries.

It was a carefully constructed grift. He knew that the parents would have to submit to a medical examination, as well as a review of their medical records, but as predominantly young, healthy couples, most would pass easily. However, he was also aware that insurance companies rarely checked on the children attached to their parents’ policies as “riders.” He did emphasize that when the insurance underwriters contacted them regarding their child’s prior medical history they should deny any problems.

“It’s not a lie, it’s a question of faith,” he would explain. “We believe that the cause and cure of any illness is a matter between God and the patient. As true believers we do not accept the word of physicians; to do so would be to place the faith we owe to the Lord in the hands of men who play at being God. Therefore we reject their test results and diagnoses as little more than witchcraft. The truth is that God decides which of their patients live or die.”

When some parents questioned whether insurance companies might find their children’s medical records at the Children’s Hospital, where they were treated, Westlund assured them that God would take care of the problem as long as they believed.

As an experienced con man, he knew that no grift was perfect; there was always a chance for a mistake. But he thought that as much as possible he had all the angles covered. Even if the parents didn’t have the money to pay the premiums, he paid for them “from donations.” He’d suggest different insurance companies to avoid suspicion and kept the benefits low-typically $250,000-so that the companies would be inclined to write it off rather than investigate and attempt to get the money back, even if they did suspect larceny.

Of course, it meant Westlund turning a blind eye to a child experiencing a slow, usually painful death with nothing more to alleviate their suffering-because “the church” did not believe in painkillers-than a room full of fellow believers, some of them hired for the part, praying like nobody’s business.

It’s not like I gave them cancer, Westlund thought with a shrug on the rare occasion he reflected on what he was doing. If these rubes believe that God can save their brats, then they can blame God for letting them die. The kids are good as dead anyway, I’m just taking advantage of the inevitable. In fact, I provide a service by offering a few months of hope that little Johnny will live to be a high school graduate, and when he doesn’t, that they’ll all meet “on the other side.” Hell, they should pay me for that alone.

A couple of times, the kid did survive due to either a great response to the first chemo treatment, or what the doctors labeled “spontaneous remission.” Such events were always a disappointment in that there would be no insurance payoff, but he learned to use even that to his advantage. He’d take credit for the “miracle” and the grateful parents, who would be convinced that his intercession with God was responsible for their child’s survival, would happily donate significant amounts to his ministry. And it was good advertising, with the happy parents unwittingly helping him con other parents with their home visits and testimonials.

Westlund had to be careful not to press too hard. He didn’t need any suddenly suspicious parents going to the cops or telling the doctors at the hospital about him. As with the Ellises, one parent or the other was often more skeptical about his motives; sometimes both scowled when he got around to donations to the ministry and the life insurance policy. If they balked, he immediately backed off and waited for them to come back to him, often having decided to go along with the plan because they felt guilty about not supporting him. But as his ability to pick the right marks increased over time, he had less to worry about.

The South in general had been a lucrative place to do business with the prevalence of Pentecostal and other churches that believed in faith healing. But all good things must come to an end, and an experienced con man like Westlund knew that the longer he worked an area, the greater the chance that he’d slip up and get caught. And it had finally happened in Memphis.

Nonie Ellis wasn’t the first mother of a critically ill child he’d talked into taking out a life insurance policy without her husband’s knowledge and with Westlund forging the signature. In the other case, the woman’s husband had balked and she’d come to him with tears in her eyes and desperation in her voice. One of the side benefits of his profession was that the women were often young and some, like this woman and Nonie, quite pretty. They were also vulnerable to a holy man full of assurances that all would be okay, which their husbands could not compete with. He’d give them a shoulder to cry on, and often as not he’d get them into bed, explaining that it was all part of God’s compassion for them in their hour of need.

In the previous case, the woman had fallen in love, as they often did when he turned on the charm, but he was surprised when she announced that she’d decided to leave her husband to become her minister’s wife. Doctor of Divinity John LaFontaine had scrambled to “admit” that he was in the process of divorcing his wife-“a harlot” who had cheated on him repeatedly-and until the paperwork was final, they’d have to remain “secret lovers in Christ.”

The woman had been satisfied to wait, but now her husband had refused to take out an insurance policy and sign over the benefits to Westlund. She was worried that Westlund would leave her and stop praying over her terminally ill daughter because of her husband’s “selfishness.” Westlund told her that she didn’t have to worry-that he loved her and her child and wouldn’t leave either of them. But his visits to the home became noticeably less frequent and his lovemaking rushed and lacking his old passion. Then one day, she’d come to him with “an idea to help Jesus”-she’d take out the insurance policy and Brother Frank could play her husband when the insurance medical examiner came by the house.

At first, he “resisted” her plan, saying he didn’t want her to go against her husband’s wishes. Then, after an afternoon of lovemaking, he relented “because the money goes for the greater good, God’s work, and that isn’t a sin.”

His frequent prayer visits to the house had resumed, as did his ardor in bed. Then the woman’s daughter died, normally a time when he expected the woman would turn to him for comfort. But rather than leaning on him, after signing over the insurance check she instead became overwhelmed with guilt and told her husband about the affair and the insurance scam.

A large redneck, the husband then made two mistakes. He should have gone to the police, but instead he dropped by Westlund’s house one evening to demand the money back for his silence. “And it’ll keep me from putting a load of buckshot in your ass for taking advantage of my wife, you sorry piece of crap,” he added.

The second mistake the man made was not looking out for trouble the next night when he went to take out the trash. He was a big man, a tough man, but he was no match for three other large men wearing ski masks and wielding crowbars. The first blow to the back of his head had knocked him down and out; the several dozen more that followed eventually killed him after he spent a week in a coma, during which he never regained consciousness. That’s when Westlund had paid the widow a visit to offer his condolences, and a piece of advice. “You’re still alive, and I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you,” he said without a hint of his former affection for her.

Westlund thought that was the end of it until a Memphis homicide detective, Willie “Wink” Winkler, came calling. The detective said he’d been assigned to the husband’s murder case and in the course of his investigation he had checked the wife’s phone log. “And it looks like she calls you a lot.”

“Of course she does, I am the family’s spiritual adviser,” Westlund answered. “This has been a difficult time for them with their daughter’s illness and tragic demise … and now this murder. Terrible … just terrible.”

Westlund had felt reasonably secure that the detective would never be able to make a case against him. There’d been no witnesses to the attack, and the crowbars had gone into the Mississippi River. The wife was scared to death and apparently hadn’t said anything to the detective about the insurance payment. But he knew from his first stint in prison-for a simple Ponzi scheme that had cost him five years-that detectives sometimes lie in the weeds and wait for their targets to relax.

So when David Ellis got a job in New York City, Westlund had told Nonie she needed to go with him, and then announced that it was time to move his ministry north to “battle evil in that modern-day Sodom.” Brother David was lukewarm about his plan, but Nonie, whom he’d set his lustful eyes on, had been ecstatic.

The move had paid off even better than he expected. His sometime partner in Memphis, Sister Sarah, told him that the detective had come by the widow’s home but the frightened woman had stuck with the story that there had been no romantic liaisons with Reverend LaFontaine and that she believed he’d moved on to California. Sarah, whom he’d asked to keep an eye on his victim, had dropped by for “a visit” right after the detective left her home to let her know that she was being watched.

Meanwhile, Nonie introduced him to the widow Kathryn Boole, and he’d charmed her into turning over the Avenue A building to him. He’d also been duly grateful when she told him that she’d amended her will to leave the building to him, along with the balance of her estate, when she died.

Although he’d so far been unable to duplicate the system he had in Memphis for identifying the families of critically ill children, he’d been pleased when his plans for the Ellis kid, Micah, had apparently come to fruition. As he’d known was likely, the symptoms of the tumors returned and then grew steadily worse.

When it became apparent that Micah was fading fast, David Ellis’s “faith” had begun to waver, and he spoke to his wife about taking the child to the hospital. Of course, Nonie, who leaned increasingly on Westlund as her son’s condition grew worse, told the reverend about David’s plans. He turned that around to blaming the husband’s qualms for the lack of faith that was dooming their child. Fortunately for him, the child died before David could change his wife’s mind.

However, Westlund hadn’t counted on the New York District Attorney’s Office bringing charges against the Ellises. In Memphis, whether it was due to the religious politics of the region or something else, the district attorney had never pursued a faith-healing case. But Karp was a different breed and determined to pursue the parents for their recklessness.

Westlund could not have cared less about what happened to the Ellises. But Nonie had told him about the letter from the insurance company. It was simple: if the Ellises were found guilty of the reckless-manslaughter charge, the insurance claim wouldn’t be paid. It was worth a quarter of a million dollars to get the case dropped, and if that didn’t work, to make sure the Ellises were acquitted. He didn’t like putting himself in the limelight, just in case someone in Memphis saw him on television, but his ego and desire for money had led him to bring the protests against the DA’s office, as well as contact the lawyers who’d taken on the case on First Amendment freedom-of-religion grounds.

Now here was David Ellis angrily waving the insurance letter in his face. “I meant to thank you for that,” he said, acting as if they’d all known about the policy. “It was a generous gesture, brother.”

“You trying to tell me you didn’t sign my name on the policy?” David Ellis demanded.

“I swear on the Bible,” Westlund said. Not even a lie, he thought. Brother Frank signed it.

“I don’t believe you!”

“Brother, I understand that you’re on edge with the trial starting tomorrow, but it’s going to be all right and-”

“There’s not going to be any trial,” David interrupted. “At least not for me. Nonie can make up her own mind. But I’m going to plead guilty in the morning.” He held up the paper again. “And I’ll be giving this to the district attorney.”

Westlund looked aggrieved. “If it’s the money you want, you can have it. I thought it was a gift for Christ.”

David shook his head as tears came to his eyes. “Money? You can’t give me what I want,” he replied. “I want my son back. We were fools to believe in you and your lies. I was a fool to let you into my home. … And just so you know, I was the one who called 911 that day … but I was too late, so I lost my son, and now my wife. But I’m going to do what I can now to atone, may God forgive me.”

David Ellis turned and left, but Westlund followed him out of the apartment to the elevator. “You’re sure we can’t reach some understanding, brother?”

“Don’t call me ‘brother,’ and the answer is no,” David said. He paused and, with his voice breaking, added, “And if you see my wife, send her home.”

When the elevator door closed, Westlund called Bernsen. “Hey, bro, we got a situation,” he said. “Get someone to follow Ellis. We may have to find us some more crowbars, if you get my drift.”

Returning to the loft, Westlund paused for a moment inside the foyer and then went to the kitchen, where he opened a drawer and looked at the two handguns there-one an automatic, the other a revolver. He took out the latter. Any idiot can use a revolver. He then went into the bedroom, where the woman was waiting, the hand with the gun in it hanging loosely at his side.

“I can’t believe that David would …” Her voice trailed off. “What are you doing with that gun?”

Westlund’s shoulder sagged. “I would have never expected David to react that way either, but the devil has taken his heart and soul,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Now I’m afraid the authorities will misinterpret. You know the district attorney, Karp, has it in for me and won’t rest until I am in prison.”

The big man began to cry quietly. “I will not go to prison to be set upon by the agents of Satan,” he said, looking down at the gun. “You need to go now, my love, and we will meet on the other side someday.”

“You can’t! I won’t let that happen!” the woman declared, rushing into his arms.

Westlund kissed her fervently, dropping the gun on the floor, then picking her up and carrying her to the bed, where he set her down. “How much do you love me?” he asked as he pulled off his sweat suit.

“More than life, my darling, more than life!”