by Rose Beecham
“It’s Latin. That was the language the Romans used to speak when Jesus was on earth.”
“Before he came to America?”
“Jesus never came to America. That’s a Mog fairy tale.” Adeline giggled just hearing herself say that. It felt really good to call Mormon “Mog” here, of all places.
Daniel was staring at her like she’d just asked Satan to take her to the prom. He said, “Shh,” and looked down at the inscription. “What does it mean?”
“Where there is doubt, there is freedom,” Adeline quoted.
He looked puzzled, but they didn’t have time for her to explain the concept of using your common sense instead of being hooked into Mog-think. She pulled off her long knit underpants and thrust them at him, too serious to laugh at the expression of horror on his face.
“You’re going to get eggs while I get water. Tie them up in this. Not too tight or they’ll break.”
Juggling the pants like they were hot from the fires of hell, Daniel hobbled to the barn door with her and they peered through the cracks to the back entrance of the hen house where a bucket and several large plastic bottles stood beneath an outdoor faucet. On Sundays, no one usually gathered eggs until after prayers.
“I’m scared,” Daniel said.
Adeline gave his hand a brief, hard squeeze then pushed the door open just enough to get through. “Let’s go,” she said, and they hurried across the dusty earth.
While he was in the hen house, Adeline filled the big bottles, terrified that someone would hear the soft hiss of the hose and the wet rattle of water against plastic. Just as she screwed on a cap on the third, Daniel emerged with the pants full of eggs. He was wearing the first smile Adeline had seen on his face in the two days she’d been locked in the cage. They scuttled back to the barn and closed the door once more, both breathing loudly. While they waited for the prayer gong to sound, they rigged up a carry bag for the water bottles, tying together the edges of an old towel they found among the rags Daniel had been sleeping on.
Daniel hoisted the pack over one shoulder and said, “I’m real hungry.”
“We can’t do anything about that now.” Adeline’s mind ran ahead. “Soon as we get clear of this place, we’ll have ourselves an egg.” She had no idea how they were going to cook it, but she figured they could suck it down raw if they had to. She’d seen Fear Factor on Aunt Chastity’s television—or, as her parents called it, that tool of Lucifer.
At the dull clang of the gong, Daniel gripped her arm. She could feel him shaking. For some reason his fear made her feel stronger and braver.
“We’re going to count to a hundred,” she told him. “Then you’re heading for that place you told me about, and I’ll catch up with you.”
He turned fearful eyes on her. “Where are you going?”
“To the laundry.” She handed the eggs to him.
As he began to ask questions, she hushed him and started counting. She had everything planned. All they needed now was a miracle.
Chapter Eight
“Wouldn’t want a breakdown out here,” Tulley said as they drove out of a one-horse town called Fredonia.
“Understatement,” Jude agreed from the passenger seat.
The landscape was a desiccated deep vermilion, its extreme isolation unnerving. Living in canyon country for a year should have prepared her for a place like this, Jude thought, but the Uinkaret Plateau was in a league of its own. A parched strip of badlands straddling the Arizona/Utah border, it was barely inhabitable. You could drive off the road out here and die of exposure before anyone but the local buzzards noticed your overturned vehicle. They’d passed a solitary truck as they left the town and had had the two lane highway to themselves ever since.
“We’re about thirty miles from Hurricane,” she said, refolding the map.
Tulley glanced at the clock on the dash, doubtless calculating how much longer they would be navigating terrain where human life did not belong. “Guess we’ll start running into some traffic soon,” he predicted hopefully.
Jude had her doubts. This was the only highway to the promised land. If there was any traffic in and out of Colorado City and Hildale, they were looking at it. She said, “We’ll be there before you know it.”
Tulley seemed to make a conscious effort not to dwell on their blighted surroundings. “My ma says folks should mind their own business about people that don’t believe the same as them.”
“I can see where she’s coming from.”
“In this country anyone has the right to be a heathen, that’s what she says.”
“Your dad still around?” Jude asked.
“No, ma’am. He was killed by a drunk driver when I was a kid. I don’t remember him real well.”
“I’m sorry.”
“How ’bout your folks?”
“They live in Mexico now.”
“You got brothers and sisters?”
“One of each.” Jude tripped slightly over the half-truth. She usually avoided mentioning Ben, but it seemed wrong to deny him to Tulley. “I had another brother, but we lost him quite a few years back.”
“I’m real sorry to hear that. Were you close?”
“Yes.”
They lapsed into silence. A golden eagle swooped into view, plummeting toward the harsh earth at breathtaking speed. Tulley braked and pulled over to the side of the road, and they watched as the beautiful predator spread its huge wings and extended its feet. It barely struck the ground before rising again with a snake squirming in its talons.
“Raptors are bird royalty,” Tulley murmured breathlessly.
His solemn awe made Jude smile. She could almost hear Ben. He had been eternally fascinated by wildlife. “I have a soft spot for owls,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. That’s a heck of a bird.” Tulley steered their rental Toyota back onto the highway. “Very mysterious.”
“Explains why I find them interesting.” It was the same with women. She only got stuck on the ones she would never figure out. No wonder she couldn’t make a relationship work. Her mind leapt to Mercy but she immediately redirected her thoughts into less complicated territory, asking Tulley, “By the way, how’s it going with Alyssa?”
“She says I should talk to her dad.”
“About?”
“The future.”
“I see.”
“She’s a nice girl.”
Jude had said exactly the same thing to herself more than once in the course of her own blighted love life, like somehow you weren’t allowed to take a pass on a nice girl in case you never found another one. She had ended up in two really lousy relationships with nice girls because she’d felt so guilty about hurting their feelings that she didn’t back out when she should have. They’d ended up hurt anyway, and one of them had cheated on her because of it. Jude had concluded long ago that she was better off with women who were, to put it bluntly, not so nice. They knew how to take care of themselves.
Wondering how she could give Tulley good advice without referring to her own experiences with women, she asked, “Are you looking for a girl to settle down with right now?”
“I don’t think I’m ready for that.” He lowered his window and spat his gum. Hot air rushed into the car.
“Then you need to find someone who feels the same way. It would be wrong if you let Alyssa think you’re ready for commitment when that’s not true.”
“I tried to tell her. But she says males are slow in that department and everything changes when you have kids.”
“Yeah, no kidding. The divorce statistics make that point loud and clear.”
“I never thought about it like that.” He seemed heartened. “Two of my brothers got divorced when they had little kids. Ma was real mad.”
“The kindest thing you can do is let Alyssa know there’s no chance you’re going to get married any time soon. That way she’s free to find another guy who wants the same thing she wants. Otherwise you’re leading her on.”
“
I see what you mean. That would be wrong.”
“Very wrong.”
Jude continued to puzzle over Tulley’s attitude. Most twenty-five-year-old males were not choosy about how they got laid and with whom. Weren’t his hormones talking to him at all? She studied him covertly. By any standards the deputy was handsome, even more so since he’d been working on his muscles. In a town like Cortez, he could probably date anyone. Jude had seen the way cops’ wives looked him up and down. Maybe that explained the cool attitude of his colleagues.
A pair of dark amber eyes met hers and registered faint surprise. Tulley’s long eyelashes descended, and for a moment he could have passed for a disconcerted girl. Jude groaned inwardly. He had completely misinterpreted her stare.
To address any faulty assumptions right off the bat, she said, “I was just wondering what type of woman you’re attracted to, Tulley.”
His unease was transparent. “I don’t rightly know.”
“Are you attracted to me?”
“I…well, I like you.” The driving got erratic as he tried to let her down gently. “I can see that you’re a very intelligent person and I respect you as a fellow peace officer and all. You’re the kind of detective—”
“That’s a no, then?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He wiped his palms on his pants one at a time. “Zero attraction.”
“Good,” Jude said cheerfully. “I’m not attracted to you, either. You’re not my type.”
Tulley was visibly relieved. “I knew it. A woman like you would never want to date me.”
“What makes you say that?” Had Tulley finally figured out she batted for the other team? “The age difference?”
He laughed. “Heck no. The brain difference. You’d get real impatient being with someone who only had an average-type mental capacity.”
“Oh, please.”
“Just telling it like I see it.”
“So, if I stumble on a rocket scientist, I’d better watch out?”
“Not much chance of that in the Four Corners.”
“Between you and me, I can live without the excitement.” Jude toyed with the radio, trying to find a channel that wasn’t a sea of static. Tulley was dead right, of course. The women who made her heart beat faster were those brainy, tastefully slutty types who should carry a surgeon general’s warning: Will likely cause damage to your heart and won’t give a crap about it.
“I’m going to take your advice,” Tulley announced as they lucked onto a Johnny Cash song. “Soon as we get back, I’ll tell her.”
“Good plan,” Jude said, and they both sang glumly along to the corroded baritone of the Man in Black.
“Think if we solve this case there might be a promotion in it?” Tulley asked when the music changed.
Apparently this was Suicide Radio—Leonard Cohen was next up. Jude turned down the dolorous emoting. “Nothing to stop you applying for one even if we don’t make a case.”
“There’s guys with more seniority. But a conviction on this one would look real good.”
“We don’t have a whole lot to go on. I wish there was a goddamned crime scene.”
“I wish we could tie that suiter to the guy.”
“No kidding.” Jude resumed surfing the airwaves for something other than Bible-thumping talk show hosts and wrist-slashing hits of yesteryear. Were they that far from civilization?
Tulley mused, “It’s weird about the social security card.”
Not for the first time it struck Jude that there was something distinctly domestic about that particular act. It seemed like the kind of thing a woman might do. Maybe it wasn’t the killer who was Mr. Neat and Tidy. Maybe he had a female accomplice. Or maybe she wasn’t an accomplice, but was actually the killer. Zipping the body into a bag and tucking the victim’s social security card into the ID pocket seemed somehow more plausible as the actions of a woman.
According to Zach, Mrs. Epperson had cut Darlene’s tongue out about five months ago. Had she also murdered her and disposed of the body? Would she have killed one of her husband’s other wives, acting on her own account? Could it be a crime of passion, one wife jealous of another? Jude had her doubts. It seemed pretty obvious from her research that these polygamist women didn’t do a whole lot of thinking for themselves. She could not imagine one of them committing a murder without her husband’s say so. More likely she’d followed orders. That was the way things worked in polygamy-land. Al Qaeda didn’t have the worldwide monopoly on pumping out brainwashed devotees.
She thought about the Lafferty case, one of those she’d studied before setting off for Utah. Two polygamists had brutally murdered the wife and baby daughter of their youngest brother. Her crime had been to help one of their wives leave her battering husband. Naturally the culprits evaded personal responsibility for their actions by claiming God had commanded them to carry out the crime. Did they truly believe that?
Having worked in child protection, Jude had no illusions about self-deceit. Molesters usually espoused self-serving beliefs that enabled them to get about their lives free of guilt. They blamed their victims and clung to psycho-babble theories about children as sexual beings. They denied the reality of their victims’ pain because it contradicted the belief system that supported their behavior.
It struck Jude that in many ways religious extremists had a similar mindset. They, too, seemed strangely narcissistic and determinedly blind to any fact that could undermine their beliefs. They, too, avoided taking responsibility for their behavior by assigning it to forces over which they had no control.
Was it any wonder that child sexual abuse was widespread in their community? Their lifestyle created the ideal environment for it. Children were brainwashed from birth to obey adults without question, and women were subservient baby-making machines who were not even supposed to laugh. From what Jude had read, they never saw a television or read a newspaper and most had virtually no education. Added to the mix was a fundamentalist version of Mormonism that held that all men were gods in the making and their prophet’s declarations, however banal and self-serving, came direct from the Almighty.
A cult like the FLDS would be a magnet not just for men who wanted multiple wives, but also for would-be child molesters. Talk about hog heaven. Just thinking about it got her so aggravated her skin felt scratchy. What kind of idiot system allowed a bunch of men to get away with crimes any ordinary person would be serving jail time for, all because they called themselves a church and blamed their conduct on God? What was the difference between them and some creep who said “voices” made him do it? Worse still, these fundamentalist wackos received millions of dollars in handouts from the government they despised. It was just plain crazy.
Burning to arrest someone, Jude stared out the window at a tobacco tinted cloud haze looming ahead. A highway sign announced Colorado City & Hildale. The indistinguishable twin towns were sandwiched in a valley between the vast chasm of the Grand Canyon to the south and the towering cliffs of Utah to the north. A barren plateau stretched out on either side, etched starkly against a lapis sky. It was a remarkable backdrop for one of the ugliest towns Jude had ever seen.
Colorado City was a scab on the raw majesty of its surroundings. The place reeked of cow shit, decay, and the acrid smell of chemical smoke. Roaming cattle wandered between abandoned cars and piles of junk, trash blew along unpaved streets, and a grim, heavily polluted stream drifted torpidly through the center. The town had originally been named after this sorry tributary—Short Creek—and it had a sordid history.
For more than a century, the Arizona Strip had sheltered hard-line polygamists, whose numbers swelled when the mainstream Mormon church buckled to government pressure and disavowed plural wives in 1890, claiming God had revealed celestial marriage could no longer be practiced on earth. Although this about-face ensured statehood for the besieged territory of Utah, it contradicted previous doctrine that enshrined polygamy as a “Sacred Principle.” The fundamentalists weren’t buying the new revela
tion, which they saw as convenient flip-flop and an attempt to mainstream the church. They also wanted the right to keep on marrying their wives’ twelve-year-old sisters. So, they abandoned Salt Lake City and retreated by the hundreds to the boonies where they thought they would be left alone.
For a time they were. Then, in the 1950s, Arizona got fed up with the welfare burden of the isolated community, and cattlemen weren’t happy that their grazing fees were being used to pay for polygamist schools. Expecting to receive public acclamation for taking a stand against child brides and welfare scams, the then governor of Arizona, Howard Pyle, ordered a massive police raid. This appeared in the state budget under “grasshopper control.”
The outcome was a public relations disaster. Howls of outrage greeted front-page pictures of weeping children torn from their mothers’ arms, and the Arizona authorities found themselves accused of religious persecution. Eventually all the arrested polygamists were reunited with their families and thanks to the backlash, the state turned a blind eye to the community for the next fifty years. There were now some forty thousand of them, twelve thousand living in Colorado City and Hildale.
“I was thinking about those bite marks,” Tulley said as he slowed the car to a crawl.
Jude had to think twice before she made the mental leap back to the Huntsberger autopsy. “Did you pack that model?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He stopped the car, reached behind her seat, and produced a plastic bag containing a set of mock teeth the forensic dentist had worked up for them. “You wouldn’t forget if you saw teeth like these when someone smiled.”
“That’s what I’m hoping.”
Zach had assured them old man Epperson wasn’t the proud owner of the exotic fangs. The kid had never seen teeth like them, in fact. Jude couldn’t imagine a woman inflicting those bites, so even if Mrs. Epperson had murdered Darlene someone else had to be involved, someone who needed serious dental work. If it wasn’t her husband, it had to be a relative. Women in her situation didn’t come into contact with the public, so it wasn’t like she could rustle up some lowlife to help her out.