she couldn't understand why. It couldn't be that bullshit story about rape. It had to be something else. The more she thought about it, the more she came back to the kids.

One morning only two months before, Radheya, St. Denis's four-year-old son by another woman, and Reid's four-year-old, Rohini, had taken off. That wasn't unusual, and it was hours before anyone realized they were gone. Kuladri, the temple president, began calling devotees, asking if they had seen the boys. Nobody had. In growing desperation, Kuladri organized search parties to make sure every comer of the commune was covered.

Debra Gere was one of the first people he called. As soon as he hung up, Debra drove over to the Cleavers to see if they had heard anything. She walked into the kitchen to find Dan Reid playing cards with Kurt and two other devotees.

"Daruka!" she said, "Haven't you heard? Rohini is missing! Half the community is out looking for him."

"Yeah, I heard," Reid said nonchalantly. "Don't worry, he'll turn up."

Debra lost control. She ran across the kitchen and began to scream at Reid, "How can you sit there while everyone is out looking for your son? It's getting dark and cold—don't you care?"

Reid didn't say a word. He threw his cards on the table and walked out.

They found the bodies late that night. The boys had suffocated inside an old refrigerator. It was standing out in the open, near the nursery, a makeshift storage shed for flowers that were used to decorate deities in the Palace of Gold. Scrunched between the bodies was a dead pet rabbit.

Dan Reid walked up to the refrigerator and looked inside. When he saw the boys, he fell to the ground, screaming and pounding his fists.

Lying awake at night, Debra wondered why Reid had killed her husband. It couldn't have been just the house. Could he have twisted things so that somehow he blamed Chuck for the death of his son? Or, maybe it was Drescher who held a grudge against her because of what had happened with Jayadeva, Drescher's two-year-old stepson.

Debra had stopped by Brenda Reid's place early one Monday morning to talk to her about her schedule as assistant-midwife. When Debra

walked in, Brenda was sitting on the floor, playing with the two Drescher children.

"Tom and Suzanne are out of town for a couple of days," Brenda said. "I'm keeping the kids while they're gone."

Debra took one look at Jayadeva and her eyes widened in alarm. There was a knot on his head the size of a golf ball.

"How in the world did that happen?" she asked Brenda.

"That's nothing," Brenda said. "You should see his back."

Debra went over and kneeled down behind Jayadeva. She ran her hands through his fine hair and found six or seven marble-sized bumps. She lifted the little boy's shirt and saw that his back was black and blue.

"Jayadeva, who did this to you?" Debra asked.

"My momma," the little boy replied.

Debra stood up.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" she asked Brenda.

"My husband told me not to get involved," Brenda replied.

"Well, I'm going to get involved," Debra said.

She told Nick about Jayadeva that morning and took it to Kirtanananda that afternoon. The guru said he wanted an investigation. When Drescher and his common-law wife returned the next day, they heard that Debra had reported them. Both denied harming Jayadeva. The guru's investigation never took place.

Debra kept turning the whole thing over in her head. She had reported Jayadeva's injuries on Monday. Chuck had been killed that Friday. Could Reid and Drescher have killed Chuck because of the kids— Reid because of some crazy notion that St. Denis could be blamed for the death of his son, Drescher because he wanted to get back at her for her report on Jayadeva?

About a month after St. Denis disappeared, Debra decided she had to get out of the farmhouse. Her only alternative was to move into Drescher's old house, the one she had set aside for her mother. It was right in the middle of Tolavan, the fringies' enclave, and only a couple of hundred yards from her friends the Cleavers. She felt she would be safer there.

The day after she moved, Kirtanananda walked into the New Vrindaban accounting office.

"So, Ambudrara has moved," he said to Howard Fawley, the New Vrindaban treasurer. "What do you think we should do with the place, now that it's empty?"

"It's not worth fixing up," Fawley replied. "We've got too much other stuff going on. I pulled the file. The place is insured for forty thousand dollars. It's worth more burned down than standing."

"See what you can do," the guru said.

"If we do, we got to do it soon," Fawley replied. "The insurance policy has a vacancy clause. If the place is empty for more than two-hundred-seventy days, the policy is automatically canceled. We won't get a dime."

"See what you can do," Kirtanananda repeated.

Fawley summoned his assistant, Dan Reid.

"I think Kirtanananda wants to bum down St. Denis's old place," Fawley said. "Go confirm it. If he says yes, Drescher's ready to do it.

I've already talked to him about it."

Reid searched for Kirtanananda and found him near the Palace of Gold.

"Fawley says he spoke to you about burning down the old farmhouse." Reid said. "He wants to know if you want it done, because Drescher is willing to do it."

The guru nodded his head, yes, he wanted the farmhouse burned. "So, you want it done?" Reid asked again to make sure. "Yes," Kirtanananda said. Reid went back to Fawley, who opened his desk drawer and gave him $450.

"Drescher wants a gun as payment for setting the fire," Fawley told Reid. "Get him something decent."

Reid looked up Todd Schenker, one of the commune's two armorers. He himself knew nothing about guns. Schenker would make sure he bought exactly what Drescher wanted. Reid and Schenker drove into Moundsville together and purchased a Python .357 magnum at Sullivan's Gunshop. Reid gave the gun to Drescher when he got back to the commune.

In the middle of the night on July 14, 1983, Drescher walked into the deserted farmhouse. Loose floorboards squeaked under his boots.

He was in the living room when he heard a noise upstairs and pulled the .357 magnum out of his belt.

"If somebody's here, you better come out!" Drescher yelled. "I got a gun."

There was no answer. The house was still.

Drescher tiptoed upstairs, keeping close to the wall to muffle his footsteps, and began searching each room. He walked into the bedroom where St. Denis had kissed Debra goodbye for the last time and pulled open a closet door. A hat fell off a shelf.

It was St. Denis's favorite hat. He'd worn it every day when he was working on the Blue Boy Nursery.

"Holy shit!" Drescher shuddered and backed out of the room.

He went out to his truck and got a can of gas. Then he went back in the house and doused both the upstairs and downstairs. He pulled out the antenna on a small radio-controlled ignition device he had built and put it in a pool of gasoline at the foot of the stairs. Then he returned to his truck and drove away. A few miles down the road, he pulled into a small clearing and stopped.

Drescher took out the transmitter and hit the switch. Then he turned on the police scanner he had installed in his truck. He kept waiting for the dispatcher to sound the fire alarm. There was nothing but static.

Drescher started the truck, turned around, and drove back to the farmhouse. It was still standing—the ignition device hadn't worked. He parked his truck and walked up to the front porch. He picked up an old board and smashed in a window. Then he took a pack of matches out of his pocket. He lighted one match and used it to set fire to the pack. Then he tossed it through the window.

The blast of the first explosion blew out the windows and sent Drescher reeling. He steadied himself by grabbing hold of a post. He was running back to the truck when the upper floor exploded, sending slivers of glass into the weeds in front of the house.

The Inland Mutual Insurance Company investigated and found a gas can near the house. Inland concluded that the fire was suspicious, but honored the claim. In December 1983 it sent New Vrindaban a check for $40,000.

Arthur Villa, Howard Fawley, Dan Reid, and Thomas Drescher were later convicted for their roles in the arson. Kirtanananda was acouitted.

A few days after the fire, Drescher and Reid both left the commune. Reid went back to Gardena, California, where he had grown up. He eventually got a job working for an accounting firm in Beverly Hills. Drescher and his common-law wife, Suzanne Bleudeu, traveled through Oregon and Montana, living on scams Suzanne had perfected as a member of New Vrindaban's women's sankirtan team.

Back in New Vrindaban, Debra and Nick, who had always been good friends, were growing very close. Nick arranged for 84 Lumber to pick up the wood it had sold St. Denis and to refund the money to Debra. Every weekend, he dug plants and flowers out of the Blue Boy greenhouse and trucked them to swap meets, where he sold them. He gave the money to Debra.

But Nick still did not tell Debra that Drescher had confessed. Nick told himself that everybody in the commune knew who had done it, and before long somebody was sure to finger Drescher and Reid. When they did, he would tell the cops what he knew.

Debra was losing weight. Her shiny red hair had become dull and had lost its luster; her skin was so pale she looked embalmed. She decided the only way to get Chuck out of her mind was to throw herself back into Krishna Consciousness. Every day, she chanted sixteen rounds of the Hare Krishna mantra. Every morning, she got up before dawn to shower and drive to the temple for the 4:30 morning service. She was on her way back one foggy day in September when she passed Drescher on Highway 250 in his white pickup. She drove up the twisting dirt road in a frenzy, stormed into the house, and grabbed the phone.

"He's back! Drescher's back!" she screamed.

"I'll be right out," replied Sergeant Westfall.

It was little more than a ploy to calm her. Westfall was one frustrated cop. He felt he had developed enough information to arrest Drescher and Reid for murder. He knew that Reid was weak, that if he woke up one morning in jail facing a life sentence, chances were good that he would turn state's evidence in return for the promise of lenient treatment. But Westfall was stymied. He couldn't get anybody interested in the case. Until he came up with a body, an eyewitness, or a murder weapon, it was just a missing-person case. Westfall spent hours trying

to convince Tom White, the Marshall County prosecutor, to file charges. But White wasn't interested. He wasn't about to take a case to court that he could not win.

"No body, no conviction," he told Westfall each time the cop brought up the case.

"You know what it comes down to?" Westfall asked his wife, Martha, an elementary-school teacher, one night after they had put their children, Sarah and Tommy, to bed. "Nobody gives a damn. They just think the Krishnas are a bunch of gooks."

"But this is murder," Martha replied. "If cops aren't interested in murder, what are they interested in?"

"Cops figure their job is to protect the regular Joe," Westfall said. "The Krishnas aren't regular because nobody in their right mind would do something crazy like joining the Krishnas. So when a Krishna ends up missing, the cops shrug and say, 'What do you expect from those Hairy Kritters?' "

Westfall didn't have much hope he would break the case anytime soon. But he wasn't about to give up. As he drove out to Tolavan to see Debra, he decided to level with her. She beat him to it.

"They're never going to do anything to those guys, are they?" she asked. "They're gonna go free, aren't they?"

"I promise you, I'm going to arrest them," Westfall said. "It may take twenty-five years, but I'm going to do it."

While Westfall was visiting Debra, Drescher was on the other side of the sprawling commune, knocking on Nick's trailer.

"How you been. Doc? Ready to start runnin' again?" he asked when Nick answered the door.

Two days later, they resumed their routine. It was late fall. The trees were bare, their leaves covering the backroads with a wet blanket. As they set off, the air was cold and they could see their breath. Nick was quiet, except for an occasional grunt. Long before Drescher had left, he had come to hate these runs together; now it was worse than ever. He could barely look Drescher in the eye. Saying hello without showing fear was becoming impossible.

About midway along their route Drescher glanced at Nick and broke the steady rhythm of their running.

"Doc," he said, "if you wanted to dissolve a body, what would you use?"

Nick was stunned. He slowed to a halt.

"I don't know," he said, trying to keep his voice even. "I've never thought about it."

"Aw, come on. Doc. You know," Drescher said.

"Well, traditionally, I guess it's lime," Nick replied.

"Lime, huh? Would acid work?"

"I suppose. Why? What are you going to do?"

"No body, no evidence."

"You mean you would actually go back and dig up the body? You would actually do that?"

Drescher shrugged. Without thinking. Nick added, "Where's it buried, anyway? Near here?"

Drescher gave Nick a long, icy stare. "Come on, Doc. You don't think I'd tell, do you? Why'd you ask, anyway?"

"No reason," Nick replied. "You just shook me up. Come on, let's finish the run."

They jogged on in silence. It was the last time they ran together.

Early one morning several days later, Drescher snuck into the commune's garage and removed a half-dozen five-gallon plastic jugs of muriatic acid, which devotees used to clean the cement and bricks around the Palace of Gold. He loaded the jugs into the back of his pickup truck and drove to the stream where St. Denis was buried.

Drescher spent most of the morning rebuilding the dam. When it was finished, he stood over St. Denis's grave and bored holes down to the body with a pinch bar. Then he poured the acid into the holes.

A yellow film slowly formed on the puddle above the waterlogged grave.

Two weeks after his run with Drescher, Nick Tsacrios was washing his dirty clothes at a laudromat in Moundsville. He stuck his head into the industrial-sized drier and felt the clothes. He figured he had timed it just right. It was 10:45 on a Saturday night, just fifteen minutes to closing. They'd be finished in moments. He did not notice the headlights flash in the plate-glass window or see the white pickup park next to his Pinto. He was still staring at the drier when Drescher walked in.

"Hey, Nick, what's goin' on?" Drescher asked, nonchalant as could be. "I was just drivin' around, killin' time, when I saw your car parked outside. I said to myself. Hey, I'll pick up the Doc and we'll go get us a couple of beers."

Nick felt a shiver of fear, but for the moment he said nothing. He walked over to the drier and opened the round door. He reached in and grabbed an armload of hot, fresh-smelling clothes before turning to face Drescher.

"Tirtha, what do you take me for, an idiot? There's no way I'm going to get in that truck with you. You'd kill me. You think I know too much."

"Doc, I'm surprised at you," Drescher said, trying to imitate a hurt puppy. "You and I are friends. If I can't trust you, who can I trust?"

Nick worked hard to concentrate on folding his laundry. His mind was blank; he had no idea what he should do.

"Come on, Doc. Let's take a ride and talk this over. I never imagined you felt like this."

Before Nick could answer, the glass door to the laundromat opened and a short, bald-headed man walked in.

"Time to go, fellas. I'm gonna lock it up," the man said.

"Be done in a minute," Nick said. "We'll all leave together."

Drescher shot the laundromat owner a quick look.

"OK, Doc, if that's how you feel," he said. "We'll talk another time."

Drescher left. Nick didn't dare look as Drescher returned to his truck and drove away. He stacked his laundry in a plastic basket, loaded it into his Pinto, and drove home. He couldn't sleep that night. Early the next morning, he borrowed a neighbor's truck, hooked up his trailer, and hauled it up to Debra's house.

She saw him coming and went out onto the porch. He parked the truck and ran up the steps.

He threw his arms around Debra. "Ambudrara, we have to talk!"

They went inside the small cabin and Nick told her everything. He began with the walk he took with Drescher the day after St. Denis's murder, and ended with his escape from the laundromat. Debra begged him to go to Sergeant Westfall and report everything.

Nick refused.

"The cops know who did it, and they haven't done a thing," he

insisted over and over. "If Drescher finds out I'm talking to Westfall, he'll kill me for sure. The best thing we can do is lie low and hope that Drescher goes away again."

Weeks passed. Nick moved out of the trailer and into Debra's house. When they went to bed at night. Nick tucked a .45 under his pillow.

Gradually, Debra and Nick built a routine. They put in long hours at the clinic together, and with time Chuck no longer dominated Debra's every thought. Debra was still going to Mangal aratik every morning with Janet Cleaver. They got a late start one day, and when they walked into the Temple of Understanding, the service was already in full swing. Devotees were pounding mridanga, drums, clicking kartal, cymbals, and dancing and jumping in ecstatic devotion. And dancing directly in front of the deities was Drescher's common-law wife, Suzanne Bleudeu.

"Look at that," Janet said, nudging Debra. "I can't believe she's here."

"Let's get her," Debra said.

The women marched across the temple, grabbed Bleudeu, and dragged her outside. They hit her in the face and in the head. When Bleudeu fell down, they kicked her. They left her lying on the ground, sobbing.

"You blew it, Ambudrara!" Nick screamed when Debra told him about it. "You totally blew it! How could you do something like that?"

"I don't know," she said. "I guess I had to do something. If I was a man, I'd attack Drescher. But I'm a woman, so I went after his wife."

"Tirtha's sure to come after us now," Nick said. "What are we gonna do?"

It was after midnight when the phone rang. Nick and Debra were in bed, asleep. They both woke up and listened to the ringing. Finally, Nick picked it up.

"Dig a hole!" Drescher screamed. "Dig a hole!"

Dr. Nick could not just sit around and wait for Drescher to try to kill him. He had to do something. He couldn't kill Drescher; he was a vegetarian who did not believe in killing animals, let alone humans. He thought of running away, but he had run from things in Florida and had sworn he would never run again. There was only one thing to do: take Debra's advice and go to the cops.

Dr. Nick told his story to Sergeant Westfall, and he told it to the

state police. Westfall believed him; the state police did not. They decided that because of his drug record. Dr. Nick was an unreliable witness. And Tom White, the Marshall County prosecuting attorney, was not about to put a witness on the stand whom the state police considered unreliable.

The question of Kirtanananda's involvement eluded the authorities. And the guru continuously denied he had anything to do with the St. Denis murder.

Westfall kept his file open, hoping that somehow, something would happen that would bring the case back to life. But for all intents and purposes, the investigation into the disappearance of Chuck St. Denis was as dead as St. Denis.

klick here to go to chapter 5 - "Plundering the Legacy"

not complete yet, will be continued soon!