All I could think of to say, the one thing that explained it all, was to repeat, “You’re not him.”
Twenty-One
A mild delirium had taken over. Violet felt warm and wondered if she might be running a fever. The contractions came and went, no set pattern, and she wondered why it was taking so long. Shouldn’t the baby have come by now? Was something wrong?
Her nose itched, and she tried to scratch it, but couldn’t move her hands from where they were tied to the railings. She couldn’t bend to bring her face to her hand, not with her feet anchored the way they were to the bed. Instead, she turned and brushed her face against the coarse pillowcase.
All afternoon, Disney movies played on the television in the corner, and Frozen had blared off and on for so long that she’d memorized all the words to ‘Let It Go.’ The song came on again, and she opened one eye wide enough to see the screen. Elsa was throwing snow and building her ice castle, celebrating freedom, making Violet feel even more boxed in, confined.
As Elsa sang, Violet thought back to another afternoon, the final time she’d snuck up the stairwell to talk to her friend. At the top, she’d again hidden behind the door. Nurse Gantt and the man from the bus station had stood in the hallway, talking.
“How much longer do you think?” she’d heard him say.
“Not long. A few days. Do you have everything in place?” Nurse Gantt asked.
“Yup,” he’d replied. “We have six couples who want the baby. All desperate for it. They’ve agreed to an auction. The baby will go to the highest bidder, as always.”
Nurse Gantt lowered her voice, serious. “Do they know that it’s incest? Are they aware that it might make it more likely that the child would have some form of… inherited defects?”
Incest? With that one word, Violet realized that Nurse Gantt had to be talking about Samantha and her baby.
“No reason to tell them that. All we’re agreeing to deliver is a healthy baby.”
“What if the infant has some sort of deformity? Something visible?” Nurse Gantt asked.
Violet’s skin turned cold when she heard the man reply. “Then, we’ll do what we’ve done in the past. After all, our clients want perfect babies.”
As she listened, bile worked its way up to Violet’s throat, churned inside of her. She considered retreating downstairs, but then she heard the man turn the conversation to her: “How long before that other girl, the one with the violet eyes, is ready?”
“A month. A little more,” Nurse Gantt said.
Violet’s hands shook. She wanted to flee, to get away. But as she eased the door shut, the hinges rubbed and released a high-pitched, bird-like screech.
In the hallway, Nurse Gantt and the man stared in her direction.
Violet ran down the stairs. On the second floor, she threw the door open. Down the corridor, Lori stood, her eyes big, watching from behind the medicine cart. Violet slammed the door to her room shut behind her.
Footsteps grew closer. Then Violet heard Nurse Gantt in the hallway: “Did any of the girls come running out of the staircase door?”
An agonizing pause, then Lori’s soft voice: “No. Was someone on the staircase?”
“Whoever it was must be on the first floor,” the man said. At that, the girl heard more footsteps, this time fading away toward the staircase.
All went quiet. Violet’s hands still shaky, she walked to the window and looked out, wishing she were somewhere, anywhere else. She thought back to what the man had said, that if Samantha’s baby wasn’t perfect, none of the people would want it. She wondered what happened to the imperfect babies.
At that moment, the door to her room had eased open. Lori had walked in. The aide closed the door behind her, and then she’d turned to Violet and smiled.
Twenty-Two
We woke at daybreak to the sound of the river and the calls of the birds greeting the morning sun. I opened my eyes and looked into Max’s. I wondered how long he’d been awake, watching me sleep. He leaned in to kiss me. When our lips parted, he whispered, “I would like to start every morning like this.”
I couldn’t answer. To do so would have made a commitment I wasn’t ready for. Instead, I kissed him back.
At some point during the night, Max had raided the Suburban to retrieve another blanket and the parka I keep there. He had us well covered, but my nose and cheeks felt ice-cube cold. The spring night must have gotten down to the fifties, maybe cooler. My uniform was wrinkled and damp from the morning dew.
Max explained that he’d called Alice and had Brooke spend the night with her, as I drove us to his office and dropped him in the courthouse parking lot. Before he reported for work, he had to run home, shower and dress. It was early, going on seven, but I worried that he’d be seen and questions would be asked. “Will the sheriff be looking for you?”
“Nothing to fear. I’ll handle it.” Before he closed the door, he peeked back in. “Even if he is, I don’t care. I wouldn’t have missed it.”
The door slammed, and I watched him lope off to his car.
I should have gone to the shelter to change, but instead I headed to the hospital to see Mother. I felt guilty that I hadn’t stopped in the evening before, but I found her sleeping peacefully in her bed in the ICU. I held her hand, thought about all she’d gone through and the uncertainty that lay ahead. What if when she awoke, she couldn’t walk or speak? What if her hands, her right one still in a ball, didn’t work well enough to cook dinner, button a child’s shirt, or drive the family van to the store for the grocery shopping? What if she could no longer concoct her potions to sell? Who would support the family?
The agony of not knowing hung heavy on me, as I considered all that could wait ahead. Yet I had no ability to cure her.
From the ICU, I took the elevator to the first floor, then made tracks to the back of the building. Doc Wiley stood just inside the morgue doors with Ash Crawford towering beside him. “Well, there she is. Speak of the devil,” Crawford bellowed.
“Doc—”
“Clara, we were just talking about you. Marshal Crawford is waiting for an update on the case. What have you and Max found out?”
I noticed something in Doc’s hands, a small bag with instructions written on the front, the form to submit a sample to the lab. I tried to read it, but only saw “ASH CRAWFORD” written in the section for the patient’s name. Before I could see what test was being run, Doc turned the form away from me.
“Getting some free medical advice, Ash?” I asked.
Crawford shot me a not unfriendly glance, but one that I didn’t interpret as any sign of great affection. “I’ve hired Doc as my personal physician. But it’s not really any of your business.”
I wondered why he’d go to the county medical examiner for any kind of a test. Doc was an internist, but he conducted those examinations in his medical office, not within the confines of the morgue. At any rate, I moved on. Ignoring Crawford, I told Doc, “I came to talk about my mother. Alone?”
The ex-US marshal shot Doc a glance, then shrugged. “I’ll wait here.”
Doc motioned for me to follow him, and Crawford called out as we left him standing at the door, “Chief Jefferies, I do want an update on the case when you’re finished.”
I didn’t answer.
I followed Doc past the stainless-steel mortuary cabinets, the refrigerators where bodies were kept, and the autopsy tables. The bones found on the mountainside—the teenager and her unborn child—were still perfectly arranged on the table closest to the window.
In Doc’s office, he opened a desk drawer and put the bag holding Crawford’s test sample, whatever it was, inside, I assumed to hide it from my inquiring eyes.
Once he had it safely stowed, Doc turned to me. “Did you see your mother this morning?”
“Yes, she seems unchanged.”
“She is. But as I explained, we’ll be waking her soon.” Doc then went into detail describing how she would be weaned off the medications.
Meanwhile, her scan results had come back. Mother did have a tumor, a small one, in her brain, and that was the site of the bleeding. “We’re sure it’s benign, and we think it’s very slow-growing. So rather than risk any surgery at this time, we’ll watch it.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Very good,” he said. “If she’s lucky, nothing will need to be done. If the tumor does expand, we’ll assess options.”
“Okay, good. Then she’ll be back to normal soon?” The look on Doc’s face, the wariness I saw, frightened me. “What’s wrong?”
Doc cleared his throat. “Let’s sit down.”
I did as instructed. Doc plopped down onto the chair across from me and leaned toward me. “Clara, Ardeth may have a lot of challenges ahead. We don’t know what type of rehabilitation she’ll need, but there’s been some damage. This could be a long and expensive road.”
I took a deep breath, saddened and worried. “I’ve promised Sariah and Naomi that I will help pay for Mother’s care. I have some money put away. And I’ve been told that my brother Aaron has agreed to help as well. We’ll make sure she gets everything she needs.”
At that, Doc sat back in the chair. “That’s good.”
Something else worried me. “What’s the likelihood that she’ll have more strokes?”
Doc’s shoulders rose a bit, and he winced, as if unsure. “Without the willow bark tea, she should be all right. But she shouldn’t experience a lot of stress. It’s not good for her to get overly upset.”
Doc’s warning about my mother followed me as I left the morgue. The door slammed behind me, and I spotted Ash Crawford waiting in the hospital corridor. He must have been able to see that I was upset. “If this is a bad time…” he started.
“I don’t know that there’ll be a good time,” I snapped, my voice harsher than I’d intended.
I remembered Doc’s lecture, that it was to our benefit to have Crawford on our side. I thought about the dead girl and her baby. We’d gotten no closer to identifying them. Again, I wondered if other girls could be in peril while we made no headway on the case. Despite my concerns about his motives, I had to agree that the downside of letting Crawford help didn’t seem significant compared to what we had to gain from him. That we’d gotten the sketch in such short order confirmed that he had the influence he claimed. Yet, as early as it was, I was having a tough day, and I didn’t have a lot of patience. He followed as I rushed toward the exit. My voice fraying at the edges, I said, “Let’s just get it all out in the open. What do you want to know?”
The retired marshal frowned. “Chief Jefferies, stop walking.”
At that, Crawford planted his feet. Off to the side, the blue-haired lady who runs the information desk sipped her morning coffee. Outside, the sun had risen high enough to send shafts of light through the hospital’s front doors and form spotlights on the tile floor. I came to a halt a few feet ahead of him, turned and looked back. “Okay. I’ve stopped.”
“Good,” he said. “I don’t want a lot, just a rundown on where the case stands. If I know where it’s leading, I’ll have a better idea of how my friends at the state lab can help you.”
I hesitated. My doubts still nagged at me, but in that moment, I couldn’t think of a valid reason to keep fighting Crawford. “Let’s go out to my SUV, and I’ll show you where we are.”
At the Suburban, I grabbed the paperwork. I flipped through the binder and pulled out the photos of the girls on my list, all three that I initially thought might match our teenage girl from the mountain. Crawford rifled through, looking at the images, the names of the girls written in the margins. When he finished, I gave him a verbal rundown, explaining that Jessica had ruled her sister out while Carrie Sue Carter’s parents thought the sketch bore at least some resemblance to their daughter.
“You agree with the sister, that it’s not Christina Bradshaw?”
“I do. I don’t think there are enough similarities. But we have Christina’s DNA, so we’ll know for sure when the report comes in.”
“I’ve got the lab pushing the DNA. We should have it soon. A day, maybe two,” Crawford said. “Who is this girl in the last photo? Tell me about Eden Young.”
I went over the details, described the encounter with the parents, how one of the women—presumably Eden’s mother—reacted so strongly. How Sam Young shouted at us and told us that we’d violated his family’s honor by suggesting that his daughter would become pregnant out of wedlock.
“That seems odd,” he said. “Don’t you think?”
“Well, yes, but not entirely.” I went through the drill with him, explained how unlike the rest of the world the polygamous towns were, and that parents didn’t always react the ways that they did in the outside world. “When the dad said we insulted the family by suggesting his daughter could be pregnant, he was referring to the dictates of the sect, how they view girls who don’t maintain their chastity until marriage, those who lose their virginity, as spoiled.”
“Spoiled?”
“Fallen. They’re labeled as fallen girls, unsuitable for marriage.”
“Of all the hogwash,” he said, visibly angry. “To deny a daughter over gossip? Foolish!”
I agreed but said nothing.
“You seem to know a lot about this culture.” Crawford gave me a curious look.
I considered how to respond, then settled on telling the truth: “I grew up in Alber, in a polygamous family. I have three mothers. But I left the faith years ago.”
“Ah,” he said, knowingly, as if that explained something. I wasn’t sure what. “So Eden Young is another possible match? You haven’t ruled her out?”
“Yes, she and Carrie Sue are the question marks.” I then explained how iffy it all was, that Eden’s father had not only refused to closely consider the sketch but wouldn’t give us basic information, including when she’d disappeared. When Crawford asked who reported the girl missing, I brought him up to date on the website and Eden’s aunt.
Crawford chewed on the inside of his cheek, appearing to assess it all. “Since one of these two girls may be our victim, I’d like to review their case folders. I may pick up on something that could help. Maybe come up with a way to further assist you. If it gets to the point that you start searching for any of these girls, that’s my specialty. I have a lot of experience in tracking fugitives that could work for missing persons.”
I sucked in a deep breath and thought about the deputy US marshal Max had called. He’d said that Crawford had become interested in the important cases, ones like this where folks paid the ultimate price: their lives. Maybe we could work together. “Only if you promise that you’ll share any ideas with me, and that you won’t investigate on your own.”
Crawford chuckled, raised his right hand as if taking a pledge and said, “I promise.”
I glanced at my watch; it was going on eight. I needed to get to the office. “I was up all night, out working on another case. I have to change clothes,” I said, explaining away my disheveled appearance. “I’ll meet you at the Alber police station in an hour to go over the girls’ case files. Just so you know, there’s not much in them, but you can see what we have.”
He nodded, and I took off. Halfway out the door, he shouted after me.
I pivoted back toward him. “Yes?”
“Thank you.”
From the way he looked at me, I had no reason to doubt his sincerity.
Twenty-Three
As I drove to the shelter, I wondered what Crawford had thought when he saw my wrinkled clothes. Doc seemed pretty sure he’d noticed something between Max and me. That brought to mind the notes in my desk drawer that condemned me for not following the faith and demanded that I quit my job and leave Alber. I considered my mother in her hospital bed, my family barely letting me in. If the town and my family knew about Max and me, what would they think? What would they do? But I wasn’t giving the relationship up. I couldn’t do that. My work and Max were the only parts of my life that t
ruly made sense.
A call came in on my cell. “Yes, Stef, what’s up?”
“Chief, I’m not getting anywhere on this search for Lynlee and Danny Benson. I’ve exhausted all the ideas I’ve been able to come up with.”
I questioned her, went down a list of possibilities, and confirmed that she’d tried all the obvious tactics. “Let me think about it,” I said. “I’ll be at the station soon. We can talk then.”
I parked in front of the shelter, jogged past a clutch of prairie-dress-clad women watching a group of preschool children playing on the sidewalk. “Well, I’ll be…” one of them murmured, her air accusing, as if she suspected I’d been up to no good.
“Guess she didn’t make it home last night,” someone said with a chuckle.
“Not the first time,” another said. “I hear she has a tattoo.”
“She’d be the type,” the first woman contended.
I kept running. If I stopped and acted concerned, they’d interpret it as proof of a guilty conscience.
Once inside, I bolted up the stairs to my room, peeled off my dirty uniform and got in the shower. Soaped up, I thought of the disapproving looks of the women I’d encountered. Apparently, word of my tat had spread quickly. I wasn’t surprised that those who judged me added it to my list of indiscretions. Of course, they had mistakenly judged it as more evidence of my rebellion. They’d never understand that my eagle had always reminded me of Alber, of my roots, of home. As I rinsed off, I recalled that day in the tattoo parlor. Ten years ago, the artist had handed me the stencil and told me to put it where I wanted the tattoo. I hadn’t really thought it through, but I looked down at my arm and remembered the X-ray Doc had shown me of the jagged fracture. “Put it there,” I said, as I placed the stencil over where the break had been.
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