by Rose Beecham
There was also the matter of the body dump. Would a woman be capable of lifting a heavily pregnant woman in and out of a vehicle alone? Highly unlikely, Jude decided. If Mrs. Epperson had managed to slit Darlene’s throat, she had not disposed of the body without help.
“We going direct to Rapture?” Tulley asked.
“Yep. Sounds like the new Mohave County transplants are the only cops ’round here that missed joining the prophet’s fan club.”
She stared out the window at a mountain of junk piled on an empty lot and got irritated thinking about the contents of Darlene’s stomach again. So far, not a word from Mercy, and Jude had been procrastinating over the follow-up call she needed to make. How long did it take some lab technician to glue a few bits of paper together and look at them under a microscope? Jude located her cell phone and dialed the medical examiner’s office while Tulley studied a map of Colorado City. A secretary answered the phone and put Jude through to Mercy, who sounded surprised to hear from her.
Jude said, “Dr. Westmoreland. Thanks for taking my call.”
Mercy replied, “Are you in Utah already?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m calling.”
“Ah…the paper shreds from your legless victim. Didn’t one of my staff speak to you about that?”
Mercy had left the chore of phoning her to an underling. Terrific.
“No,” Jude said coldly.
“Would you hold a minute, Detective.” Paper rustled and Jude heard muffled voices. Then Mercy said, “Yes, we have something for you.”
“Bring it on.”
Unexpectedly, Mercy laughed and her tone oozed desire all of a sudden. “I wish.”
Jude figured whoever had been there with her must have left the room, and apparently Mercy thought it was okay to flirt even though her Brit pal was keeping her bed warm at home. Bothered by the images that leapt to mind, Jude said, “And?”
“We sent the materials to the QDU and they came back to us with a ten-digit number. Got a pen?”
Jude jotted down the number Mercy read, at the same time feeling embarrassed that she’d expected a level of amateurism from the small M.E.’s office. Mercy had sent the paper scraps to the FBI crime lab and the experts in the Questioned Documents Unit had come up with the goods.
“It could be a phone number,” Mercy said.
“I guess she ate it to prevent it being found.”
“Or someone tore it up and forced it down her throat. Can’t have been easy swallowing little shreds of paper without a tongue.”
“And you’re absolutely sure the tongue was cut out, not torn in an accident or something?”
“Yes. Did you turn up anything in the hospital records?”
“Not so far. We’re on it.” Jude transferred the digits into her laptop.
Mercy’s tone switched from crisp to sultry. “How long will you be away?”
“Two days.”
“Maybe we could get together when you come back.”
Jude wanted to sound chilly on that idea, but her breathing betrayed her and her voice came out husky. “Don’t you have company?”
“Ah. Elspeth said you’d called.”
“Yes.”
“Thanks for that, by the way. It was decent of you.” She said it like maybe that was out of character.
Bugged, and conscious of Tulley right next to her, Jude said, “What’s the deal?”
“About?” All innocence.
Jude was silent, signaling she was not at liberty to speak openly.
“Elspeth?” Mercy asked after a beat.
“Yes.”
“You can’t talk right now?”
“That’s correct,” Jude said.
“So, do you want to see me?”
As one of two sexual partners—was that what Mercy was asking? Jude supposed she could get all righteous and indignant, but who was she to tell Mercy how to live her life?
“Yes,” she said finally and was certain she detected a small sigh of relief.
“Good. I think we need to talk.”
“Probably.”
“And in case you were wondering, I do want to sleep with you again.”
“Okay.” Sharing was better than nothing, Jude told herself.
Mercy laughed. “Don’t sound so excited.”
“You’ve been very helpful,” Jude said stiffly. Tulley had the car in gear and was easing them out onto the potholed dustbowl that passed for the main street of Colorado City. “I need to go.”
“I know what you need,” Mercy said sweetly.
“I have no doubt.”
“If you’re good, maybe I’ll let you fist me.”
Jude dropped the phone. The very thought of Mercy gloved around her hand made her light-headed. She groped under her seat and retrieved the device. Mercy was still there.
Perspiring, Jude said, “Thanks for mentioning that, Doctor.”
“My pleasure.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“Don’t make me wait too long.”
Jude consciously elevated her mind and managed a casual farewell while she could still keep her voice even.
“Rapture?” Tulley asked, pointing at a highway sign.
Jude stifled a high-pitched giggle. Rapture was exactly what Mercy inspired in a poor, simple, sex-starved fool like her. She lowered her voice to one of coplike composure. “Yep. Let’s do it.”
They approached an intersection where several old washing machines almost prevented vehicles from passing through. Everywhere she looked, piles of rusting scrap metal and old appliances chocked the sidewalks. An odd sight was a mound of smashed televisions and satellite receivers in the middle of the road. Various minivans and SUVs jockeyed for position at high speed, as if the main street was an obstacle course built for their own version of NASCAR. Other than the transport, the place could have passed for a nineteenth-century movie set, with the women in pioneer garb and the men wearing plain shirts and long pants with suspenders.
Tulley halted at the stop sign. A woman with several small children stood at the side of the road, looking like she wanted to get across. Jude took in a round ruddy face beneath brass-toned blond hair, the bangs strangely waved so they bobbed high above her forehead. Tulley signaled to the woman to go ahead, but she remained rooted to the spot, glaring balefully at them, her children clutched to her bosom.
One of the youngsters broke away from his mother’s skirts to hurl a stone at their car, yelling, “Apostates.”
They were also attracting a more menacing audience. Several young males armed with shotguns emerged from behind a building and marched purposefully toward the vehicle.
“Think they’ve noticed we’re not from ’round here?” Jude said.
They both unsnapped their holsters.
“Looks like trouble.” Tulley seemed oddly pleased by the fact.
“We’re passing through,” Jude repeated the standard line they had discussed for this exact situation.
A hand thumped the car. Tulley lowered his window. A moon face occupied the gap.
“You folks lost?” The speaker looked about twenty, his beard a carefully combed straggle only an adolescent male would prize. Jude checked out his teeth. Nothing unusual there. But his eyes were a source of fascination, beady and deep set with no space between eyebrows and lids.
Tulley said, “Just passing through, sir.”
The stony little eyes fastened on Jude, and contempt seeped into the youth’s tone. “Keep your wife inside the car in her harlot’s attire. We will not have this town corrupted by immorality.”
Jude reminded herself that decking this little prick would be a good way to have the situation blow up in their faces before they got a single thing they wanted, but it was tempting all the same. She kept her hands in her lap and contented herself with a fantasy of dragging Epperson away from his harem in handcuffs. Maybe kicking him in the balls just once.
“Like I said, we’re just passing through.” Tulley wound the window up
.
The youths backed off a few feet, but their shotguns, held casually at the hip, were still trained on the car. One of them spat, and a wad of saliva ran down the windscreen.
“Now, that makes me mad,” Tulley said.
Jude patted his shoulder. “Drive.”
He jammed the car into gear and they left the clothing police standing around the woman at the intersection like dogs guarding a carcass.
*
Summer stared at the grimy wall to one side of Nathaniel, her eyes fixed on a plaque that said: Keep Sweet, No Matter What. These were plastered up all through the house. As if anyone could forget. Summer thought she must have heard that saying every day of her life.
“Perfect obedience produces perfect faith.” Her husband waved the Book of Mormon. “The greatest freedom you will ever enjoy comes from giving yourself to God in complete submission.”
Summer wished she could lie down. Her heart was beating too fast and her skin felt clammy. The family meeting room was hot and smelled of baby shit, throw-up, and the sickly perfume Fawn Dew had on. Summer was shocked by this shamelessness. Even if she herself had been given perfume by the master, she would not boast her good fortune in front of all her sister-wives. Fawn Dew was also parading around in a brand-new, seamstress-made, green plaid dress with a white lace collar and big sash. She was the only wife Nathaniel had returned home with a gift for, and she wanted everyone to know.
Naoma said she wouldn’t be the favorite much longer, but the other sister-wives said it had gone on like this for a year now. Fawn Dew was one of the new prophet’s daughters. She and her Downs toddler had been assigned to the master after Mr. Jeffs took them away from one of the Barlows. He ran most of that family out of town not long after, the mayor included. Fawn Dew thought she was better than all the rest of them, and skipped her tasks. Anyone else would have been beaten till she couldn’t walk.
“Give thanks that you will be lifted up,” Nathaniel declared. “That you alone among the daughters of Eve will attain the celestial kingdom through living the sacred principle. Each of you must make a choice every day to keep yourself white and delightsome, otherwise you open a door to Satan.”
This time Summer could feel his pale blue eyes burning into her. She dared a quick glance at his face and he shoved his index finger into her chest.
“Wife, I am asking you now, in the presence of our Heavenly Father, did you open that door to the devil? Did you release your sister?”
Summer swallowed bile. Fear had her by the throat. Her teeth chattered. She dug the nails of one hand hard into the wrist of the other to prevent herself sobbing. The master didn’t like tears. Wives and children who wept were punished and if there was one thing she couldn’t face at this stage of her pregnancy, that was having to hold her breath while Sister Naoma pushed her head underwater.
“No, I swear. I would never do that,” she said.
“Then why were you in the barn on Saturday evening?” the head wife accused. Her face was aglow with anticipation and she ran a chunky hand up and down the thick leather belt she held.
Spies. Sister Naoma had them everywhere. Summer knew she’d been stupid to risk sneaking off to see Adeline.
Frantically, she said, “I went there to beg Adeline to submit herself. I told her that the only way she could find salvation was by living the principle as I do. I told her how honored she was to be chosen as the master’s next celestial wife. I was trying to make her see sense.”
Sister Naoma snorted, but the master placed his hand on Summer’s head and intoned. “After a lifetime of self purification and sanctification, and of repentance and living the principle, I am now a Christlike man. My faith fills me and I am blessed by revelation, visions, and angelic ministrations. Lord, I your servant ask now for the ability to discern the truth of my wife Summer’s reply.” He paused and several of the wives dropped to their knees, adding their own exhortations to his.
The minutes ticked by with excruciating slowness. Summer felt sweat slithering down her back and her thighs. She wondered if she should mention the hiding place the boy talked about, but she held back. If they found Adeline, Summer could hardly bear to think about what they might do to her. And if Adeline still failed to keep herself sweet after being purified, Summer too would pay a price.
Just as she thought she might faint, Nathaniel flung his arms heavenward and announced as he always did when he received God’s word, “If I dared to deny the Holy Ghost as it works in me, I would be committing an act of infamous perdition. If I trust in the arm of flesh more than in a revelation from the Holy Spirit, if I ignore the spring of living waters rising within me and the burning in my bosom, I will stumble from the paths of truth and righteousness, and I might as well become an apostate!”
Get on with it, Summer thought and shivered instantly, recognizing the tiny, derisive voice as the devil’s, a cunning attempt to lead her away from the promise of salvation. Terror weakened her limbs. What if Nathaniel couldn’t hear God today and decided she was lying? She would be cast out, and without the stewardship of her husband, she would be doomed for all eternity.
She clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip, filled with bleak despair at the thought of losing her home and place in the world. She might not be the master’s favorite, but he had never used her harshly; only Sister Naoma had beaten her. Several of her sister-wives were great friends to her, especially Thankful, the sixth wife. Everything had been fine until Adeline came along with her apostate ideas and immodest ways. Wiping her hands on her dress, she allowed her husband’s words to wash over her and prayed for God to help her hold fast to the rod.
Eventually Nathaniel made the pronouncement she was longing to hear. Patting her cheek, he said, “Summer is a good and obedient wife and a faithful servant of the Lord. Adeline has been led astray by her master, Lucifer. Let us ask in prayer that she may be returned and cleansed of her wickedness.”
As Summer sank gratefully to her knees, she stole a sideways glance at Sister Naoma, who did not look at all pleased by this turn of events. Hastily Summer turned to face the Salt Lake City Temple, as they all did during their thrice-daily prayers. Eyes closed, she began repeating sentence for sentence after her husband.
“Lord, we present ourselves unto thee, thine humble servants on earth. Please hasten the day in which the blood of the prophets is avenged…”
As she mouthed the familiar, comforting lines, she added a prayer of her own. Please God, protect Adeline, wherever she is, however foolish she has been.
Chapter Nine
“Why did you do it?” Daniel asked.
Adeline ran a hand through her short hair, still amazed at how light her head felt with the waist-length braids cut off. “You said runaway wives always get caught. But I look like a boy now.”
Daniel studied her for a moment, then his two front teeth peeped over his top lip. “You’re real smart, Adeline.”
She rolled up the legs of her denim overalls and marveled again at how free and comfortable she felt in men’s clothing. She was never going to wear that sack of a dress and the long prickly underwear ever again. When she’d swapped clothing in the laundry, she’d wanted to burn everything, but she didn’t have time and besides, someone would have seen smoke. Instead, she’d stuck to her plan and stolen the scissors from Sister Naoma’s bedroom. She still couldn’t believe she’d made it in and out of that window without being caught, and that she and Daniel had reached the cave and survived the night.
She’d also stolen a saucer from the head wife’s room and they’d used it to bake a couple of eggs in the sun once they were safe in their hiding place.
“I wonder how long it will be before they come looking,” she said. “We need to get away from here.”
“No.” Daniel was adamant. “We should stay where we are. I don’t think anyone knows about this place. We’ll be safe, and when they stop looking, then we’ll leave.”
Adeline eyed their meager supplies. Daniel had a smal
l stockpile of foods his mother had slipped him on the visits he’d made to the ranch before getting caught. Beans. Dried apple. Cans of soup. He also had a pocketknife with a can-opener tool. If they made everything last, they could probably survive for two weeks. Water was the problem.
“We’ve only got water for a few more days,” she said.
“Once they’ve searched ’round here, we can go find some. They won’t come back again.”
Adeline wished she could feel so certain about that, but she had a feeling Mr. Epperson was not going to take kindly to their vanishing act. She wondered if he would tell her parents. Maybe they would go to Aunt Chastity’s place and wait for her. What if she and Daniel somehow got as far as Salt Lake City only to be caught and brought back? She wished she was eighteen. When you turned eighteen no one could force you to live where you didn’t want to live.
“How’s your leg?” she asked.
“It’s real sore. I prayed but it doesn’t feel any better.”
“Let me see it.”
He looked embarrassed. “I’d have to take off my overalls.”
“I won’t look.” Adeline turned and climbed down toward the rear wall of the cave.
Their hiding place was not a large one. The cave had an entrance like a pair of slightly parted lips. To get in, they had to slide on their bellies. But it was cool and snaked back a ways into the wall of red rock. A fine film of moisture clung to the farthest part, which made Adeline wonder if there was water somewhere. She had felt around the rock and listened intently, without luck.
“You can look now,” Daniel said.
He was lying on his front and Adeline almost threw up at the sight of his right leg. The thigh was dark purple and a long gash was trying to heal, but it had not knitted properly, no doubt because the wound was so swollen.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Some of the elders beat on me with a two-by-four. It had a nail in it. That got dug in and made the rip.”
Cautiously, Adeline touched the messy area. It was hot and sticky with pus. “They punished you because you tried to see your mom?”