Jude Devine Mystery Series (13 page)

He fell silent, his hands gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckles glowed white.

“Don’t be afraid,” Jude said. “You’re safe here. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“I will be struck down.”

“Zach, who do you think is more powerful? God or the prophet?”

Tough question. Eventually, he replied, “The prophet is the one mighty and strong. He has the power on earth, and the Heavenly Father has the power in the celestial kingdom.”

“What’s the prophet’s name?” At first, she’d assumed he must be talking about Joseph Smith, the guy who founded Mormonism, then she remembered reading references to a present-day “prophet” in newspaper reports about the new compound being built in Mancos.

With hushed awe, Zach said, “It was Warren Jeffs, but now…I’m not sure. He’s gone and they’re saying Mr. Rockwell is the true prophet.”

“Do you know Mr. Rockwell’s first name?”

“Elias.” He drew a ragged breath and confided, “Even Uncle Warren’s Sons of Helaman have gone across to him.”

“When did Mr. Rockwell take over?”

“I don’t think he’s accepted the keys yet. There are others who say they are the one.”

Which meant this Jeffs individual was still in charge when Darlene was silenced. Jude entered his details into the computer. The narrow, pasty face that popped up on her screen belonged to a guy who could have been labeled a nerd, only he didn’t look smart enough. A high forehead, long nose, and weak chin made his round, startled brown eyes seem too close together. This cartoon-character effect was topped off with a wet rodent mouth and an Adam’s apple too big for the scrawny throat it bobbed beneath. In addition to the good-looks deficit, Warren Jeffs had made the criminal big time; he was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

Jude read through the description and cautionary notes and smiled. Life had suddenly gotten a whole lot easier. Arizona had issued a state arrest warrant, because--Newsflash!--Jeffs was wanted for sexual assault on a minor. If she crossed paths with him, she could grab him up on the existing indictment and Colorado could put their case together afterward. There had to be a conspiracy charge in there somewhere. It sounded like no one in the twin towns drew breath without the prophet’s say-so.

“Do you have any idea where Mr. Jeffs is?” she asked, covering the obvious base.

Zach reacted to this casual inquiry with a vehement plea, “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

His wet blue eyes begged for understanding, and Jude could sympathize. The kid genuinely believed the gates of heaven had just swung shut in his face. He was also afraid of the thugs who’d already assaulted him. But she sensed something else at work. Even his rank, unwashed odor could not disguise the smell of terror that oozed from him.

“Zach, what are you so afraid of?” she asked gently. “Please tell me.”

“Those who betray the secrets of the priesthood must atone in blood. Obey the prophet and we are blessed. Disobey, and it’s death.” He broke into exhausted sobs. “You don’t know what they’re like. They’ll find me and give me to the demon.”

Jude got up and found a box of tissues. She took these over to him and put an arm around his frail shoulders. “Calm down, and blow your nose. There’s no such thing as demons.”

He mopped his tears with odd, frantic motions, apologizing and assuring her he would stop crying immediately. Watching him, Jude felt a wave of grief rise from her chest to her throat. She wanted to kill someone—for Zach and all the children like him, the ones who didn’t know the meaning of childhood. She wanted ten minutes alone in a room with Epperson or Jeffs.

Intellectually, she knew that the murderous rage she glimpsed in herself at times like this was very old and could never be given an outlet. But there was a part of her that clung to it, reveling in it, dreaming of the day when she would come face-to-face with the man she’d been hunting for almost twenty years. No way would she exercise judgment and restraint. No way would she deny the primal thirst for revenge and dress it up in modern clothing. Justice was a nice ideal, but her quarry did not deserve the civilized ritual of a trial, the fair-minded deliberations of a jury.

Jude was not going to arrest him, she was going to kill him with her bare hands. She would help him discover the limits of his pain threshold. Something touched her arm and she looked down to find Zach staring at her with an odd yearning expression. She realized her fingers were digging into his bony shoulders, and released him.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said.

“No, I don’t.” Jude propped herself against the edge of the desk. “But here’s something to think about. The prophet threw
you
out. I’d say that means you don’t have to obey his rules anymore. You can’t be bound by the rules of an organization that excommunicated you.
They
made that decision, not you. Do you understand?”

His face became strangely immobile, as if a spanner had just landed in the works of his brainwashed thought process.

“What will I do?” he murmured eventually. It wasn’t really a question, more a stark expression of his disorientation.

Zach Carter had never learned how to think for himself. Without rules to follow, and lacking critical reasoning skills, he was in a limbo, displaced and vulnerable. Jude wondered if there was a help agency that could work a case like this. If he really was eighteen, he was too old to be a ward of the state, so Social Services would not be able to do a thing. Yet he was clearly unequipped to assimilate into the real world. He would need education, therapy, and a safe environment. Protective custody seemed like a reach. But if she could get a statement naming someone in the assault on Darlene, if not the murder, that would make Zach a key witness. She could easily persuade Pratt that any of the nutjobs implicated would pose a threat.

A plan took shape in her mind. “What say you stay here at the station for a while? You could sleep in there.” She indicated the holding cell. “You’d get all your meals. No one is going to come looking for you at the sheriff’s office, are they?”

He looked astonished. “Can I stay tonight?”

“Absolutely. And for the next week or so while we think about what you’re going to do with your life.” She made the offer irresistible. “We do have a few rules you’ll need to follow.”

He nodded eagerly. Rules were something this kid knew all about.

“There’s yard work and this building wants a coat of paint. So you’ll be working in exchange for your food and shelter.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We’ll arrange some schooling for you.” Agatha was a retired teacher. If they let her loose on this kid, she would be off their backs over sloppy office habits, a win/win for all concerned.

“I liked school,” he said wistfully. “But I had to work on the ranch so I quit in the seventh grade.”

“Well, you have some catching up to do.” Jude invented a couple more rules, since they seemed to comfort him. “You must eat all the food you are given. And you must always wash your hands after using the bathroom.”

“Do I use the soap? I saw it there, but I wasn’t sure. Back home soap was only for my sister-mothers.”

Whatever happened to cleanliness being next to godliness? “In this station everyone uses soap,” Jude said.

“I can get cleaned off right away, if you show me where the hose is.” Zach jumped to his feet.

“You won’t be needing the hose. Did you see the shower stall in the bathroom?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’ll wash in there with warm water. I’ll show you how it works.”

Jude took a slow breath, controlling the anger rising from her gut. She supposed, with thirty or so kids, daily hot showers were not practical for polygamist families. Clearly, Zach had spent his life getting clean by hosing himself down outdoors. She was relieved that he seemed eager to wash. His disgusting body odor had given her a headache.

“After we’re done talking, you can take your first shower,” she told him. “Then I’m going to drive you into town and get you some new clothes. We’ll swing by the doctor, too. I want him to take a look at you.”

Zach’s face was instantly pinched with alarm. “I don’t need any doctor. If I deserve to be healed, God will heal me.”

“Yeah, I had a feeling about that.” Jude glanced toward the window, expecting Tulley’s truck at any moment. She wondered if he would have better luck getting Zach to talk about Darlene’s “silencing.” The kid was fading fast, the aftermath of a square meal hitting bottom. He rested his head on one hand, eyelids drooping.

“You look sleepy,” Jude said. “Want to rest up some before we head out?”

He regarded her gravely and she realized that giving him options only made him nervous. “You can lie down for a while after your shower,” she instructed. “I’ll wake you when it’s time to leave.”

He hovered for a moment. “Thank you for being kind to me, ma’am.”

“Isn’t being kind to others what God wants us to do?”

Again his face stilled in concentration, eyes slightly narrowed. Jude saw something new mingle with his fear and weariness. He looked older suddenly.

“I saw it,” he said. “They made me watch.”

Jude listened. This time he didn’t look away.

“It was Mrs. Epperson. The head wife.”

“She had the knife?”

He nodded. “Mr. Epperson had a revelation. He said she was chosen to be God’s instrument.”

How convenient. “So Mr. Epperson told her what to do?”

“Everyone had to read the scriptures and pray. Then he told us what the Heavenly Father revealed.” He lowered his head and cradled his face with both hands. “Diantha tried to run away—” He broke into hoarse sobs. “And I didn’t help her.”

“Shit.” Sheriff Pratt closed his office door and sagged into his chair, groaning like he had heartburn.

Accustomed to this reaction from her superior, Jude sat down on one of the padded beige vinyl chairs opposite his desk. “So I figured I’d take Tulley with me,” she said. “He could use the experience.”

A small bead of perspiration ran down the side of the sheriff’s nose. He flicked it away with a finger. “I’m not so sure about this. Can’t we work up another approach?”

What did he have in mind, other than dropping the investigation? Trying not to sound impatient, Jude said, “We’ll keep a low profile.”

Pratt plainly wanted to wring his big, tanned hands. Instead he tortured an empty cigarette packet. “Can’t see how that’s possible, given you two are going to stick out like sheep at a rodeo.”

“Obviously we’ll go see the sheriff first, since we’ll need to be sworn in to his jurisdiction. I don’t know how this is going to play out, exactly. We’ll have arrest powers from Arizona, but Rapture is actually on the Utah side of the border.”

“Well, I’m guessing a warrant might be hard to come by. Don’t waste your time asking the judge—three wives and twenty-something kids.”

“I thought Utah was cleaning up its act. Didn’t they sack the last police chief and half the force?”

“Roundy and his crowd…yep. Decertified. Clear case of the fox guarding the henhouse. One of them served a year…unlawful sex with a minor.”

“So maybe this new sheriff will be looking to make a good impression. He has to have a working relationship with Utah, and their attorney general seems to be ratcheting up the pressure on these polygamists.”

Pratt grunted. “I’ll believe that when I see it. Listen, we’re not looking for trouble. You know what I’m saying.”

“No, sir. Not really.”

Pratt sucked his top lip in and chewed briefly in his moustache. He seemed to be considering his words very carefully. “You have to understand something, Devine. You’re not in D.C. anymore. Out here, we don’t have big-city manpower. We cover a large area and we’re right on the border. All of the above means we need to keep a harmonious relationship happening with the different agencies.”

“I’m hearing you.”

“I’ll spell it out. Utah…they’ve got money. A lot more than the rest of us. And they don’t like bad publicity. They have their own ways of dealing with internal situations like this.”