The 19th Wife (24 page)

Yet some truths come too late.

I am, I realize, but a man.

BACK AT THE MOTEL GRAYBAR

“There it is,” I told Mr. Heber. “Proof of how my mom’s prints got on the Big Boy.”

He leaned across his desk to look at the picture again. “Tell me where you got this.”

I walked him through my meeting with Alexandra and her chat session with my dad.

“Oh, for crying out loud.” He pressed a button on his phone. “Maureen, can you come in here? Listen, Jordan, these date stamps are thrown out of court all the time. Everyone knows they’re usually wrong.” The door cracked open. “Maureen, would you make a copy of this?”

She looked at the picture. “This your dad?”

“So what if the date stamp’s wrong,” I said. “We have someone who says she received this picture just before he was shot, and that’s a big deal.” He didn’t say anything. “Isn’t it?” Still didn’t say anything. “Mr. Heber, am I totally clueless, or what?”

“I’m just thinking of all the ways a prosecutor could tear this apart. We’re going to have do better.”

“But right now it’s all I’ve got.”

All this, everything I’ve been telling you, it was happening too fast. I stared into Heber’s face—the slick, Aqua Velva complexion, the eyes blue as dawn—but it was like seeing a set of meaningless colors and shapes. I couldn’t pick up anything from this guy. You know when your mind’s off, just wandering anywhere but where it should be, and you open a book and you see the letters but they don’t make any sense? Might as well be Chinese? It was like that. I thought of my mom in her cell. Did she understand any of this better than me?

“Jordan, let me give you a little advice. When you find a lead, you’ve got to turn it over and over, again and again, look at it from every angle before you decide what it is. That’s how things work around here. Think of every reason this photo might not help your mom. If it’s still got some value after you’ve done that, then you’re on to something. Ask Maureen, she’s the best.”

“Not the best,” she said.

“Look, I’ve been back in Utah for—what?—five days, and at least I’ve figured one thing out: there’s no such thing as perfect evidence, Mr. Heber. Or the complete truth, or whatever you want to call it.”

Heber and Maureen stared at me, working hard not to roll their eyes. So much for my little speech.

“I went out to see your mom yesterday,” Mr. Heber said.

“And?”

“And she’s not telling me some things she really should be.”

“Like what?”

“Her story about what she was doing that night is still a little fuzzy. That’s not going to work. I keep getting the sense there’s something she doesn’t want me to know.”

“Maybe she’ll tell Maureen?”

“No, I think she’ll tell you. Go back and see her, Jordan. Find out what you can.”

“I thought you were leaving Utah.” My mom was cradling the yellow receiver between her shoulder and her chin.

“I decided to stay.” And then, “I believe you.”

She looked up, the glass partition magnifying her eyes.

“I know there’s all this evidence against you,” I said. “But I believe you.”

Everything was the same at the jail today: Officer Kane, the ammonia covering the smell of piss, the row of women weeping into yellow handsets, baby-talking to their children who were growing up without them. I used to tell Roland Mesadale was like living in jail. But it wasn’t. Jail was like living in jail.

I held the picture up to the glass. “Do you remember taking this?”

“Of course. That was just last week. It was our anniversary.”

“Your anniversary?”

“Yes, I wanted to take a picture with your father. I got dressed up and asked him to put on a tie, and we went down to his den and shot that picture.”

“Who took it?”

“No one. We used the automatic button thingy.” I told her how I got the picture. It upset her to hear her husband was sending it out to strange women, but she understood why this was a break.

“But we need more,” I said. “I need to figure out why Rita said she saw you coming up from the basement.”

“Because she did. Your father had asked me to see him, and we talked for some time and I was on my way upstairs when I passed Sister Rita.”

“What’d you talk about?”

“It was a husband-and-wife conversation.”

“Mom, the more I know, the more I can help you.”

“Let’s just say we had a conversation about the time he was spending with me. Or lack thereof.” Some facts are less good than others. And this was one of those facts. It was a potential motive—jealous wife.

“Did you have an argument?”

“I wouldn’t say an argument, your father and I never argued. But we discussed the matter, and I told him how I felt.”

“Which was?”

“He’s my husband, and I expected to see him from time to time. That’s all. And that’s when I went upstairs. And then—” She looked down at nothing in particular, just away. “And then I never saw him again. That’s the hardest part. I always thought I’d spend the rest of my life as his wife.” She took her time to collect herself. “You know what Officer Kane said after you left the last time? She said you’d be back. I told her I didn’t think so, but she said she could see it in your eyes.” A few feet behind my mom, Officer Kane stared out into nothing. Clearly she wasn’t supposed to get involved.

Isn’t it interesting what a stranger can offer? A little wisdom, a little mercy, a little love. That’s what I was thinking as I drove off from the jail. And this: unless I came up with better proof, twelve strangers in a box would decide my mom’s fate. It’s crazy to think it could come to that, but I guess it happens all the time.

WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST

I called Maureen. “I have a big favor to ask.”

“Shoot.”

“No, a really big favor. I need you to drive Johnny and me to Mesadale. Right now. I wouldn’t be asking if you hadn’t—” That’s all I had to say. She agreed to meet me at A Woman Sconed in half an hour.

When I got to the café, the goth girl and Johnny were playing Ms. Pac-Man and Elektra was sleeping on the couch. “How’d it go?” said Johnny.

“I need to get some info out of the house.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not sure exactly.”

“How you going to get in there?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Sounds like an awesome plan you got going there.” Johnny went behind the counter to get me a cupcake. You’d think he owned the place. “Here. Maybe this will help you think.”

That’s when I had an idea.

When Maureen pulled in, Johnny said, “What’s she doing here?”

“Come on. It’s all part of my plan.”

As we drove out to Mesadale, I was still thinking things through. Johnny kept saying you sure you know what you’re doing and I kept saying yeah. He was up front and I was in back with Elektra. Some dry cleaning was hanging back there and every time Johnny cracked the window, the plastic wrapper would blow in my face. Elektra thought Maureen’s stuffed penguins were dog toys and she kept knocking them over with her snout. I’d tell her no and she’d do it again, which is pretty much how things go with her.

As we passed the shot-up sign on the highway, Johnny said, “Get ready to enter another universe.”

“What do you want me to do when we get there?” asked Maureen.

“I’m still thinking.”

“You better hurry up,” said Johnny.

“These your husband’s clothes?”

“No, Mr. Heber’s. He likes me to fetch his laundry. I know I shouldn’t, but some things just aren’t worth fighting over.” In the plastic wrapper was a pair of gray slacks and a couple of white dress shirts.

“You think he’d mind if I borrowed them?” I said.

“What for?”

“I need to dress a little less, I don’t know, a little less—”

“A little less gay?” said Johnny.

“A little less LA was what I was thinking.”

“Go ahead. I’ll take them back to the cleaners. He’ll never know the difference.”

“Pardon me while I change.” Tucked in the backseat, I took off my clothes and put on Mr. Heber’s, which felt really weird. The shirt fit, but the pants were loose in the waist.

“Here,” said Maureen. “I have some safety pins.” She handed me a plastic box of gold safety pins and I quickly fixed the pants.

“How do I look?”

“Pretty blah,” said Johnny.

“Good, that’s exactly what I was going for. OK, we’re getting close. Johnny, can you tell Maureen where the turnoff is?”

“Sure, why?”

I lay down on my side on the backseat. Elektra thought this meant it was cuddle time, and she curled up in the crook of my arm. “Because I want to drive into town without anyone seeing me. And you too. Once you spot the turnoff, Johnny, I want you to slide down in your seat.”

“It’s coming up.”

“Maureen, you see it?”

“Yup.”

“OK, turn there. Johnny, you get down. And Maureen, all you need to do is follow this road about four miles until you see the post office on the left. Tell me when you see it and I’ll tell you what to do.”

I heard Maureen’s turn signal, and Johnny was crouching down in the well in front of the passenger seat. He kept giving me a thumbs-up sign and whispering, “This is so cool!” When the car left the asphalt everything started rattling hard. “Just keep going up this road,” I told Maureen. I could see her profile. She looked very confident, her mouth set firm, and I could tell she was doing this not because she was a nice person or a good secretary, but because it was right.

“I see the post office.”

“Turn into the lot. Park in the last spot on the right.”

“It’s full.”

“Then park next to it.”

The car slowed, turned, and came to a halt.

“Now everyone stay still while I tell you what’s going to happen. Maureen, you’re going to go inside. The postmistress’s name is Sister Karen. I’m pretty sure we can trust her. Tell her you’re waiting for me there. She’ll let you hang out. Maybe she’ll let you into the back so no one sees you. But even if someone sees you, it’ll be fine, they’ll have no idea why you’re in town.”

“What about us?”

“When she’s been inside for five minutes, we’re sneaking out and walking up to the house.”

“What about Elektra?”

Dammit. I forgot to include her in the plan.

“We should’ve left her with the goth girl,” said Johnny.

“Never mind. Maureen, you’re going to have to take her.”

“If we really can trust Sister Karen,” she said, “then wait a second, I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later, the driver’s-side door opened. It was Sister Karen. “I’m going to slip Elektra in through the loading door. No one will see her.” Then they were gone, and Johnny and I were left alone.

“What now?”

“We’re walking. Slip out of the car, stay low, run to the far side of the post office. I’ll follow you.” He did everything I said, and a minute later we were standing against the hot concrete bricks of the post office’s western wall, hidden from the street. “Now we’ll just walk up one of the side roads. If we play it cool, no one should notice us.”

We started walking. It was probably 110 and I could feel the sun on the side of my face. Maybe that’s another reason the Firsts have been left more or less alone for so long. It was hot as Mars out here. No one wanted this land.

“So far so good,” I said. This side road was quiet, some big houses, some empty lots. Not a lot of traffic. Anyone who saw us would assume we were two kids walking back from the co-op.

“So what’s the plan?” said Johnny.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“Too late.”

“You got your knife?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Here, give it to me.”

At the back of the lot, I began cutting branches from the scrub. “Start breaking off some twigs and make them small and very thin, like toothpicks. We’re going to start a fire.”

“We are?”

“Actually, you are.”

He screwed up his eyes. “Dude, you’re a total nut job.”

“Just break off some twigs, we need kindling. I never thought I’d say this, but thank God we’re out in the middle of the desert. This wood is bone dry.”

When we had a good pile I said, “Now we need tinder. Do you have any lint in your pockets?” He pulled out a few wads and set them delicately atop the pile of kindling.

I checked the pockets of Mr. Heber’s pants. In one I found a couple of wads of white lint, in the other two dry-cleaned bucks. “Here, shred these up.”

“You’re going to burn money?”

“Just do it.” I found a stick about a foot long and hacked a notch in each end. I bent down to unlace one of my shoes.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making a bow.” I gave him a quick lesson on the bow-drill method of starting a fire.

“Where’d you learn this shit?”

“You forget, I was on my own for a long time.” I got the pieces ready for him and told him he’d have to keep at it for a long time. “The trick is to catch the coals and get them onto the tinder. It’s going to take a while, but if you keep doing it, it should work.”

“Why am I doing this?”

“Because I’m going to sneak through the cornfield, then behind Sister Kimberly’s cabin. That’s where I’ll wait. When you get the fire going, throw as much wood on it as you can, then go back to the post office. Don’t run, just walk calmly like you belong here. That’s the good thing about Mesadale: there are so many kids, no one will notice one more.”

“What about you?”

“When the fire starts, hopefully everyone will come out of the houses, and I can slip inside.”

“You really are out of your mind.”

“I know. But it might work.”

I waited behind Sister Kimberly’s cottage for almost an hour before I saw the white smoke. The smoke darkened, first gray, then black, then I saw a flame. From the big house I heard a scream, then another, and another after that, and they spread until all the women were calling out. The commotion began, people spilling out of the houses, babies crying, women and children running to the back of the lot with pots of water. Pretty soon there were at least seventy-five people at the back of the lot, the women in their prairie dresses and the kids in their hand-me-downs.

I didn’t run. I walked straight to the side door and went inside. No one was in the hall, but I heard two women talking in a panic at the top of the stairs. If they were to look down, they would’ve seen me, but they were distracted by the fire out the window. I made it to the door that led to the basement stairs but found a tiny padlock, like a luggage lock, on an eye and hook.

The wives at the top of the stairs were deciding whether they too should go outside. One was saying we should go out and the other was saying someone needs to stay with the babies. Just then a baby started wailing, and one of the wives said you go check on him, I’ll look in on the others.

The lock was so delicate, it looked like it belonged to a doll. I jammed the lock with Johnny’s knife. A couple of shoves and it broke apart. One of the wives upstairs said, “You hear that?” But the other said, “It was Timmy, he threw his paci across the room.”

I tiptoed down the stairs. At the bottom was the door with the
NO TRESPASSING
decal. I slowly pushed it open. It was the first time I’d ever been down here. My dad called it his sanctuary. Ever since I left Mesadale, I thought of it as his grave.

It didn’t look like a death scene or anything. The blood had been sponged up, and everything looked like he’d just left and would be back any minute. Even the hole in the chair seemed harmless. But the truth is, you can tell when you’re where someone’s died. I could feel it, like a bad vibe, like you don’t even want to know what shit went down here. I stood there feeling that feeling for a while. That’s when I figured out where to look: up on the shelf above the gun rack, where the Big Boy used to hang. I rolled the computer chair over and climbed up to get it. It was a Book of Mormon turned over on its side. But inside wasn’t the Book of Mormon. The text looked like a log a foreman would use to keep track of times and outputs on an assembly line. There was a long column of initials—R, K, S, S1, P3, etc.—and a row that showed the days of the week. I climbed back down and rolled the chair back to the desk. Outside I heard the fire brigade, men yelling, trucks idling, a diesel pump.

I rolled the chair over to the window well. I opened the window and climbed up into it. The well was one of those steel half tubes you put around a basement window to hold back the soil. That’s when it happened, the thing I never thought would happen. I heard a couple of cars screech in, doors slamming, then that voice I’ll never forget: “Sisters, be not afraid.”

The well was big enough to crouch in. Its lip projected four inches above the ground, and if I was very careful, I could peer over it. I was on the side of the house and everyone was in the back, but I could see the Prophet’s suburban with the smoked windows and bulletproof plating. One of his bodyguards circled the car, checking things out. He looked like a weird cross between a missionary and a mercenary—formal slacks, a short-sleeved dress shirt, a soldier’s buzz cut, and a nine-millimeter semiautomatic tucked into his belt.

While the men worked to put out the fire, the Prophet gathered the women and children around. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “The Brothers will have the fire out in no time. Sisters, come closer, and I will explain what’s happened, for I want you to know what I know; and I can see from the fear in your eyes you want to know what I know. There are two explanations for this sudden fire here today. First, some will tell you it’s a heat fire, nothing more. We are in the middle of the summer in the middle of a drought in the middle of a desert. And so that is what it is, a heat fire, and there is no mystery to it all. If that is what you believe, then so be it. Yet others will tell you, it’s a message from God just as the burning bush was God’s message to Moses. I will let you decide which it is. I won’t even tell you which I believe it to be. Yet think wisely, Sisters, for you will be judged on what you believe, both now and ever after, when you meet our Heavenly Father at his gate.”

A lot of the sister wives and the kids were crying and the Prophet said, “Why are you afraid? The Lord will protect you if you’ve been obedient. For it is obedience upon which you’ll be judged. If you loved your husband and obeyed him, and you, children, if you loved your father and obeyed him, if all of you have loved God and obeyed him, then you will be taken care of, both in this world and beyond. Do not be afraid.” He was as close to shouting as he ever got: “Do not be afraid.”

There were a lot of other people around too, neighbors, Apostles, whoever, coming to see the fire and the Prophet, everyone in the back. Now was a good time to run for it. I started climbing out of the well when I heard the Prophet say, “I know many of you are wondering what will happen to you, and to this house, who will lead it, you ask, how can you now be a wife when you no longer have a husband? I know you fear living out your days without a husband, and you worry how you will be admitted to heaven having left earth without a husband. But I do not want you to worry, for tomorrow I will come to you and I will marry you myself, each of you, and this house will become my house, and you my wives, so that when you rise to heaven and are asked by God himself whether or not you are wife, you can tell him you are his Prophet’s wife, and with this news I promise he shall let you in.”