HYBRID: A Thriller

by James Marshall Smith

  As Dieter led Megan by the hand to her classroom he realized that neither he nor Fran had ever worried about Megan. He smiled thinking of his daughter’s enthusiasm for this long-awaited day. She always managed to take charge of any situation, charming everyone around her. He kissed her goodbye at the classroom door and she gave him an anguished hug.

  Mrs. Stevenson spoke above all the clatter and bawling inside the room to reassure Megan that she was going to have a great time in first grade.

  “But why are so many crying?” Megan asked. The young teacher took her hand and led her quickly inside.

  ***

  Gallatin County Office of the Sheriff.

  Dieter spotted those words on the side of the patrol car when he exited the school. It was still parked behind his truck, the lawman still sitting behind the steering wheel. His nervous system kicked into high gear. He could only think worst case—the incident at the Loudermilk ranch. If there were anything that could destroy his career, it was that. The whole affair had lurked in the back of his mind and the pit of his stomach from the minute he pulled out of the gate at the ranch and saw the threat on the oldest woman’s face. Old man Loudermilk had called the law. The hit on him by the youngest woman when he delivered the colt at the ranch would be impossible to defend, just his word against that of the whole family. Everyone in town would assume that where there’s smoke, there’s fire and all that crap.

  He kept his head down and focused on the door of his truck as he unlocked it. When he switched on the ignition there was a tap on the passenger window and he lowered it. The uniformed officer asked if they could talk.

  The lawman, who looked surprisingly young, took off his hat and slid in. He introduced himself as Deputy Preston Cody. His voice had a familiar ring, but Dieter couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

  “I wonder if I might ask you a few questions, Dr. Harmon?”

  Dieter swallowed hard. “Of course. Not a problem.”

  “Did you by chance visit the Winslow Memorial Funeral Home recently?”

  Jesus! Not that. No one could have seen them. Although he and Josh might have technically broken in, they didn’t harm anyone, didn’t steal or destroy anything. He had to keep his cool with the questions. This wasn’t the worst thing that could’ve come up and he should count himself lucky.

  “No, I didn’t, sir.” He wondered how much training the young deputy had in lie-spotting.

  “Were you in town on Friday evening?”

  Dieter pretended to think about the question for a moment. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “Were you alone?”

  He could feel the stress in his neck and knew he couldn’t hide the tension in the muscles of his face. “Yes, I was.”

  “What if I told you, sir, that someone saw a person matching your description in the vicinity of the funeral home? After hours on Friday night.”

  That’s a hypothetical. The deputy wasn’t saying someone did see him, he was just testing him and he didn’t have to answer that. On the other hand, if he hesitated too long, that would arouse suspicion, the last thing he needed right now. “I suppose I did stop in the parking lot.”

  “You suppose you stopped in the parking lot?”

  Dieter looked out the window and back at the deputy. He was screwing up fast. “I mean, yes. I stopped at the parking lot.” If he were wired to a lie detector, it would all be over. He’d be locked up.

  “You stopped there, but you didn’t go inside?” the deputy asked.

  “It was closed. Why would I go in?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll ask the questions. Is that all right with you?”

  “Yes sir, it is.” He wondered if the deputy could see his heart pumping through his checkered shirt.

  “Why would you stop at a funeral home after closing hours? Long after closing hours, as a matter of fact?”

  “I was driving through town when I heard a noise from the engine. I decided to check it out.”

  The deputy didn’t respond, but mulled over his answer. That was good—it was an outstanding answer.

  “Did something happen at the funeral home?” Dieter asked.

  The deputy raised his eyebrows. “Do you think something happened?’

  Dieter had fallen for it. He saw the setup coming from a mile away and still fell for it. “I have no idea, sir.”

  The deputy reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card.

  “Have you seen this before, Dr. Harmon?”

  The card had an unrecognizable logo, but beneath it were the words Gallatin County Weekly. He read in the center of the card: Claire F. Manning, Editor-in-Chief.

  The deputy grabbed the card from Dieter’s grip. “Unfortunately, that particular card was smudged up so much that we couldn’t get any good fingerprints from it.” He gave him a look of you’re lucky on that one and then continued. “I talked with Mrs. Manning. She said she hasn’t been in the funeral home for a year. I forget who she told me died, but he was a close friend of the newspaper’s.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not following you.”

  “I figure most people are like me,” the deputy replied. “If someone gives me a business card, I generally carry it around for a day or two and then either toss it away or store it in my wallet. She said the last card she remembered giving out was to you on Friday morning.”

  “That may be true, but—”

  “Would you happen to have that card on you, Dr. Harmon?”

  He pulled out his wallet and flipped through the bills and cards and junk pieces of paper. Then he shoved a hand into each pocket, fishing for anything that felt like a card. “I must have thrown it away. I didn’t have a reason to hang onto it. But I don’t understand what this has to do with me.”

  “Well, here’s how I figure it. If you were the only one she gave it out to recently, you would be the only one to have it on him—like in a convenient pocket. Mr. Winslow found the card laying smack in the middle of a hallway on Saturday. That was after I told him I checked out his place the night before. Someone said they saw very suspicious activity around the funeral home and called the sheriff’s office. Could be drug activity or something like that, they thought.”

  “You don’t think I was there and somehow just dropped the card on the floor?”

  “I’m just trying to put it all together, Dr. Harmon. Don’t know how else it would get there.”

  Didn’t you search the place? You didn’t find me, did you? “I don’t understand why you thought I would have any reason to be there?”

  “You were the one who discovered the body on the Madison. Do I have that right?”

  Dieter nodded.

  “Although the county sheriff doesn’t consider you a suspect, we have been alerted that you are a person of interest.” He paused and shifted to a more serious level of concern. “You do understand that, don’t you, Dr. Harmon?”

  “I wasn’t told that specifically.”

  “I’m telling you now. It turns out that the body was at Winslow’s funeral home on Friday night, waiting on the county medical examiner to come down from Bozeman on Saturday. We know someone was there. The sheet over the body was messed with.”

  You did that before you ran out of the room!

  “You can see that for you to be the only one to locate the body from a crime that we don’t yet have a suspect for, and then, lo and behold, to find evidence you somehow made your way into the very place where the body was stored . . . well, you see where I’m coming from.”

  The deputy didn’t have any evidence. He was trying to mark time, to get him to admit to the crime, to throw up his hands and say I did it. Lock me up!

  The deputy continued. “And you made your way there on the only night the body happened to be there. It all smacks of too much coincidence.”

  Dieter’s head was spinning. By now, the medical examiner must have concluded exactly what he and Josh had found. When was he going to report to the sheriff and get him off the hook?
>
  The deputy reached for the handle on the passenger door. “I take it you’ll be staying in town for the next few weeks?”

  “I really don’t have any other plans.”

  “Good. I was told to ask you to make certain of that. Now you have a good day, Dr. Harmon.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Molly slept past seven for the first time in years. The Judge thought she was sick from something she’d eaten because of her trips to the bathroom during the night. She hadn’t yet shared with him the trauma she’d witnessed at the Loudermilk place, much less even mention the shotgun held to her head. He would have hitched a ride there and waited with a pistol for the old man to drive out of the gate.

  What disturbed her most was her guilt. She saw what had happened in the shed and hadn’t said or done anything about it. Not yet anyway.

  Toby and Big Mac barked from the yard. Molly walked to the front door, holding her ribcage, still sore from the heaving during the night. She gasped. The sight that met her blood-shot eyes had to be a mirage.

  Katherine Belle and Marilee Loudermilk stood in the doorway. The two women who’d taken part in the most violent act of crime she’d ever witnessed stood before her looking as innocent as Sunday School teachers. How could such despicable women now show up at her door? They should’ve left town by now. She should call the local police or the Gallatin County Sheriff and do it quickly.

  But what would the law do? Where was her evidence? She was the one who had trespassed on someone else’s property. She knew what a jury of her peers in the Gallatin County would say to that.

  The yapping of Toby and Big Mac brought the Judge wheeling into the room.

  “Just visitors,” she said softly. “I’ll handle it.” She flicked her wrist for him to scat. He didn’t need to hear what they would be talking about and especially what she had to say.

  When she opened the door, Katherine Belle looked her straight in the eye and spoke. “I know what you must think of us, Miss Schoonover.”

  No, you don’t. Otherwise you’d both be running for your friggin’ lives back down the steps. “I take it you don’t have visitors at your ranch very often?” Molly asked. Without waiting on an answer she invited the two women in, motioned for them to take a seat in the living room, and quickly excused herself to prepare fresh coffee over their mild protest. She didn’t give a damn what they thought or what they wanted or didn’t want. Maybe they were nervous that she might be going after her shotgun. They were on her property now and she would make up the rules as she went along. In truth, she needed time to cogitate how to best deal with the sudden turn of events.

  After a few minutes she returned and poured steaming coffee for each into fine china cups on a silver tray etched around the border with a soft floral design. She sipped her beverage slowly. They left theirs untouched and sat stiffly, avoiding placing their backs against the chairs as if needles might be poking through the fabric. Both wore dresses of pastel blue reaching to their ankles and wrists; their look, a plain vanilla quality, a disturbing cardboard veneer.

  Molly spoke first. “Could you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the sheriff on the both of you right now?”

  The Loudermilks remained as rigid as the log fence at their ranch and glanced at each other. Katherine Belle then leaned forward. “We were afraid you may call on the law. So, we thought it best to call on you.” Her voice had a pleasant timbre, close to a southern drawl. “We were hoping that maybe we could chat and explain some things about us.”

  “We know people talk,” Marilee said with a voice that grated like rusty hinges on a gate. “We try to be good neighbors by offering our services from time to time.” Fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “What the Judge and I have heard about you and your family is rather hard to believe,” Molly said. “Some people say that . . . I’m not exactly sure how to best put it.”

  “That we’re a polygamist clan?” Katherine Belle blurted. “Miss Schoonover, may I speak in confidence?”

  Molly’s fingers played with her flushed neckline as Katherine Belle told her story. She spoke in an evangelical cadence, as if reading from a script. Her chin high and her back arched, she spoke of growing up in southern Utah, the oldest daughter among fourteen children. A domineering father had taken five “sister wives.” She left public school at age twelve. By age thirteen, she cooked for her entire family and became a midwife for the deliveries of the rest of her siblings.

  When she was fifteen, her father arranged her marriage to Joseph Vincent Loudermilk. His grandmother was Elizabeth Jennings Owen, a member of the well-known and respected Owen clan of polygamists from Utah. She knew Joseph Vincent, who was a bishop in the local Fundamentalist Church. But she didn’t know he would be her husband until her wedding day. All she remembered about that day and night was the time she spent crying. Everyone thought her tears were tears of joy.

  Molly sat spellbound. “Are you Mormons?”

  “Heavens, no! The Mormons are the Latter Day Saints,” Katherine Belle replied. “But we belong to the Fundamentalist LDS Church. The Mormon Church was founded by Joseph Smith. He surrendered his beliefs to man.”

  She called their lifestyle the Celestial Principle, a divine tenet handed down from God. “We believe plural marriage is a protected freedom. The laws of man can’t prohibit that. It would violate our constitutional right and our freedom of religion. Our lives are dictated by a higher authority, Miss Schoonover.”

  Interesting term, Molly thought. Plural marriage. Sounded innocent, like a plural noun. “So how did you and your family get here?”

  Katherine Belle said they lived in Colorado, in a town called Short Creek. After a year of their marriage, Joseph Vincent fell out with the church elders and decided to leave the church and move away. Far away. Montana was their first and only stop.

  After a month they met Marilee. At first, she just wanted to make extra money by helping out with the farm chores and their six children. “But it wasn’t long,” Katherine Belle said, “before God chose Marilee to be Joseph Vincent’s second wife.” She placed her hand on Marilee’s arm.

  “And you didn’t have a problem with that?” Molly asked.

  “I certainly did not. The Lord visited Joseph Vincent in a dream and revealed His desire.”

  “But . . . it’s against the law,” Molly said, realizing immediately how silly the comment was.

  “Against the law only in the eyes of man,” Katherine Belle replied. “I am Joseph Vincent’s wife of record in the court of law. Marilee is his wife also but only in the eyes of the Lord. That’s what matters, isn’t it?”

  Molly shifted her weight. She wanted to be careful how to select her words. “And what about your other sister-wife?”

  “Joseph Vincent found Charlene hitchhiking on the highway two years ago,” said Katherine Belle. “She was running away from her family in Rigby with a newborn son in her arms. She needed a caring family so desperately. After a few months, we realized God sent Charlene to us.”

  “Joseph Vincent had another dream?”

  “No,” Katherine Belle said. She looked perturbed by the sassy nature of the question. “The Lord spoke to me one evening and He—”

  “It was your idea that your husband take another wife?”

  “I would give full credit to the Lord. Joseph Vincent hesitated at first to accept the notion.”

  I bet he did, Molly thought. His pecker was probably so hard he could’ve driven it through sheetrock. “But why in the world would Marilee or Charlene marry a man who already had a wife?”

  “I had no other prospects!” Marilee said. “What’s a woman to do? Stay single all her life?” She spat out single with a hiss.

  “What would be so terribly wrong if you’re a single woman?”

  “Cause a single woman cain’t enter the Kingdom of God. When Jesus returns to earth the man introduces his wives to Him.”

  “We are sisters in the Lord,” Katherine Belle interrupted. “All of
us belong to Joseph Vincent Loudermilk.”

  Molly took a gulp of coffee then positioned the cup and saucer on the edge of the side table. While the women waited on her to respond, she smoothed out the doily beneath the saucer. “Don’t you really mean the three of you share one penis?”

  Marilee brought her hands to her cheeks and Katherine Belle raised her eyebrows.

  “I presume,” Molly continued, “that Charlene is taking care of all the children today?”

  “Charlene is gone,” Katherine Belle replied, after collecting herself. “We are concerned, of course, but she has done this before.”

  “What about her son?”

  “You mean her children.”

  “She had another child by your husband?”

  “A beautiful daughter,” Katherine Belle said. “Only five months old now.”

  Marilee spoke up. “And that’s not—”

  She tried to hide the hand she pressed against Marilee’s knee. “You should know something,” Katherine Belle said. “It angers us that Charlene leaves her very own children behind on these excursions of hers.”

  “But we take care of them,” Marilee chimed in again, “like they was our own.”

  “We take care of all Joseph Vincent’s children,” Katherine Belle added. “From whatever womb they may have emerged.”

  Molly gritted her teeth with each rehearsed word that spewed from Katherine Belle’s mouth. This woman, her black hair with streaks of gray piled high in such a perfect pompadour, was nothing but a flimsy shell surrounding a rotten yolk. So decayed, so foul with brainwashing by her parents, her husband, and her church. She speaks with such eloquence, so confident in herself, her credo, her lifestyle. This woman actually believes all the bullshit she tries to force-feed others with a silver fork from a bone china platter.

  One step at a time. “Why do you think Charlene runs away?” Molly asked.

  “She’s different,” Katherine Belle replied. “The dear girl struggles with her inner soul. Joseph Vincent often counsels her in private. Reads to her from the scriptures. At times he has to punish her, severely I am afraid.” She looked up sharply at Molly. “And in ways others may think harsh.”