“He worked like any abuser,” said Unity. “First, he was charming. Then, he simultaneously cut you off from your support system while undermining your self-confidence. He’d question everything you said and tell you all your ideas were stupid. After a long time of that, you questioned every thought in your head. Once he got you pregnant, you were screwed, because he’d threaten the kids. So, you did whatever he said. Like I said, he was an asshole.”
“Why did he… want so many wives?” said Nash.
Unity snorted. “He was a megalomaniac?”
“It seemed like it might be nice,” said Deanna. “You know, having a big family, having sister wives.”
“We didn’t call ourselves that,” said Celia.
“No, I know, but I’d seen that show on TV,” said Deanna. “But I never liked all the weird Mormon stuff. When I met Arnold, I just thought it was perfect. All the benefits, none of the drawbacks. But then…” She sighed. “Well, he was a very awful man, and I didn’t realize how awful until it was too late.”
“But this isn’t why you’re here, is it?” said Celia. “You came to talk about Sienna, that’s what you said on the phone.”
“That is true,” said Nash. “But I have to admit that the dynamic between the three of you is fascinating. I wonder if you’d reconsider allowing me to record this for my podcast?”
“No,” said Unity, shaking her head. “We don’t want any publicity around this. No one needs to be sticking their nose into our situation.”
“Or into Arnold’s death?” said Nash.
Unity sucked in a long, slow breath. “Why are you here, exactly?”
“Sienna’s been married more than once,” said Nash. “Only not to two men at the same time, owing to the fact that her husbands have a funny habit of drowning to death.”
All of the women’s eyebrows shot up and they exchanged glances of confusion. This was apparently news to them.
“Arnold drowned in, um, a swimming hole?” said Zoe. “That’s what you said?”
“Yes,” said Deanna quietly. Her eyes were like saucers. “Listen, whatever Sienna did, it was for the best.”
“Once I burned some chicken breast at dinner,” said Celia, “and Arnold was so angry he pushed my arm down onto the frying pan.” She pushed her long sleeve out of the way to show them puckered pink scar tissue.
Nash winced and looked away.
“That’s not the worst thing he ever did,” said Unity. “He was always going after the kids, and we moms would try to put ourselves in harm’s way to distract him. The number of times he took a belt or a paddle or his fists to us—”
“Look, we’re not disputing he was worthless,” Nash said in a low voice. “Most of Sienna’s husbands are. Were. We don’t mean her any harm. We just want to find her. Are you in touch with her?”
“Not really,” said Deanna.
“What do you mean by that?” said Nash.
Unity held up a hand. “Maybe you shouldn’t say, Deanna.”
“It’s okay,” said Nash. “We only want to talk to her.”
“We don’t know how to find her,” said Unity.
“You said ‘not really,’” said Nash. “Which means there’s some kind of communication.”
“She sends us money,” said Celia. “And things like the TV.”
“Clothes for the kids,” said Deanna.
Unity gestured. “She sent us enough for a down payment on this house. We were living in this rundown shack out ten miles from a decent road. Back when Arnold was here, he forced us to home school the kids, but we wanted to send them to a public school after he was gone. The bus wouldn’t even come out to our house. We had to all pile into our cars to get them down there in the morning. It was a mess. We wouldn’t be making it without her.”
“She saved us,” said Celia. “When we found out Arnold was getting married again, none of us were pleased. Not because we were jealous of each other or anything, just because we wanted to tell that poor girl to run away as fast as she could.”
“I was a little relieved,” said Unity. “He’s always on his best behavior with a new wife. It was a couple months’ reprieve, I thought. But when she showed up, I could see she was different. She knew exactly what he was up to, knew what he was, and she was manipulating him. She had him wrapped around her little finger.”
Deanna nodded. “The first time he tried to lay a hand on her—”
“Deanna.” Unity shook her head.
“It’s okay,” said Nash. “We want to know.”
Deanna looked at Unity, seeking permission.
Unity drew in a breath, held it, and then let it out, her shoulders sagging. “Oh, what does it matter, I suppose? Anything she says to you, we can deny later if you bring the police into it.”
“We would never do that,” said Nash. He turned to Zoe. “Back me up here.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Uh… uh, no, we wouldn’t.” She glared at him.
“We really wouldn’t,” said Nash.
“We didn’t do anything,” said Deanna. “It was Sienna.”
“We kept our mouths shut,” said Unity. “That might make us accessories after the fact.”
“He deserved it,” protested Celia. “He was testing Sienna. She was supposed to sew a button onto his shirt, and she did it, but he told her she’d done a shit job. She wasn’t having that. She got in his face and told him he could sew his own buttons on from then on out. He slapped her. She…” Celia sucked in a breath. “She moved so fast. She launched herself into his body, just pistoned into his midsection, and they both went down on the ground. He was trying to grab her and hold onto her, but she evaded him. And she did something with her hand, drove it up against his nose. There was blood spurting everywhere.” A pause.
Celia continued, her voice sounding thin and detached somehow. “He was in a rage. He was grabbing for her, calling her a bitch, saying she was going to pay. And then she ran out the door. He got to his feet and went after her. That was the last time we saw him alive.”
Nash didn’t have any words. His lips parted. What a story. He could see it all. And he felt like Sienna was some kind of superhero or something, saving these women and their children.
“She came back later,” said Deanna. “She was drenched and wet. She said that there had been an accident and that somehow Arnold had got into the swimming hole, which was part of the river. It was a little inlet where the water pooled up. She said he got out of the swimming hole area, and that the current took him, and he was gone. She said that we should wait until morning and then call the police and report him missing.”
“So, that’s what we did,” said Unity. “They found his body the next day. Thought he must have gotten all busted up from the current dragging him over rocks and things. Poor man. Doesn’t matter how strong a swimmer you are. At the end of the day, sometimes nature is just too strong. It was an accident, you know. He accidentally drowned. I’ll never say anything to the contrary.”
It was quiet. No one said anything for several moments.
Finally, Unity got up. “Maybe it would be better if you two were on your way.”
“Wait,” said Nash. “How does she send you money? Does she send checks?”
“No, it’s a Paypal account,” said Deanna.
“Can you give me the email address associated with it?” said Nash.
Unity folded her arms over her chest. “[email protected]. Is there really anything you can do with that information?”
Nash wasn’t sure.
“Look, we really should go,” said Zoe, tugging on him.
Nash resisted for a moment, but then he relented. They left.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Nash made a rueful face. “I don’t get it. You can’t set up a Paypal account without a valid bank account, so how’s she doing this?”
“Maybe she’s got other bank accounts,” said Zoe.
“Under different names?”
“Look, if she’s willing to
kill people, maybe she’s also willing to make a fraudulent identity,” said Zoe.
They were driving. Zoe was in the driver’s seat. Nash was in the passenger seat, because he was trying to do some research on his phone. But right now, he was running into brick wall after brick wall.
“Maybe if I could get into her Paypal account, then I could figure out when the last time was she made a transaction,” said Nash.
“Well, how are you going to do that?”
“I… I don’t know. I can’t.”
“Even if you could, that wouldn’t tell you where she is,” said Zoe.
Nash swore under his breath.
Zoe laughed. “I can still pretty much make out what you’re saying there.”
“Good for you. Want a gold star?” he said. He leaned back against the headrest in the car. “We’re no closer to finding her, and we didn’t even get any audio of that to use for the podcast. It was probably the most interesting interview we’ve done this far. And we got nothing.”
“Maybe we’re not going to be able to find her.”
“We’ll find her.”
“I don’t see how,” said Zoe. “She uses different aliases every time that she marries a guy. We don’t even know what name to look for.”
“Maybe we could hire a private investigator. Someone who could trace her cell phone or her credit card or something.”
“Um, okay,” said Zoe.
“But I can’t afford a private investigator. They cost hundreds of dollars a day. There’s no way that I could afford that.”
“I’m not forking over that money either,” said Zoe.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“It’s not because I don’t want the podcast to do well, it’s only—”
“Zoe, I would never ask you—”
“I need to pay off my debt,” she said.
“I know that. I’m not angling for you to pony up the cash.”
“And anyway, I’m still not sure we should try to find her.”
“You think we just do the podcast with this?” he said. “There’s no… closure.”
“Well, we figured out what kind of killer she was. We figured out her M.O. and we found out all of her victims. That’s enough of a conclusion, right? And maybe we could, I don’t know, change the names of the Bells and do a dramatization of what they told us using actors or something. The description of Siobhan beating up Arnold Bell could be a decent climax.”
He glared at her. “Listen, if you don’t want to be my intern anymore, just say so.”
“What’s making you think that I don’t want to be your intern?”
“You want me to finish up the podcast so that you can get out of dodge.”
“I didn’t say that.” She turned away from the road to give him a sincere look. Then she went back to driving. “I swear, that is not why I’m saying this. I just… I don’t know… I’m starting to get a bit of a moral twinge about all this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when you made me promise we’d never turn those women in to the police, I thought that was really uncool.”
“Why? They weren’t going to open up otherwise.”
“Because we didn’t know what they were going to say. I mean, maybe they were going to confess to cutting him open and ripping out his organs and torturing him or something.”
“Please, Zoe.”
“I mean it,” she said. “And anyway, they helped her cover up Arnold Bell’s murder. He was murdered.”
“He was put down,” said Nash. “Like a rabid dog. He didn’t deserve any better.”
“Look, he was a jerk, no doubt about it. But he was a human being. And I think that once we start deciding that some humans are worth more than other humans, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump down to the Holocaust, and—”
“Whoa.” He gaped at her. “Are you kidding me? This is completely different than that.”
“It’s not. Either all people have basic rights or they don’t. It’s very simple. If you start deciding that some people don’t deserve basic human rights—”
“He abused women and children. Children, Zoe. He hurt his own kids. He had a harem out there. He was building his own little domain. He wasn’t human. Or at least, he wasn’t human like the rest of us.”
“You never even met him,” said Zoe. “You don’t know anything about him. And bullshit, he was human.”
Nash sighed.
“Look, I’m just saying that there are better ways for someone like Siobhan to help people. She could get these men arrested and thrown in jail. She doesn’t have the right to decide who lives and dies. She’s dangerous, and I think you’re ignoring that fact.”
Nash gazed at her sidelong. “You really don’t want to find her, do you?”
“I don’t know,” said Zoe. “I have a bad feeling about it is all.”
“Well, according to you, I’m never going to even be able to find her, so there’s probably no point.”
“How are you going to find her?”
“I’ll look up unsolved serial killer cases. I’ll try to find one that would fit her profile.”
“What profile? Didn’t we just determine that she’s all over the map? Sometimes, they aren’t even killers.”
“Look, I’ll find her, okay,” said Nash. “But if you don’t want to be part of it, you don’t have to be part of it. You can go home right now.”
“You firing me?”
“No. If you want to help me, I would love your help.”
“Well, then I’m still in,” she said. “Where are we going next?”
“Home, I guess,” said Nash. “My home. You can come with me. I have a guest room.”
* * *
The first thing Nash did after he got home was to call Tabitha and tell her that he was back in the area. He’d been diligent about keeping his every-other-night-phone-call date with Ariel, and he was hoping that Tabitha would see that and warm to him.
But she seemed more annoyed than anything when he asked if Ariel could skip daycare one day and come hang out with him instead.
“What?” said Tabitha. “That’s crazy. You know how much I pay for daycare?”
“I’ll pay you back for it,” said Nash. “Besides, I’m sure sometimes she has to stay home, anyway. Like if she’s sick or something, right?”
“I don’t know, Nash. What are you even going to do with her?”
“Well, I thought maybe we could make a day of it, go to the zoo or something, maybe grab lunch out—somewhere healthy, of course—”
“No,” said Tabitha.
“That’s it? No?”
“I don’t want her to get the idea that when she goes to be with you, it’s always some big adventure. You’re her parent, not a treat.”
“Okay,” said Nash. “Well, I guess we can just stay here, then. We could play board games and do puzzles and things like that?”
“I think that would be better,” said Tabitha.
“So, she can come?”
“I guess so.” Tabitha heaved a huge sigh.
Nash didn’t think he’d ever been so excited in his adult life. A whole day with Ariel, just the two of them. He spent the whole evening before cleaning the house from top to bottom. Zoe came out of the guest room, confused about what he was doing. He filled her in with the good news. Zoe, however, seemed terrified at the prospect of a kid in the house the next day and said she’d clear out and come home after Ariel left.
Nash was actually a bit pleased about this, because he didn’t want to have to “share” Ariel with anyone. It was going to be so awesome, just him and his daughter.
Then, around midnight, he awoke in a panic, thinking that he was woefully unprepared for having a kid in his house. What if she got sick? What if she spilled food on her outfit? What if she didn’t like any of the games he had planned for them?
He dragged himself out of bed and went on a midnight shopping spree at Wal-mart, buying everything from jump ropes to childr
en’s painkillers to shirts and jeans in Ariel’s size.
When Tabitha dropped the little girl off in the morning, he was exhausted from having lost hours of sleep, but he was still pleased to see her.
Ariel was glad to see him too. She ran for him, squealing, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”
He got down on one knee and held out his arms.
She ran right into him.
He hugged her and she hugged him and tears stung his eyes. There was nothing more perfect than this. He couldn’t believe he’d missed so much of this, that he was still missing—
“Who is this?” said Tabitha.
Nash looked up.
Zoe was coming into the kitchen. “I’m leaving,” she said. “I’m totally leaving.”
Tabitha put her hands on her hips. “You had your girlfriend over last night?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Nash stood up. “She’s way too young for me.”
“I’m not that young,” Zoe protested. Then she seemed to realize that wasn’t helping. She turned to Tabitha, forcing a smile. “I’m not his girlfriend.”
“She’s my intern,” said Nash.
“Yup,” said Zoe. “And I’m leaving.” She pointed at the door.
“Intern?” said Tabitha, shaking her head.
“For the podcast,” said Nash, putting his hands in his pockets.
“Why is she here at seven in the morning?” Tabitha’s nostrils flared.
“Well, she’s staying here,” said Nash. “In the guest room. We’re working on the podcast, so it’s easier if she’s—”
“Whatever,” said Tabitha. She rounded on Zoe. “I don’t want you trying to bond with my daughter and then disappearing from her life.”
Zoe’s eyes widened. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I’m definitely terrified of kids.” And with that, she flung herself out the door.
Tabitha dragged her hands over her face. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.” She turned to her daughter. “Ariel, maybe we should just take you to daycare.”
Ariel’s face crumpled. “No! Mommy, you said I got to stay with Daddy today.”
“I know, sweetie, but—”
“Clara and Lydia say their daddies live in their house, and they get to see them every day, and Jenny says that she gets to see hers every weekend, and I never get to see my daddy at all, and you promised—”
The Feminine Touch Page 14