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Blessed be the Wicked

Page 13

by D. A. Bartley


  “Let’s call it a day,” Abbie said. Clarke agreed.

  By the time she got home, Clarke’s wasn’t the only stomach growling. Abbie opened her fridge feeling equal parts dread and hope: dread that there wasn’t anything edible inside and hope that she’d forgotten some leftover that would take no time to reheat. Her dread had been well-founded. Abbie emptied the contents of a container of Icelandic yogurt into a bowl and poured a generous amount of muesli on top.

  She was sifting through her mail as she ate her dinner when her phone buzzed. It was John.

  “I know it’s short notice. Dad wants to be at Pineview at the crack of dawn. There’s some special bird he wants to add to his life list. He’s become quite the birder. We’ll swing by after. It’ll just be breakfast. You have to eat anyway. We’ll be gone before you have to leave for work. I promise.”

  “I really don’t have the time; this case is going nowhere and it’s my fault. There’s something I’m missing. On top of that, it seems that everything I try to get done is taking me four times as long as it should. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say someone was trying to make my job harder. Even my partner thinks so.”

  Abbie felt conflicted. She’d love to see John, but there was no food in the house, so putting something together for breakfast tomorrow morning would be an effort. Plus, even though she had managed to chat with her dad at John’s the other night without raising her voice, she felt her chest tighten just thinking about seeing him again so soon. Abbie was never sure if he’d say something that would trigger her. Even though she knew on an intellectual level that she needed to forgive him for not being there at the end—forgive him for putting the Church before family—she hadn’t been able to move that understanding in her head to a feeling in her heart.

  “We won’t stay that long. I promise. I know you just saw Dad and it went okay. I was surprised when he called me today to ask if I’d mind driving up tomorrow. He claimed it was about the birds, but you know how Dad asks for things without really ‘asking’ for them? Well, he wanted me to see if we could stop by. Breakfast was my idea. I figured that would make it easy for you to escape if things get heated. You can completely say you have to get to work.”

  Abbie didn’t answer.

  “So, breakfast?”

  Abbie was still thinking.

  “Would it make a difference if I told you Flynn was coming along?” John asked. “He’ll need to eat breakfast, too.”

  John had always been able to read Abbie. She hadn’t really given Flynn much thought since she’d seen him at John’s—except, if she was honest with herself, she wouldn’t mind seeing him again. Evidently, John knew that.

  “You still there, Abs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did I mention Flynn’s divorced?”

  No, Abbie thought, you didn’t. She wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse.

  “It was ugly at the end, but for the best. Even I have to admit it.” That was a lot for John to say. Her brother had married his high school sweetheart in the Provo temple and was now father to five beautiful, happy kids. Abbie adored them all as much as she adored his wife. “We’re on for breakfast then.” John said these words as a statement, not a question.

  “I didn’t say that,” Abbie said.

  “Sure you did. See you in the morning. Seven thirty–ish. The birds Dad wants to see do their thing early … Abs, if it makes a difference, I can pick up doughnuts.”

  “No, I think I can manage breakfast for four,” Abbie said.

  “I love you,” John said.

  “Love you, too.”

  Abbie opened up her cabinets, hoping that somehow she’d have the ingredients for breakfast magically appear in her kitchen. Reality was less helpful. She knew John would happily bring breakfast if she asked, but Abbie wanted to do something nice. There wasn’t enough food in the house for one person, let alone four.

  It had been a while since she’d cooked for more than herself. She’d once hosted brunches, dinners, teas, and cocktail parties in the City and at their place upstate all the time. They’d liked entertaining. As Abbie tried to find a recipe for a prosciutto strata she’d used to make all the time, she felt the familiar pleasure of planning food for friends and family. Was it an Epicurious recipe or from The New York Times? She read through three recipes with the ingredients she could remember before she found the right one. She jotted down a list of what she needed on her phone and headed to the grocery store.

  An hour later, she was back in the kitchen with fresh-squeezed orange juice, whole milk, cream, arugula, fresh mozzarella, basil, tomatoes, garlic, pine nuts, prosciutto, eggs, and hearty bread that was not a day old, but, Abbie hoped, would hold up to being layered with the prosciutto, cheese, pesto, tomatoes, and arugula. She’d also bought the best of the berries that were on offer.

  The strata had been one of her signature brunch dishes. Even when the bread wasn’t quite up to snuff, the combination of warm melted mozzarella with prosciutto, pesto, and tomato remedied any baguette-related shortcomings. Fresh berries served as a nice counterpoint to the hearty morning dish. In New York, the berries had been the food of choice for Phillip and Abbie’s ultra-thin female friends, who partook of food only when social engagements required it. Tomorrow, the berries would be dipped in the crème fraîche mixed with brown sugar and vanilla without any thought to calories.

  Abbie poured an egg mixture over the layers in a deep white ramekin, took the last sip from her glass of a very crisp New Zealand sauvignon blanc, and put the strata into the fridge. She thought about all the times she’d made this before: for close friends staying the weekend upstate; for larger groups the morning of the New York City marathon. She’d never done adult things, like hosting a brunch, in her home state. She’d left after her senior year in high school and had never returned for more than a brief visit. Even the summer after her freshman year, she’d managed to find an internship in Manhattan and stayed with a friend whose parents had an enormous apartment on Central Park West. This would be the first time she would be having her dad over for a meal as a grown-up here in Utah.

  Abbie placed four dark-gray place mats made from some sort of indestructible recycled material on her dining room table. She pulled open the top drawer of her pale wood sideboard and counted out four pale-gray linen napkins. They had been carefully ironed one night after she’d first moved in. It was when Abbie hadn’t started work yet and had found herself watching a reality TV show she was embarrassed to be watching. As penance, she had ironed all her linens as she indulged in that guilty pleasure.

  After she finished setting the table, she stepped back to look at what would be the first table she’d set for company since Phillip died. Nicely done. Phillip didn’t always articulate that he appreciated Abbie’s attention to detail, but she liked to think he did. She looked at the table again, then grabbed some kitchen scissors from a wooden block and walked outside into the dark. She didn’t have many options, but she was able to find some pretty leaves. She snipped them short and arranged half a dozen shot-glass-sized vases in the center of the table.

  She surveyed the result of her efforts. Now, with the addition of leaves and wild flowers scattered among the place settings, it looked like one of her tables.

  She needed to get to sleep. She was going to have to get the strata in the oven with enough time for it to bake and rest before the guys arrived. Abbie headed upstairs to wash her face and brush her teeth. She pulled on soft, well-worn flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top. Abbie opened the windows. The room was chilly for the tank top, but she slept better when it was cool. Her mother had been a big believer in the health benefits of fresh air. Every Saturday when her mom did her heavy housecleaning, she’d throw open the windows unless there was a blizzard or a rainstorm. Even then, her mom would weigh the risk of getting the windowsills wet against the advantages of fresh air. Abbie doubted there were any demonstrable health benefits to giving houses a good airing out or sleeping in ro
oms with open windows, but the habits of childhood were hard to break.

  * * *

  “Good morning!” John gave his little sister a big hug. “Smells good. I guess we can eat the doughnuts I picked up later.”

  Abbie smiled, but knew John had probably picked up delectable pastries and an assortment of yogurt and fruit just in case she hadn’t managed to pull anything together for breakfast on such short notice. Undoubtedly, there was breakfast for four in the cooler in the trunk of his car.

  Flynn gave Abbie a hug as he came in. “Thanks for doing this. I know John sprung us on you at the last minute.”

  “Any good birds?” Abbie directed the question to all of them, but suspected that only her father was really interested. John had learned the names of birds but had never been one to pore over bird books trying to identify something he’d spotted for the first time.

  “Yes!” her father responded, with an enthusiasm he reserved only for birds. “A female osprey and a bobolink. I was hoping to spot a horned grebe, but no luck this morning.” Even though her dad was dressed for bird-watching, he still looked every bit a professor: carefully ironed khaki pants and a blue flannel shirt somehow looked as formal as if he were in wool trousers and a blazer. His pale-blue eyes shone through his round glasses. They were still bright eyes, but they had dimmed some since her mom had died.

  “It’s good to see you, Abish. I’m glad John arranged this.” Abbie thought she heard some warmth in her dad’s voice, but she sensed there was something else, something that made her a little uncomfortable. Abbie brushed it off as a knee-jerk reaction and shifted her focus to breakfast.

  “I’m famished,” John announced on cue. “Can we eat?”

  “Please, help yourselves.” Abbie waved at the table, which now had a large white ramekin at its center with a pie server resting on a plate to the side. Pesto was drizzled over the concentric circles of tomatoes beneath golden cheese. To one side of the strata were a bowl of strawberries and cappuccino-colored crème fraîche; to the other side was a slender crystal pitcher of orange juice.

  “I have milk, too, and coffee and tea, if anyone would like.” Abbie knew neither her father or brother would take her up on coffee or tea, but she didn’t know about Flynn.

  “I’d love some coffee,” Flynn said.

  Abbie poured Flynn a cup of coffee and set a shiny silver carafe on the table.

  Flynn raised his cup. “A toast to our hostess for treating us early-morning birders to such a feast.”

  John raised his glass of orange juice. He was grinning. Abbie’s dad looked awkwardly at his glass, but raised it after a moment.

  By eight in the morning, the entire strata, meant to serve up to ten people, had been devoured. One lone strawberry lay in its bowl. The bowl of crème fraîche was wiped clean. Flynn and John were laughing about the morning and recounting stories that would have been funny to only those present at the time.

  “Abish, can we talk?” Abbie’s dad asked.

  Abbie was surprised by how serious he sounded, but then remembered that John had told her their dad had been the one to orchestrate this breakfast. Abbie wondered if her dad knew John had told her he was behind this early-morning meeting.

  “Of course,” Abbie said.

  Her dad remained silent.

  “Would you like to go somewhere private?” Abbie lowered her voice.

  “Yes, that would be good.”

  “We’re not good enough company for you?” John teased when Abbie and their dad stood up from the table.

  “Exactly.” Abbie winked at her brother.

  Abbie showed her dad into her study on the other side of the kitchen. It had French doors leading onto a stone terrace with a large outdoor dining table. The view was up the mountainside into the trees. Like the rest of the house, the office was uncluttered and gave an appreciative nod to Scandinavian design. Her dad sat down on a slate-colored upholstered chair in the corner, but did not put his feet on the matching ottoman. Abbie sat in her desk chair but turned it away from the desk so she could face her dad.

  “I don’t want to alarm you, but I think it’s important to tell you about a recent conversation I had with Port.”

  It had been a long time since Abbie had heard that name. Port was an old family friend. Abbie had no idea how long he and her dad had known each other, but she did know their friendship predated her parents’ marriage. She also knew their friendship had survived some very serious disagreements about Church doctrine. In Abbie’s mind, her father was a conservative apologist, but from the perspective of BYU and most Church leaders, her father was just barely on the right side of being a tolerable progressive. Port and his family had spent many Sunday dinners with the Taylors when Abbie was little. Most of the time, the kids would be excused to play and the wives would clean up while Professor Taylor and Port engaged in lengthy discussions about the scriptures.

  Port was a secret nickname. It was a reference to Orrin Porter Rockwell, also known as the “Destroying Angel of Mormondom,” the famous bodyguard to both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young who was known for his skill as a gunfighter and his fierce loyalty to the Church. During grand jury questioning for the attempted assassination of the governor of Missouri, Porter Rockwell had argued he was not guilty because he “never shot at anybody, if I shoot they get shot!” Not too many people knew the current Second Counselor to the President’s nickname—which had absolutely nothing to do with his actual name—but Abbie did.

  “Okay, Dad,” Abbie said. “I’m listening.”

  “Yesterday, I can’t remember when exactly, I came into my office, and my assistant, you know, the very bright graduate student who is going on to get his PhD in religious studies at Stanford … anyway, he told me he’d been getting calls all morning. Someone was upset that I wasn’t returning my cell phone calls.”

  “Okay?” Abbie wasn’t sure where her dad was going with all this. She was trying not to be impatient, but she did need to get to work.

  “Port told me he wanted to speak to me about my daughter, the detective.”

  Abbie felt her chest tighten. Why did Port want to talk about her?

  “He told me he was going to ignore my role in, and these are his words, ‘disseminating untruths about the history of changes made to the temple ceremony and who may or may not have supported said changes’ and the Strengthening Church Members Committee file on you and me. He said he wanted to talk to me about your investigation in Pleasant View and what conclusions you may or may not have drawn from the ME and the airport. I don’t know what those last references mean, but I imagine you do.”

  Even though her dad was not making a big deal about the SCMC comment, the threat was not lost on Abbie. As a professor at the Y, her dad’s career was dependent upon supporting the Church. She knew there were professors in other departments—sociology, political science, psychology—who’d ended up on the wrong side of a disciplinary hearing because their academic research seemed to be at odds with views held by some of the Brethren. They not only lost their religious affiliation; they lost their jobs.

  “It has taken the Church years to escape the public-relations nightmare of the penalty oaths. You know that younger members and new converts often misunderstood those oaths when they went for their endowments in the temple. They found them disturbing rather than uplifting. Your investigation could destroy all that hard work the Church has done to make the gospel more appealing. The Church has spent time and money to improve its image. Port said I’d faint if I knew how much the ‘I’m a Mormon’ advertisements on New York City taxicabs cost.”

  “What does Port want?” Abbie asked. She felt anger bubbling inside her. Her dad had shown, again, that he was putting the interests of the Church ahead of the interests of his family. Abbie was trying her best not to let her face reflect what she was feeling. She doubted she was doing a very good job of it.

  “He was vague. You know how Port is. You must be discrete. It’s important this case stays out of the
press, or what do they call it? The case needs to stay out of social media. It’s important not to bring up doctrines that could upset members of the Church, let alone cause a ruckus among anti-Mormons who happily make anything into a scandal.”

  All of a sudden Abbie understood why her work on this case had been harder than it should be. It wasn’t just because Henderson was squeamish about the temple clothes and the throat slitting that looked a little too much like blood atonement for his comfort. Her mind flashed to all those closed doors and quiet phone calls. Had Henderson been informing someone from that very first morning in the basement closet? Was Port why she’d had to dash out of Zion Commerce with Smith’s financial information before the receptionist could catch up with her? Was Port the reason it had taken an overachieving secretary to get the footage from the airport? Clarke’s conspiracy theory didn’t seem so baseless.

  “Dad, are you talking about a blanket we-don’t-want-any-bad-PR, or is there something more?” Given that Port had found out about the airport and ME information almost as soon as she and Clarke had, Abbie had a sick feeling that Port’s interest went beyond the routine “we don’t want bad press.”

  “It seems the victim was overseeing some real-estate ventures for the Church. The man was not as upstanding as one would hope. His personal shortcomings shouldn’t be allowed to reflect badly on the Church.”

  “Are you serious, Dad?”

  Her dad closed his pale-blue eyes. “Yes. Abish, It would not be good to give anti-Mormons a chance to rehash things that are no longer relevant. Please make sure this case stays under the radar.”

  Abbie’s desire to keep her composure evaporated. “No one has picked up the story anywhere. I’m not in the business of talking to reporters.” Her words were clipped. She sounded annoyed and she didn’t care.

  “I know. I told Port that.”

  “Did you tell him you would talk to me?” Abbie asked.

  “Yes, I did. I think it’s the right thing to do.”

 

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