Page 26 of The Girl and the Lies

“I have a few other people I want to talk to about these threats. Someone has to know something.”

I call Leslie Downing the next morning and am able to get contact information for everyone on the list. My call to Grant Pruden goes straight to voicemail, so I leave him a message and move on to Hilary Watts and Mila Taylor. Another voicemail for Hilary Watts comes before I finally get ahold of Mila Taylor. She’s cooperative and willing to talk to me, but she doesn’t have much new information to offer. She tells me essentially the same things I’ve already heard, including that she doesn’t have any idea who might be sending the notes or could have killed Gideon.

I ask her if she is planning on quitting the company, and she hesitates.

“I don’t want to. This has been a really great job for me, and I feel like I’m doing something that matters. I feel like this is exactly what Tracy has been telling us. Just a big test of how committed we are and how much we choose to lean into our faith when times are difficult. I don’t want to seem like I’m questioning anything or that I’m not dedicated to the ministry. But Gideon’s death has really scared me. I don’t know what to think anymore,” she says.

That is a sentiment that is far from the thoughts of Cameron Sawyer. I meet up with him at a coffee shop during his break from his new job half an hour after I get off the phone with Mila. His hands wrapped around a caramel cold brew, and a mini quiche all but forgotten on a plate beside him, he stares directly into my eyes without any hesitation or signs of reluctance.

“There was no way I was sticking around that place after the threats started coming in,” he says.

“You knew that she and the ministry got hate mail all the time though,” I say. “Didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. Everybody knows about stuff like that. Tracy almost takes pride in it. She’ll stand up in front of the whole company and read the letters that she gets, then break them apart and detail exactly what kind of sinner wrote the letter and why it only strengthens her resolve in her ministry. She believes that the more hate she receives, the better she’s doing at her mission,” he says.

“Then what made these different?” I ask, taking a sip of my own drink and tearing off a chunk of the scone I ordered.

“They weren’t going to Tracy or to the ministry in general,” he points out. “They were going to specific people, and some of them had details about the families and lives of the people they were sent to. Mine only said that I would pay dearly for loyalty to the devil. It wasn’t personalized, but it was enough for me. It was under my windshield wiper blade when I found it, and I thought for sure that there would be enough security around the building that they would at least have an image of who put it there. Then I found out that they don’t have cameras covering the parking lots.

“That made me really angry. We were in a work environment that was inherently risky just because of what we were doing and the way people felt about it, yet there wasn’t any kind of security in place to make sure we were protected. I went to Tracy about the situation, and she brushed me off. It was the same song-and-dance bullshit about being tested and digging deep into faith to push through. She wanted me to be an example to whoever was sending them that I couldn’t be shaken.”

“But you weren’t willing to do that,” I say.

“Hell no. I’m not like the drones working for her. They lap up everything she says and treat it like she wrote the Bible itself. That was never me. I got the job by telling the staffing director that I would adhere to the standards in the contract and be a part of the company culture in all ways visible to anyone else. Essentially, I promised to act like them if I was going to work for the company, but it was never really in me. In fact, I think the way that woman acts and the things she says are bullshit and can cause a lot of harm. Then when the threats started and that was the way the company responded, I decided there was no way I was going to stay working for someone willing to risk my life when I didn’t have the personal or spiritual conviction to back it up.”

Cameron’s words are still with me as I leave the coffee shop and start toward Carla and Marshall Powell’s house. I called them while I was waiting for Cameron, and they invited me to come to their house to talk. As I drive, I let what Cameron said roll around in my mind. The other people I’ve spoken to have expressed great commitment to the ministry and even loyalty to Tracy. Even the three who walked out of the meeting didn’t speak out against anything that Tracy teaches or the work of the ministry; they were just unwilling to continue feeling in danger.

But Cameron is openly unmoved by the ministry and critical of Tracy. He said that he acted like he fit in with the company culture while he worked there, but it stands out to me that he received the threats along with true devotees. It makes me wonder why the killer chose the recipients that they did. They obviously knew them well enough to know their address and their cars, but they either missed or didn’t care about the level of devotion that they felt for the ministry.

I pull into the driveway of the Powell house and walk up a flower-lined sidewalk to the large front porch. A cat looks at me through the narrow windows on either side of the front door, and I am finger-waving at it when a man I’m assuming is Marshall opens the door in response to my knock.

He smiles as I straighten. “Tabitha gets all the attention,” he says. “She likes to just sit there and bask in it.”

“She’s beautiful,” I say as the sleek, black cat stands and walks away, flicking her tail lightly through the air as she goes. “And I think she knows it.”

“She certainly does. I’m Marshall Powell.”

“Agent Emma Griffin,” I tell him. “Thank you for letting me come talk to you.”

“Of course, please come in. My wife isn’t here at the moment. She had to run out, but she should be back soon,” he says.

We walk down the front hallway into the living room, and he gestures for me to sit down.

“This shouldn’t take too long. I just wanted to talk to you about what’s been going on at the Tracy Ellis Ministry and the death of Gideon Bell,” I say. “Tracy gave me your name when I asked about her employees who have received the threatening messages.”

Marshall nods and sits down. “Yes. My wife and I have both gotten them,” he says.

“What did you think when you first got one?” I ask.

“I thought it was someone Tracy had offended, and they were trying to make a point,” he says.

“That’s a pretty common sentiment,” I tell him.

“Unfortunately, she has a tendency to make enemies,” he says. “She has a lot of the opposite too, or at least her ministry does. But everywhere she goes, there are people who don’t want her there and are angry about what she is saying. You get used to hearing some pretty vulgar, disgusting things come out of people’s mouths when they’re getting hurled at you every week. It used to shock me. I couldn’t believe anyone would think things like that, much less actually say them out loud. But then it just kept happening, and I realized it was just going to be part of the job.”

“What changed?” I ask.

“I found out they were going to other people and some of them were getting really specific and pointed. It felt like this was something different,” he says.

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