The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (8 page)

Checking a few of the other articles
Zachariah Hinckley had read on his
iTouch
, Ben found that they
all
deal
t
with the presidential elections, particularly with the GOP candidate and his rising prospects of winning the White House.

Moving on to the
iTunes memory
, he found
a bunch of
songs
, mostly eighties
and a few military marches.

He put the
iTouch
down on the table, disappointed.
It was an older model, which explained why
Zachariah Hinckley used it
a
s a music player
on his Harley. He must have carried a phone as well, which Porter probably had removed after the accident. But he had used the iTouch to surf the Internet for articles about Joe
Morgan.
It was o
dd, but
unlikely to be
related to the accident or the elusive Ducati.

Using his iPhone, Ben called Fran at her Maryla
nd State Police office.

Her voice
mail came on
. “
You’ve reached
Lieutenant
De
Lacourt
at the H
ate
Crimes U
nit. If this is an emergency, dial nine-one-one. Otherwise, leave a
short
message.”

“
Hey
. It’s Ben
Teller
. I found an
iTouch
near the accident site at the
Marine
Veterans’
R
ide
today. I’ll stop by tomorrow to drop it off.”

A
fter
Ben
finished his
c
ha
i and read
some of
the newspapers left by other customers
,
a question occurred to him:
If there was nothing to
Zachariah’s
iTouch
but a music collection
and
a
paltry Internet
surfing history
, why had
Porter
rush
ed
back f
or another search? And why had
Porter
conducted such a
detailed search to begin with?

Having reported from many other accident sites, Ben knew how police
operated. In a multi-vehicle collision, investigators
focused on recreating conditions to figure out the
trajectories and examine mechanical components
for failures that could have contributed to the accident
.
It was obvious the police did not give any credence to the rumor of a
white
Ducati
and
treat
ed
this as a single-vehicle accident due to driver error.

But with respect to
victims
’
belongings
, the efforts to
collect
and inventory items was not related to accident investigation but was done to ensure safe
delivery to bereaved family members
. P
olice teams
were trained to
engage in th
is
process
with
a methodical and well-practiced
em
pathy
, but with
hardly
any sense of urgency.

Back at the
overlook
, the uniformed officers had done all that, following routine procedures even at the less common occurrence of a vehicle falling off the road and down the hillside.
But
Porter
’s behavior had been odd, even if his job inclu
ded investigating road accidents
. Ben planned to ask Fran about it
.

His attention was drawn back to the
iTouch
.
If there was anything hidden on it, he wanted to find out before handing it
over
to Fran.

Like
its
iPhone
sibling
, the
iTouch
home screen was filled with icons.
He started to check each of the fifty
or
so applications, just in case.

Most were junk, things that came with the
device
or were added for free,
such as
games involving military
battles, warships, submarines, fighter jets, and even face-to-face combat with nothing but spears and short swords. There was a CIA vs. FBI game, a Putin look
-
alike
in
a
j
udo outfit
,
and
KGB
minions on a mission to
control the world
against an American president who resembled
G.W.
Bush,
as well as
a
game featuring
James Bond
,
played by
a
young Sean Connery
, who used a
water
gun against baldheaded masterminds
. An
other icon
brought up a
Jo
h
nny English
game involving
a
karate duel
against
violent
female
ninjas
.
A sa
iling ship icon led to a game featuring
a knightly woman
who wielded a yellow sword against
pirates and a giant sea
creature with tentacles.

B
en
looked closely. The sword in
the woman’s
hand was actually a pencil, complete with
#2
designation, a sharpened lead tip, and an orange eraser at the top
that blinked like a tiny turn-signal
.
He
touched
the
blinking
eraser, and a
new screen opened, showing a
photo of a soldier
. It took Ben a second to recognize Zachariah Hinckley—
much younger, with
buzzed hai
r and
a deep tan.
At the bottom of the screen, a line appeared:
We’re the United States Marines.
What’s our
motto
?

Ben
touched the screen
,
and a keypad appeared. He typed:
Semper Fidelis

A
banner
flashed across the top
:
Welcome
to my journal
!

Chapter 6

Z.H. Journal
Entry # 1
:

You
are reading this
journal because I
’
m
no longer
alive
.
My death, most likely, was caused by t
he events recorded here
. This journal, therefore, is intended to ensure that my death wasn’t for nothing.

What you’ll read here might cast
doubt
s
as to
the purity of my
faith or the goodness of my
heart
, but the truth is that
my actions have not been
motivated by vanity or rebellion, but
by
my devotion to
the three things I love more than anything
else
:

My church, the True Church.

My country, the United States of America
.

M
y children, who des
erve to know the truth about their father’s life.

For things to make sense, I have to start with a bit of history
:
My name is Zachariah Hinckley.
I had a blessed
upbringing
in most respects. Both my father and my mother, who now
rule their own heavenly
world in the Celestial K
ingdom
of God
, traced their ancestral lines
back
to the
early
res
toration of
the
true gospel in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
.

Having been blessed by the prophet Joseph Smith himself, our family
survived
the persecution
of Saints
in
New York,
Ohio, Missouri,
and
Illinois,
the building of God’s kingdom in Nauvoo and the exile from there on to
the long
march
to the Salt Lake
,
and
the
Gentiles’
war
s
against our people.
My ancestors’
unwavering faith
in the face of
mockery, violence, and
bereavement
had
la
i
n
the ground for the building of
New Zion
with Brother Brigham
Young
. Their faith
still burn
s
in me
.

In our small town of
New Hebron
, an hour west of Salt Lake City, m
y father led our family righteously,
with my mother as his helper. B
eing the youngest of eight, I w
as the apple of everyone’s eye.

There’s nothing better than a Mormon childhood
. I was
surrounded by
love, friendship
,
and
happiness.
I
excelled
in school
and loved the afternoons
and weekends
at our
ward
—the New Hebron Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—which my great-great-grandfather had established back during the time of the pioneers. At the ward, w
e
studie
d
the
Book of Mormon
and
learned how the lost tribes of Israel came to America
,
how Christ
ministered to
them and
how He came again in 1820
, together with God the Father,
to Palmy
ra
in upstate
New York
to tell J
oseph Smith
t
o restore the True C
hurch
after
1,700
years of abomination and falsehood
.

On Sundays, everyone came to
gether at t
he ward
to bless new
born babies
and remember
those
who
departed to eternal
life
. E
veryone shared
their testimonie
s—declarations of faith in the True C
hurch—as well as
emotional stories of miracles and personal revelations.
On Mondays, we had Family Home Nights, gathering around the dining table to enjoy my mother’s cooking, study the scriptures together, and give testimony of our love for each other, for the blessing of a family sealed together for eternity, here and in the afterlife.

Like all good Mormon boys, my life progressed through the wonderful milestones set by our prophets
and apostles
, whose command
s came from
God
.
You could say that I learned the blessing of obedience at the same time that I learned how to walk, talk,
write,
and eat with my own knife and fork. And until recently,
my
obedience to our church authorities had
been total in every respect.

A
t
the age of
eight, m
y baptizing celebration drew
relatives
from all over
Utah,
Iowa,
Idaho, Wyoming, Californ
ia, Nevada
,
and Arizona
.
At ten, I spoke in front of the
w
hole ward about how the sin of p
ride
was hard for me
to avoid
because
of
my father’s prominence, having just
been called
to
serve as
S
ta
ke P
resident
—
a volunteer clergy in ch
arge of all church affairs for the
region
.