Desert Wives (9781615952267)

by Webb, Betty

  “Sister Cynthia!” Davis bellowed, as unkempt children scattered everywhere. Three very pregnant women stared at us, wiping their hands on their aprons. “Sister Cynthia. It’s Davis Royal! I’m here to take you home!”

  One of Earl’s wives said nervously, “Our new sister wife isn’t feeling well this morning, Brother Davis.”

  Another wife, a tall, sharp-featured woman who’d hung back in the doorway of the kitchen, threw a look of utter hatred toward Earl. “She had a bad night,” she said. When Earl turned his eyes toward her, she pretended great interest in the worn linoleum, but her expression didn’t change.

  “Sister Pearl, you fetch Sister Cynthia,” Davis commanded. “Now.”

  “Certainly, Brother Davis. But I might need a helping hand.” Her eyes flicked toward me. “Perhaps Sister Lena…?

  I took my cue, noticing with interest that the woman knew my name. “Certainly I’ll help, Sister Pearl. Where is she?”

  “Follow me.”

  She led me down an unpainted, dark hall lit only by a single bare bulb dangling from a cord, and finally stopped before a cheap pine door.

  “Don’t be surprised at anything you see,” she said, her voice flat. “Our husband isn’t the gentlest of men.”

  When Pearl opened the door to the bedroom, I saw that what I had done to Earl Graff had been revisited a hundred fold upon Cynthia. The girl’s beautiful face had been battered almost beyond recognition. Both eyes were swollen shut. Teeth marks covered her cheeks and neck.

  “Brother Earl likes to bite,” Pearl said, matter-of-factly. “You probably don’t want to see what’s beneath the covers.”

  I felt sick.

  Pearl studied the wrecked room, the broken lamp, a shattered mirror, and a million feathers from shredded pillows. “Looks like she put up a fight, never a good idea with Earl. Those of us who’ve been around here awhile know it’s better to just let him do what he wants and get it over with as fast as possible.”

  Maybe so, but I couldn’t help but hope that Cynthia had taken a piece out of Brother Earl where it really counted.

  I walked over to the bed and leaned over the girl. “Cynthia, it’s Lena. Brother Davis just annulled your marriage to Earl. I’m here to take you home.”

  Cynthia forced her swollen eyes open, and I could still see burst capillaries in both of them. The whites had turned to blood. But her voice sounded strong. “I’m not sure I can walk.”

  “We’ll help you, dear,” Sister Pearl said, slipping an arm under her.

  As Sister Pearl raised the girl up, the covers fell away. We both gasped. Bite marks sprinkled Cynthia’s breasts and abdomen. Fist-sized bruises covered her entire body in huge, dirty polka-dots.

  “My dress,” Cynthia whispered. “Please.”

  Pearl reached for the torn garment at the foot of the bed, but I stopped her.

  “No! I want them to see her. I want them to see what they’ve allowed to happen to women in Purity!” Turning back to Cynthia I asked, “Do you have the courage?”

  Her poor, battered face contorted. “Let them see me? But I’m so ashamed.”

  “The shame is his, not yours. Let them see. Let everyone see.”

  Pearl put her hand on my shoulder. “Sister Lena, are you sure about this? After what the poor child has been through it seems cruel.”

  “Cruel? Let me tell you what’s cruel, Sister Pearl. Covering up situations like this, that’s what’s cruel! I’m so sick and tired of everyone pretending they’re living in Paradise. There’s plenty of snakes in this so-called Garden of Eden and I want them rooted out. I want…”

  I forced myself back under control. What I wanted was the entire compound wiped off the face of the earth, the women and children sent to shelters and the men to prison—but not before I’d found Prophet Solomon’s killer and removed Rebecca from harm’s way.

  I swallowed my rage as best I could. “Sister Pearl, I’ve talked to Brother Davis about the problems some of the women are having here, and he agrees with me that something needs to be done. If he sees how bad things really are, I’m sure he’ll take steps. But…” I turned back to Cynthia. “But he has to see first! He has to see what happened to you. And the other men on the Council, they have to see, too.”

  Cynthia groaned. “No man has ever seen my body, I mean, until Brother Earl…”

  Then Sister Pearl surprised me. “God created your body, dear, and God does not create anything of which we need to be ashamed.”

  Cynthia lay quietly for a moment, then took a deep breath and nodded her head. “You’re right, Sister Pearl. If you think it’ll do any good, I’ll do it. My body’s no different than any of the other bodies I’ve been studying in my anatomy books. Those men out there are all married, aren’t they? They’ve seen it all before?”

  “Yeah, they have.” I would have hugged her for her courage, but I was too afraid I’d hurt her.

  Sister Pearl wasn’t quite so delicate. She leaned over the girl and said, “Put your arms around me, Sister Cynthia, and I’ll help you up.”

  I rushed forward to help, and between the two of us, we managed to get the girl to her feet and wrap her in a flimsy robe we found in the closet.

  “I’m going to close my eyes, though,” Cynthia whispered, as we helped her walk to the door. “I don’t want to see them…I don’t want to see them see me.”

  Pearl gave her the hug I’d feared to. “You’re very brave, dear. Don’t worry. Sister Lena and I will make sure that you’ll be okay.”

  Pearl threw me a pleading look and I nodded. Yes, I’d make sure Cynthia would be okay, even if it meant escorting her out of the compound with a gun. But hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. Royal was the wild card in the equation.

  We shuffled Cynthia down the hall and into the living room, where the men waited with their backs to us as they spoke in low tones to Earl Graff.

  I broke up their little party. “Do you see?” I shouted to them, opening Cynthia’s robe so that her bitten, bruised body was visible. “Do you see what that bastard did to her?”

  When they turned, their faces paled.

  “My God. My God.” Davis breathed. “I never thought…”

  The other men gaped as if they’d never seen a battered girl before, although if I were a betting woman, I’d have bet they had: their own child-brides.

  “Brother Earl?” one of them gasped, looking toward the little man. “Why did you do that to her?”

  “She fell down!”

  Before I could call him a liar myself, Davis moved swiftly across the room and punched Graff in his nose, felling him. But where I had smacked Graff just the once, Royal hauled him up by the shirt front and punched him again. And again. He kept punching him until the other members of the Circle of Elders pulled him off the bleeding, moaning man.

  “Brother Davis, don’t kill him!” one of them begged. “We can’t have the sheriff called out again, it looks bad! Let the Circle take care of this problem.”

  I wanted to stay and find out what “take care of” meant, but Pearl whispered in my ear, “We’ve done what we needed to do. Now let’s get the poor child cleaned up and dressed.” To Cynthia, she said, “You’ve been a good, brave girl, dear. I’m proud of you.”

  Undone by Pearl’s gentle voice, Cynthia finally allowed herself to cry.

  Back at the house, Saul listened to the story in horror.

  “I always suspected Brother Earl was rough on his wives, but damn, Lena! That’s disgusting!”

  “You’ll notice that nobody said anything about taking Graff’s other wives away from him,” I pointed out. “Not even Davis.”

  “Lena, something has to be done about this!” Saul paced back and forth in the living room, his arms swinging in a jerky manner like a marionette’s. “It can’t be allowed to continue!”

  I shook my head wearily. “It’ll continue as long as the law allows it, you know that. As for me, Saul, I have a job to
do and that job isn’t to lead a revolution in Purity. It’s to find Solomon’s killer and get Rebecca’s mother out of jail. Afterward, well, it may sound cold, but I’ve got a detective agency to run.”

  He stopped pacing and spun back around toward me. “So what about this marriage deal you’ve got going with Davis Royal? You really going to do it?”

  I grimaced. “Who knows? I’ll do whatever’s necessary to help Rebecca. Anyway, my intended fiancé says I can stay here until he divorces Sissy, since my virtue’s so obviously safe with you. Then the Circle of Elders will perform the marriage ceremony. Davis says that by this time next week, we’ll be man and wife. Make that man and wives.”

  It didn’t bother me that Royal would divorce Sissy, because the divorce meant nothing. The Purity system was about concubinage, not marriage. She’d still belong to him.

  Saul interrupted my thoughts. “So you’ve got a week now to figure out who killed Prophet Solomon. That’s not much.”

  “It’s a week longer than I had this morning.”

  He dropped to the sofa beside me and gave me a bleak grin. “Sure wish you’d come up with a better reason to explain our lack of sex. You just put a major crimp in my social life.”

  I smiled back. “I don’t think the story of your so-called impotence will leave Purity with you. Which reminds me. I’ve been so worried about my own situation that I’ve neglected yours. How’s the lawsuit going?”

  “The hearing is tomorrow, Lena, and my attorney says there’s not much hope. There’s a good chance I’ll need to pack up and leave Purity by the time you get married, if that’s what you’re really going to do.”

  Now my glum face matched his. “Aren’t we the happy couple?”

  Jimmy had done his part by giving me the backgrounds of the Purity men, including Solomon himself, and now it was up to me to put it all together. Who had most benefited from the Prophet’s death?

  The answer wasn’t long in coming.

  Davis Royal. The new prophet of Purity.

  Chapter 17

  Since Prophet Solomon’s death, Davis Royal had assumed total command of the compound’s vast financial resources. And while Davis might be not quite as rapacious in his attitude toward the compound’s young women, it was obvious he enjoyed the standard perks that came with leadership.

  Who better to wear the mantle of murderer?

  I tried to convince myself that I didn’t care if Davis turned out to be the murderer, but I’m not sure I succeeded. Sure, he was as seductive as the Devil himself, but at the end of the day, what true value lay in good looks and a gentle touch?

  Then again…

  “Sister Lena, aren’t you going to make lunch?” Ruby’s voice interrupted my thoughts. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen, her long, faded dress almost trailing the floor. I recognized it as the same dress she’d worn yesterday. But now I also understood why. Many of the women in the compound had learned to make themselves look as undesirable as possible.

  “Sister Lena?” Ruby tapped her toe impatiently.

  But I had some serious thinking to do and couldn’t be bothered with all that cooking nonsense. A good, long walk might help me collect my thoughts.

  “You’ll have to make lunch yourself, Sister Ruby,” I said. “I told our husband that I’d run a little errand for him.”

  Saul looked up from the recorder, where he was taping another letter to his sailor son. “Yes. Yes, you did, Sister Lena.”

  Ruby’s face tightened, but she headed for the kitchen as I headed for the door.

  In mere minutes I had reached the silence of the canyon. I kept walking until I came to the small grove where Rebecca and I had found Solomon’s body. Hoping that the site of the murder would give me more insight, I perched on a rock and stared at the small depression that remained in the sand. Solomon had been shot at close range, probably by someone he trusted.

  Perhaps that was the key: trust. Solomon would have trusted his son Davis. Then again, with the naiveté of the truly self-centered, the old man probably trusted just about everyone at the compound: his wives, his other children, even the Circle of Elders. In fact, just about the only person Solomon deemed untrustworthy had been Saul, the compound’s rebel. Try as I would, I couldn’t imagine Saul finding Solomon in the canyon, asking to borrow his shotgun for a moment, then turning around and firing both barrels.

  I could discount the compound’s children, of course, but that still left me with dozens of men and their various and sundry wives. If I couldn’t pin the murder on Davis, Esther and Rebecca would be in a world of hurt. I could theorize about Davis’s guilt all I wanted, but theories didn’t count in court. Only proof did. Not that any accusation I might make would even get to a jury in the state of Utah, where Prophet Solomon’s body had been found. I’d already seen firsthand Sheriff Benson’s collusion with the Circle of Elders. The sheriff would cut off his own right arm before he’d drag the polygamists into court just on the word of some out-of-state detective.

  No, I couldn’t go to Benson with a bag full of theories. I’d need to present irrefutable proof that Davis killed his father. But how?

  As the breeze freshened, blowing down from the north with warnings of cool autumn winds to follow, I thought I heard voices. I held my breath and listened carefully, blocking out the sounds of the cactus wrens and hawks. Two men. As the voices came closer and I began to make them out, I could tell that one of the men was old, the other young. Unless I was mistaken, the older man was Jacob Waldman, Rebecca’s grandfather. The younger one was Meade Royal. Hunting for rabbits again?

  While I doubted that I had anything to fear from those two, Jacob being too far gone in dementia, and Meade being too young to entertain the requisite motives, my days on the compound had made me distrust most males. I looked around for a hiding place and soon found a shallow indentation in the canyon wall, half-hidden by a creosote bush and blooming snakeweed. Trying to keep my feet from kicking up any loose rocks, I hustled over there and squeezed myself into the shallow cave.

  Just in time.

  Jacob Waldman and Meade Royal rounded the bend in the canyon, deep in conversation. Meade carried a small rifle, and had two dead rabbits slung over his shoulder.

  “Uncle Jacob, you must not blame yourself for anything that has happened. Some of these events must be left to God and his justice.” Meade sounded wise for his years, even though during each sentence, his voice wobbled from tenor to baritone and back again.

  “It is a father’s duty to make his daughter obey!” the old man argued. “If I’d tried harder, I could have stopped Esther and Abel from leaving the compound. Then Rebecca would have been born here, under my protection, and none of this would have happened!”

  Interesting. Old Brother Jacob was apparently having one of his more lucid moments, but time had taught me not to read too much into one sentence. As the two passed me and rounded another bend in the canyon, their voices began to fade. If I wanted to hear the rest of their conversation, I’d have to follow. I snatched up some of the yellow snakeweed blooms at my feet, hoping they would provide me with a good excuse for being in the canyon if the two became aware of my presence. As I hurried after them, trying to keep from dislodging any rocks, their conversation continued to intrigue.

  “God is punishing me because I loved her so,” Jacob said, his voice catching.

  “Fathers are supposed to love their daughters,” Meade’s voice soothed. “There’s no sin in that.”

  Suddenly Jacob’s voice changed in timbre, assuming the eerie conviction of an Old Testament prophet. “There is if the daughter is Satan’s whore!”

  He was losing it again, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t hear anything illuminating. Just the contrary. Under certain circumstances, even the ravings of madmen could be helpful.

  More soothing sounds from Meade, tinged with an edge of fear, and I realized for the first time that the boy was afraid of his uncle.

  “U
ncle Jacob, God will punish Sister Esther for leaving us. You don’t have to…”

  “You are wrong, boy!” Jacob roared. “It is a father’s duty to punish a wicked daughter, just as it is to punish a wicked son. The Old Testament in its wisdom talks about stoning disobedient children to death. God demands blood atonement! Only blood atonement can wash away the stains of evil! Without it we would all wind up in Hell, not just the sinner!”

  “Please, Uncle Jacob…”

  Now Meade sounded downright terrified and his voice broke on every other word. I patted my thigh to make certain my .38 hadn’t dislodged as I scrambled through the canyon. Still there. Relieved, I continued to eavesdrop on Jacob’s ravings.

  “I meted out blood atonement to the other one and it freed her soul, so why was I so lax with Esther? Why did I allow her rebellion to continue?”

  The other one?

  “Sin is a virus which infects us all!” Jacob’s rachety old voice rose to a screech, and I wondered if they could hear him all the way back at the compound. “The prophet himself, our own holy prophet! He was blinded by her beauty, blinded by her sin!”

  Wait a minute. Who was he talking about now? Esther? Rebecca? Or someone else?

  As quickly as Jacob’s voice had risen, it lowered. Soon I had to strain to hear him.

  “That’s when our prophet gave in to sin himself, you know, and joined the ranks of Satan. If he hadn’t sinned, he would have lived forever!”

  “Uncle Jacob…” Meade’s voice rose into falsetto. “You can’t…”

  “But unlike the prophet, I was wise to Satan’s lures. I took the vengeance of God into my hands and washed her sins away in her own blood. The blood, the very color of the blood…”

  “Uncle Jacob, please don’t let anybody hear you talk like that! It, it could be taken all wrong!”