Blessed be the Wicked

by D. A. Bartley

  “No. I trusted Steve Smith completely. He was a good man.”

  “Do you know anyone who may have wanted to harm Mr. Smith?” Abbie pressed. She wasn’t expecting an answer, but she might as well try.

  “I would have no idea about that. As far as I was aware, he had a stellar reputation for hard work, business acumen, and getting the job done. I was singularly impressed with him when we met to discuss the details of the project.”

  Abbie didn’t think she was going to get any more information from Bowen at that point. The trip to Bountiful had been worth it though, if only because now she had some idea of the network that was making her job more difficult. She also wondered why Bowen had mentioned that Smith’s wife had accompanied him to Costa Rica last year. Was Melinda Smith telling the truth about that trip or was Bowen?

  “Thank you for your time. That’s it for now.” Abbie stood up. “Here’s my card. Should you think of anything that may be helpful to our investigation, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

  “I’ll certainly give Russ a call if I think of anything,” Bowen responded.

  Abbie ignored his insult to her authority. “I can show myself out.”

  Bowen didn’t bother to stand, but she could feel him watching her as she walked past the entry table with its tasteful arrangement of cream roses in a tall crystal vase.

  On the way to her car, Abbie felt her phone vibrate. It was Henderson. She let it go to voicemail.

  FOURTEEN

  “What part of ‘Keep me up to date’ did you not understand?” Abbie played the message from Henderson only once while she was stopped at a red light leaving Bountiful, but she could recite his angry words verbatim. Henderson was not a man to swear, so the two-minute-and-thirty-seven-second voicemail was peppered with “heck” and “dang.” If there had been any doubt in Abbie’s mind that this investigation was being monitored, it was gone now. Henderson didn’t just sound like a furious boss; he sounded like someone who’d been on the receiving end of his own talking down. Henderson wasn’t the puppet master. There was someone else, and that person was very unhappy. She would have to talk to the chief first thing in the morning, but it was better to let her feelings settle. Right now, she was mad as hell. Henderson hadn’t mentioned his connection to Bowen. He had tried to hamper the identification of Smith. He was probably the guy divulging information about the case. It wasn’t a stretch to describe his actions as obstruction of justice. That was a non-starter though, and Abbie knew it. The men would close ranks. If she made accusations about the well-respected chief of police and a beloved General Authority, she’d be out of a job before you could say amen.

  * * *

  The early morning sun lit up the mountaintops on either side of the canyon. Abbie could hear birds outside her open window. She laced up her running shoes, double knotted them, and headed downstairs. The temperature was perfect for a run. It was a little cool right now, but after a few minutes of running it would be exactly right. She needed to clear her mind and get into the right headspace to deal with Henderson.

  As she rounded the second bend in the trail, she was already lost in the strong beat of her “running” playlist—a long list of songs with the shared characteristic of having a strong and constant bass line. It made it easy to run.

  Buzzing interrupted the beat. Abbie looked at her phone. It was Henderson. It wasn’t even six thirty, but her boss knew she was an early riser. Abbie briefly entertained the idea of letting the call go to voicemail again, but knew it was better to answer.

  “Am I interrupting your morning run?” Henderson asked. He sounded much calmer than he had last night. Maybe a night’s rest had quieted both of their tempers.

  “Yeah, do I sound out of breath?” Abbie responded.

  “A bit,” Henderson said. “You know why I’m calling?”

  “My conversation with Bowen.”

  “You shouldn’t have ambushed him at his home. He wasn’t happy about that. I’m not happy about that. I thought I was clear about being kept in the loop on this case. You and Clarke need to keep this discrete, but you also need to keep me informed. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Abbie did understand. “It won’t happen again.”

  “It had better not. In case there is any doubt in your mind, if you want to speak with any Church authorities, you need to come to me first. I don’t care if it’s a Sunday school teacher or the Prophet himself. You come to me first. This can’t happen again. Understood?”

  “Understood.” Abbie exhaled. That wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The music started again and Abbie picked up her pace.

  Come on, Abs, you know how to play this game. Abbie heard Phillip’s gentle scolding over the music. He was right. If Abbie wanted to stay here in Utah, she needed to adapt to its peculiar rules. It didn’t matter how Abbie felt about the Church; it was a force to be reckoned with. Sure, she needed to hold her ground, but she needed to be reasonable, too. There was no professional advantage to being perceived as a loose cannon. If making Henderson more comfortable was part of the strategy for solving this case, so be it.

  Abbie veered up a steep trail to the left that ended with an unobstructed overlook of Pineview Reservoir. She gazed over the water and mountaintops as the sunlight filtered into the valley. Once Abbie stopped moving, she could feel the dry air was still crisp. She stretched her calves and quads for a few minutes, enjoying the view, then started to run back home. Home. Abbie caught herself thinking this word. She wasn’t sure if she felt at home, but she was beginning to feel more comfortable. Maybe her instincts, the ones that had seemed so rash when she left New York, were on to something. Maybe her solitary cabin in the canyon was home.

  The run back always seemed shorter than the run to Pineview. Abbie was on autopilot until she spotted an SUV she didn’t recognize parked next to her old Rover.

  She stopped. She wasn’t so much nervous as curious. Two visitors in two days would be a record. There was also the question of who knew where to find her: her dad, brothers, and sisters, even though only John had ever made the trip. Now Flynn knew, too. Otherwise, no one Abbie could think of had her address. Abbie wasn’t listed in the phone book, and she’d done her best to keep her Internet footprint light: no Facebook, no Instagram, and no Twitter. She was a hard woman to find.

  “Hello?” Abbie called out from the path behind her patio. The man sitting in an Adirondack chair facing the fire pit turned to face her.

  “Good morning,” Bishop Norton said.

  He looked a little tired, but he was the same man who had so adeptly consoled Melinda Smith that first day they met. He was the same man who had blatantly lied to Abbie about his knowledge of Celestial Time Shares.

  Abbie wasn’t entirely sure what she was feeling. She was curious why he was here, but she was irritated that he had invaded her privacy and was livid he had lied to her about his investment in CTS.

  “Why don’t we go inside?” Abbie asked. Her voice was neutral.

  The Bishop stood up and followed Abbie into her kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Can I get you some orange juice?” She motioned for him to have a seat on one of the counter stools neatly arranged around the center island in the kitchen.

  “Thank you,” the Bishop said. “Orange juice would be nice.”

  Abbie opened a cabinet door and took out a tall glass. She poured some juice from a bottle marked “fresh-squeezed organic” and handed the glass to the Bishop. He immediately took a big gulp. He seemed nervous, an emotion he probably rarely felt. Abbie didn’t want to rush him, so she slowly poured more coffee into her cup and took a sip.

  “Beautiful morning. This is my favorite time of year, when the leaves are out and the mountains are still green,” she said. If a little small talk would smooth the way for the Bishop to explain why he was sitting here in her kitchen, Abbie would make small talk.

  “I agree, but I have a soft spot in my heart for the winters here.” The Bishop took another swallow of
juice, then began, “I guess I should tell you why I came to see you so early in the morning. I pegged you for an early riser. Guess my judgment on human nature is reliable … sometimes, anyway.” He smiled, revealing a sense of self-deprecation Abbie hadn’t thought he had in him.

  “I’m not really sure where to start,” he said. “In fact, I’m not really sure if I have anything to tell you, but there are a few things that have been bothering me since we spoke. I thought it might be better to talk unofficially. Not at the station…”

  Abbie waited.

  “I know Steve was having cash-flow problems. I don’t think it was a big deal, but he asked if he could borrow a hundred and fifty thousand.”

  Abbie thought that to most people, $150K was a big deal. She wondered if the Bishop really thought it wasn’t.

  “This was just before he started work on the Celestial Time Shares project, so I thought things turned around for him. I did—”

  “Speaking of Celestial Time Shares, the last time we spoke, you told me the name didn’t ring a bell. Not only do you know about the company, but you’re a major investor.” Abbie’s voice still sounded neutral, but she was aware that her words had an edge to them.

  The Bishop stared into his orange juice. He was probably not accustomed to being called out on anything, let alone his own lies. Abbie reminded herself he had come on his own and maybe, just maybe, she should give him the benefit of the doubt right now.

  “You’re right. I wasn’t straight with you about Celestial Time Shares. It didn’t seem relevant…”

  She raised her eyebrow.

  “Okay, I didn’t want to be connected with Steve’s death. I don’t have any excuse. I see that now. The fact that I wasn’t straight with you has been gnawing at me ever since you were in my office. It was wrong of me.”

  Abbie was momentarily disarmed by the mea culpa. This was an apology. Maybe the Bishop wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

  “I didn’t lend Steve the money when he asked. My wife didn’t feel comfortable with it. Steve seemed fine. He never brought it up again. I assumed that was the end of it, but I found out later he’d borrowed money from another ward member and hadn’t paid him back. I don’t know exactly how much money he borrowed, but I think it was at least as much as he’d asked to borrow from me.”

  “Was it odd for someone in your bishopric to ask to borrow that amount of cash?”

  “Well, yeah, but Steve was the kind of guy who—I don’t know how to put it—things sort of always worked out for him even when it seemed like they shouldn’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Abbie asked.

  “I’ve known Steve since high school. His dad was one of the wealthiest guys around. Steve was that guy every other guy wanted to be and every girl wanted to be with. Life just went his way. We went to Weber together for college. I studied hard just to make it by. Steve coasted and barely graduated, but he had this background in construction and his dad lent him money to start his first company. The timing was perfect. The Olympics meant everyone wanted something built. A guy with Steve’s gift for sales and talent for building—well, Steve made a bundle. I got to tell you, this plan for Celestial Time Shares sounded like another one of Steve’s magic ideas. The guy built Ben Lomond Circle from the ground up with somebody else’s money. Look at the neighborhood now. It’s one of the nicest in northern Utah. The guy could find a great business opportunity blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back. Not because of his hard work or intelligence; he just had some kind of instinct.”

  For the first time in her encounters with him, Abbie felt the Bishop was being completely honest.

  “Okay, so that explains why you’d invest with a guy who seems to turn everything to gold, but now this same guy is asking for a fairly sizable personal loan. What am I missing?”

  “You’re not missing anything. It was strange from beginning to end.”

  “First, tell me who lent Steve the money and what happened,” Abbie said.

  “Brian Anderson. He’s a lawyer. He came to me because I’m the bishop. Steve hadn’t paid him back. I was going to speak with Steve about it when he got back from Costa Rica. I thought the whole thing was probably a misunderstanding. Steve is not good with details, and Brian is all about the details. Anyway, I never got the chance to talk to Steve.”

  “Was the lawyer angry?” Abbie asked.

  “I wouldn’t say angry exactly, but I do think Brian felt Steve had cheated him. I think he was worried Steve would never pay him back.”

  “Do you think Steve would do that?” Abbie asked. “You think Steve wouldn’t repay a friend?”

  “I’d like to say no, but I’m not sure,” the Bishop said.

  “Do you think you would have seen money from the Celestial Time Shares project?”

  “Definitely.” The Bishop sounded sure about this answer.

  The coffee in Abbie’s mug was lukewarm. She was beginning to feel the discomfort of wearing clothes that had been sweaty and were now drying on her skin. She wanted to shower.

  “I should go. I’ve taken up too much of your time.”

  “Thank you for stopping by. You’ve saved me a trip to talk to you about Celestial Time Shares.”

  The Bishop looked regretful again. “Sorry about that.”

  “If you think of anything else, however irrelevant it may seem, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

  “Sure.” The Bishop walked toward the door. “Oh, there’s one other thing. I mean, there might be. It’s hard for me to say because I don’t know anything really, but I started noticing last year that every time we visited the singles ward that, well, Steve seemed to be a little overly familiar with a few of the young women there. I never spoke to anyone about it. I probably would have completely forgotten about it if it hadn’t been for this past Wednesday night. I was at the singles ward for an evening discussion about chastity and morality for adults preparing for temple marriage. I saw a few of the young women there and something just struck me. I don’t know what and I can’t articulate it any more clearly; it’s just a feeling I have that Steve might have been paying too much attention to some of the young women there.”

  “Are we talking harmless flirtation or something more?” Abbie asked.

  “I don’t know,” the Bishop said. “There was definitely flirting going on. It might have been innocent, but even that is inappropriate.”

  “Do you know the names of any of these young women?” Abbie asked.

  “There were at least three or four I noticed: Lindsey Thompson, I think. Meghan Silver, Madison Hansen … and Jessica Grant.”

  Abbie grabbed her purple notebook from the counter and jotted down the names next to the name of the lawyer. “Do you think anyone else noticed the flirting?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. I don’t think it was subtle, but if anyone did notice, they haven’t said anything to me about it.” Norton opened the door and stepped outside.

  “I’m glad you stopped by,” Abbie said. “By the way, how did you know where I live?”

  “You know how good Church records are,” Norton said. Abbie didn’t, but she did remember getting emails and Christmas cards in college and when she moved to New York. She had never given it much thought, but clearly the Church managed to keep track of the whereabouts of members, even those who had gone astray.

  As Abbie walked upstairs to shower, she tapped into her phone, CHECK OUT ATTORNEY BRIAN ANDERSON PLS.

  She hit send. Clarke would have an address by the time Abbie made it to the station.

  FIFTEEN

  When Abbie walked in, Clarke was sitting at his desk, which was a study in chaos: two wrappers with the remnants of some kind of breakfast sandwiches clung to wrinkled waxed paper, a large Coke, and an empty hash brown container competed for space with precariously stacked notebooks and file folders. Looking at Clarke’s lanky frame, you’d never have guessed how much food the man could eat.

  “I’ve got the address for the lawyer.
He’s got an office in Ogden. Do you want to drive?” Just then, Henderson’s clipped voice cut through the background noise in the station. “Abbie. Jim.”

  Clarke followed Abbie into Henderson’s office and shut the door behind him without being asked.

  “I got the report from the ME this morning. It’s officially a homicide. Time of death was Sunday morning like we thought, the body was not moved, and other than a healthy dose of Xanax and chocolate-chip cookies, there wasn’t much in his system.”

  “Xanax?” Clarke asked. “Isn’t that more of a woman’s drug?”

  Clarke must have realized a moment too late that what he had just said might have come across as sexist. He looked at Abbie and added, “Uh, I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t worry,” Abbie said. “I’m well aware that Utah tops the leader boards for prescribing anti-depression drugs, particularly for women, although I couldn’t give you a statistical breakdown along gender lines.” Abbie gave Clarke a lopsided smile so he knew she was joking. Sarcasm, the humor of choice for New Yorkers, was less well received in this part of the intermountain West.

  “I’ve emailed a copy of the report to both of you. I told you both to be discrete until we could rule out suicide. I still am ordering you to be discrete. Unless I see a need for more manpower, I’m keeping this investigation limited to the two of you. If anything, the fact that this isn’t suicide makes it even more important to keep this case quiet.”

  “There’s no question, then?” Clarke asked. “I know we all kind of figured … well, it’s just such a strange way to kill a person.”

  Henderson shrugged. “There’s no doubt. Believe me, I don’t like the idea that there’s someone out there who could do this to another human being. We need to get this person locked up, which means focusing on the investigation and not letting any of this get out to the press.”

  “It won’t,” Abbie said.