Carter Tower

Houston, Tx

Jason Carter was an empire builder. From his 25th story penthouse office window, the cities of Houston and Baytown sprawled out below him as far as a man could see. As a young man of thirty he had taken moribund drilling company and through smart moves and indescribable effort had turned it into the fourth largest oil field services company in the world. All of the big oil companies did business with Carter Consolidated.

His rigs did the drilling, his pipes did the moving, his terminals did the unloading of supertankers in the deep waters of the Gulf and his refineries did the cracking. Carter Consolidated, also known as or C Squared, did $220 billion in revenues annually and distributed a dividend every year without fail.

Despite all of his money, power and genius, a problem confronted him that he didn't have an answer for. On his desk was a private investigators report of his 20 year old sons after hours activities at Louisiana State University. For a good Southern Baptist like Carter, those activities were pretty damning.

As he read the report, it made his head spin and his stomach churn. He could forgive the weed. Hell- he had smoked weed in college until it got in the way. It was what his son Jake was doing with the other boy in the hot tub at 3am that bothered him.

Had he been a bad father? His son Jake's passion had always been for baseball and he had been there every chance he had. When the high school team made the state finals, he flew the team to Austin and stayed to the bitter end. He had been there for birthdays, Christmas, Easter and Sunday church services for at least three Sundays out of every month.

No. He couldn't blame himself. That was futile. As an engineer his natural inclination was to ask how do I fix this?

This was an area completely outside his expertise. He needed information and he needed it fast before... his son was infected by HIV or found murdered in an ally. The lives that those people lead... His son was better than that.

He looked in his personal phone-list, found the number for his pastor and dialed. Shiloh Baptist was a big, popular church and fairly progressive for the area but it still held true to its Southern Baptist roots. Carter's monthly contribution to the church made it financially strong and very active in the city.

"Pastor Lefluer, this is Jason Carter. I need to talk to you about a very discrete and delicate matter..."

* * * *

New Orleans Herald

Saturday morning at the paper was always a mad house as we finished up the Sunday edition. I had three stories: family values state senator from Alexandria was divorcing, the enduring legacy of Katrina series and the sale of surplus FEMA housing. Peter Boyles on the city desk had the Hess murder but wasn't going to do much with it until more details surfaced.

My stories were all pretty much done by eleven and I started looking at the information that Hess had given me. Was this what got him killed? I made a copy of the list of names. They all appeared to be names, social security number, date of birth and city, state. None of them were over thirty and most clustered between 21 and 24. One from Miami, one from Atlanta, one from New Orleans, one from Dallas and the last from Houston. The one who had died was from Savannah, Georgia.

They were all clustered across the South which made sense. The Bible belt is where people would be the most motivated to find a "cure".

Some years ago I had done a piece on the Ex-gay movement when they had a conference in the city. What was the name of the psychiatrists from Oschner's Clinic that I interviewed? I looked through my rolodex and found the name that I was thinking of: Dr. Charles Benoit.

I dialed his number but got a recording. I left a message and decided that I probably wouldn't hear from him until at least Monday.

I called in my research assistant and gave him the list. My RA was a skinnny journalism student from Tulane. "Gabe- take this list and very quietly find out who these people are. Just use our in house people-search subscription. Keep it on the down-low."

He looked at the list and said, "You don't know who Casey Renard is?"

"The one from New Orleans? Oh... those Renard's. Old money family that ran much of the Port of New Orleans- the busiest port in North America."

I thought to myself- at $250K per treatment, it would have to be the rich.

Gabe went into his cubicle to search out the rest of names as my cell phone rang.

"City Desk, this is Sawyer."

"This is Charles Benoit returning your call Mr. Sawyer."

"I appreciate you getting back to me so quickly. Some years ago we talked about the methods used by the Ex-gay movement."

"Yes, I remember."

"I have come across a new method that some people are marketing as a cure for homosexuality and I'd like to have someone who knows what they are talking about evaluate it."

Benoit laughed, "There's no such thing as a cure for sexual orientation but I'm curious to see what you've got. Can you come by my office around three?"

"Sure Dr. Benoit. I'll be there. Just do me a favor and keep this quiet. I'm not sure what I've got yet and I don't want egg on my face if this is a wild goose chase."

"I understand. See you this afternoon."

As I hung up the phone my editor rushed in, "Sawyer, your apartment building is on fire!"