The Spoken Word

by R. R. Irvine

  “The weather’s going to slow us up.”

  “It can’t be helped.”

  “Do you really think anybody’d be crazy enough to kill the prophet’s grandniece?”

  “Yesterday I wouldn’t have thought anybody would be nuts enough to kidnap her,” Traveler said.

  His father sighed. “I’ll take the Sisters Cumorah. There was no listing in the phone book, but information gave me a number, which didn’t answer when I tried it, and an address in Magna. Smoot Street.”

  Magna was Kennecott Copper’s smelter town, located out near the Great Salt Lake. Smoot Street, if Traveler remembered correctly, was halfway between the tailings pond and the spill canal.

  “Be careful,” Traveler said. “Even if these women aren’t kidnappers, some feminists believe men are their enemies.”

  “Do you think they’re right?”

  “Considering our luck with women, how would I know?”

  8

  ONE OF Willis Tanner’s nameless assistants pointed out Dwight Hafen, who was among the fifty or so volunteers sandbagging the Eagle Gate, a Mormon monument spanning State Street at the intersection of South Temple. The gate marked the original entrance to Brigham Young’s estate at the mouth of City Creek Canyon. It now marked an incipient river pouring down State Street.

  Traveler waded through six inches of water to reach Hafen, who had the anchor position at the base of one of the gate’s four pillars. He was stacking sandbags that others passed along to him. He did it with ease, standing straight, while everyone else looked slump-shouldered and humpbacked.

  “Dwight Hafen?” Traveler shouted over the sound of rushing water.

  “That’s right.” The rain was falling so hard it sluiced from Hafen’s hair.

  Traveler introduced himself.

  Hafen grabbed his hand and squeezed. He was nearly as big as Traveler and a lot younger, but the handshake was a standoff.

  “Willis Tanner told me to expect you,” Hafen said the moment he let go.

  Traveler nodded at an open-sided canvas tent that had been set up on the curb. “Let’s talk out of the rain.”

  “I’m needed right here. Otherwise, I’d still be waiting for you at the church library.”

  “If this wasn’t important Willis Tanner wouldn’t be involved,” Traveler said. “It’s also a very private matter.”

  “Who can overhear us with this racket?” Hafen answered, but allowed himself to be herded toward the tent.

  The moment they ducked under the overhanging flap, Tanner’s assistant, who’d been standing at a deferential distance, shooed the two ladies from the Relief Society out into the rain. They left their tableful of sandwiches and dry towels to run for a nearby doorway, while the assistant began circling the tent like a guard.

  “Who the hell are you?” Hafen said.

  “What did Willis Tanner say?” Traveler folded back the hood of his slicker to get a better look at Hafen. According to the man’s file, he was thirty, old for a Ph.D. candidate. Most likely, he’d gotten a late start because of the church’s obligatory two-year missions. When Traveler tried to imagine him as part of a two-man LDS recruiting team, he saw Hafen playing Jeff to his partner’s weaker Mutt.

  Hafen met Traveler’s gaze calmly. “When you’re in my position you don’t question a man like Mr. Tanner, who works directly for the prophet.” He blinked water from his eyes. “Is it true what they say about Mr. Tanner, that he’s sometimes called on to interpret the spoken word?”

  Traveler shrugged.

  “He asked me about Lael Woolley,” Hafen said. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Hafen snatched up a towel and began drying his face. “Has something happened to her?”

  “I’m sure Mr. Tanner would prefer it if you just answered the questions.”

  Nodding, Hafen draped the towel over his shoulders. “It was about a week ago. We’d broken up and I went looking for her, hoping we could get back together.”

  “Why did you break up?”

  Hafen stared out at the driving rain.

  “You don’t have any choice,” Traveler said. “You must answer, no matter how personal it is.”

  “I’m a teaching assistant at the Y. Lael was in one of my classes.” He shook his head slowly as if condemning himself. “They tell you never to get involved with your students, but I told myself this was different, that I knew better. I knew she was related to the prophet, of course, and that marrying her would help my career. But that wasn’t her attraction, honestly. At least not the most important one.”

  He paused to exchange the wet towel for a dry one. “I think I knew all along that she’d never marry me. I wasn’t touched like she was.” He smiled wistfully. “All you had to do was look into Lael’s eyes and you could see that she was destined for greater things.”

  He closed his eyes. “She had an aura about her, as if something of the prophet had rubbed off on her. I can’t explain it really. You’d have to meet her to understand.”

  “You still haven’t told me the reason for your breakup.”

  Hafen opened his eyes and grimaced. “She said that I didn’t offer her enough of a challenge. When I asked her for an explanation, she told me she’d found someone who needed her kind of help.”

  “Who?” Traveler said.

  “I only met him once. It was enough. She was in bad company and I told her so. But I think that made him all the more provocative.”

  “I need a name.”

  “By then she’d already left BYU to join some crazy women’s group. I told her it was against the spoken word, but she wouldn’t listen. She said change was coming and that she wanted to be part of it, she and her new friends.”

  “Was this man one of them?”

  Hafen nodded toward the street. “I’m sorry. I can’t stand here doing nothing. The water’s rising. If we don’t get the sandbags into place soon, it will be too late.” He discarded his towel and left the tent.

  Traveler pulled up his hood and followed him out into the rain. Hafen didn’t speak again until he was back in the anchor position at the head of the line of sandbaggers. “I don’t know where Lael found him. He wasn’t one of us, you understand. Not LDS.”

  Traveler automatically moved into line and began passing the bags on to Hafen. The other volunteers looked exhausted, too exhausted to eavesdrop. Even if they did, they wouldn’t be hearing the whole story.

  “What else do you know about her friend?” Traveler said.

  Hafen positioned a sandbag before answering. “Just his stupid nickname. Roo, like kangaroo.”

  Traveler shifted his feet. The water running down the middle of State Street was nearing the tops of his boots.

  “I remember the first time I saw her,” Hafen said, squinting at the twenty-two-foot copper eagle overhead. “She looked like an angel. I’m talking about the real thing, you understand. As if God had reached down to earth and touched our Lael. Yet sometimes, there’s something else in her too. She said things she doesn’t believe just to provoke me. Like questioning the church. Someone who didn’t know her better might think it was sacrilege.”

  “I need specifics,” Traveler said.

  Hafen shrugged. “Like joining that women’s group. She did it, she said, because she wanted to be in the priesthood. Seeing her determination, I almost thought she might pull it off.”

  “Do you think the church is going to change?” Traveler asked.

  “You mean a new revelation, like the one that let black men into the priesthood?”

  Traveler nodded before handing Hafen the next sandbag.

  “This is the spoken word,” Hafen said. “ ‘Homemaking is the highest, most noble profession to which a woman might aspire.’ There can be no further argument on the subject.”

  “Those aren’t Elton Woolley’s words. They come from an earlier prophet.”

  “Just the same, they remain in effect, along with these: ‘Wit
hout the Priesthood, the male would be so far below the female in power and influence that there would be little or no purpose for his existence. In fact, he would probably be eaten by the female as is the case with the black widow spider.’ ”

  My God, Traveler thought. He hadn’t heard sentiments like that since Grandfather Ned Payson retired from dentistry. Only in Ned’s case, such pronouncements usually came in the form of contentious questions delivered when he had a drill in his hand.

  “What would you do if Elton Woolley changed the rules?” Traveler said.

  Hafen blinked. “Do you speak for him?”

  “Not in this,” Traveler said, his tone implying that he carried the spoken word on other matters.

  A sandbag slipped out of Hafen’s hands. He retrieved and stacked it carefully before continuing. “It’s not for me to judge. It’s God who speaks through our prophets.”

  “Let’s get back to Lael. Tell me about her friends.”

  “She said she wanted me for a friend.”

  “Anyone else.”

  “No one close that I remember.”

  “Did you ever meet her associates in the women’s group?”

  “She offered but I refused.”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head.

  “You must answer.”

  Hafen nodded at Tanner’s assistant, who was watching them from the tent. “My watchdog. They sent him along when I left the library. What do you think he’d do if I tried to escape?”

  “Willis isn’t a man to cross.”

  Hafen sighed. “I’m sorry to say, there was a moment when I thought maybe Lael didn’t like men, if you know what I mean. But it didn’t turn out that way. Not the way she chased after Roo.”

  “Think,” Traveler said. “Tell me about him, anything at all.”

  “I told you. He’s a Gentile.”

  “Describe him.”

  “A pretty-boy if you ask me. One of those California types you see on television.” Hafen bent over, resting his hands on his knees.

  Behind Traveler, the line of sandbaggers rested, too.

  “Tell me the truth,” Hafen said. “Has Lael run away with him? Is that why you’re here?”

  “How tall is he?” Traveler said.

  “A couple of inches shorter than I am. Five feet ten maybe. Thin, about a hundred and forty pounds.” Hafen snatched a sandbag and rammed it into place. “Blond and blue-eyed, too. I didn’t have a chance against him. I guess that’s why I followed them.” He stopped talking to wipe his face. “I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t have to.”

  “I know,” Traveler said softly.

  “I wanted to catch them doing something I could use against them.”

  “Did you?”

  “They didn’t do anything except drive around in that camper of his. They didn’t even get in back.”

  “What about a license number?”

  Hafen looked sly as he dug into his pocket and extracted a wallet wrapped in plastic. He handed it to Traveler. “I wrote it down on a piece of paper. It’s in with the bills. I hope you’re going after that guy.”

  Traveler used his raincoat to shelter the wallet while he opened it and transferred the license number to his own billfold. “What made you write the number down?”

  “I had some wild idea about tracking him down when Lael wasn’t around and challenging him to a fight.” He shook his head. “But I knew all along I was fooling myself. Lael would never have forgiven me if I’d hurt him.”

  Hafen raised his head, opening his eyes against the downpour. “ ‘They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.’ ”

  9

  DESPITE THE downpour, a three-man cleaning crew was scrubbing graffiti from the temple wall at the corner of South Temple and Main Street. One word, still legible, was giving them trouble: SATAN.

  Traveler marveled at the ingenuity of the vandals; they’d had to bypass a no-parking barrier of sawhorses and then climb a sandbag barricade to reach the temple walls.

  Since Traveler was the only pedestrian in sight, he crossed in the middle of the block to avoid the crew. The water on South Temple was still manageable and confined mostly to the gutters, though the driveway alongside the Chester Building was funneling overflow onto the sidewalk.

  Bill’s sandwich board, plastered with TITHE THE TRUE PROPHET under plastic, formed a tent out front. Inside it huddled Newel Ellsworth. His mittened hand came out to rattle a collection can against Traveler’s knees.

  Traveler couldn’t resist. “I gave at the office.”

  Ellsworth’s head joined his hand. “Sorry, Moroni. I didn’t recognize your feet.”

  “There’s no use staying out here in weather like this.”

  “I got a quarter a while back.”

  “It’s getting cold again,” Traveler said. “Could be we’re in for more snow.”

  “Bill says I have to prove myself. Besides, I can’t stay inside when you’re paying me five dollars an hour to keep my ears open.”

  “My client can afford it. Now come inside and warm up.”

  “I tried the liquor store for you, figuring I could pump the guys in line for information. Only I forgot it was Sunday. That’s when Bill sent me down to the bootlegger’s on Second South. I was the only one buying there, though, because of his premium prices.”

  “I’m sure you did your best,” Traveler said as he helped the man crawl out of his makeshift tent.

  “Did you see the writing on the temple wall?” Ellsworth asked.

  Traveler folded the sandwich board and tucked it under his arm. “There wasn’t much left by the time I got there.”

  “ ‘Satan is walking among us,’ it said.”

  “Did you see who did it?”

  “A car went by making a hell of a racket. I think his tailpipe was dragging, but I didn’t poke my head out to check. He stopped, though. Kids probably. Who else would spray the temple wall? Anyway, my benefactor came by with his quarter a few minutes later. That’s when I took a stretch and spotted the artwork. Two colors, black and red. Satan in red. Too obvious if you ask me. No imagination.”

  Traveler hesitated in front of the revolving door. “Has Barney come in today?”

  “You bet. He’s fixing one of his Sunday goulashes. Supper’s at four.”

  Angling the board to fit into the door’s revolving slots, Traveler pushed inside. Barney Chester was behind the cigar counter, stirring his stew. The iron pot, big enough to hold a three-day supply, looked precarious on the small hot plate. Traveler knew from past experience that the food, like Chester’s coffee, smelled better than it would taste.

  Bill and Charlie were on the customer side of the counter watching Chester’s every move. The moment Traveler joined the pair, Chester banged his wooden spoon on the edge of the pot and replaced the lid. When he turned around, he pointed the spoon at Traveler. “Bill tells me you’re working for the church.”

  “I keep the names of my clients confidential.”

  “No, you don’t. Bill saw you across the street.”

  Bill shook his head. “I didn’t say you were working for anybody in particular, Moroni.”

  “I can read between the lines,” Chester said. He put down his spoon, took up a fresh cigar and thrust it into the perpetual flame burning at one end of the counter. After inhaling deeply, he blew smoke rings toward the yellowing mural on the ceiling. Chester claimed it was his way of protesting the church’s Word of Wisdom, which outlawed tobacco, liquor, and even caffeine.

  “Why is it you never light up in front of the faithful?” Traveler said.

  Waving away both smoke and the question, Chester spoke around his cigar. “What’s this I hear about Satan?”

  “They’re erasing him across the street,” Ellsworth said. When he started to explain, Traveler excused himself and headed for the elevator.

  “We’re serving p
romptly at four,” Chester called after him.

  Nephi Bates was standing in the elevator’s open doorway.

  “Is Barney paying you overtime on the Sabbath?” Traveler said once he was inside the cage.

  Nodding, Bates closed the door.

  “Barney says you’re a church spy,” Traveler said.

  Bates smiled.

  “ ‘He buildeth upon a sandy foundation,’ ” Traveler dredged up from Sunday school, “ ‘and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them.’ ”

  Widening his smile, Bates plugged earphones into his cassette, attached them to his ears, and ferried Traveler to the third floor in silence.

  Traveler walked down the foot-worn marble hall to his office. Once inside, he dropped his coat on the client’s chair and sat behind his desk. After a moment, he took out Lael Woolley’s photograph and propped it against his coffee cup. Her expression seemed different to him, less brooding, more mocking.

  Come on, he thought. You know better than to start imagining things. His perception of her had changed, that was all, forever altered by Dwight Hafen’s comments.

  He tapped the desk in front of her photo. “Do you really want to join the priesthood or were you pulling Hafen’s chain?”

  When she didn’t answer, he picked up the phone and dialed the special number Willis Tanner had provided.

  After the first ring Elihu Moseby’s deep, unmistakable voice came on. “Yes.”

  Traveler identified himself.

  “What may I do for you, Moroni?”

  “I didn’t expect the First Apostle to answer himself.”

  “The fewer people who know about this the better. That’s why Willis Tanner and I are taking turns.”

  “I have a license plate number I want checked.”

  “What does it have to do with the girl?”

  “The number belongs to her new boyfriend,” Traveler said.

  “Do you think he kidnapped her?”

  “Dwight Hafen thinks she was keeping bad company.”

  “Let me get a pencil,” Moseby said. “All right, go ahead.”

  Traveler smiled at the image of a man like Moseby doing a detective’s dirty work.