Cold Betrayal

by J. A. Jance

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ali said, feeling as though she’d just been chewed out by her high school principal.

  “That said, however,” Governor Dunham continued, “I’m not discounting your concern or the historical precedent, either. As I’m sure you’re aware, long ago there was a very similar situation in which people living in a place called Short Creek, now Colorado City, were taken into custody while peacefully assembled inside their church and singing hymns. That was part of what gave Governor Pyle such a black eye and turned what he did into a PR nightmare—the fact that they were all in church and singing when they were arrested. Later on, the man had his ass handed to him by the voters when he ran for reelection.

  “What happened to Governor Pyle turned Short Creek, now Colorado City, into a no-man’s-land and left it virtually untouchable as far as state government and law enforcement are concerned. Out of sight was out of mind. Everybody—my administration included, I’m ashamed to say—went along with that program. We were all content to let the people up there do their own thing. After all, what’s a little polygamy among consenting adults?”

  “But they’re not just consenting adults,” Ali objected. “I already told you. Little girls are expected to be betrothed by the time they’re six or seven. When they’re in their mid-teens, they’re forced into marriages with much older men and end up giving birth to children while they themselves are still juveniles.”

  “You know that to be the case?” the governor demanded.

  “Yes, I do,” Ali answered. “As for the ones who try to escape? If they’re caught and brought back by Deputy Sellers, they’re consigned to live lives of terrible privation.”

  Ali thought about mentioning the other girl then—the Kingman Jane Doe who hadn’t survived long enough to be brought back. But there was no point. Ali knew that without the missing evidence box, Amos Sellers would never be held accountable for her death or for the death of her child.

  “I take it you heard that from the two women you mentioned earlier,” Virginia Dunham said, cutting into Ali’s thought process. “I believe you referred to them as Brought Back girls? What are their names again?”

  “Agnes and Patricia,” Ali answered. “They’ve spent the last fifteen years living in a Quonset hut with no electricity, no heating or cooling, and no running water. They’ve been forced to sleep on straw mattresses and walk around wearing other people’s cast-off rags and shoes. If the state of Arizona treated convicted killers the way they’ve been treated, the American Civil Liberties folks would be up in arms.”

  “I suspect the American Civil Liberties folks will be weighing in on this matter all too soon,” Governor Dunham observed, “and not in a good way, either. They’ll be far more concerned with how we treat the guys we place under arrest than they will be about how the women and children were treated.

  “The problem is,” she continued, “my blind eye went away early this morning when Sean Fergus’s phone call landed on my desk. As long as I’m the chief executive of the state of Arizona, known instances of human trafficking will not be tolerated. Holding people in what amounts to involuntary servitude will not be tolerated. Denying women and children their basic civil and human rights will not be tolerated—not on my watch. Because I’m not Governor Pyle.

  “When this term of office is over, I’m done. I’m not standing for reelection for this office or any other. Politics and I are finished, so I’m going full speed ahead on this, Ali. The raid I’ve authorized is on. It’s going to happen—tonight, most likely. Sheriff Alvarado’s department will be charged with executing some of the warrants but with the proviso that Amos Sellers is to receive no advance warning whatsoever. Is that understood?”

  Nothing Governor Dunham said dispelled Ali’s misgivings about Sheriff Alvarado’s involvement, but it wasn’t her call to make. “Yes, ma’am,” Ali said.

  “I’m expecting that, one way or another, arrests will be made,” Governor Dunham went on. “At least one person—the head honcho, a guy named Richard Lowell, will be going to the slammer. Interpol made it clear to the various banking institutions involved that cooperation would be in their best interest. All the financial transactions lead directly back to Lowell’s name and no one else’s. He’s the one listed on all the accounts. He’s the one who disperses the money and writes the checks. That means that once he’s taken down, The Family’s financial underpinnings will go away as well. Whether or not some or all the men go to jail, it’s likely that their families will be dispossessed.”

  Just then the cop left the shelter and returned to the patrol car he’d left parked in front of the building. A glance inside told Ali that the distressed woman and her equally upset children had been ushered through the waiting room and into the area beyond the security door. Shivering from the cold and trying to keep her teeth from chattering, Ali buzzed to be let back inside. Once inside she found the receptionist was on the phone discussing what sounded like a complicated personal issue. Ali hoped that the conversation was engrossing enough that she’d be able to continue her own without every word being overheard.

  Governor Dunham was on a roll. “Human trafficking issues aside, let’s address the displaced persons part of the problem. My understanding is that this group has chosen to remain almost completely isolated from the modern world. That’s going to change in a heartbeat. How do we help these people make that difficult transition? For instance, the two women you mentioned before—Agnes and Patricia. What’s happening with them right now?”

  “I’m friends with Andrea Rogers, the executive director of Irene’s Place, a domestic violence shelter here in Flagstaff. Agnes and Patricia have been fed. They’ve also taken showers and been given a change of clothing. Most likely, they’ll end up in one of the no- or low-cost housing units Irene’s has at its disposal. They’re fish out of water. They’re nervous and scared, but what scares them more than anything is that someone will force them to go back to The Family.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” the governor insisted. “Do either of them have any marketable skills?”

  “I doubt it,” Ali answered. “They’ve spent the last fifteen years of their lives looking after a herd of pigs. My expectation is that most of the others won’t be any better prepared for life on the outside.”

  “According to the number of warrants on my desk,” Governor Dunham said, “we’re dealing with thirty-one residences in all—twenty-nine on the property and two in town. If each household consists of a husband and three or four wives, that comes to one hundred and fifty, give or take.”

  “From what Patricia said, each family probably has its own contingent of Brought Back girls, too.”

  “That would add sixty more,” the governor said. “How many kids?”

  “Lots,” Ali said. “That’s my impression, anyway. Women are there to do the housework and bear children, the more of those the better.”

  “So let’s estimate eight to ten children per household. That’s another two hundred fifty to three hundred. The drone footage reveals something that functions as a dormitory of some sort. It apparently houses young males in their teens. We got an unofficial playground count on them of forty-five to fifty. That brings us up to more than five hundred destitute individuals with no place to stay, nothing to eat, and no marketable skills, right?”

  “That’s how I see it,” Ali agreed. “Some of the family units may want to stay together. Others may not. The Brought Back girls who’ve been treated as untouchables will most likely need to be handled as a whole separate category.”

  “All right,” the governor agreed. “What’s the name of your friend again, the one who runs the shelter?”

  Ali gave Governor Dunham Andrea’s contact information. “Do you have any idea about the number of units Andrea has available?”

  “Not really,” Ali answered.

  “I’ll speak to her, then,” Governor Dunham said, “but
trust me. Her organization won’t be left to shoulder this load alone. My office will be assisting them and, if you agree, so will you.”

  “Me? How?”

  “I’d like to appoint you to serve as a special deputy in this matter,” Governor Dunham said. “By the time tonight’s raid is over, people in The Family will feel like they’ve been subjected to a military attack. They won’t be far from wrong. They’ll be traumatized and terrified.

  “This is a joint task-force operation put together in a hurry to prevent another possible load of girls from being shipped out of the country. To make sure of that, an FBI SWAT team will move in from the north after dark. They’ll be bivouacked on the BLM land that lies north of The Encampment and tasked with guarding the landing strip. If an aircraft flies in, the team has been directed to allow it to land but under no circumstances are SWAT members to let it take off. That team will be coming down from Salt Lake rather than up from Phoenix. Once I’m off the phone, my deputy will be contacting the emergency response teams in nearby jurisdictions and assigning them specific targets.”

  “What do you need from me?” Ali asked.

  “You and I and whoever else we can round up will be there to win hearts and minds,” Virginia Dunham said. “We’ll be the rear guard, going in after the raid itself and after the cops have finished doing their jobs. Our task will be to convince the folks left behind that we mean them no harm. If you can persuade Patricia and Agnes to come along, they might be able to demonstrate to some of the women and most especially to the other Brought Back girls that we’re there to help. They’re going to need what we have to offer, but I expect we’ll have to convince them to accept it.”

  Ali didn’t have to think long or hard. “If you want me as your deputy, I’m in,” she said. “Tell me where and when.”

  “We’ll assemble at the Department of Public Safety headquarters in Flag at six P.M.,” Governor Dunham said. “I’m told it’s a four-hour drive from there to The Encampment. People will leave in convoys of two or three vehicles, starting at seven. If too many head up the road all at once, it’ll be far too obvious. We should all be in position before midnight; that’s when the fireworks start.”

  “I’ll be there,” Ali said. “With any kind of luck, Patricia and Agnes will be there, too.”

  32

  Ali went back into the office. Andrea looked up at her with a tentative smile, which quickly faded. “Is something wrong?”

  Ali nodded. “Yes. I just got off the phone with the governor of Arizona.” She looked at David Upton. He nodded slightly, a gesture that indicated to Ali that he already had some idea of what was coming. Ali’s problem was figuring out a way to start the conversation.

  “Patricia and Agnes,” Ali said. “Have you ever heard of DNA?”

  Their blank stares were answer enough. Somehow she doubted that their educations had included much in terms of biology.

  “You know that your bodies are made up of cells—skin cells, blood cells, bone cells, right?”

  They nodded in unison, but Ali was afraid the nods came out of their being agreeable rather than any kind of real understanding of what was being said. She continued anyway.

  “Inside each of those cells are tiny bits of material that lead back through the generations to your furthest ancestors. DNA tracks back to your mothers and fathers. You share DNA traits with your brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles. In other words, people who do what’s called DNA profiling are able to examine the family tree that is planted inside each of your cells.”

  That was a great oversimplification, but it was the best Ali could do. “When Enid and her baby were first admitted to the hospital, we had no idea who they were or where they were from. In an effort to find out, we took a sample of Enid’s DNA and of her baby’s, too. We sent the samples to a friend of mine who runs a company that specializes in DNA identification. They ran a check and found that their DNA is closely related to that of several young women and girls whose unidentified bodies have been found in places far from here—on the other side of the world.

  “The person who called me on the phone a few minutes ago was the governor of Arizona, a woman named Virginia Dunham. Investigators from Interpol, which is an international police organization, and elsewhere have now connected twenty victims, some dead and a few still alive, who originally came from The Family.”

  Patricia frowned. “How’s that even possible? Girls from The Family aren’t allowed to travel.”

  “Have you ever heard of human trafficking?”

  Again Patricia and Agnes replied in unison, this time shaking their heads.

  “Human traffickers specialize in taking young girls, some as young as six or seven, and selling them to the highest bidder.”

  Agnes looked puzzled. “They sell them?” she asked. “Why?”

  “For sex,” Ali answered. There was no way to sugarcoat the explanation, so she plowed on. “There are evil people in this world who prefer having sex with children rather than with adults. I think it’s likely that the young girls in question were sold to people like that.”

  Patricia made the connection first. “The Not Chosens?” she gasped. “The girls who disappeared? Is that what happened to them?”

  Ali nodded. “That’s what we believe,” she said. “Governor Dunham is planning on taking immediate action to prevent another group of Not Chosens from being sent away.”

  “What kind of action?” Andrea asked.

  Instead of answering, Ali looked closely at Agnes. “You mentioned that several men were involved the night your half sisters were taken, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “The assumption is that most of the older men in the group are either involved in what’s happening or know about it. The raid tonight will be to collect family Bibles, which we hope will contain records of the girls who disappeared—names, birth dates, et cetera. There will also be warrants to obtain cheek swabs for all the adult males in hopes of connecting the DNA dots between them and some of the unidentified victims.”

  “A raid,” Patricia asked, looking horrified. “You mean like with guns and everything? I remember hearing about something like this. It happened a long time ago. The old bishop—Bishop Lowell’s father—used to preach about it in church. He said there was this group of people who believed in polygamy just like we do. He said they all got sent to jail, even the little kids.”

  “This is a lot more serious that just practicing polygamy,” Ali said. “The human trafficking element makes all the difference. Governor Dunham is determined that what happened at Short Creek, the incident you’re talking about, won’t happen again—at least we hope it won’t. To make that work, though, we’ll need your help and Agnes’s, too.”

  “Our help?” Agnes said faintly. “What kind?”

  “It’s likely that many of the men will be taken into custody or at least in for questioning, on the basis of the ages of some of their wives if nothing else. The people left behind—the women and children—will be frightened. We’ll need you to convince them that we may be from the Outside, but we’re not their enemies. You’ll need to help explain that if they want to stay where they are, they’ll be allowed to do so, but if they want to leave—as you two did—they’ll be allowed to do that as well—that there will be people on the Outside, like Andrea here, who will help them find places to live, food to eat, and suitable clothing to wear. From what you’ve told me about the way you and Agnes were treated, I suspect there are other Brought Back girls who will want to leave.”

  Patricia nodded thoughtfully. “The others might stay, especially mothers with children, but I think most of the Brought Back girls will want to leave.”

  “I’m trying to grasp the scope of the problem here,” Andrea said. “How many Brought Back girls are there?”

  “I’m not sure. We know there are others, but we’re not allowed to communi
cate.”

  “Do any of the Brought Back girls have children?” Andrea asked.

  “If some of the others do have children, those children would be living with other families, not their mothers, but most of the girls who run away do so before they have kids—before they get pregnant. That’s what Agnes and I did, anyway.”

  “But not Enid,” Ali said. “Her baby was due in a month or so.”

  “And not her mother, either,” Patricia said.

  Ali was surprised. “Wait, you mean Enid’s mother ran away, too?”

  Patricia nodded. “Anne Lowell was a year or two younger than we were. She told us she was leaving. We wanted to help her, and we tried to give her Irene’s information, but she said she didn’t need it—that she had someone on the Outside who would help her.” Patricia shrugged. “I guess that’s what happened. Anne must have gotten away. No one ever saw her again.”

  Ali had serious doubts that Anne Lowell had made good her escape, but she needed to know more.

  “So Enid was already born and her mother was pregnant with a second child when she ran away? She just took off and left Enid behind?”

  “She was scared. She didn’t think her husband, Brother Lowell—he wasn’t Bishop Lowell then—was the father, and she was terrified about what he’d do to her if he ever found out she’d been with someone else. I don’t blame her for that. Bishop Lowell pretends to be a minister, but under the white robes he wears, the man’s a monster. There’s no telling what he would have done to her.”

  “Did Anne give you any hints about who that other man might be?” Ali asked.

  Patricia shook her head. “No. After she left, there were rumors that she’d been seen with someone from Outside, but that was all just gossip.”

  “Do you remember exactly when Anne Lowell took off?”

  Patricia considered before she answered. “I’m not sure. Without a calendar to keep track, it’s hard to tell how much time has passed, but Enid was little when her mother left, not more than three or four.”