Black Widows

by Cate Quinn

  I take a breath to steady myself for whatever I’m about to see and wrinkle my nose up, trying to stop the tears. Then I give a quick, sharp nod.

  “Sure you’re ready?” Officer Brewer has a hand on the sheet; her eyes are on mine, concerned.

  “Yes.” It comes out mousy, quiet.

  She meets my eye, and I realize she is a kind woman. I think if she were allowed, she’d hold my hand.

  “Okay.” She nods. “I’ll pull it back. Just give me the nod when you’re done, and I’ll cover him right up again.”

  The tears make everything blurry. But as she pulls back the sheet, the sight of him hits me like a ten-ton truck.

  I lurch back, one hand on the metal gurney to steady myself. My body does an odd thing, folding at the hip. I’m gasping. My eyes seek out the body again, lying inches from where my fingers are gripped white. I yank my hand back on reflex.

  “Mrs. Nelson,” Brewer is saying. “Mrs. Nelson. Do you need to take a break?”

  “What have you done to him?” I whisper. “What have you done to my Blake? Where are his holy garments?”

  Chapter Six

  Tina, Sister-Wife

  The police station has a coffee machine that serves Postum, which is, like, this gross coffee substitute that Mormons favor. I never could get to like it, but Rachel drinks the stuff like it’s goin’ outta fashion.

  One of the police officers pushes a button and fills his cup with dirt-colored froth as we wait for Rachel. He doesn’t offer me a drink.

  “So you cohabit?” asks the officer, stirring his shitty coffee. “With two other women, acting as wives to Blake Nelson?”

  He’s looking me up and down. My straight black hair is a little frayed at the ends, since I’m growing it long as part of my religion. I’ve still got a hot bod, even after all the drugs. Just lucky, I guess. My mom was the same. She kept an itty-bitty waist and C-cup chest into her forties. Her face got saggy, but big brown eyes and good cheekbones can ride out a lotta punishment. We’ve got Indian blood; that was what she always said. ’Longside a lotta other blood, since my dad was a no-good drifter from across the border. But in any case, folk with Indian blood age real nicely.

  In Vegas, looks don’t get noticed the same as here. Half the casino girls would make your jaw drop. So I can see the Salt Lake City cop sorta checking me out, cogs turning like… Did he get to have sex with them all at the same time?

  Rachel told me husband-and-wife relations are the obsession nonfundamental types have with polygamy. Like they’re bent out of shape on how the bedroom stuff works. She didn’t say that, of course. She said a long word like pru-rient. I used to think she did that on purpose to prove she was college-educated when Emily and I weren’t. But now I think maybe not. Rachel is real smart, but not so smart when it comes to people, if you see what I mean. You’d think growin’ up in a big family would make Rachel an open kinda gal. But in actual fact, she is the complete opposite. I don’t even know if Rachel knows what she’s really feelin’ half the time, so good luck gettin’ her to tell ya.

  That’s why it’s been so difficult between her and us sister-wives. Rachel thinks of herself as this hoity-toity private person. Which is why I guess she flipped so bad when Emily started delving into her secrets.

  I twirl a strand of dark hair around my finger.

  “You wonderin’ what we get up to in the bedroom, Officer?” I ask innocently, batting my lashes at him. He flushes, because of course he is—I can always tell when men are thinkin’ ’bout that stuff—but he can’t admit it, being a nice Mormon an’ all.

  A flash of anger shows on his face.

  “You know, people like you give Latter-day Saints a bad name,” he says. “The LDS Church doesn’t recognize sister-wives.”

  “They will be your sisters.” I remember Blake sayin’ that. Thinkin’ how good it sounded. Because really, what I miss the most from turnin’ tricks in Vegas is the other girls. For all the shitty lows, we all looked out for one another. I saved a life more than once. That’s sisterhood. Not sittin’ ’round sewin’ together. Waitin’ for the Wicked Witch of the West to make some snipe atcha ’cause you happen to like wearin’ pink lipstick. Joke’s on her, though, right? Who did he take to bed most nights? Well, that would be me.

  “Plural marriage has been illegal in our church since 1904,” continues the cop. “A true Mormon doesn’t break the law.”

  “Really? I never heard that before.” I realize I’ve lurched straight back to my former self. It feels good, actually. Least I know how to behave in a police station.

  The officer’s face reddens.

  “How are we expected to bring more souls into the Church,” he demands, “when folks like you make us look like inbred hillbillies?”

  “Ah well,” I say, “baptisms count as souls you’ve saved, right? More wives mean more conversions to the faith, ain’t that right?”

  “I’ve got four children, and they’re raised to respect the law.”

  “Good for them.” I lean back, wishing I had a cigarette. I gave up right before Blake and I were married, since Mormons don’t partake of caffeine, tobacco, or alcohol.

  “Blake and I weren’t legally wed, Officer. We had a ceremony in the Salt Lake Temple downtown. You know the one? That great big white building with the pointy spires? You can’t miss it.”

  I’m being snarky here because the temple more or less is Salt Lake City. The town was built around it when Brigham Young decided to build a church here back in eighteen hundred an’ somethin’. It’s a colossal whiter-than-white castle thing that you can see from anyplace in the city, and the ten-acre plot is so large, the whole area, all the streets and squares, are named Temple East and Temple West and so forth.

  First time I saw it, I couldn’t believe they were gonna let me inside. It reminded me of the palace in Cinderella.

  “There’s no law against holding a spiritual ceremony,” I say. “It doesn’t make a legal marriage recognized by the state. Only a spiritual one. Cut my throat and hope to die,” I add with a wink, knowing he’s done all the weird rituals himself.

  Of course, he’s a born-into, dyed-in-the-wool Latter-day Saint. So he’ll have gone to the temple all set to absorb whatever they have to tell him.

  Me, I’ll be straight, it was hard not to laugh at some of it. Blake had already gifted me with my holy underwear. Garments, we call them. A very, very unsexy white long-john-type thing, ending midthigh and mid-upper arm. When he explained I had to wear it always to protect me from evil, I considered backing out right then and there. Maybe I shoulda, ’cause the temple was a whole other level. Pretending to gut ourselves with imaginary knives. Holding hands through a sheet. Like somethin’ you might play with your best friend in kindergarten. Make friends, make friends, never, never break friends. That kind of thing. What made it even harder was Blake took it so seriously. At one point, I thought I was going to straight-out start laughing. The only thing that got me through was knowing I’d get out and into the arms of my new husband.

  The police officer is glaring at me now. I can tell I’ve gotten to him.

  Good. I allow myself a mean moment.

  Born-into Mormons like him hate that people like me are allowed into their club, that we know their secrets.

  “You got an answer for everythin’, doncha?” he spits back. “Better hope you got an answer for God when the time comes.”

  “More of a question, actually. I’ll ask him what the fuck he’s doin’ with my husband.”

  Chapter Seven

  Rachel, First Wife

  Blake’s dreadful, puffed-up face seems to float on its metal gurney. Brewer was right. It doesn’t look like him. It doesn’t look like anyone. His head and shoulders peek above the blue-green sheet. The chemical smell of the morgue is getting to me.

  “He isn’t wearing his garments,” I say, looking accus
ingly at the medical examiner. “Where are Blake’s garments?” I’m trying to keep calm, but something in my tone causes both of them to flinch.

  “We have to unclothe the bodies,” explains Officer Brewer. “It’s part of the process…”

  “I’m not talking about his clothes,” I say and hear my voice come out at volume.

  I’m searching for how to explain when, to my relief, the medical examiner intercedes. “Latter-day Saints wear sacred garments, given them in the temple,” he explains to Brewer. “They’re not supposed to take them off.”

  He shoots me a sympathetic little glance. I can tell he’s part of the Church, ’cause he says Latter-day Saints, rather than Mormon. Some folk get sniffy about that word—it’s more often used by those of us who believe in plural marriage, and some of the others like to distance themselves.

  “I’ve lived in Utah for ten years,” snaps Brewer. “I’m well aware of religious underwear, thank you, Dr. Docherty.” I’m surprised to see her annoyance. In my world, women almost never show anger. I find myself looking at her with a little awe, like she’s an exotic animal.

  She turns back to me.

  “Mrs. Nelson, I understand this is very difficult for you. I’m afraid our protocol is to undress the bodies that come to us. That includes temple-wear. As you might imagine, in Salt Lake City, this is not the first body to arrive in our morgue wearing holy garments. I appreciate they have great significance and meaning to you, but we have to do our job. We remove all clothing so we may better ascertain cause of death.”

  “You took his garments off?” I realize my fists are clenched. I have an awful image of the medical examiner’s pale hands yanking at Blake’s ordained things.

  Disrespectful. The word hisses like a snake in my brain.

  Stay sweet, Rachel, I remind myself. Stay sweet.

  I’m suddenly reeling. This means Blake’s body is exposed beneath this sheet. Vulnerable to dark forces.

  Blake was endowed in his garments at age eighteen, shortly before his mission—a staple for precollege Mormon boys. A two-year trip abroad to save souls. Girls get their garments when they marry.

  A lot of the women I grew up with never took their garments off, and I mean not ever. When they came to bathe, they’d do it one limb at a time, dangling over a bathtub, and clean their other parts very carefully with a washcloth. I grew up with tales of how garments could repel fire and stop bullets.

  Mine were bought six years ago from Beehive Clothing, a strangely washed-out-looking store to the west of town, where Blake assured me I’d get the best price. I remember crying right before I was endowed. When I saw the huddles of family members in the temple, waiting for their relatives, a sickening loneliness struck. I guess I hadn’t truly realized how much I missed my own people until that moment.

  “It’s not good to cry here,” I remember Blake advising in an earnest, hissed whisper. “It looks like you’re not committed. Cry after.”

  Through everything that happened next—the touching of my naked places by kindly women, the miming of cutting my own throat, should I reveal the temple secrets—through all of it, I was stunned into numbness by my husband-to-be’s remark. Did he think I was stage-crying to appear devout in front of his folks? The Blake who’d courted me seemed suddenly lost. In the sea of rituals, I had never felt so alone. When my thick nylon underwear was finally awarded to me, I pulled it on gratefully, armoring myself.

  And now here I am in an opposite world, in a dark, cold room where garments are removed, not given. Where souls are not sealed but lost.

  “We have all your husband’s belongings safe,” the medical examiner assures me. He points to a pile of clear plastic bags on a nearby gurney. Some contain clothes, neatly folded. Others are dirtied and messy, as though they’ve been dragged from a muddy river.

  I feel my mouth fill with bile.

  I recognize Blake’s yellowed crop-sleeve vest top. No matter what detergent I used, I never could get the fade of nylon out. The LDS Church is a little unclear on buying new garments. It’s generally accepted to keep a set as long as you can, but Blake was frugal about such things. Neither he nor any of us wives had ever received new garments. Mine are six years old and fraying at the edges.

  I have a sudden, humiliating flash of how this must all look to non-Church members. The saggy underwear we wear as holy.

  “I appreciate this might seem strange to you,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “But an important part of our faith is to keep these garments by our skin at all times. May I have them, please? I need to arrange so he can be buried in them. I feel…extremely uncomfortable that you have touched them. No one but his wives should even see them,” I add, struggling with the tight knot of feelings in my chest.

  My eyes draw back to Blake’s face again. I can’t help it. “Why does he look like that?” I ask quietly.

  “It happens to victims of strangulation,” says Brewer, matching my tone. “Pressure builds in the face.”

  I look down to Blake’s neck, around which two livid red marks run like a set of train tracks. At the side of his head is a lump of black congealed blood matted in his red hair. I can tell Brewer is waiting for me to ask more about how he died, and when I don’t, she seems confused, like I’m not behaving naturally.

  “Mrs. Nelson,” says Brewer. “To be clear. Can you identify Blake Nelson at this time?”

  This often happens to me. It’s like emotions bob around, waiting to be recognized, then spring on me when I least expect them.

  “Yes,” I say. “This is my husband.”

  I start to cry.

  Chapter Eight

  Rachel, First Wife

  The police interview room has the same smell they all have. Old coffee and strong cleaning products. I feel like all the smells are mixing inside me. The morgue we came from. The scuffed interior of this unloved space. My eyes glide up to the rattling, old air-conditioner. A fat piece of packing tape has been used to fix a crack, but part has come unstuck and trembles in the breeze from the unit like an accusing finger.

  “Mrs. Nelson,” says Officer Brewer. “We’d appreciate you answering a few questions for us. You are here of your own free will and not under arrest. However, state law requires me to inform you that you are entitled to a lawyer at this time. This could be someone chosen by you, or a state-appointed lawyer could be found.”

  “Mormons don’t need lawyers,” I say. “We’ve got God as our witness.”

  She frowns slightly at this.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I joke when I’m nervous.”

  “Oh.” She frowns more deeply. “There’s nothing to be nervous about, Mrs. Nelson. Just routine after a fatality. So we can dismiss you from our inquiries.”

  She looks up. Flashes me a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, then opens a file. On top are a bunch of exterior images of our ranch. Sandy dirt. Ramshackle outbuildings.

  I’m hit with an awful memory of the last time I was in a police station.

  “You okay, Mrs. Nelson?”

  I nod, my heart thumping.

  “You look a little pale. Can I get you something? Water?”

  I shake my head.

  “You sure you’re alright to answer my questions?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She smiles again. This time, it’s tinged with sympathy that looks real.

  I look back to police pictures of the ranch, which even to my eyes looks a little backwoods, with Blake’s broken machinery projects and such strewn around.

  “I gotta tell you,” says Brewer. “In all my years of police work, I thought I’d seen every kind of domicile. But Utah always throws in something different.” She does a kind of eyebrows-raised headshake. “Your place was a disused farm?”

  “It was a ranch. A cattle ranch.”

  “But you didn’t use it for that? I mean to say…
” She flips through a few pictures. “Cattle ranches don’t generally come with… What is that? An old lifeguard tower?”

  “Blake thought we might need a lookout post,” I explain. “End of days comes, and you want to be sure anyone approaching is friendly.”

  She gives me a long look. “Right.”

  There’s a pause. “Just you four out there?” she asks. “No kids?”

  “Not yet!” It’s such an ingrained response that I say it unthinkingly, and it comes out louder than I mean.

  Brewer’s amber eyes sweep my face in puzzlement, and I realize how peculiar I’ve made myself sound, using a future phrase after what’s just happened.

  Brewer turns more pictures. “This small, wooden house thing here would be…where you all live and sleep. With an outhouse a little behind it.”

  I nod.

  “Cozy. And this?” Her finger tracks across to a rusted old cattle barn of corrugated steel.

  “Blake used to keep a lot of things there. We weren’t really allowed inside.”

  “Then I guess we should consider ourselves privileged,” she deadpans, raising a picture showing a dark interior. Messy junk Blake used to collect for his projects. Wheels and machinery parts from scrapyards.

  “Man cave, huh?” she suggests.

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “Then…we’ve got this funny-looking barn, maybe fifty feet from the house. This is where you can your food, right?” She holds up more pictures. Neat floor-to-ceiling shelves of pickles and preserves in rainbow colors. The Survive Well 5000 canning machine is set squat like it’s landed from outer space.

  “This isn’t a professional food-storing operation, right?” she confirms. “It’s just for domestic purposes?”