Cultured, page 2
“Why would I do that?” I asked.
“The usual,” Pancake said. “Nicole will and you’ll follow.”
“Cool,” Nicole said. “I’ve never been inside a cult before. Do they wear special outfits? Or dance naked around a bonfire? Any fun stuff?”
I looked at her.
“What? You’ve seen me dance naked before.” She ruffled my hair.
Have I ever. But not around a bonfire and not with a group of brainwashed idiots. I thought that but said nothing. I’m smart that way.
But, against my better judgment, I did ask, “Why would they welcome us into their secret society?”
“Because you’re both famous,” Pancake said. “You the ex-baseball player and restaurant owner. Nicole the big-time screenwriter. Exactly what these types are looking for.”
“People with wealth and celebrity,” Ray added.
I didn’t feel like I was wealthy, but I honestly didn’t know, not being overly watchful of those kinds of things, and damn sure didn’t want to be a celebrity. I felt more like a sacrificial lamb in another of Ray’s schemes. Not so Nicole.
“We’re all over it,” she said.
Of course we were.
“Where is this place?” she asked.
“Up near Magnolia Springs,” Pancake said. “It’s called Lindemann Farms. It’s a couple of hundred acres and Jonathon Lindemann’s the sole owner. He calls his program The Lindemann Method or TLM for short.”
“Sounds like a fitness or weight loss program,” I said.
“The fear here, with April Wilkerson missing from there, is that it’s some sort of psychological manipulation,” Ray said. “That they get the followers all wound up about self-improvement and moneymaking, and before they know it, they’re part of the cult.” Another slug of Dew. “If history tells us anything, it’s that in the end many cult members don’t fare well.”
I gave that some thought. “What if it really is as advertised? A group that teaches self-improvement and financial security?”
Ray opened his hands. “Possible. But if so, why are they stonewalling the mother?”
“Are they?” I asked.
“The mother thinks so, and we’ll run with that until proven otherwise.”
“So, what do we do?” Nicole asked. “Go knock on the gate?”
Ray and Pancake exchanged a glance. Uh-oh. I knew that look. Something not good was coming. Not good at all.
“We can arrange an introduction,” Ray said.
“How? Who?”
Ray gave Pancake a nod.
“By someone who looked into membership and knows the players and the lay of the land.”
“Who?”
“Tammy Horton.”
CHAPTER 3
TAMMY HORTON.
Just freaking perfect. The only person in my life more aggravating than Ray.
Remember I said my life was good, but not perfect? This wasn’t even close to perfect. This adventure was not yet off the ground and it’d already veered into chaos. The chaos being Tammy.
It reminded me of the old Vanguard rocket. Back when the U.S. locked horns with Mother Russia to lead the parade into space by placing a satellite in orbit. That was before my time, but I had seen all the videos. Russia took the lead with Sputnik, the Vanguard having blown up. Twice. One reaching the amazing height of four feet, the second flying for nearly a minute. Not stellar efforts and definitely not orbital. Took the Alabama-developed Jupiter C to finally place our own “grapefruit” in orbit and the race was on.
I felt like I was strapped to a Vanguard and launch control had lit the fuse. At any moment I’d be a ball of fire bouncing across the launch pad. That might sound a little dramatic to the uninitiated, but anyone who had ever entered Tammy World would know the ride is nothing like Disneyworld.
You see, Tammy’s my ex. I affectionately call her Tammy the Insane because, well, it fits. She damaged my bank account during the divorce, married her attorney, and yet still thinks I’m her go-to for any and all of the problems that threaten her domain. A realm where rational thought is a foreign concept. None of Tammy’s problems are ever earthshaking—but rather simply Tammy being Tammy. Things like she can’t get her favorite nail polish because the boutique no longer carries it, or she gained two ounces despite doing her yoga and Pilates every day, or Walter’s prostate requires nocturnal visits to the bathroom, which interferes with her sleep. She truly believes I can solve these problems, so she calls. Often. To say her worldview is skewed toward the delusional and self-absorbed doesn’t do it justice.
The irony is that now Nicole and I would have to ask Tammy for help. Thankfully, that wouldn’t happen until tomorrow. I felt like the governor had called to delay my execution.
After leaving Ray’s, we returned to Captain Rocky’s for drinks, to watch the sunset, and go through the stack of materials Pancake had gathered. Only a dozen pages but as it turned out, they were dense. It gave me a headache so I let Nicole go through them and give me the thumbnail. That seemed fair since she sort of worked for Ray and I was merely collateral damage.
Clarice Wilkerson, the concerned mother, was forty-three and a former beauty queen, winning a bunch of titles in and around central Florida. She finished college at Florida State with a degree in business, and then married Robert Wilkerson, an uber-wealthy real estate mover and shaker. He was also thirty years her senior. After that, Pancake found no evidence she’d used her business degree, preferring to hang out at the country club and travel with her husband and their only child, April. A good life until Robert slumped into his office chair dead from a heart attack. That was ten years ago, when April was twelve. Mother and daughter then abandoned Orlando and rolled over to Jupiter on the Atlantic coast. Not a neighborhood for those with thin wallets.
April, also a beauty who won several contests, followed her mother’s path and enrolled at FSU. A year ago, she graduated with a degree in liberal arts, which meant she partied more than she studied. To be fair, my college experience was similar.
Nicole slid her photo toward me. April was a fresh-faced blonde with blue eyes and cheekbones that matched her mother’s. She looked young. The date near the bottom revealed it had been snapped three years earlier when April was nineteen. Her life took a turn shortly after graduation when she hooked up with TLM. Three weeks ago, her trail evaporated. No calls or texts. No Facebook or Snapchat or Twitter or Instagram. No credit card or ATM use. Poof. Gone.
“What’s to like?” I asked.
Nicole examined April’s photo again. “I don’t like any of this. Something bad’s happened. I can feel it in my bones.” She glanced toward the water. “She ran away to a cult.” She looked back at me. “Did she then run away from the cult?”
“It’s happened before.”
“Why not back home to her mother? To a security that’s measured in the millions?”
“Not to mention the trust fund that’s headed her way,” I said.
“That too.”
“Maybe after the lawsuit the mother-daughter relationship was too fractured to repair,” I said. “Toss in the rift created by her joining TLM and the fissure might’ve been too deep to bridge.”
Nicole thought about that. “But her mother hired Ray to find her.”
“Fear trumps pissed. Or disappointment, or whatever. The mother’s concerned, sure, but April might not be ready to put a bandage on things.”
“Or she can’t,” Nicole said.
Which was exactly what I was thinking.
We then dug into the information on the most interesting character in the play—Jonathon Lindemann. The founder of The Lindemann Method, TLM.
“Good-looking guy,” Nicole said “Sure doesn’t look forty-two.”
She handed me his photo. He did appear younger. Tanned, fit, blue-and white-striped dress shirt, open collar, and a casual, friendly smile. His teeth were perfect and blindingly white. Light brown hair fell over his forehead and faint crow’s feet guarded the corners of his brown eyes.
“He doesn’t look like a fiend,” I said, passing the photo back to Nicole.
“They never do.”
I leaned back in my chair, propping one foot on an empty one, and stared out at the beach, sipping my bourbon. Nicole continued giving me the highlights.
Lindemann was a Florida boy, born and raised in Tampa. He only used his law degree for a few years until, like the late Mr. Wilkerson, he entered the world of real estate brokerage and development. His property portfolio staggered the mind, or had before he sold it off. His Dun & Bradstreet showed a net worth of ten figures.
“Two years ago,” Nicole continued, “he sold out to his partners. Guys named Charles Parker and Martin Gaines. Their company was LPG Investments and it looks like Lindemann walked with about forty mil plus two properties. Both are Tampa-area condo projects that are very high-dollar and boutique.” She flipped to the next page. “He formed Lindemann Property Management. LPM for short.”
“He likes initials,” I said.
“Apparently.”
“So he took a bag of money and still has an income stream?”
“More like a river,” Nicole said. “One property has thirty units, the other sixty-five. Both are sold out, the lowest for just over a million and the penthouses near six.”
“His income stream is from the HOAs?”
“Twelve hundred a month per unit.”
I tried to do the math but lost track quickly. Math and I were never close friends.
Nicole had no such problem. “Pencils out to around 1.4 million a year.”
“That’ll water the grass and trim the hedges.”
“And then some.” She flipped through a couple of other pages. “Since he didn’t have much to do, except cash the checks, he started his self-help and investment deal. It sprouted in Tampa around the time he left LPG. He tagged it The Lindemann Method. Then a couple of years ago he bought property up in Magnolia Springs and built his retreat.”
“Why there?” I asked.
Nicole shrugged. “Privacy?”
“Magnolia Springs offers that.”
Magnolia Springs, a few miles north of Gulf Shores and not far from Fairhope, was mostly farm country. Definitely cheaper and with more breathing room than Tampa.
“He calls his two hundred acres Lindemann Farms.”
I mulled that over. Good-looking guy, obviously smart, with a ton of cash, creates a program and ropes folks with more money than brains into following him into the wild. Not really that wild but definitely off the radar. Where he can work his magic and drain their wallets. Clever. Unless he was legit. From what I had seen so far, except for a young girl who just might simply have run away from mommy, he seemed like any other successful businessman. Well, except for that self-help deal that does feel cultish.
“Looks like the farm has a membership of around a hundred and twenty.”
“They live there?” I asked. “On the farm?”
“From the online images it doesn’t look that way. Seems more like a resort than a community.”
“How does Pancake come up with all this?”
“He’s Pancake.”
That was true. He could uncover anything. I figured that if he put his mind to it he could find the Treasure of Sierra Madre, maybe the Holy Grail.
“So, what’s your plan?” I asked.
“You mean our plan?”
“I don’t have a plan. This is your deal. I’m just along for the ride.”
“You always say that.”
I shrugged. “I like riding.”
“Which is a problem. I do too.” She smiled. “Tomorrow we’ll talk to the mother and then pay Tammy a visit.”
Tammy. I had almost forgotten.
“But, right now, speaking of rides, let’s grab a bottle of tequila and head to my place.”
Oh yeah.
CHAPTER 4
I’M A TECHIE, and a computer guru. Not to Pancake’s level, but then no one I know, or had ever known, can rummage around in the cyber world like he does on a regular basis. Still, I felt ahead of the average. I sat next to Nicole on her deck, staring at her laptop screen, my third cup of coffee in hand. A meager attempt to shred the cobwebs in my brain, the remnants of last night. Too much tequila, too much Nicole, if the latter was possible.
She connected to one of those video chat deals. Zoom, Doom, Boom—something like that. Okay, so Nicole did all the keyboard work and I more or less sat there, but I had showered, shaved, and dressed, playing my role as face-man. That’s it—FaceTime.
April Wilkerson’s mother, Clarice, lived in Jupiter, Florida. Down in south Florida on the Atlantic coast, Jupiter was home to a lot of celebrities, pro athletes, and mega rich folks. It was way too far from Gulf Shores to drop in for a chat, so here we sat doing this video thing. I’d never done one but it seemed simple enough. For a techie like me.
It was eight a.m., nine in Jupiter.
As soon as Nicole opened the program and clicked a couple of things, the two of us appeared on the screen. She, of course, looked great. Me, not bad considering last night’s gymnastics. I swiped my hair off my forehead.
“Quit primping,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“You are. This isn’t a photo shoot, it’s an investigation.”
“Just trying to keep up with you,” I said.
“I don’t primp.”
That was true. Of course, she didn’t need to. She rolled out of bed looking perfect. I might be annoyed if I didn’t really, really like it. Come to think of it, she was perfect rolling into bed too. But that’s another topic.
Nicole completed the connection and Clarice Wilkerson appeared on the right half of the screen. The photos Pancake had found didn’t do her justice. Long dark hair, high cheekbones, full lips, and a long, elegant neck circled by what appeared to be a string of pearls. A floppy, unstructured hat shaded her face, which was mostly hidden by trendy, expensive, and oversized round sunglasses. She, too, seemed to be outside, witnessed by the palm trees, the pool, and the Atlantic Ocean behind her.
Nicole made the introductions and Clarice thanked us for calling.
“I hope I’m not overreacting here,” Clarice said. “But I have an uneasy feeling about all this. I’m somewhere between panicked and pissed. Either she’s in some kind of trouble or she’s trying to get back at me.” She adjusted her sunglasses. “That’d be just like her.”
Not the reaction I expected. Was Clarice primarily worried about or angry with her daughter? I couldn’t tell.
“Tell us what you know,” Nicole said. “Or think you know.”
“April is twenty-two. She’s a very independent soul. Always was. Something I guess she got from me and probably why we butted heads so often.”
“True of most teenagers,” I said.
“Isn’t that the truth. Particularly one as headstrong as April. About a year and a half ago she hooked up with Jonathon Lindemann’s group. It’s a self-enlightenment and financial security group. He calls it The Lindemann Method or TLM. They were based in the Tampa area, which is where April met him, but he moved his operation up to Magnolia Springs, Alabama, where he started this commune-like place he calls Lindemann Farms.”
So far, nothing new. I wanted to tell her that we already knew that, but Nicole sensed I was ready to interrupt and touched my arm. Her way of saying, Keep your mouth shut and let her talk, and get comfortable and relaxed.
Clarice continued. “April followed him there. That was a year ago. Then, three weeks ago, she disappeared. Since then I’ve gotten no calls, texts, or contact of any kind.”
“Would that be unusual for her?” Nicole asked. “Not to contact you for that long?”
“Definitely. Look, after she hooked up with Jonathon’s group, she became even more difficult. More angry and combative. She felt she knew everything about life and that I was backward and not forward-thinking enough.” She sighed. “She became secretive about what she was doing and in particular about everything at TLM. The big rift came a year ago when I refused to let her take money from her trust to join that cult. They wanted a hundred and twenty thousand. Can you imagine? I blocked it. She blew up, ranted and raved, and then packed up and left for the farm. After she sued me for her trust money. Can you imagine? A freaking lawsuit. Regardless, we still talked several times a week, even though half of those chats descended into arguments about one thing or another. Usually how I was a witch for keeping her money locked down.”
“We understand she won’t get control of her trust until she’s twenty-five,” Nicole said.
“That’s right. Her father and I decided that twenty-one was too young for that kind of money. I wanted thirty, but we finally settled on twenty-five.”
“What are we talking about here?” I asked. “If you’re comfortable with discussing that.”
“Her trust is fourteen million.”
Fourteen million? Dollars? What would I have done with that kind of money at twenty-one? Would I have bothered to play baseball, or buy a bar, or really do anything? That’s the kind of money that could alter your life’s trajectory. Maybe not for the good.
“That’s an adult number,” I said.
“It is. And based on her recent actions, she’s far from that. Thank God we didn’t give it to her earlier. She probably would’ve already given it to Jonathon by now.”
“So she’s really into this?” Nicole asked.
“To a point that I don’t think is healthy.”
“How did she hook up with him and his group?” Nicole asked.
A young man moved into the frame behind Clarice. I couldn’t see his face, but he appeared to be tanned and bare chested. He placed a cup of coffee next to her, muttered, “Here, my love,” and moved off-screen. She nodded a thanks.
Clarice sipped the coffee. “It was my fault. After my husband, April’s father, died, we were both lost. It was ten years ago now but the pain remains.”
In the background, I saw the man circle behind the pool. He was indeed young, early twenties would be my guess. Surfer-like blond hair, lean and fit body, he wore a bright red Speedo, a towel flung over one shoulder. The morning sun reflected off a gold chain around his neck. He again disappeared from view. Obviously catching some morning sun. I guessed he was there to soothe Clarice’s pain, though to me she seemed more angry than anguished. Was I being too cynical? Probably, but it appeared that way to me. I mean, he didn’t look like a pool guy, or a gardener, or her attorney, or the postman. For sure he wasn’t a neighbor over to borrow a cup of sugar.
