Black Widows

by Cate Quinn

  “Are you suggesting,” I say, teeth gritted, “I murdered my husband and just forgot about it?”

  “Well”—Carlson spreads his hands—“you’d hardly remember if you had, now would you?” He purses his lips. “Brewer here wants to be all cuddly with ya. Not your fault, abusive husband. Me here, I look into things a little deeper. Alrighty. So you’re now saying Blake was on the hunt for wife number four?”

  My throat constricts to hear him say it out loud. “I’m not now saying it,” I protest. “It was never relevant before.”

  “Mrs. Nelson,” he says. “I’ve dealt with you Homestead people a thousand times, and I’m well aware you know the system, and you like to give us the runaround.”

  “I don’t live on the Homestead anymore,” I say tightly.

  Carlson waves this away. “My instincts are telling me this is a smoke screen,” he continues. “You’re tryin’ to deflect attention from what really happened that night. Send us all off looking for someone who doesn’t exist.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because it’s the kinda stunt you people pull.” His eyes slide to Brewer. “Their so-called prophet claimed there were four hundred people on that land. When we raided it, there was more like two thousand, crammed into homes, twenty to a room. It was the worse squalor I’ve ever seen in the United States of America. Fourteen-year-old girls who were full-blown pregnant.” He glances to Brewer. “Everyone acting like that’s normal.”

  Carlson’s eyes are on me now.

  “When we arrived, the women kept moving around, giving us false names. There were secret rooms and doors all over the place. Everyone was related, so they all sorta looked the same. Never seen anything like it.” He shakes his head. “What Brewer here doesn’t understand is you folk were raised to think of cops as devils, that right?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Lying to the police is practically in your DNA.”

  I open my mouth to object.

  “Before you contest that, Mrs. Nelson, you should know I got your therapy notes. All paid for, care of the state, naturally.” His lip curls.

  My heart beats faster. I picture my therapist scribbling away, eyes lowered behind her designer glasses.

  With her big-city clothes, expensive-smelling perfume, and gold-nibbed fountain pen, she was the most glamorous person I’d ever met. I trusted her. A powerful feeling of violation is coursing through me.

  “Sessions with Madeline Overbacht,” he continues. “Who for some reason found you so fascinating, she gave you an extra session for free a few months back. That right?”

  “It was just a phone call,” I say, flustered now. “She contacted my old college and got ahold of Blake’s number somehow. Said she wanted to check back in before closing the file.” I can feel my cheeks burning.

  There’s a pause.

  “You were assigned to her care shortly after the Homestead was raided, is that right?” asks Carlson.

  I nod again.

  Carlson shakes his head. “The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, did it, Rayne? Seems you got a history of messing people around who are nice to you.” He slaps the notes on the table. The familiar handwriting is like an electric shock. I have an image of my therapist, her pen moving, then a memory.

  I’m being carried over sandy earth. My private parts are hurting. I don’t know where they’re taking me. I am hopeless, trapped.

  Carlson is flipping pages.

  “You sure kept your therapist busy, didn’t ya? There’s a whole box file of your cock and bull.”

  I feel myself vanishing into the handwritten notes. The things I told her. The things I didn’t.

  “Why is she making those noises?” It’s Blake. He stands over my bed, frowning. Then the blond woman is at his side, green hospital gloves, hair braided up. She hates me. Thinks I’m dirty.

  “I gave her morphine,” she tells Blake. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  Blake’s frown deepens. “Give her some more, would ya?” He shakes his head. “It sounds like she’s… You know.” They exchange a look.

  The blond lady moves forward, the blood spot on her waist almost touching my face. She selects a needle from a cart next to the bed and pushes it into my arm.

  Carlson’s voice lays over my thoughts.

  “Some clinic where they took evil women?” He rages incredulously. “’Cause I was there, Mrs. Nelson. And we never found none of this stuff.”

  Because you never found the basement.

  “Hey, that’s enough,” says Brewer. “Mrs. Nelson…”

  White beds. Bloody napkins…

  “No one did bad things in some secret clinic,” interrupts Carlson, speaking over her, “did they?”

  A tangle of naked limbs. Blake without his garments, grunting, panting.

  “By the power of Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “By the power of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave me alone!”

  I look up to see Brewer glance at Carlson, then back to me.

  “Are you quite alright, Mrs. Nelson?”

  I breathe out, pushing the memory back where it can’t bother me.

  “I’m fine.” I smile at her. For some reason, she sort of recoils.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Tina, Sister-Wife

  The name Rayne Ambrosine works like a golden key for the gun-toting woman. She lowers the rifle and introduces herself as Marsha, shaking both our hands awkwardly in her thick-fingered callused palm.

  “Rayne comes every month and leaves a care package,” explains Marsha. “She knows the menfolk won’t let us accept charity, so she leaves ’em in the bushes over there. We kinda pretend to our husbands like we found ’em, and they don’t ask too many question with so many li’l mouths to feed.”

  Emily and I look at each other. Rachel makes a monthly trip to the wholesale store out on the main highway. She always made out it took her so long, because she liked to take her time wanderin’ the aisles. Classic Rachel. Not a lie. Just something frickin’ important not mentioned.

  I look around the hovel. There are kids with clothing hanging off them. I recognize the hungry look in their eyes, like they’re eyeing us for what we might be worth to ’em.

  I grew up in the shittiest squat you can imagine, with pimps and junkies and a mom who sold herself for five bucks when she could raise herself out of the drug haze. Never thought I’d find anywhere worse than the place I grew up. Guess I was wrong.

  “That man you said,” says Marsha. “Blake, you say his name was?”

  I nod. I’m taking her in now, wondering if she was the chosen one. If Blake regarded this as his duty, I guess he wouldn’t be takin’ face and figure into account. I wonder how many children she would have been bringing with her.

  “Yeah, he was here.” She picks at her back teeth with a finger. “Same reason as all the rest of ’em. We’ve had men from all over. Texas, Las Vegas. Come wantin’ ta lay a purchase to things folk are not entitled to own.”

  “They want to buy women?” asks Emily, wide-eyed. “Wives?”

  Marsha’s bland features maneuver into confusion. “What? Heck no. All the women here are married. Or already promised. Them outsiders be comin’ to buy the land.”

  “They want your property?” I’m looking at the scrub desert, with the rusting shipping containers.

  “Not this land,” says Marsha. “The old place. The one we were kicked outta when our Prophet got sent ta jail. Big old Homestead, on the state line. Rayne din’t tell ya ’bout it?”

  I shake my head.

  “Guess it’s a lotta bad memories,” she decides. “Well, the police came. Took away all the chil’ren. Law got involved, gave ’em all back. But by then, them’s had took a good look around and found the beds and whatnot. Arrested the Prophet for…”—she frowns into the distance
, trying to remember—“indecency, I wanta say. Somethin’ like that. Sure ta frickin’ dang heck din’t understand our way a’ life.”

  “I read about that,” says Emily guilelessly, “in the papers. He did things to underage girls. Made them hold each other down and stuff.”

  I feel sick, thinking of Rachel.

  “Yeah, well, those newspapers say a lotta things. Sacerlijus things mostly.”

  “So Blake didn’t come here for a wife?” I feel kinda bad askin’, but I just have to know.

  “No-o.” She rolls her eyes. “He came here ’bout the land. Same as they always do. Them’s always want ta know ’bout the secret cemetery.”

  “A secret cemetery?” I must have said it happier than I meant, ’cause she looks at me funny. Awful as it sounds, relief is coursing through me. Blake wasn’t here for another woman.

  Marsha leans her head, assessing me more keenly with her cowlike eyes.

  “I’ll tell ya the same thing I told yer husband, Blake. I don’t frickin’ know about any hidden burial places. None of us do. The Prophet never told us about anything like that. Not nice ta ask us things like that not-neither,” she adds, her lip curling. “’Cause we be gettin’ inta trouble, talkin’ ’bout secrets.”

  She looks like she might close down on us, and then she rubs her big face.

  “Did anyone tell you why they were looking for a graveyard?” I’m still trying to turn over what this might mean.

  Marsha sorta snorts. “The menfolk don’t tell us nothing.” She thinks for a moment. “You want ta find out ’bout that cemetery, you might ask Rayne. There was always stories flyin’ ’round that she snuck out explorin’ places we weren’t allowed. Some folk even said she found the clinic. Rayne was pretty wild, so meybbes it was true.”

  “What clinic?”

  “There was a place at the Homestead we weren’t s’posed to go,” she says. “Bad mothers went there. Some even tell it the clinic is still in business, to be sure us ladies behave ourselves with the Prophet away. Maybe Rayne saw something she shouldn’t have. Sure would explain why they did what they did to her.”

  She looks at the sky.

  “What did they—?” But she interrupts me.

  “Ya gals better be on the road,” she says, standing. “Can’t be seen here when the men get home.”

  There’s something steely and cold about her now. “Tell Rayne we pray fer her,” she adds, “but ya gals best not come back here, ’kay? Ya’ll only end up hurtin’ us an’ gettin’ us inta trouble.”

  It’s like she’s switched. The kids are all heading toward the shipping containers. I guess the men come back with the food.

  I rummage in my purse for something to give her, find a ten-dollar note and wish I had more. I shake out all my dimes and quarters and hold it all out in my palm.

  “Here,” I say. “Take it. Please. Buy the children something.”

  She shakes her head sadly.

  “I can’t take that,” she says. “If folks here knew I done took money from outsiders, my husband would lose standin’ in the commun’ty. The Prophet might decide to take us wives and kids and send us to another husband.”

  “But…he’s in jail, right? Your prophet?” says Emily.

  “He issues orders. We listen. We’re faithful. Waitin’ for Zion.” She sighs. “Fer sure can’t come soon enough,” she says, more to herself than us. “Most of us wives wake in the morning and pray ta die.”

  A hole opens up in my chest for Rachel. She’s been bearing all this alone. These dumb-ass people with starving children who won’t take help.

  “Here.” Emily is passing something. “You can take these, right?” She’s holding a box of Tic Tacs.

  Marsha smiles. Shakes some out. Puts one in her mouth.

  “Holy heck.” She closes her eyes and beams real wide. “Them’s ta die fer.”

  Even doin’ that small thing for her helps me in some way. I want to do more. Like Rachel, I guess. As we leave, I remember a package of chocolate mints I still have in the car and bring them out to her.

  Marsha stares at them for a moment, like she can’t quite believe what she’s holding.

  “Well, shut the door,” she murmurs, showing all of her flared teeth. “This is the most givin’ I’ve ever had in one single day. The kids ain’t never gonna forget this.”

  I smile at her and go back to the car, guilt and confusion eatin’ at me in equal measure.

  Marsha digs her hand in her long dress suddenly.

  “Blake give me a number of some lady I should call,” she says. “If I remembered anythin’.” Her mottled fist draws free a folded piece of paper. “I meant ta toss it, but I guess somethin’ be stoppin’ me. Take it,” she says.

  My hand closes around it. There’s a roar on the horizon of approaching vehicles.

  “Ya don’t come back now!” she says loudly. “I mean it.”

  Then she turns quickly, as though regretting talking, and makes her strange slanted-hip waddle right back into her awful home.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Rachel, First Wife

  My lawyer is a young man, very cleanly shaved, in the kind of suit I can tell is laundered by a very tired wife at home. Something about the creases give it away. I idly wonder how many children he has and guess at two very close together. He’s in his late twenties, likely married after completing his mission and graduating from law school.

  He tells me his name is Steven Clark, and he looks every bit as average as his name. Mousy hair, unremarkable features. His blue eyes are kindly. I think he really wants to help. But I get the impression he’s wildly out of his depth.

  “May I ask, when your husband proposed, did he also suggest he would be interested in pursuing a polygamous marriage with you?”

  I feel the muscles in my neck tighten. Like a migraine is just on its way.

  “No.”

  “Yet you wound up living a polygamous lifestyle, with two other wives?”

  I can tell he thinks I’m guilty. I can’t explain I’m not good at being the center of attention. It makes me uncomfortable. I’m not used to answering questions about myself.

  He purses his lips.

  “Mrs. Nelson, I’m here to get you the best deal possible,” he says.

  I feel cold all over.

  “What do you mean, deal?” I whisper.

  “Mrs. Nelson, I’m not going to lie to you,” he says. “You’re not in a good situation. The state of Utah has a lot of empty land and uninhabited mountains. Plenty of places for people to hole up and evade the law. Those people are almost impossible to police, but when the state does find them, they come down hard. Around Salt Lake City, we’ve got a reputation for inbreds and polygamists and such living outside legal jurisdiction that the state wants to stamp out for good.”

  I put my hand on my forehead. “I don’t understand. We weren’t doing anything illegal,” I say. “It’s not a crime to live out in the desert.”

  “I’ve read your file,” he says. “I know how a court would see things. You were raised in a religious ‘community’”—he pauses to make quotation marks with his fingers—“raided by the police twelve years ago. The leaders were indicted on thirty counts of child abuse, underage marriage, and rape of minors.”

  “That’s in the past,” I say. “I started a new life.”

  I don’t want to think about that awful bleached-out place. The children heaped up in abject poverty.

  Steven taps his pen on his lips. Frowns.

  “What a jury will struggle to understand,” he says, “is why such a brave young lady, who ran away from a cult she was born into, would then willingly walk right back into similar conditions?”

  “My marriage was nothing like that!” I’m so angry it takes all my effort to stay sitting. “I’m the first wife.”

 
He changes tack. “Thing is, Mrs. Nelson. Make no mistake here, the police have arrested you on suspicion of murder. That means they’ve got enough evidence to bring you to trial.”

  He folds his hands, letting the image sink in. There’s a plain gold wedding band and neatly cut fingernails. “From what I can gather, the police are on your side. But the prosecution won’t be. They’ll throw anything and everything at you.”

  His lip twitches slightly.

  “They’ll try to paint you as unstable,” he says. “Prone to violence. A physical fight with a sister-wife the night before your husband was murdered.” He holds out his hands. “You have to admit, it doesn’t look so good.”

  He spreads the therapy report out on the table.

  “Officer Brewer was under the impression there were things that happened in your childhood…” He chooses his words. “Perhaps things that you saw, that you can’t bring to mind. Things that give you nightmares. You told your therapist there was a place on the Homestead you had nightmares about? You mentioned a graveyard? And a basement where they took women?”

  There’s a long, horrible pause.

  A blood spot. Butterscotch-hued earth. A scree of flat yellow stones like a riverbed. A coffin lid closing. Something awful inside.

  I’m lying in a white hospital bed pretending to be asleep. Through my half-closed eyes, I see the blond woman. I’m praying she’ll walk past. I’m praying she’ll hurt one of the other girls instead.

  “What I’m suggesting is there are a number of very powerful reasons why you might have done something you don’t remember. Reasons someone like Brewer could persuade the district attorney to sympathize with.”

  I blink at him.

  “I just don’t know how to reply to that,” I say finally.

  “You’re on strong antidepressants, sleeping pills,” says Steven. “You find out your husband is out, not having an affair but looking for a fourth wife.”

  I’m struck by how appalled his tone is.