Blessed be the Wicked

by D. A. Bartley

  “Sister Smith, do you know of anyone who would want to harm your husband?”

  “What?” Melinda’s voice went up an octave and increased at least a few decibels. “Not a soul. Not a soul! Everyone loved Steve. He was on the board of the Chamber of Commerce. He was in the bishopric. He coached the soccer team. Everyone who knew Steve loved him. Everyone.”

  Well, clearly not everyone, Phillip whispered.

  “Sister Smith, did your husband seem down or depressed before his trip to Costa Rica?” Abbie asked.

  “Are you asking if Steve could have killed himself? No! That’s just insane. Steve would never ever do anything like that. He was tough. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.” Melinda’s words flew from her mouth at a speed Abbie hadn’t thought the woman was capable of. Melinda was incensed at the very thought that anyone could suspect her husband could commit suicide.

  Clarke spoke up. “Sister Smith, we’re not suggesting that your husband would do anything against the teachings of the Church, but we have to be thorough in our investigation. Do you understand?” Clarke’s tone was exactly what the moment called for.

  Melinda inhaled deeply and then exhaled. She nodded. “I guess I understand, but, you know, he would never, never do anything like that.”

  Abbie decided to change the subject to the real reason for their visit. “Did your husband have a home office?”

  “Yes, he did,” Melinda answered, visibly relieved to be talking about something other than the possibility that her husband could have killed himself. “It’s upstairs. Steve didn’t let any of us in there, but I snuck in to straighten up sometimes. It was always a bit of a disaster.”

  “May we see it?” Abbie asked.

  “Sure. I have no idea what’s up there, but if you don’t mind the mess…”

  Abbie and Clarke followed Melinda up the marble staircase to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, they walked down a long hallway until Melinda stopped in front of a closed door. She tried opening it, but it was locked.

  “I’ll get the key.” Melinda seemed unsurprised that the door was locked. Abbie wasn’t exactly astonished, either. Given that Abbie expected to find details of why Smith had moved millions of dollars to offshore accounts in that office, he’d have been an idiot not to keep the room locked. Melinda walked to the other end of the hall into the master bedroom. Abbie could see an elaborate bed with a mass of velvet and satin pillows in shades of gold and ivory. The kind of pillows with tassels and fringe some women believed made a bed more appealing. Abbie thought it was likely Steve appreciated the ornate style, too. There was a large framed picture of the Salt Lake Temple hanging above the carved headboard. Melinda returned with a key and opened the door.

  The view from Smith’s office was spectacular. You could see out over the valley and all the way to the Great Salt Lake. A heavy mahogany desk stacked with papers dominated the room. Dark wood filing cabinets flanked the left of the office. To the right, there was a built-in bookcase with a flat-screen TV.

  “Do you need me to stay?” Melinda asked.

  “No,” Abbie said as she surveyed the room. “Do you know where the keys to the cabinets are?”

  “Oh, here you go.” Melinda handed a key ring to Abbie. “I think these open everything in here.” Abbie wondered if Melinda had ever tried the keys herself to get a glimpse into what her husband kept locked up. Abbie doubted it.

  “Thanks,” Abbie responded. Clarke took out his camera and started taking pictures. Abbie spent a few moments taking in the room, imagining the person who had picked the furniture, filled it with papers and mementos, and was comfortable in its cluttered state. If the contents of the trash can near the desk were any indication, Smith’s doctor had been right about his diet. It was full of empty cans of Dr. Pepper, crumpled bags of Doritos, and Snickers wrappers.

  Abbie clicked the remote lying on top of a pile of papers on the desk. The television lit up to one of the ESPN channels. She sat in the leather chair and looked at the TV. You could comfortably watch from the desk. She imagined that Smith would come into his office sanctuary away from the chaos of his large Mormon family, lock the door, open a can of Dr. Pepper and a bag of chips, and watch the game. She wondered how much work had ever actually been done here.

  “Let’s start with the filing cabinets,” Abbie instructed. There were three of them. Hanging on the wall above the middle cabinet was a framed football jersey with “Bonneville 37” emblazoned on it. Was it common for middle-aged men to display mementos of their teenage athletic victories? Abbie had no idea.

  Clarke tried to open the top drawer of the cabinet near the door. It was locked. Abbie tossed him the key ring. After a few tries, the lock clicked open. Abbie looked over at him. His face was flushed.

  “You okay?” Abbie asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Clarke answered, but it was clear he wasn’t exactly okay.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Still a deep shade of pink, Clarke held up a few magazines: Hustler, Penthouse, and Barely Legal.

  Abbie smiled. It was rather sweet Clarke was blushing. It was also instructive to know what this father of five and member of the bishopric indulged in. It may not have been the most hard-core porn out there, but it was hardly at the least offensive end of the spectrum either.

  “Anything interesting beyond the magazines?” Abbie asked. Clarke shook his head and quickly closed the drawer.

  “Hey.” Abbie didn’t want Clarke to dwell on being embarrassed. “Would you mind giving the airport a call to get whatever security footage they have?” Abbie wanted to check out Melinda’s story as quickly as possible. “Since the Olympics, I’m sure they have pretty decent camera coverage.”

  “Yeah, they do,” Clarke said with some authority. He scrolled through his phone and then dialed a number. He stepped into the hallway once he reached a live human being and spoke softly.

  Abbie looked through the next drawer. Her inhale was sharp. This was it. Here was the Celestial Times Shares information, neatly organized, with typewritten labels for each file: “Temples—Currently Operating,” “Under Construction,” and “Announced.” Inside was a list of all the LDS temples around the world. At the time Smith had typed up his information, there had been 141 operating temples, thirteen under construction, and sixteen more planned. Somebody had underlined several of the temples in red pencil: Bern, Switzerland; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Fukuoka, Japan; Hong Kong, China; Kona, Hawaii; Nauvoo, Illinois; Palmyra, New York (the childhood home of Joseph Smith); San José, Costa Rica; and Winter Quarters, Nebraska, which was not a destination for anyone who wasn’t LDS, but every Latter-day Saint knew the temporary settlement in Nebraska where Mormon pioneers had waited out the harsh winter of 1846–47 before heading to what would become their final destination in the Wasatch Mountains.

  The Church had grown a lot since Joseph Smith translated his golden plates in upstate New York. There had been only six members—and no temple—in 1830. Now there were over fifteen million members of the Church around the world.

  Abbie pulled out a glossy brochure. “Celestial Time Shares” was written in large gold letters over a closeup of the Angel Moroni perched on a spire. The cover was stiff, made of the heavy, shiny paper used by high-end real-estate brokers. The first page looked like a personal letter. It started out with “Dear Fellow Latter-day Saint”; then Smith explained to the potential investors how there would soon be over 150 temples around the world, but no place to accommodate the Saints who didn’t live nearby but would like to visit those temples. Celestial Time Shares offered access to exclusive temple resorts. Each resort would be a gated community—or, in cities, a building with careful security access—near a temple. If the temple wasn’t located within walking distance of the CTS property, CTS would provide regular, safe shuttle service to the temple. The resorts themselves promised traveling Saints all the comforts of a luxurious home away from home, with swimming pools, fitness centers, restaurants compliant with the Wor
d of Wisdom, and media and game rooms, along with concierge and babysitting services. Local members of the Church would provide all the services on CTS properties so visiting members could relax among people who shared their faith and life choices.

  The rest of the brochure was full of pictures of temples around the world and architectural renderings for the various resorts. Each resort was meant to reflect the “local culture.” Abbie, true to her cynical form, thought the sketches looked more like what middle-class families from Utah would think was reflective of the country they were visiting than they actually were. The sketch for the Tokyo resort looked exactly like the one in Costa Rica, but the roofs in the Japanese resort were shaped like pagodas.

  Abbie looked into the next file. If what she’d found so far was good, this was the jackpot. It was a typewritten sheet of CTS investors that had been updated the week before Smith died. There were asterisks next to several names and a handwritten question mark next to the name “George Boalt.” In the footnote section on the second page, the asterisks were explained as “securities payment in lieu of cash.” Steve Smith had been entrusted with a tidy sum by anyone’s standards.

  Abbie didn’t recognize all the investors’ names, but two did jump out: Bishop Greg Norton, who had said straight to Abbie’s face that he didn’t know anything about Celestial Time Shares, and Kevin Bowen. Abbie didn’t know Bowen personally, but he was a General Authority who frequently served as a spokesman for the Church. Bowen was particularly interesting because Abbie guessed that someone of his stature in the Church would not be able to make investments without specific Church approval. Bowen was also interesting because he was the largest investor, with over ten million dollars in the project, giving him a majority stake in Celestial Times Shares.

  Then there was this guy George Boalt with the question mark.

  TWELVE

  “Okay, so this is a list of all the people who gave money to Smith?” Clarke asked. Clarke was sitting in Abbie’s office with the papers they had found at Smith’s house. He was checking the list against the spreadsheets they had from Zion Commerce.

  “It’s a pretty good matchup, except for the names with asterisks next to them. I can’t find any place where those sums were deposited,” Clarke said. He squinted at the screen and scrolled between pages. “Did you notice how the asterisks are all locals?”

  “No, I didn’t. Are you sure?” Abbie asked.

  “Well, I’m not completely sure, but I recognize a lot of these names,” Clarke said. “Plus, it looks like the big numbers came from people where there are deposits. The smaller numbers look familiar, though. Like I think I’ve seen them somewhere.”

  Abbie was out of her depth. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to distinguish any of the numbers she was looking at except for the over-ten-million investment. She certainly wouldn’t remember having seen specific numbers before. She didn’t doubt Clarke, though. He was the kind of guy who remembered details like that.

  “Any chance the numbers you remember came out of one of the bankruptcies?”

  “Hmmm. That’s a possibility. Do you want me to check that now?” Clarke asked.

  “No, let’s do it later if we need to. I’d rather check out this guy with a question mark next to his name: George Boalt.”

  Boalt’s place wasn’t far from the station. Clarke drove the police car and turned onto a dirt road off the main highway where he saw a sign for “Boalt Air.” He parked the car between a beat-up Dodge truck and a shiny Chevy Silverado. The lights inside the small cinder-block building were on. Inside, the place was dusty and a little rundown, but there were a few new catalogs scattered on a small wooden table by the door. There was a big water cooler with paper cups stacked on top and a cracked leather sofa that had certainly seen better days. They walked up to the counter. Abbie hit the top of a small silver bell, the kind of bell you saw at motels in horror movies.

  A thin man in his early sixties came out from a back room. He was wearing well-worn Wrangler jeans, a cowboy shirt, and an old leather belt with a large silver buckle. He looked as if he spent most of his time outside; his skin was tan and the wrinkles were deep. Abbie bet his family kept horses somewhere nearby.

  “Hullo. Can I help you?” the man asked.

  “Hi. I’m Detective Abbie Taylor of the Pleasant View City Police Department, and this is Officer Jim Clarke.” They held up their badges. “We’re looking for George Boalt.”

  “Well, you’ve found him.” Boalt smiled easily.

  “We’re looking into the death of Stephen Smith.” Abbie paused. “You worked with him?”

  “Yup,” Boalt said. The smile lines around his eyes were deeply etched, but his eyes weren’t smiling anymore. “Why are you here? Did someone kill him?”

  “Do you know anyone who might want him dead?” Abbie asked.

  “Steve Smith?” Boalt shook his head. “Nope. There’d be a long line of people who’d want to throttle him, but kill him? Nah. Well, at least not till he paid everyone he owed money. I knew him a long time, since he was a kid working for my dad. When he was a kid, he was a hard worker. Something changed when he was the boss.”

  Clarke asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Well, when Steve was a kid, you could trust him. He would say what he thought and do what he said. My dad would let him work on jobs in the evenings after everyone else had gone home ’cause you could trust the kid to work and not steal anything. When he started running his own show, though, he didn’t treat most of us all that well. Then the bottom fell out of construction. Steve wasn’t very good about making payroll or paying off his debts.”

  “Really?” Clarke asked.

  “Yeah. First, he didn’t pay the Mexicans what he promised. Those guys were off the books, so they couldn’t do much about it, but, still, it just wasn’t right. After that, he started paying all the subcontractors late. That happened to me a few times in the last couple years. I installed the central air in a four-thousand-square-foot place up near Riverdale. It took almost six months before he paid me for it. Then there was that enormous place on Lake View Drive. That was a lot of work. I should’ve known better than to get involved with Steve again, but it was a big job, and I needed the work. The place was something like sixteen thousand square feet. Top-o’-the-line everything. Steve wanted everything done real quick because some big shot was going to have a Halloween party there or something. Anyway, some days we were working almost around the clock. Steve owed a bunch of us for that job. When we were done, he stopped answering his phone.”

  “What ended up happening with the money he owed you?”

  “My daughter got me in touch with some lawyer. He told me if I wanted to see my money, I was going to have to file some kind of legal thing. The lawyer checks in with me on a regular basis, he says that stuff is happening in the bankruptcy, but it’s real slow. I don’t know the details, but I want my money.”

  “Have you ever heard of a company called Celestial Time Shares?” Abbie asked.

  “Celestial? Like Mormon heaven? Sounds familiar, but I couldn’t tell you why.”

  “What about shares in a real-estate development deal?” Abbie asked. “Did Smith offer you anything like that?”

  “Ah. Yeah. He might have. I’m interested in cash, though, not investments. That’s why my daughter got the lawyer.”

  “Could you give us your lawyer’s contact info?” Abbie asked.

  Boalt opened several drawers before he found what he was looking for: a ballpoint pen. He grabbed an old flier from a Days of ’47 rodeo and scribbled with it to get the ink flowing.

  “The lawyer’s first name is … Dale … or maybe it’s Wayne … I’m not sure. Actually, my daughter is taking care of it. She wants to be a lawyer. Helga’ll know everything. I’ll give you her info.”

  “Thanks,” Abbie said as Boalt handed her the paper.

  “Don’t get me wrong, Steve started out a good kid. Somewhere along the way he got greedy and a little too big for his britc
hes, if you know what I mean. All those fancy cars and fancy clothes…”

  Abbie handed Boalt her card. “Call me if you think of anything.”

  “Sure, but I doubt I will.” He was probably right.

  After the door to Boalt’s shop closed behind her, Abbie said, “Let’s check in with the daughter now. She’s in Logan.”

  Clarke started the drive back along the dirt road while Abbie called the daughter’s number. She was home. She said she’d wait for them.

  Logan, the Cache Valley county seat, was known for its historic temple, the campus of Utah State, and dairy farms. It was as quiet as it was beautiful. It wasn’t a long drive, but it was long enough for Abbie to notice that Clarke didn’t say anything. She might have been curious, but instead she was grateful for the silence; it gave her a chance to think. Boalt’s description, like that of the woman at the dry cleaner’s, didn’t conform to the portrait of a loving father, husband, and upstanding member of the Church.

  It was early afternoon when they arrived at Helga Boalt’s apartment on Utah State’s campus.

  “My family’s dairy is just north of here,” Clarke said. This was the first time Clarke had ever spoken to Abbie about his family, even though she knew he came from a large one.

  “It’s beautiful.” Abbie smiled. “Do you get up here very often?”

  “Not as much as I’d like. It’s so close, but somehow, you know, it’s hard. My brothers are running things now that my parents are getting older. I miss seeing them every day. You know?”

  “Yeah, I do.” Abbie was surprised that she was telling the truth. Her dad drove her crazy, with good reason. Her sisters had never accepted her decision to leave the Church. Only her oldest brother, John, had embraced her. Still, Abbie wanted to get back to a place where she was part of the family—maybe not quite every day, but more often than she was now. She had nieces and nephews who were growing up, and her dad wasn’t getting any younger.