by Rose Beecham
Jude read through the description and cautionary notes and smiled. Life had suddenly gotten a whole lot easier. Arizona had issued a state arrest warrant, because--Newsflash!--Jeffs was wanted for sexual assault on a minor. If she crossed paths with him, she could grab him up on the existing indictment and Colorado could put their case together afterward. There had to be a conspiracy charge in there somewhere. It sounded like no one in the twin towns drew breath without the prophet’s say-so.
“Do you have any idea where Mr. Jeffs is?” she asked, covering the obvious base.
Zach reacted to this casual inquiry with a vehement plea, “I don’t want to talk anymore.”
His wet blue eyes begged for understanding, and Jude could sympathize. The kid genuinely believed the gates of heaven had just swung shut in his face. He was also afraid of the thugs who’d already assaulted him. But she sensed something else at work. Even his rank, unwashed odor could not disguise the smell of terror that oozed from him.
“Zach, what are you so afraid of?” she asked gently. “Please tell me.”
“Those who betray the secrets of the priesthood must atone in blood. Obey the prophet and we are blessed. Disobey, and it’s death.” He broke into exhausted sobs. “You don’t know what they’re like. They’ll find me and give me to the demon.”
Jude got up and found a box of tissues. She took these over to him and put an arm around his frail shoulders. “Calm down, and blow your nose. There’s no such thing as demons.”
He mopped his tears with odd, frantic motions, apologizing and assuring her he would stop crying immediately. Watching him, Jude felt a wave of grief rise from her chest to her throat. She wanted to kill someone—for Zach and all the children like him, the ones who didn’t know the meaning of childhood. She wanted ten minutes alone in a room with Epperson or Jeffs.
Intellectually, she knew that the murderous rage she glimpsed in herself at times like this was very old and could never be given an outlet. But there was a part of her that clung to it, reveling in it, dreaming of the day when she would come face-to-face with the man she’d been hunting for almost twenty years. No way would she exercise judgment and restraint. No way would she deny the primal thirst for revenge and dress it up in modern clothing. Justice was a nice ideal, but her quarry did not deserve the civilized ritual of a trial, the fair-minded deliberations of a jury.
Jude was not going to arrest him, she was going to kill him with her bare hands. She would help him discover the limits of his pain threshold. Something touched her arm and she looked down to find Zach staring at her with an odd yearning expression. She realized her fingers were digging into his bony shoulders, and released him.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said.
“No, I don’t.” Jude propped herself against the edge of the desk. “But here’s something to think about. The prophet threw you out. I’d say that means you don’t have to obey his rules anymore. You can’t be bound by the rules of an organization that excommunicated you. They made that decision, not you. Do you understand?”
His face became strangely immobile, as if a spanner had just landed in the works of his brainwashed thought process.
“What will I do?” he murmured eventually. It wasn’t really a question, more a stark expression of his disorientation.
Zach Carter had never learned how to think for himself. Without rules to follow, and lacking critical reasoning skills, he was in a limbo, displaced and vulnerable. Jude wondered if there was a help agency that could work a case like this. If he really was eighteen, he was too old to be a ward of the state, so Social Services would not be able to do a thing. Yet he was clearly unequipped to assimilate into the real world. He would need education, therapy, and a safe environment. Protective custody seemed like a reach. But if she could get a statement naming someone in the assault on Darlene, if not the murder, that would make Zach a key witness. She could easily persuade Pratt that any of the nutjobs implicated would pose a threat.
A plan took shape in her mind. “What say you stay here at the station for a while? You could sleep in there.” She indicated the holding cell. “You’d get all your meals. No one is going to come looking for you at the sheriff’s office, are they?”
He looked astonished. “Can I stay tonight?”
“Absolutely. And for the next week or so while we think about what you’re going to do with your life.” She made the offer irresistible. “We do have a few rules you’ll need to follow.”
He nodded eagerly. Rules were something this kid knew all about.
“There’s yard work and this building wants a coat of paint. So you’ll be working in exchange for your food and shelter.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’ll arrange some schooling for you.” Agatha was a retired teacher. If they let her loose on this kid, she would be off their backs over sloppy office habits, a win/win for all concerned.
“I liked school,” he said wistfully. “But I had to work on the ranch so I quit in the seventh grade.”
“Well, you have some catching up to do.” Jude invented a couple more rules, since they seemed to comfort him. “You must eat all the food you are given. And you must always wash your hands after using the bathroom.”
“Do I use the soap? I saw it there, but I wasn’t sure. Back home soap was only for my sister-mothers.”
Whatever happened to cleanliness being next to godliness? “In this station everyone uses soap,” Jude said.
“I can get cleaned off right away, if you show me where the hose is.” Zach jumped to his feet.
“You won’t be needing the hose. Did you see the shower stall in the bathroom?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’ll wash in there with warm water. I’ll show you how it works.”
Jude took a slow breath, controlling the anger rising from her gut. She supposed, with thirty or so kids, daily hot showers were not practical for polygamist families. Clearly, Zach had spent his life getting clean by hosing himself down outdoors. She was relieved that he seemed eager to wash. His disgusting body odor had given her a headache.
“After we’re done talking, you can take your first shower,” she told him. “Then I’m going to drive you into town and get you some new clothes. We’ll swing by the doctor, too. I want him to take a look at you.”
Zach’s face was instantly pinched with alarm. “I don’t need any doctor. If I deserve to be healed, God will heal me.”
“Yeah, I had a feeling about that.” Jude glanced toward the window, expecting Tulley’s truck at any moment. She wondered if he would have better luck getting Zach to talk about Darlene’s “silencing.” The kid was fading fast, the aftermath of a square meal hitting bottom. He rested his head on one hand, eyelids drooping.
“You look sleepy,” Jude said. “Want to rest up some before we head out?”
He regarded her gravely and she realized that giving him options only made him nervous. “You can lie down for a while after your shower,” she instructed. “I’ll wake you when it’s time to leave.”
He hovered for a moment. “Thank you for being kind to me, ma’am.”
“Isn’t being kind to others what God wants us to do?”
Again his face stilled in concentration, eyes slightly narrowed. Jude saw something new mingle with his fear and weariness. He looked older suddenly.
“I saw it,” he said. “They made me watch.”
Jude listened. This time he didn’t look away.
“It was Mrs. Epperson. The head wife.”
“She had the knife?”
He nodded. “Mr. Epperson had a revelation. He said she was chosen to be God’s instrument.”
How convenient. “So Mr. Epperson told her what to do?”
“Everyone had to read the scriptures and pray. Then he told us what the Heavenly Father revealed.” He lowered his head and cradled his face with both hands. “Diantha tried to run away—” He broke into hoarse sobs. “And I didn’t help her.”
“Shit.” Sheriff Pratt closed his office door and sagged into his chair, groaning like he had heartburn.
Accustomed to this reaction from her superior, Jude sat down on one of the padded beige vinyl chairs opposite his desk. “So I figured I’d take Tulley with me,” she said. “He could use the experience.”
A small bead of perspiration ran down the side of the sheriff’s nose. He flicked it away with a finger. “I’m not so sure about this. Can’t we work up another approach?”
What did he have in mind, other than dropping the investigation? Trying not to sound impatient, Jude said, “We’ll keep a low profile.”
Pratt plainly wanted to wring his big, tanned hands. Instead he tortured an empty cigarette packet. “Can’t see how that’s possible, given you two are going to stick out like sheep at a rodeo.”
“Obviously we’ll go see the sheriff first, since we’ll need to be sworn in to his jurisdiction. I don’t know how this is going to play out, exactly. We’ll have arrest powers from Arizona, but Rapture is actually on the Utah side of the border.”
“Well, I’m guessing a warrant might be hard to come by. Don’t waste your time asking the judge—three wives and twenty-something kids.”
“I thought Utah was cleaning up its act. Didn’t they sack the last police chief and half the force?”
“Roundy and his crowd…yep. Decertified. Clear case of the fox guarding the henhouse. One of them served a year…unlawful sex with a minor.”
“So maybe this new sheriff will be looking to make a good impression. He has to have a working relationship with Utah, and their attorney general seems to be ratcheting up the pressure on these polygamists.”
Pratt grunted. “I’ll believe that when I see it. Listen, we’re not looking for trouble. You know what I’m saying.”
“No, sir. Not really.”
Pratt sucked his top lip in and chewed briefly in his moustache. He seemed to be considering his words very carefully. “You have to understand something, Devine. You’re not in D.C. anymore. Out here, we don’t have big-city manpower. We cover a large area and we’re right on the border. All of the above means we need to keep a harmonious relationship happening with the different agencies.”
“I’m hearing you.”
“I’ll spell it out. Utah…they’ve got money. A lot more than the rest of us. And they don’t like bad publicity. They have their own ways of dealing with internal situations like this.”
“It’s not an internal situation. Darlene was a Colorado girl.”
“I’m talking about their religion.”
“But these polygamist sects aren’t mainstream Mormons. The church disassociated itself from them a long time ago.”
“Yeah, well. They sure don’t like the public looking into that particular relationship, and you can see their point. Those crazies in Colorado City are a big embarrassment.”
“Because they’re a snapshot of what the Mormon church used to be before they reinvented themselves?”
“In a nutshell, yes. I gotta tell you, there’s not a whole lot of separation between church and state in Utah.”
“The Iran of the Southwest, huh?”
“Some parts more than others, but you got the general idea.”
“Point taken. So, I guess that means they won’t just hand Epperson over if we ask nicely, so we’re stuck with having to make this happen our own way.”
Pratt muttered something. Jude guessed he could see the hole he’d dug for himself. She waited for him to come up with some delay tactics. Instead he grumbled, “What are we supposed to tell those idiots camped out in front of the town hall? The last thing we need is a pack of embedded reporters tagging along for the ride.”
“We don’t have to tell them anything.”
Last she’d heard, they were more interested in the rumors about Mercy and the British actress than the hunt for Darlene’s killer. Half of them had left Cortez and were now sniffing around the medical examiner’s office in Grand Junction.
“I want you back here in three days,” Pratt said.
“So, I have your approval to make an arrest if the evidence is there, sir?”
“Let’s not pretend you need my approval for anything you do, Devine.” Pratt lowered his voice to a harried murmur. “Any idea when you’ll be out of here? I mean, in regards to your real…mission?”
“I wish I could discuss that. I truly do.”
“If it’s a nuclear situation, I don’t want to be the last to know. Is that too much to ask?”
Jude guessed he’d tried to make that sound like dry humor, but fell short of the mark. “I promise you, sir. If I ever think there’s a reason to evacuate this area, I’ll tell you. Protocol or not.”
At this reassurance, he went pale. “So you’re saying there is something going down?”
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Jude sighed. “Not that I’m aware of at this time.”
“Nothing would surprise me. We got ourselves some real nuts out here.”
“We surely do. And on that subject, what can you tell me about those Utah folks who bought the ranch outside of Mancos?”
“Lot of money and a lot of womenfolk. You know my position—if they don’t ask for trouble, they won’t get any.”
“They weren’t too cooperative when we called around there last week.” They’d interviewed all the Huntsbergers’ neighbors, in fact, most of Mancos, asking if anyone remembered seeing a white minivan hanging around before Darlene disappeared. The new residents hadn’t been living there at the time but had reacted to the routine questions with extreme paranoia.
“Yeah, I heard,” Pratt said. “The boys thought they must have stumbled onto a methamphetamine lab.”
“Is there anything we can hold over them so they’ll quit with the sons of perdition crap and answer some questions?”
Pratt took time out from mangling his cigarette pack. “They’ve applied for a building permit. Paid the urgent processing fee.”
“I wonder if they made all the necessary disclosures.”
“Insufficient information…yeah, that’s a problem.” Pratt ran with the ball. “Can’t get approval if you’re not telling the whole truth. They wouldn’t let the assessor into any of the existing buildings, so what’s the guy supposed to think?”
“You can bet they’re exceeding occupancy levels,” Jude said. “Maybe approval has to be delayed while additional evidence of purpose is gathered.”
“I’m guessing they won’t be holding a parade once they hear the news. Better free up a couple of deputies to accompany the building inspector, just in case.”
“Wise idea. That’s the kind of situation that can get heated.”
“You bet. So, what do you want from them?”
“Everything they can tell us about Nathaniel Epperson and this power struggle that seems to be going on in the FLDS.”
“Which stands for what?”
“Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints. That’s the biggest of the polygamist factions that broke away from the Mormon church.”
“Beats me how they manage,” Pratt marveled. “It’s all I can do to make one wife happy.”
“I seriously doubt any of these men give a crap about their wives’ happiness,” Jude said. “This is just white slavery by another name.”
Pratt seemed lost in thought. “Darned if I know what we can do about that kid you brought in,” he said eventually. “We get them drifting through here, panhandling and sniffing substances. Stealing goddamn cars from the Ute, who, by the way, get called Lammanites by our friends in Utah. Whatever that means. Anyway, half of them don’t have birth certificates or social security numbers. No one knows what to do with them.”
“Well, Zach’s a key witness.”
“Not to the murder.”
“If we get this to trial, he’ll testify to the mutilation.”
“What are you proposing?”
“Protective custody wit
hout the paperwork.”
“Keep talking.”
“I don’t want his family to know we have him. Tulley has volunteered to accommodate him for a while, and I’m going to see about getting his education started again.”
“I thought you were taking Deputy Tulley to Utah with you.”
“Agatha will keep an eye on Zach while we’re away.”
“You don’t think he’ll get skittish?”
“I think he’ll stay where the food is.” Jude took a few sheets of paper from her satchel and slid them across the desk to Pratt. “This is his medical report. Not for the faint-hearted.”
Pratt skimmed the top couple of pages then slid his chair back to peer through the Venetian blinds to the outer office, where Zach was devouring a pizza. “God damn. Is this for real?”
“Which part? The tapeworm? The old fractures…the starvation…the scars on his back? The semi-castration…”
He faced her again and this time the pained resignation was gone and a grim anger had replaced it. “These people are vermin and we’re going to put some of them behind bars. I don’t know how the heck we’re going to get them extradited, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Jude shared his pessimism. While Zach was sleeping that morning, she’d done some homework and learned that, with a few high-profile exceptions like Tom Green, polygamists were seldom brought to trial in Utah. The state seemed to be run by a small number of genealogically connected men who publicly distanced themselves from the fundamentalists but allowed them to operate unchallenged. In recent times, the new attorney general had signaled an end to Utah’s indifference and had frozen the assets of the FLDS sect. But there hadn’t been the flood of arrests antipolygamy activists were hoping for. If justice was to be done, Epperson and his wife would have to be convicted in Colorado.