by Rose Beecham
His head jerked in a nod and his shoulders started to shake. “She was going to give me money for a bus fare. She was set to steal it from the master. Maybe she got caught.”
“You reckon that could be why she’s—what’d you call it?”
“A poofer?—probably.”
“Seems like anyone who acts half-decent ’round here gets thrown out.”
“God makes the rules. He speaks through the prophet and we must obey or atone.”
Adeline rolled her eyes. “If you believe that, you’re dumber than you act. My Aunt Chastity says the prophet is not Christlike. She says his rightful place is in the state penitentiary.”
A small hiss of air fizzed from Daniel and he snuck a look toward the mouth of the cave like he thought someone could be listening in on them.
“Boy, you’re skinny,” Adeline said. “I’m going to fix you another baked egg after I’m done with this.”
She poured some of their precious water into the saucer and cut a strip from the funny-undie bag they’d carried the eggs in. Cleaning the wound as best she could, she asked, “Do you know if there’s a doctor back in Rapture?”
“Nearest one is in Hildale.”
“Then that’s where we’re going.”
“No!” He seized her wrist. “We can’t. They’ll catch us for sure if we go there.”
“What are we supposed to do? This is infected.”
“Maybe if you pray, too—”
Adeline snorted. “Fat lot of good that will do. I did biology at school because I’m going to be a vet, and there’s only one thing that’ll fix your leg. Antibiotics.”
Daniel propped himself on an elbow and squinted at her like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you talking about apostate drugs and the like?”
“I’m talking about regular type medicine that you get at the pharmacy.”
He gazed blankly at her.
“Hello? The pharmacy, where they give you the prescription after you go to the doctor.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, of course. He had never seen a doctor in his life. Neither had she until Aunt Chastity took her to one in Salt Lake to get all the shots she’d missed out on when she was little.
“Doctors are Satan’s servants,” Daniel informed her.
“Whatever. I’m still taking you to see one.”
“It’s a real long way to Salt Lake. Where will we go first?”
Adeline had no idea, but she didn’t want to let on about that. Even though she’d discovered Daniel wasn’t as young as she thought, he still didn’t seem like a thirteen-year-old. More like nine or ten. And he acted like she was his big sister—or, now that she was supposed to be a boy, his cousin. That was their story. They’d thought it all up while she was baking their eggs the day before. If anyone asked, she was going to say her name was Dell, like the computer Aunt Chastity had bought her.
As she squeezed out the rag and hung it over a rock, she wondered what Aunt Chastity would do if she was here. Adeline pictured her on the hiking trip they took last fall. She was really pretty, with her curly copper hair bunched up on top in a knot, her big smile, and her eyes so dark they looked almost black. She was so clever and dainty, Adeline felt like a clumsy idiot in comparison. One thing they had in common was they both liked gadgets and when they went on hikes, they always took a compass and fancy pocket knives with all kinds of tools. Aunt Chastity had showed her how to use the stars and the sun to plot their course, and how to make a fire without matches and find water. They’d hiked in some wild places, but nowhere like this.
Adeline peered out of the cave mouth looking for signs of moisture in the huge rocky desert. Creek beds. Cottonwood trees. Even bees had a story to tell. When the light started to fade, she would go gather some pigweed to supplement their food, and she would watch the birds. Most of the time they were just darting here and there, looking for food, but at dusk they went to their watering places, flying low and straight. If she could see where they headed, she’d know there was water in that direction.
Meantime, she had the plastic apron she’d taken from the laundry. She had intended to use it to sleep on, but now she had a better idea. Even in a place like this, the night was much colder than the day and that meant there would be morning dew. As soon as it started to get dark, she was going to set that apron up, hanging between some rocks. The way the temperature dropped in the desert, they could collect maybe a cup of water overnight.
She remembered something else Aunt Chastity liked to say—usually when Adeline was moaning about sleeping on the hard ground or having to remember the Morse code signaling her aunt wanted to use.
“All over the world, people live in difficult places,” she would tell Adeline. “You just have to know how.”
Aunt Chastity would not die out here in a cave, trying to get away from a creepy old man who wanted to marry her. Adeline knew that much. She would say, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” and she would survive, no matter what.
That was exactly what Adeline planned to do.
“Chill, okay?” she told Daniel. “I’m going to have my own vet surgery one day and no crazy old man and his head wife are going to stop me.”
Daniel drew his overall straps up and tightened them. “Do you think your aunt will let me stay for a while?”
“Sure she will. She’s a real nice lady. She wants to adopt me.”
“I wish I knew where my mother went.”
“Is she nice, your mom?”
“She didn’t want them to cast me out.”
“Then she should have taken you away. That’s what I would have done.”
Daniel gave her an odd little smile. “That’s what you are doing.”
Adeline laughed. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
*
The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office on the Arizona side of Rapture had been established after most of the Colorado City police lost their badges because they refused to give up their plural wives. It was a small outpost only a step up from the Paradox substation, but its existence demonstrated at least an attempt by the authorities to look like they were getting serious about the abuse problems rife in the polygamist nirvana on their doorstep.
“Child Protective Services cases don’t go to the Colorado City Marshall’s Office anymore,” Sergeant Beau Gossett explained. “They come to me or go direct to CPS in our new building in Colorado City. Got a state attorney there, too.”
“Sounds like an improvement,” Jude said, thankful that even if Utah didn’t have the will to police this area, at least Arizona was stepping up to the plate. “I guess you have your hands full.”
“Not really. Victims are reluctant to come forward. They’ve never had a cop out here who wasn’t part of their system, so they’re suspicious. And afraid, of course.”
“We’re also talking about a class of victims who’ve been programmed to think their victimization is completely normal,” Jude remarked.
“You got that right. Out here, polygamist and pedophile are synonyms. The sex abuse is not the only problem, either. These folks have been living this lifestyle for generations, marrying their own half sisters and what not. So, there’s an issue with birth defects, water on the brain…Downs syndrome…fused limbs…that type of deal. They blame that shit on the mother not being obedient enough.”
“Do they buy that?” Tulley could not hide his amazement.
“It’s all they know. They’ve got no education and no contact with the outside world.”
“Another reason children are easy pickings. Tell me something…” Jude had her mind on the prophet. If they were ever going to nail this creep on conspiracy charges, they were going to need a mountain of hard evidence. “I’ve heard rumors that there are kids murdered but they pass the deaths off as vehicle accidents. Know anything about that?”
“We have maybe the highest rate in the country of kids run over by motor vehicles. It can’t all be bad driving.”
“A
re there any doctors I could talk to who would have medical records for these cases?” Jude didn’t want to sound like she was questioning his competence, but if she could prove foul play in a single instance, they could be looking at whole new ball game.
“If you’re thinking about an M.E.’s report, you’re in the wrong town. If they actually report a dead kid, one of their pals writes it up as an accidental death and that’s the end of it. There’s all kinds of unexplained deaths, and that’s not counting infants.”
“What about medical treatment for abuse. Hospital records…”
“The plygs don’t have any use for the medical profession. If a kid is sick or never woke up from the last beating, they pray and lay on hands.”
“Heaven on earth.” Jude shook her head in amazement. How could this be going on under everyone’s noses on such a huge scale without so much as a peep out of the so-called family values lobby? Where was the outrage? Why wasn’t the media camped out and running salacious exposé stories?
“I don’t get it,” she said. “Why isn’t anyone held accountable? I know there’s this hands-off policy in effect, but we’re not talking about religious freedom here, we talking about felonies.”
“You’re preaching to the choir. When Mohave first moved in here, we thought we could start a dialogue. We held a meeting with the mayor.” Gossett’s expression told the rest of the story. “Well, the guy’s out of a job now, anyway. Jeffs expelled him.”
Jude said, “This would be the Warren Jeffs who’s on the FBI’s Most Wanted list? The guy who said 9/11 was a ‘magnificent portent and cause of great hope.’ That freedom-loving American patriot?”
“Yep, that’s our boy. The same one whose nephew just filed a lawsuit against him in Salt Lake, alleging Jeffs sodomized him when he was four.”
Jude was intrigued. “I haven’t heard about that. Is Utah pressing criminal charges?”
Gossett rolled his eyes. “Did I say anything about miracles? They’re looking at him. That’s a start.”
“And it’s put the spotlight on this place.”
“That it has. Jeffs bailed like a rat off a sinking ship, soon as the heat was on. Left the troops in disarray. Last I heard he’s holed up in Florida somewhere. So, we’ve got quite the power struggle going on now. Wannabe prophets up the yazoo. It’s the plyg version of American Idol.” He chuckled at his own joke.
“Where does Elias Rockwell fit in?”
Rockwell led one of the splinter factions in the FLDS sect and had originally proclaimed himself prophet after the death of Rulon Jeffs in 2002. Warren Jeffs had beat him out of the job, but now that Jeffs was a fugitive, Rockwell had stepped into the power vacuum. He had even announced his godlike status to the press.
“He’s leading the charge,” Gossett confirmed. “Got his soldiers out there on every street corner, calling him the One Mighty and Strong. The Lion of Israel. Yadda yadda.”
“I can see why it’s the job everyone wants.” The FLDS sheltered their financial assets in a trust called the United Effort Plan, which owned all the property and businesses in the twin towns, as well as valuable compounds in Canada, Texas, and Colorado. The trust was supposedly worth about $150 million, and the Utah government had recently frozen its assets to try and stop Jeffs and his lieutenants from stripping them. “I mean, we’re not just talking about a spiritual position, are we?”
“No, we are not.” Gossett unclipped a ballpoint from the breast pocket of his gray uniform and slapped it down on the notepad in front of him. “We’re talking about a dictatorship. The prophets owns this town and everyone, and everything, in it.”
He looked like a good ol’ boy, Jude thought as he was talking. Tall and beefy, flat top, football ring, fully optioned belt, God Bless America emblazoned on his wall between a couple of taxidermied bass. And so far, he didn’t seem to be aligned with the Fundamentalist Latter Day Skunks.
Just to be sure, she asked, “Are you a personal acquaintance of Mr. Rockwell’s?”
“If you’re asking me if I have a couple of spare wives stashed away somewhere, the answer is, ’Do I look like a crazy man?’ My missus would cut off my balls—if you’ll pardon the expression—if I started yammering about celestial marriage and the likes. No…” He grinned. “I think Rockwell’s waiting for me to get struck down by lightening. He asked his buddy, God Almighty, to take care of that after I arrested some of his personal militia last month. They were looking to lynch an African American trucker. The guy made an emergency repair stop. Thought he’d stretch his legs while he waited. Damn fool idea.”
Tulley made a small sputtering noise and Jude paused to give him room to speak. He shrugged helplessly and looked so uncomfortable she resumed talking, observing to Gossett, “Nice town you got here.”
“Those jokes about living behind the Zion Curtain…they’re all true.”
She laughed. “Do you see things improving now that Jeffs is out of the picture and we’re finally seeing some action from the state?”
“It’s hard to say. My wife reckons it couldn’t get any worse, but I don’t know about that. The rival prophets could start murdering each other, then we’d have a civil war going on. I can’t see Arizona or Utah wanting a piece of that.”
“Well, we’ll do our best not to rock the boat.”
“Uh-huh.” Gossett gave a small, wry smile. “So, don’t keep me in suspense. What can I do for you, Detective?”
Jude took Darlene’s file from her satchel and slid it across his desk. “We’ve reason to believe a Rapture man—Nathaniel Epperson—abducted this girl in Cortez. She was subsequently murdered. Body showed up back in our jurisdiction.”
“Help yourselves to coffee.” The sergeant indicated a kona machine. “Or there’s soda in the fridge.” He opened the file and scanned the paperwork. Eventually he said, “You’re going after Epperson and that pit bull he calls a wife?”
“Yes, sir.”
Gossett closed the file and said his last big case involved a topless dancer who tried to cut off her husband’s organ. “The thing with the tongue. That’s what put me in mind of her,” he explained.
“Obviously we’ll need a search warrant,” Jude said.
He frowned. “Not a good move. If we initiate a warrant, we’ll be shut down before we can make first base.”
“What are you saying?”
“The judge is a big-time buddy of Rockwell’s, and Epperson’s a key ally. They’ll phone him and he’ll clean house before we get there.”
“Great. So, what do you recommend?”
“You have your witness statement. Naoma Epperson cut this girl’s tongue out. Bring her in.”
“You’re okay with us questioning her here?”
“I’d pay money to watch.”
“What about Epperson?”
“Want my advice?—let him sweat. Most of these first wives hate their old man’s guts. Specially the ones that weren’t reared plyg. He’ll be shitting himself if you’ve got her here and he can’t talk to her.”
“You think we can turn her and cut a deal? Her testimony against Epperson in exchange for reduced charges?” Jude wasn’t counting on it, but she was relieved that Gossett thought they were in with a chance.
“The way things are, that’s your best option.”
“If we can get a confession, they’ll have to give us a warrant.” Jude glanced at Tulley. He was trying on his handcuffs.
Gossett made a noncommittal sound. “You have to get a hold of her first. How would you feel about going in alone? You might get further if I’m not tagging along.”
“Sure, if you’re fine with that.”
“I’m fine with anything that’ll put that jerk-off behind bars where he belongs.”
“I want Jeffs, too,” Jude said.
The sergeant barked a guffaw. “I want box seats at the next Superbowl. No one’s gonna find that shitweasel.”
The phone rang and he picked it up. A few moments into the call, he flicked it onto speaker
so they could hear the discussion.
A woman said, “There’s a search party out there now.”
“Who’s the girl?” Gossett asked.
“The sister of one of his wives. Fourteen years old. She was supposed to be sealed to him on the weekend, but they’re saying she ran off with one of his sons.”
“How old is the boy?”
“No idea. Could be Daniel, the one they chased off a while back. He’s maybe thirteen.”
“Okay. Thanks for the call, Brenda.”
He replaced the phone and stood up, straightening his overloaded belt. “We caught a break. Epperson’s wife-to-be ran out on him.”
“She was being forced into the marriage?” Jude asked.
“Round here they’re not big on long engagements, or female consent,” he replied dryly. “The prophet orders a marriage and it happens right away. It’s not like they’re legal marriages. They don’t have to obtain a license or anything.”
“Makes marrying underage girls a whole lot easier. How are these so-called marriages performed?”
“Basically the prophet says a few words and it’s a done deal. They call it a sealing.”
“So what’s happening at the moment--are any of these sealings taking place?”
“In theory they’re on hold because Jeffs is still officially the prophet and president of the church and he’s the only guy who can perform them. But Rockwell isn’t wasting any time. He was supposed to be sealing Epperson and his latest victim.”
“Which would make him an accessory to child molestation.”
“Hey, don’t get me started. The guy has thirty-something wives. Some of them were only twelve when he married them.”
“You have proof of this?”
“Only hearsay. The lady who called—Brenda Barlow—she was forced to marry her uncle when she was thirteen. Got fed up with her situation after eight kids. Nowadays she lives outside the town and helps us out with information.”
“Her uncle,” Tulley noted with distaste.
“Are you in a position to bring charges if I collar Rockwell?” Jude asked.