Black Widows

by Cate Quinn

  It’s the first time I’ve heard her admit Blake wasn’t perfect.

  “More to the point, he would have wanted the land,” I say, turning the papers. “No evidence to suggest he took the deal. Maybe he turned ’em down.”

  I look at Rachel to see if she’s as mad as I am. We were all living on canned meat for dinner, and Blake had been offered this big stash of cash he never told us about.

  “He never told you about any of this?” asks Rachel. “You’re in real estate.”

  “No.” I’m smarting about that, but I kinda don’t want Rachel to see. I can’t quite tell if she’s sympathetic or smug.

  “If Blake was entitled to buy the land through marriage,” Rachel continues pointedly, “wouldn’t that mean you could be too? If Nevada allows plural marriages, you have the same entitlement to buy that land, right? Through marriage.”

  I shoot her a withering look. I don’t like what she’s implying at all.

  “Blake and I had a spiritual wedding,” I say. “Not legally binding anywhere. So you can quit thinking I had some black-widow plot to get ahold of the money our husband didn’t have. In case you’d forgotten, the person who paid most of our bills was me. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  Rachel looks away, starts leafing through more papers. “ID,” she says. “Proof of address.”

  The first is a copy of Blake’s driver’s license. I catch my breath to see the familiar features. He was younger then, his copper hair a lighter shade, fewer freckles.

  He’s got that look on his face, like he’s embarrassed to be posing but knows he should be smiling. For a moment, I smile back at him.

  “I went with him to get that picture taken,” says Rachel in a soft voice. “It feels like a lifetime ago.”

  We’re both silent.

  “He wasn’t perfect,” I say eventually. “But he was ours, wasn’t he?”

  Rachel nods, wiping away tears. She peels away some other papers.

  A batch of photographs. Realtor shots, and documents.

  “This isn’t complete,” I say. “The map is missing. You always get a map and land plot upfront. It’s gone.”

  I turn over what this might mean. A secret cemetery. A missing map. And something that got a man killed.

  “Is this the Homestead?” I shuffle photographs.

  Rachel takes a quick breath. She nods, her eyes glued to the images.

  The first thing that strikes me about the Homestead is it’s reminiscent of a down-market winter resort. All the log cabins and roads follow the same exact layout and use the same building materials. Like a low-rent 1950s Disney World that’s been left to rot. There’s no individuality to anything; not so much as a front door or a mailbox is out of the common style. The same is true of the interiors. Corridors lined in the same cheap green carpet. Round brass door handles on every plain rectangular door.

  “Kinda creepy.” I breathe, turning pictures. “Like a ghost town.”

  There are vast expanses of empty corridors, littered with overturned chairs and scattered documents. Like everyone left in a hurry. Interior room shots are depressing, dark with mildew climbing the wall and the barest furnishings.

  There’s something almost high-school-like about it. Room after room with hardly any difference. Then the images take on a different feel. There’s a vast three-storied log cabin, reminding me a little of the advertisements you see for ski lodges in Whistler.

  “That’s the Prophet’s house,” says Rachel. “We weren’t allowed inside.”

  More pictures show a spacious kitchen, like something between a catering facility and a Shaker-style domestic place, strangely paired with white carpets and broad stairways.

  I glance at her. She looks to be in a kinda trance as I turn over another picture.

  A large bed with a headboard with “Keep Sweet” carved onto it. More bedrooms, basic but far nicer than the previous accommodations.

  Then several images of a white room. I look at them for a long time. Everything in the room is snowy white, from the high, curved ceiling to the carpet. Wood paneling lines the interior from waist height, and the same decorative effect is seen on the arched door. It kinda reminds me of the sort of nursery a mobster’s wife might have, all pure, soft, and spotless.

  In the center is a white bed. All high up and weird-looking. It’s high off the floor with a kind of padded footstool, long and poufy.

  There’s a sacrificial feel to the bed, which gives me a nasty feeling. It’s a single, with white wood sides hanging down, which can be raised to form barriers.

  “Oh my heck,” Rachel whispers. “That’s it. That’s the bed in my dream.”

  From the window behind us comes a flash of light. Blue. Pulsing.

  Shit.

  I move to look out, but I already know. Three cop cars have pulled up.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Rachel, First Wife

  Tina is a total professional at evading the police. I can’t help but get swept up in it all as we’re racing down the back stairs. I should be frightened, but I feel a little giddy.

  “This way.” Tina leads us all the way down to a basement parking lot. “Cops’ll be watchin’ the exits,” she explains. “They know we came in on foot. So best way out is by car.”

  “Wait. You’re not gonna…”

  Tina’s gaze fixes on a little Ford. She fishes in her bag and pulls out a compact hairbrush. Then she unfolds it, places the rubber section over the lock, and slams a fist into it.

  “These old central locks can be busted with a half tennis ball,” she explains. “Purse-size hairbrush does the same thing, with the advantage it looks innocent if anyone searches your bag.”

  She opens the door.

  “Get in.”

  “I can’t…”

  “Then don’t,” she says. “Turn yourself in. I don’t mind.”

  Her eyes are flicking around wildly, and I have a feeling it’s not a good idea to leave her alone with a car in Vegas on account of her former drug problem.

  I slide in the seat beside her. “What if the police catch us?” I pull my belt on. The old terror is coursing through me like it never went away.

  Don’t let the police get you. They’ll take you away.

  Tina laughs. “You’re scared of cops? You’re lucky. Where I’m from, we’re scared of the pimps.” She pulls the car into Drive.

  I’m actually a little disappointed when Tina cruises slowly out of the parking lot. I’d been hoping to speed out in a blaze of glory. But I guess she knows what she’s doing. I’m thinking that right up until she stops outside this seedy-looking bar in a part of town that is definitely not a tourist area.

  She pauses to take a picture of the car number plate on her phone.

  “I’ll send the plates to the cops when we get on the highway,” she says. “Let the owner know where they can come pick it up. No harm done, right?”

  “The courteous thief,” I mutter.

  “Yeah, well.” Tina pushes hair from her eyes. “I believe in karma nowadays.” She regards the bar in front of us. “Cops’ll never look for us here,” Tina says. “We can circle back later and collect our own car when the heat dies down.” She is dragging me toward the entrance.

  “Tina, this place is actually called Dive Bar,” I hiss as she pulls me under the neon lighting.

  “It’s stylistic.”

  “Then why is the floor sticky?” I duck under a sign bragging “We Never Close!”

  Inside, it’s dark and low-ceilinged, with beer mats glued all over the walls and a lot of jagged spray-painted writing. It’s hard to read, but one says “Drink on Your Sins!”

  “Tina,” I whisper, “that’s sacrilegious. This is a sacrilegious place.”

  “Quit whispering. You’ll make us look suspicious.”

  Tina pulls me t
o the bar, which is empty aside from a female bartender with a pierced lip.

  “Hey,” says Tina. “Um. We’re both Mormon.”

  The bartender looks bored. “Show me the garment lines.”

  Tina presses her dress to show the lines of her garments. “See? Her too.” She makes the same manipulation to my clothing.

  “Okay.” The bartender spins on her heel. “First drink is on the house.”

  She pours us two tequilas. Tina pushes a bill into the tip jar.

  “Did she give us free alcohol?” I whisper in Tina’s ear.

  “It’s a Vegas thing.” Tina grins, picking up the two shots expertly with one hand and guiding us to a greasy-looking low table. “Mormon Tuesdays. Anyone with garment lines gets a free drink. Vegas, right? Sin city.”

  I’m processing all this as Tina sits us both down and produces the documents we took from Dakota’s office.

  “Plus I figured you could use one,” she says. “While you tell me about this white bed thing.”

  Tina lays the photographs out. The shock is gone now, replaced by something else. Relief. There were no pictures of the clinic. Nothing that could lead to the graveyard. Only that awful white bed, with all its connotations.

  I pull the pictures toward me. “I remember things,” I say. “In pieces. But more things… More things seem to be coming back, now Blake is gone.”

  I leaf through the images. My eyes glide over the shots of room interiors. Corridors. With all the families gone, they look less familiar than I might have thought. Like a sketch of a memory rather than the thing itself.

  But the room with the bed is exactly as I remember it. Nothing has been disturbed. Just for a moment, I allow myself back there.

  Aunt Meg. Aunt Meg’s face.

  I can’t do it. I lift the tequila and gulp it back. It burns. I choke and cough. Tina slaps my back.

  “Remind me never to do that again.” I gasp.

  “Not a problem,” says Tina. “You only get one free. I ain’t buyin’ ya another. Might get you some hot wings, though, you play your cards right.” She winks.

  My eyes drop back to the picture. The tequila feels like it’s burning a hole in my stomach, loosening things up.

  I’m in the corner of the white bedroom. I shouldn’t be here. I was trying to get out when they all came in. I hid…I hid behind a curtain. That was when I heard him, telling them to line up, explaining they would feel the spirit. She was there too. Aunt Meg. Orchestrating. Positioning girls. Then standing a little apart from it all, hovering like she was trying to join in. Her hand strokes Blake’s back awkwardly, but he’s not looking at her.

  A girl is lying under him. She can’t be older than fourteen. He’s breathing heavily, moving on top of her. She’s gasping, tears in her eyes. Aunt Meg holds her shoulders. A terrible sick feeling overwhelms me.

  “So tell me,” says Tina quietly. “You can trust me. What do you remember about that white bedroom?”

  “Try to help her, Meg,” gasps Blake, moving faster. “Don’t think about where it hurts,” he tells the girl. “Think about heaven.”

  But the voice. The man’s voice is wrong. That’s when it hits me. The bed, the girls.

  The man in that white bedroom. It wasn’t Blake.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Emily, Sister-Wife

  Officer Brewer takes me back to the interview room and talks me all through what I can expect to happen. How I’ll be transferred to prison later on today or maybe tomorrow morning. She keeps asking me if I’ve got anything else to tell her. That’s when Detective Carlson comes in. There’s a little friction between them still, only now they seem to be on the same team.

  “I gotta tell you, this is a first for me,” says Carlson, running a hand over his shaved head. “I’m usually in the business of proving suspects guilty.” He shakes his head. “Now Brewer there, she thinks you did it, but it wasn’t your fault. On account of some domestic abuses and so forth. Me, I think you’re covering for someone.”

  I don’t reply, but Carlson doesn’t seem to mind.

  “Got something I’d like you to take a look at,” he says, sitting himself down. He takes a laptop from under his arm and opens it.

  “I think you should know everything about the person you’re covering for.”

  He tilts the laptop my way.

  “Did Rachel Nelson ever share with you that she visited the state penitentiary earlier this year?”

  I am so shocked I don’t even answer.

  Detective Carlson just nods.

  “Went to visit her daddy. That’s good old Prophet Ambrosine to you and me. You most likely saw him on the news? Fifteen counts of rape of minors? Life imprisonment.”

  I nod slowly. It was a big story back when I was a little girl. Prophet Ambrosine was this handsome guy, very nicely spoken. He had what my momma called a buttered-corn accent. Like when he testified in court, it sounded real gentle and convincing, with a lot of scripture quoted straight from the Bible, too, learned by heart. His eyes were very dark brown, almost black. They gave him a doe-like appearance, like he wouldn’t harm a fly. My momma said she thought he would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for the sex tapes.

  I still can’t really wrap my head around that. Like our Rachel grew up there. When we talked about it, after the birth-certificate incident, Rachel told me it wasn’t as bad as people make out on the TV. Like they lived real poor, but for the most part, the children played outdoors and rode horses and such. She made it sound nice.

  “Well, Rachel went over to the prison,” says Detective Carlson, “right around the time your husband was seen having lunch with a mysterious blond lady.”

  He pauses for effect.

  “Officer Brewer here had a hunch,” he adds, jerking a thumb. “So we checked it out. Wasn’t apparent right away it was Rachel Nelson, on account of Prophet Ambrosine still having so many wives visit.”

  He nods at my expression.

  “Yup,” he says grimly. “Lotta ladies still believe themselves his heavenly wives. Visit him in prison and try and smuggle out his word to the little group of wackos out by Waynard’s Creek. Pretty messed up, right?”

  I just nod.

  “What we have here is footage of Rachel’s visit.” He presses Play. “Not good quality but enough for you to get a picture.”

  I lean forward, fascinated despite myself. It’s a visiting room with a number of tables. A tall man in an orange jumpsuit is seated at one, his hands cuffed in front.

  “You can see that burn mark on his neck?” Carlson points, a little like a zookeeper showing the animals. “The so-called Prophet tried to hang himself a few days after incarceration.”

  “He doesn’t look how he looked on TV,” I say. The change is scary. He looks like a crazy old man, with a shaved head and sores on his face, the dark eyes looking insane.

  Even in the jerky footage, I can tell Rachel is real nervous. But as she approaches the table where the Prophet sits, the nerves seem to melt away. Like she’s just thinking the same as me.

  He’s nothing but a crazy old man.

  As Rachel sits, though, it’s like a little of the Prophet’s old charisma returns. He sits straight, and there’s this charming smile on his face. Rachel seems a little thrown off by it. Like maybe she came with a plan and the force of his personality has taken her unaware.

  “What are they saying?” I ask.

  “There’s no sound,” admits Carlson. “The prison guards didn’t pay too close attention. One of ’em thought it was a little different from the Prophet’s usual meetings. Recalls Rachel trying to convince him to let his followers accept charity, on account of the women and children starving. Prophet Ambrosine just gabbed on about being God’s messenger on earth and Jesus providing for the worthy.”

  I sag a little.

  �
�They talk for maybe five minutes. Then watch this part.” Carlson fast-forwards. The Prophet barely moves, but Rachel’s body language changes completely. She’s upright, gripping the table, like she’s been given some real scary news.

  “What do you think happened there?” asks Carlson, watching me closely.

  I shake my head slowly. “I don’t know.”

  Carlson closes the laptop, looks me straight in the eye.

  “Your sister-wife let you know she made that trip?”

  I shake my head slowly.

  “Quite a big deal not to tell you, right? Rachel goes visiting criminal rapists and doesn’t even give it a passing mention. I mean to say, aren’t you wives supposed to love one another?”

  I feel my face twitch.

  “Did you know your sister-wives are out in Vegas?” tries Carlson. “The number plate from your family Chevy came up on a state-line police camera. Cops will pick them up any minute now. You can’t protect them any longer.”

  I look back at him, trying to work out if he’s bluffing. It’s impossible to tell.

  “Well, I fixed you up one last appointment with the psychologist,” says Brewer. “She’s going to assess if you’re in a fit state to stand trial.” She looks at Carlson again. “I just hope for your sake she doesn’t find you fit.”

  Chapter Seventy

  Tina, Sister-Wife

  Funny thing about being back in a sleazy Vegas bar—nothing’s changed, except everything. There are the same sickly green lamps over the pool tables. A couple of scuffed-up balls left on the balding felt. That familiar smell you get when doors first open—a thick, boozy undertone, with a top note of cleaning-fluid spritz.

  Difference is, I don’t like it anymore. Thank the Lord for tequila, though, because whatever Rachel has been keeping in is now spilling out.

  “I have a memory of being in that room,” she says. “Everything is white. There is this…bed, laid out, right in the middle. White…” She stops, takes a breath. “I shouldn’t be seeing it, and I’m really, really scared. It’s His celestial bed.”