Jude Devine Mystery Series (12 page)

“Okay. Now I get it.” It amazed Jude how well he could articulate the dogma of his sect. “How many wives does Mr. Epperson have?”

“I’m not sure. Lots. He’s an important man.”

Lots of wives. Jude could hear Pratt losing it. This was the kind of lead detectives prayed would drop into their laps, information that could save months of investigative labor. But for Pratt, it would mean only one thing—trouble with Utah. Yet again, Jude would be associated with a pain in the butt.

Resigning herself to the inevitable, she asked, “What’s Mr. Epperson’s first name?”

“Nathaniel.” Zach cringed as if he fully expected to be struck by lightening.

“When did you last see Diantha?” She took the next meal from the microwave and handed it over.

“Maybe four months ago. It was after the winter.”

“When did you leave your family?”

He shoveled food into his mouth. “The prophet excommunicated me last year, but I didn’t leave town till the dog day.”

“The dog day?”

“The prophet said we couldn’t have dogs anymore. So the Sons of Helaman rounded them up at the drywash and shot them all.”

Stunned, Jude said, “Do you mean stray dogs?”

“No. All dogs. They even had my dog Sam. I tried to get him, but they beat on me with their guns and ran me out of town again.”

“You’re saying they killed every dog in town? Even people’s pets?”

“Yes, ma’am. The prophet says there are no dogs in the celestial kingdom, so we need have no care for them, or any other animal, during our earthly life.”

What kind of outfit was this—Stepford on crack? “Didn’t anyone try to stop the killing?”

He shook his head. “They couldn’t. They would be excommunicated.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“You won’t be lifted up to heaven. You are banished…cast forth to dwell in Babylon. No one can speak to you.” He burst into tears. “Diantha spoke to me, and she brought food. That’s why she had to atone and be purified. God commanded that she live henceforth in silence.”

“This is why her tongue was cut out?”

He blinked. “How do you know about that? It’s a secret.”

“Not anymore. We noticed when we examined her body.”

He set down his fork and cradled his head in his hands. “It was my fault. I led her into temptation.”

“No, Zach. You didn’t do anything wrong and neither did she. What happened to Darlene was a crime.” She repressed the urge to tell him she was going to hunt down the people who did it and make them pay. It wouldn’t take much to spook him. If he thought the Eppersons could end up in jail, he could stop talking for fear of retribution. She redirected the questioning slightly. “What about your mom? Couldn’t you go to her for help after you were excommunicated?”

Zach looked at her in amazement. “My mother would never disobey the master of holy principles.”

“The master…you mean God?”

“No. My daddy.”

Where was a stiff drink when you needed one? Jude had heard plenty about the Utah polygamists since moving to Montezuma county. It had been all over the local newspapers recently that a bigshot in the FLDS had bought a ranch a few miles out of Mancos. According to the reports, polygamist leaders were selling up holdings in Arizona and Utah now that state prosecutors were finally investigating them for child sexual abuse, welfare fraud, and tax evasion. It seemed like these guys were little more than a gang of criminals hiding behind the mask of religious belief. The strategy had panned out pretty well for them. They’d been molesting young girls and bilking the system with complete impunity for decades.

“What about your friends—kids your own age?” Jude could not imagine a teenager without buddies willing to defy authority figures. “Didn’t they try to help you?”

He paused over a bite. “I didn’t want to make any trouble for them, so I stayed away. It is forbidden for the righteous to associate with me.”

“That’s mighty Christian of them.”

He blinked and focused on her as if seeing her clearly for the first time. His expression was an odd mix of fascination and disapproval.

“Something wrong, Zach?”

“I haven’t seen too many women wearing men’s clothing, is all. Being as it’s harlot’s attire.”

Jude bit back an automatic response. Here was a kid who had probably never seen a television and had been brainwashed since infancy inside a cult. Was it any wonder he had no sense of the real world, his thinking twisted by Taliban-like beliefs. She shuddered to think of him trying to find his way, a stranger in his own country. He would have a hard time fitting in with regular people.

“Most people in this country don’t believe that to be the case,” she said. “They don’t live the way people in your community live.”

“Yes, I understand. That’s why the gentiles will not be admitted to the three degrees of glory.”

Jude was intrigued. Zach’s ability to think for himself seemed to have been erased, yet he could express quite complex ideas. She was reminded of an expression bandied about by the technical support staff at the Bureau to explain the limitations of her computer—dumb terminal: seems smart, but cannot function as an independent entity.

Ignoring the last dumb-terminal response, she asked, “The town of Rapture. Where is that?”

“Near Hildale and Colorado City.”

Huge surprise. The twin towns were only the biggest hotbed of polygamy outside of Saudi Arabia. “You’re a long way from home,” she said.

“I got a ride with a truck driver.” Pensively, he added, “At first I was afraid to be among the gentiles and the seeds of Cain, but folks have been real kind.” He indicated his empty meal trays. “Thank you for the breakfast. I think that was about the best meal I ever tasted.”

Jude pointed at the trash bin. “You can throw the meal containers in there and rinse the utensils in the sink. If you need the restroom, it’s down the hall to your right.”

Lesson one. Don’t wait for women to clean up after you. Zach seemed to catch on easily enough. He tidied his trash away and even asked if there was anything he could fetch for her. Jude could sense an eagerness in him that verged on desperation. Survival was his primary consideration. If that meant doing “women’s work,” she had a feeling he’d get with the program.

“I need to ask you some more questions now that you’ve eaten,” she said when he returned from the restroom. “First up, do you know who murdered Diantha?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Do you know anybody who didn’t like her? Who was maybe real angry with her over something? Apart from her talking to you, I mean. Did she ever mention anything like that to you?”

“Can’t say she did.”

“Tell me about the Eppersons.”

He considered this for a beat, then revealed nervously, “Mr. Epperson is a real important man. He’s a high priest and counselor to the prophet.” He vacillated. “We’re not supposed to talk about the priesthood to gentiles.”

“I understand. I promise no one will ever know you spoke to me about the way your church is organized. Okay?”

Her mind flashed to the press conference a week earlier. Mercy Westmoreland had publicly dismissed the idea of a ritual killing, but it had come up in the subsequent briefing. Stamer Knutson believed that hunting the local Satanists would be a waste of time. The type of brutality inflicted on Darlene was almost entirely the province of the obsessive husband, the lone psychopath, or of foot soldiers for the world’s most virulent strains of religious fundamentalism. Historically, the black-magic crowd had produced a few wackos, but they were rank amateurs compared with their God-fearing counterparts.

“Tell me, Zach, does a high priest like Mr. Epperson follow the prophet’s orders all the time, like everyone else does?”

Apparently, this was a silly question. Eyeing her quizzically, Zach explained, “The prophet is God’s mouthpiece on earth. He is the one man who has the keys of sealing. He must be obeyed or death.”

“Gotcha.”

A decent single malt, she decided. Talisker, or maybe something sweeter like the Caol Ila she kept for special occasions. These happened so seldom she was in danger of turning her twelve-year-old bottle into an eighteen, and thus taming its smoky Islay character. She checked the wall clock again and accepted harsh reality. It would be at least eight hours before she could kick back and think about something other than the bottom feeders of this world. Meantime, she felt like she was interviewing an extraterrestrial. Trying to decode its language so she could make sense of the life being described.

Adding to her sense of the surreal, was a growing awareness that Zach had much more to offer than a useful clue or two. She could not believe her luck. Something the
Law & Order
–viewing public didn’t realize was that cases could be solved by happy coincidences almost as much as by sheer investigative slog. Posters on mailboxes really worked, triggering memories and shaking clues from a community. This kid had obviously seen one in his travels. He might never have said anything, only the Fates had been kind. What were the odds of the gregarious Bobby Lee being on the spot and giving this bedraggled youngster a ride?

Eventually they would probably have come up with the information about "Diantha" given the direction the investigation was headed, but Jude decided she was owed a break after all the cases she’d ground her teeth over. Zach was a gift from above and she could only be thankful.

“So…” She pulled the interview back onto the domestic track. “How many in your own family?”

“I have fourteen sisters and ten brothers still living. My father has eight spiritual wives.”

“Your father and Mr. Epperson must be a wealthy men to provide for so many people.”

“God blesses the elect.”

“I see.” Which meant the wives and kids were all collecting welfare and food stamps. This was fast becoming an issue in Cortez, with the recent FLDS arrivals. “Tell me about Darlene’s silencing.”

His face returned to its former waxy pallor. “She had to be purified and her demons cast out. The pain was greatest for the servants of righteousness.”

“Are you saying other people had organs hacked off, too? Or did the er…righteous suffer different agonies?”

Some disconcerted blinks. “It was pain of the spirit. God’s work tests the will.”

“Do you think God ordered that Darlene’s tongue had to go?”

“God speaks through the prophet. He is the one who holds the keys.”

“Yes, I got that.” She wondered whose words he was parroting. “So the prophet ordered someone to cut Darlene’s tongue out?”

He shrugged stiffly. “The rules are known to all.”

“And Darlene disobeyed…”

He nodded. “Women must live in perfect obedience and modesty. They must be pure and delightsome.”

“Clear something up for me, Zach. Who are women supposed to obey?”

“The Heavenly Father. The prophet and the priesthood. Their father and their husband. Their uncles and brothers…”

“Okay, I get the picture.”

“And they must obey the head wife.”

Jude could imagine how that particular tyranny would function. Guys like Epperson ran their own private harems. Women competing for favor and resources would have to take their resentment and anger out on someone. Children and junior wives were the obvious targets.

“So who actually carried out the prophet’s command—who cut out Darlene’s tongue? Can you tell me that?”