Desert Wives (9781615952267)

by Webb, Betty

  Chapter 20

  As I left the clinic by the same door I had entered, I reassessed my suspicions. No wholesale murder of children was taking place in Purity, just the kind of inbreeding that doomed them to early deaths—if they were fortunate enough to live past infancy.

  I thought back to the blind girl I’d seen at Ermaline’s house. Judy hadn’t been abandoned in this warehouse for the deformed. Why not?

  The answer was obvious. Judy was a girl, and a girl, no matter how serious her congenital defects, could still be bred. All she had to do was lie there while her sixty-year-old husband sowed his seed. Besides, with Purity’s adherence to polygamy, the compound needed more girls than boys. This was probably the main reason the compound had put up with my poorly disguised independence and bad temper. Although I was—according to Purity standards—well on my way to cronehood, I could still pop out a few babies before my ovaries gave up, thus contributing fresh genes to the compound’s badly damaged gene pool.

  But the little boys, ah, they were a different story.

  It hadn’t passed my notice that most of the children in that room had been boys, and I thought I knew why. To take a wife, to breed, to add money to Purity’s coffers, to ascend to Highest Heaven, a man had to be mobile. Because of their complete inability to take up a polygamist man’s duties, those little boys I’d seen with the most serious congenital birth defects—microcephaly, spina bifida, profound retardation and cerebral palsy—were warehoused from birth. While their fathers collected extra government benefits.

  What a life. I leaned against an outbuilding and tried not to throw up.

  Hanna’s son. What would happen to him? Would he, like so many of Purity’s damaged little boys, live out his life in one room?

  I decided to confront Davis. With all his flaws, he wasn’t as bad as the rest of the men in Purity. He had a heart. He’d rescued Cynthia, carried her in his own arms back to her fool of a mother. I knew I could make him see reason, possibly even put a halt to the institutionalized incest that doomed so many children to brief, miserable lives.

  Not wanting to waste another second, I hitched up my skirts and hurried through the rain to his house. I didn’t even bother knocking, just rushed in. “Brother Davis?” I yelled. “I need to see you!”

  Sissy came out of the kitchen. She took one look at me and gasped. Then I remembered my raised skirts. My, my. How easily polygamists became shocked over normal things like a woman’s legs. To spare her blushes, I lowered them. “Sissy, where’s Brother Davis?”

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid he’s in his den counseling someone. He can’t see you now.”

  I shoved past her. “I don’t care if he’s counseling the Pope. I’m going in.”

  “No! Counseling is a very private time, a spiritual time.” She clutched at my dress and attempted to drag me back.

  I batted her hand away and kept moving. “Get your hands off me, Sissy, before I slap you silly.”

  “Sister Lena, I wish you wouldn’t…”

  But I was already at the den, already opening the door. What I saw there shocked me even more, if possible, than the scene at the clinic.

  Brother Davis Royal, the Reform Prophet of Purity, was counseling someone all right, if you call running your hand up a seven-year-old girl’s thigh counseling. I recognized those moves from my own experience with him the day before. He’d go for her blouse next.

  I didn’t bother keeping the outrage from my voice. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  The little girl gave a frightened squeak, jumped up, and headed out the open door, blond hair and long skirts flying. Sissy, whose face had become as white as Prophet Davis’s perfect teeth, grabbed her and hustled her away.

  Davis turned to face me, his face flushed. With passion? For a child? Or with anger because I’d interrupted his good time? “Sister Lena! Such language!”

  “Don’t criticize my language, you miserable child molester!” For a moment my hand itched for my revolver, but he wasn’t worth going to jail over. Especially not in Utah.

  His mouth attempted a half-smile. It failed. “I can explain.”

  “There’s nothing to explain. I thought you had some kind of decency, but you’re no better than the rest of the Circle.”

  He shook his head as if under attack by bees. “No, no, you’ve got me all wrong. I’m no rapist, and I’m certainly no child molester. Being new to our ways, you’ve simply misinterpreted what you’ve seen.”

  Did the fool think he could make me question the evidence of my own eyes? Then I remembered: Davis was his father’s son, and therefore no stranger to manipulation. He probably thought if it worked for Daddy, why not for him?

  His voice grew oily as he reached for my hands. “Sister Lena, you saw how badly the situation with Earl Graff and Cynthia turned out. She never had the chance to get used to his touch, so on her wedding night, when he attempted certain things, she panicked. Don’t you agree with me that such an event could seriously scar a woman’s soul? Of course it could! That’s why a man who really cares for a woman’s happiness begins preparing her while she’s still a young and impressionable girl. Take Sissy, for example. If I’d waited until she was thirteen, it might have been too late! She could have turned her very healthy sexual nature toward another man. But by preparing her the same way I had just started preparing that other little girl, Sissy fixated on me. Don’t you see the compassion in my method, Sister Lena?”

  “Sister Lena thinks you’re a freak.” With that, I jerked my hands away and gave him the same karate chop I’d delivered to Earl Graff.

  Leaving Davis writhing on the floor, and a horrified Sissy leaning against the wall, I rushed back across Prophet’s Park to Saul’s house. The mud-spattered truck parked in front of it told me he’d returned from court.

  “I’m calling the cops!” I yelled, as I jerked open the front door. “And then I’m getting the hell out of here!”

  Saul sat on the sofa, his face immobile. Next to him, Ruby had been crying.

  “Yeah, you sure are getting the hell out of here, Lena,” he said, quietly. “We all are. I lost in court this morning, and I’ve been given forty-eight hours to remove my clothes and furniture from this house.”

  With an effort, I put my rage on hold. “They only gave you forty-eight hours?”

  “Yeah. After that, the Circle of Elders impounds everything else. You gonna help me pack?”

  I shook my head and told him about what I’d seen at Prophet Davis’s house. Then, while Saul beat his fist against his palm in rage, I called Sheriff Benson and told him everything, too.

  “You want to press formal charges?” Benson asked when I finished. The anger in his voice weighed more toward me and what he dismissed as my “foolish undercover crusade” than at Prophet Davis’s actions.

  “My god, man, I interrupted an incident of child molestation in progress! Of course I want to file charges.”

  “Then I’ll come right out.”

  Somewhat gratified, I put down the phone.

  My feeling of gratification vanished two hours later, however, when Sheriff Benson came back to Saul’s after interviewing everyone involved.

  “The girl denied your entire story, Ms. Jones,” Benson said, his face rigid with dislike. He wouldn’t even sit in the chair I pulled out for him. “The girl’s mother denied it and so did Prophet Davis. You’re the only person who says it happened. In fact, Prophet Davis is thinking about filing a complaint against you.”

  I jumped out of my own chair. “Complaint? Complaint for what?”

  “Assault. False accusations. Oh, if you’re found guilty you probably won’t go to jail, but you’ll be liable for a hefty financial judgment. It’s happened before.” Was I wrong, or did I hear satisfaction in his voice?

  “That’s insane!”

  He shrugged. “If I remember correctly, you used to be a police officer, so you should know that when you start th
rowing around charges like you’re doing now, you’d better have witnesses. That’s how the law protects innocent parties from the accusations of people who have an agenda, such as yourself.”

  Saul stepped forward, his face hard. “Sheriff, are you hinting that Lena is lying?”

  Benson flashed a big smile. Considering the circumstances, it appeared wildly inappropriate. “Now, I didn’t say that, did I? But I’ll tell you this, Mr. Berkhauser. Prophet Davis said Ms. Jones has been out to get him ever since she proposed to him and he declined.”

  “Declined, my ass! I’ll have you know he couldn’t wait to get his hands on me!”

  Benson’s smile didn’t budge. “Frankly, I think Prophet Davis’s story makes more sense than yours. My years in law enforcement have taught me that a rejected woman frequently takes her revenge by making accusations against the man who rejected her. There are other things I’ve noticed about you, Ms. Jones, that call your credibility into question. When I first met you down in Scottsdale, you seemed much too willing to take the part of an obviously hysterical woman who had her own ax to grind. The next time I see you, here you are, living in the very community she ran away from, chasing after Prophet Davis, telling me stories about rape, child molestation, and who knows what all. Now, I have one final question. You seem to be a deeply troubled woman, Ms. Jones. Have you ever considered therapy?”

  Only Sheriff Benson’s uniform kept me from slapping that maddening smile off his face.

  After Benson left, Ruby, who had been sitting quietly in the corner with her hands folded primly on her lap, finally spoke. “Don’t look so shocked, Sister Lena. What he just said about you being crazy, that’s what all these men in Purity say when their wives get upset, except for Brother Saul, of course. I’m bettin’ Sheriff Benson says it to his own wives at least once a day.”

  Saul and I both stood in the middle of the room, staring at her.

  “Wives, did you say, Sister Ruby?” Saul asked.

  “Wives. He’s got three, at least he did last time I called over there. Two of them are my own daughters.”

  “What?” Saul and I both shouted in chorus.

  She leaned forward in her chair. “Neither’s all that happy with him, but it’s not a woman’s job to be happy, is it? After all, he doesn’t do…” She paused and blushed. “He doesn’t do ugly things to them. Oh, they could have done a whole lot worse.”

  “Benson’s a polygamist,” I said.

  “Of course he is, Sister Lena. Howard Benson’s mother was Prophet Solomon’s niece. He was raised right here in Purity.”

  Saul groaned. “My God, if we’d known that…”

  I shushed him with a gesture. I wanted her to continue.

  Ruby didn’t disappoint me. Now that she’d finally taken the plunge and started giving her opinions, she didn’t want to stop. “I knew him when he was a little boy. I didn’t like him much then, either.”

  “But you let your daughters marry him.” I tried to keep my voice level.

  “Let? Let?” Her voice rose to a decidedly unmeek level. Sister Ruby was pissed and she didn’t care who knew it. “There was no let, Sister Lena. My husband fixed it up with Brother Howard’s father years ago. I didn’t have no say and neither did my girls.”

  Saul put a hand to his forehead and groaned. “You knew all this but let Lena call him anyway?”

  She stuck her chin out. “I heard what Sister Lena was saying about the little girl and Prophet Davis, and it made me mad! Touching a seven-year-old girl down there ain’t right, even if you are the prophet. Sin is sin. Now, I know Brother Howard doesn’t like Sister Lena much, but I thought he’d still do something about the little girl. Him saying Lena needed therapy, well, that was just pure nastiness. None of the men around here wouldn’t ever let their females get that kind of help. They’d be too scared of what might come out.”

  Whoever said still waters run deep had undoubtedly met Sister Ruby.

  I sat down heavily. “I’ll be damned. Not only do you believe me, you actually care.”

  She looked at me with no more affection than before. “I think you’re a terrible, pushy woman, Sister Lena, and you don’t know your place. But you don’t lie about anything important.”

  That night I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering what to do next. My cover was well and truly blown and I still didn’t know who’d killed Prophet Solomon. Sheriff Benson, whose ties to Purity proved stronger than his ties to the law, had told Davis who I was and what I was doing in Purity. Not that it made any difference anymore. Before Benson had left, he’d said his deputy had called from Scottsdale, promising to return Esther in handcuffs the next day. As a parting shot, Benson told me her murder trial would probably begin before the first snowfall.

  Rebecca was beyond help.

  Just before dawn, I finally fell asleep.

  A harsh light filled the bus, tinting my mother’s face almost as yellow as her hair. The gun she pointed at my head looked to my four-year-old eyes the size of a cannon.

  “I’ll kill her!” she cried. “I’ll kill her now!”

  “No, Mommy!” I screamed, just as her foot nudged me in the stomach. Then I heard the rattle of the bus’s door opening. But why? We hadn’t slowed down.

  “See! I’m killing her! Right now!”

  Someone grabbed my mother, moved the gun. There was a struggle.

  Then the gun went off. With a scream, my mother kicked me in the stomach, sending me flying toward the open door.

  Just before I lost consciousness on the street outside, I heard my mother scream again.

  “I failed, God forgive me, I failed!”

  I awoke screaming the same words.

  Chapter 21

  “God forgive me, I failed.”

  As soon as the words tore from my throat I recognized them as lies. No. I hadn’t failed. Not yet. I still had one more day left in Purity, a day to find out who murdered Prophet Solomon. A day to return Rebecca to her mother.

  Yes, my mother had failed. Maybe she had even seen my eyes still open as I tumbled from the bus and into the loving arms of the Mexican woman who saved me.

  But I wouldn’t fail.

  This wasn’t my past. This was the here and now, and I had enough time to find a murderer. Yes, remaining here now would be more dangerous than ever, but so what? I’d faced down danger before and won, starting at the ripe old age of four.

  The problem was, almost everyone in Purity had a solid motive for murdering the Prophet. His wives didn’t love him, his children feared him, and he’d intimidated the Circle of Elders for years, living in splendor while they grubbed around in slums. I crawled out of bed and headed for the shower, thinking hard. While I fiddled with the taps, I tried each person’s motive on for size. Cui bono? Who benefited from Prophet Solomon’s death? Who had motive, means and opportunity?

  I showered in cold water, hoping the shock would help me think. As I scrubbed away my goose bumps, I revisited my belief that the new prophet of Purity remained the most likely murderer. With his father out of the way, Davis inherited the Purity Fellowship Foundation’s tax deductible millions. But if Solomon hadn’t died in the canyon that night, would the power shift have eventually changed? Earl Graff, leader of the Circle of Elders, desired the more tractable Meade to be named prophet. Possibly an aging Solomon, pressured by more threats of blackmail, might have finally caved in, designating Meade his spiritual heir whether the boy liked it or not.

  Earl Graff could murder without a qualm, of that I was certain. But how had he benefited from Prophet Solomon’s death? He was the chief proponent of the Meade-for-Prophet-Party, and the old man’s death had ended his dreams. Then again, someone had taken a shot at Davis recently, too. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Earl’s finger had pulled the trigger.

  Purity swarmed with murder suspects. In one of his Alzheimer’s fugues, Jacob Waldman could have killed Solomon, but why? Then again, people suffering from d
ementia didn’t need rational motives, did they?

  Abel Corbett, Rebecca’s father, couldn’t be left out of the equation, either. Yes, we’d all been told the old prophet had promised him a couple of young girls in exchange for Rebecca, but what if Solomon had reneged on the deal at the last minute? Could the about-face have made Abel angry enough to kill? As I thought about Abel’s less-than-stellar track record at fatherhood, an even more intriguing suspect entered the picture.

  Noah Heaton, the dwarfish thug who’d been frustrated by Solomon’s refusal to give him any wives, looked good for it. Now his wedding day was about to arrive, along with his new wives’ welfare checks. Brother Noah had certainly cashed in after Solomon’s death.

  Noises down the hall interrupted my thinking. Saul was up and headed for the kitchen, Ruby trailing behind him. Thinking about my pseudo-husband and sister wife drew my mind onto a track I’d been avoiding. Saul’s own motive for killing Solomon remained second only to Davis’s. Solomon had bilked Saul out of his life savings, leaving him stranded in Purity with an unloving wife.

  For that matter, how about Ruby herself? She’d told me that Gaynell, her first husband, had died after Solomon’s faith healing failed. Although Saul had described Gaynell as somewhat less than kind, Ruby wouldn’t have been the first woman to have loved a brute. Even the Marquis de Sade’s wife had remained loyal to the bitter end.

  Even Cynthia couldn’t be ruled out as a suspect. Her father had ignored her desire to attend college, and instead promised her to Earl Graff. If the old bastard had still been alive, I might have been tempted to kill him for that myself.

  I finalized my list of female suspects with the person I least wanted to be the killer. Virginia Lawler, the owner of West Wind Ranch, the woman who devoted her life to helping girls escape from the polygamy compounds. Virginia’s present life might be an ongoing act of contrition, but I wondered if she found her efforts eased her nightmares. Remembering my own nights, I shuddered. Dreams could make you crazy. They could infiltrate your waking life until you could no longer tell fantasy from reality, right from wrong.