Authors: David Ebershoff
The 19th Wife (32 page)
The next day Ann Eliza accepted Brigham’s proposal and soon they married and that’s how my sister became the 19th wife. If it weren’t for me it would never have been so, and this is the truth as far as I know it and I swear by it, and for this I’ve never felt more ashamed.
AND I SHOULD HELP YOU BECAUSE—?
So Johnny was gone and Elektra and I were on our own. No big deal, we were used to it. In the morning we drove out to Kanab. It was nice enough—the hot wind and the am radio singing
redneck woman
and the quiet that comes when you’re alone.
The Mega Bite wasn’t open yet but 5 was behind the counter laying out the cold cuts. The ceiling light cast a sickly green on everything: she was pale and green and the slices of ham and turkey looked green too. Eventually she saw me in the window and came to unlock the door. I told her I wanted a turkey club but she said, “You didn’t drive all the way out here for a fucking sandwich.”
“Maybe not.”
“How’s the sleuthing going? Find your killer?”
I told her not yet but in a way that didn’t reveal much.
“Got it,” she said. “You don’t want to share any clues with a girl who’s got a fishy story.”
“Maybe.”
“Save yourself the time, I had nothing to do with it.” She stopped. “You know what they say: follow the pussy.”
“Isn’t it follow the money?”
“Same thing.” She finished making the sandwich and pulled a long knife to slice it in half. “You talk to my mom yet?”
“Yes,” I said. “Did you talk to her?”
“Not in a while. How is she?”
“Shaken up.”
“I know, it’s crazy. I think she actually loved the guy.” After a moment 5 set her elbow on the counter and planted her chin into the heel of her palm. “While you’re out nosing around, I wish you could answer the real mystery.”
“What’s that?”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do they keep on believing all that crap? Where’s the skepticism? Why don’t they ask themselves—just once, that’s all it would take—why none of it makes sense?”
“If it’s the only thing you know—”
“No, that’s not it. I mean, sure, yeah, if it’s all you know it’s hard to imagine anything else. But I’m talking about something different. I’m talking about why they never once have any suspicion that something’s not right. You don’t need to know anything to have a doubt. You just need to listen. To yourself. Why are so many people so lousy at listening to themselves?”
“Maybe they’re scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of death. Of what comes after.”
“And I’m not?” The more we talked, the less certain I was of where 5 fit into all this. “That reminds me, there’s this website you might want to check out:
19thwife.com
. It’s some antipolygamy group. I guess they help women escape and do legal work and stuff like that. Maybe they can help your mom. But for all I know it could be a trap. Anyway, check it out. Oops, time to open up. Morning rush.” She unlocked the door to let in a man and his college-age son. The boy was all arm and leg, with an Adam’s apple the size of a rock. He inhaled his muffin the way you or I would eat a nut. When they were gone, 5 said, “You liked him.”
“He was cute, so what?”
“You need to get laid.”
“Tell me about it. But first I need to get my mom out of jail.”
“I wish I could help you.”
“Then tell me what you know about that night.”
“I already told you: nothing. I wasn’t there.” I know I blush bad, but 5 went as red as the peppers in the prep tray. “I can’t help you,” she said. “I don’t know anything about what happened to your dad.”
“He was your dad too.”
“Stepdad. Look, I got to get to work. See you around.” She shouldered her way through the swinging doors, into the kitchen with the canned tomatoes and a fresh delivery of presliced ham.
On my way back to St. George, a cop pulled me over. I was going eight, maybe ten miles above the limit, but that’s not what this was about. We both knew it, each of us sitting behind our wheels at the side of the road. The cop stayed in his cruiser for a long time doing paperwork. His lightbars were spinning blue and red, and they got Elektra jumping around barking at the rear window and the fur on her back was up like a brush.
The brim of the cop’s hat hid his face and the late morning sun made it hard to see anything. When he stepped out of the cruiser the sun was behind him and all I could see was a black cutout coming toward me. Elektra lost it, showing her teeth and howling like she was ready to sacrifice herself in my defense. I tried to calm her but she sensed I was scared. “It’s all right,” I said, but you can’t lie to dogs.
“I’m sure you know why I’m pulling you over.”
“Why don’t you tell me.”
Elektra shoved her snout out the window and began licking the cop’s hand. “Hello, puppy.” I handed him my license. He cupped it in his hand almost like it was something delicate that might blow away, then handed it back. “Here you go, Jordan.”
“My registration’s in here somewhere,” I said.
“That’s all right. Why don’t you step out of the van.”
“Why?”
“Just step out of the van.”
“OK.”
“Now let’s go back to the station.”
“Why?”
“C’mon, leash up the dog and let’s go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Jordan.” The guy touched my arm. He looked familiar, but almost everyone in Mesadale looks familiar. He was about thirty, a regular guy in decent shape, like a JCPenney underwear model. “I think it’s time you and I had a talk.”
When I got out of the van, I saw who I was dealing with. Shield number 714, Mesadale Police Department, Alton. Well, there you go.
“Is something wrong with Queenie?”
“She’s fine. Everything’s fine. You and I just need to have a little chat.”
“Can’t we talk right here?”
“C’mon, let’s go.” I got Elektra on her leash and we followed Alton back to the cruiser. The lightbars were still spinning and Elektra was tugging at the leash. She didn’t like any of this and she didn’t want to get in the car. The highway was empty and it was eleven in the morning and I’d bet a buck it was already 110 out on the asphalt. The poor girl, her paws must’ve been burning up.
Elektra and I rode in back, watching the road through the grill. This was my first time in the back of a police cruiser, and you know what—it sucks. There’s something about looking out at the world through a steel grill. Even if you haven’t done anything, you feel guilty. A voice came across the police radio and Alton spoke into his mike, saying something about home.
“Am I under arrest?” I asked.
Officer Alton laughed. “You’re not under arrest.”
“I know, silly mistake, crazy me. It’s just that I’m in the back of a cruiser talking to you through a fucking cage.”
He didn’t say anything else until we pulled into the police station lot. “Just follow me.”
“What about Elektra?”
“Bring her in.”
I walked with her close at my side while Alton kept me close to his. His hand was at my elbow, but it was a weird proximity. It wasn’t like I was being apprehended, but it wasn’t like I was free.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” I said.
“In a minute.”
In the station we passed a desk manned by a cop who looked like Alton, only redder in the face. “I’m going into three,” Alton said.
“What do you got?”
“POI.”
“I’ll tell the captain.”
Officer Alton shook his head. “Not yet. Let me figure out what he is.”
“Want me to take the dog?”
Alton shook his head. “We’ll keep her.” He led me down a hall into a small room with a table and two plastic chairs. “Have a seat.”
“I get it,” I said. “Interrogation room number three.”
“This isn’t an interrogation.”
“What’s that—a two-way mirror?”
“It is.”
“Who’s on the other side? The whole police force?”
“No.”
“Maybe the Prophet himself?”
Alton dragged a chair around so it was next to the other and sat down. He set his hat on the table and his forehead was dented with a red band. “Fine, don’t sit. But I thought it would be more comfortable for you. Jordan, would you stop looking at the mirror. No one’s on the other side.”
“I’m not quite ready to believe you.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Why don’t you first tell me what this is all about.”
“I know you’ve been to see my wife.”
I once saw a movie about this guy accused of killing his girlfriend. When they hauled him in he kept saying to himself, Don’t say anything, don’t say anything. He thought it so hard that those words appeared on the two-way mirror and for the rest of the interrogation he kept looking at those words. In the end, the cops got nothing and they had to let him go. The thing was, the guy actually killed his girlfriend, strangled her with her sweater, and that’s how it ended, the guy being released into the world.
“Jordan?”
“Yeah.”
“Queenie told me you wanted to know why the investigation’s still open.”
“You checked the no box.”
“Can I talk to you not as a member of law enforcement, but as a”—he searched for the word—“as a friend. The Prophet, he wanted me to talk to you.”
“Me?”
“He thinks you’re right.”
“Right about what?”
“He thinks someone else killed your dad.”
This was either going really well or I was totally fucked. “Why does he think that?”
“Because it doesn’t make sense to him either. Your mom, she never liked making a fuss. Why would she start now? The Prophet knows you’ve been snooping around. Turns out he’s got the same questions as you.”
“So why’d you bring me here?”
“You look like you could use something to drink. I’ll be right back.”
When he left I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were what I saw—not my hair or my nose or my skinny arms. Just my eyes. They seemed to float on the smoked glass.
Alton came back with two waxed paper cups of apple juice. He set the cups on the table and I took mine. It was a small cup, like what you use at a water cooler. The juice was golden pink and clear. Alton gulped his down and swiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Man, I love apple juice.” And then, “You’re not drinking yours?”
Now might be a good time to tell you about the vitamins. Sometimes at school they would pass out vitamins. Each kid got a waxed paper cup with a pink vitamin rolling around the bottom. Once I remember they passed out cups with a pink powder in it. The room monitor filled each cup with apple juice and made us drink it. He said it was fluoride for our teeth, but it tasted like baking soda. The vitamins made you feel groggy and you’d go kinda blank for a couple of hours. Not exactly passed out, but not really there either. I still don’t know why they did that to us. Maybe they played more of the Prophet’s tapes while we were drugged, with him talking about murder and stuff like that. Maybe they raped the girls. I really don’t know. Once I saw a kid refuse to take his vitamin. They hauled him out into the school courtyard to lash him with a horsewhip. He still refused. That night he was kicked out. The chance of that kid still being alive is slim to none.
I pushed the cup away. “No thanks.”
“You sure?”
“So the Prophet thinks I might be right about my mom?”
“That’s right, and that leaves him concerned.”
“I have a hard time believing he’s concerned about my mom rotting in jail.”
“Well, that too, but what I mean is, if she didn’t do it, the killer’s still out there.”
“And he’s scared he might be next on the list.”
“In a nutshell, yes.” Alton leaned forward, his face close to mine. I could smell his sweat and the white-bar soap he used to wash his hands. “He thought maybe you and he could help each other.”
“Let me get this straight: the guy excommunicates me and now he wants my help?”
“You might want his as well.”
“I doubt it.”
“He knows everything about this town, where everyone is, who’s doing what, everything.”
“Everything except who killed my dad.”
“Look, you both want the same thing. You want your mom out of jail and the Prophet wants the killer. It’s a win-win.”
“No such thing. Give me one good reason why I should make a deal with the guy who ruined my life.”
“Because he could save your mom.”
He handed me a slip of paper with a phone number on it. The handwriting was so bad you’d think a six-year-old had scrawled it out. I pushed it back to him. “Keep it,” he said, but I already had it memorized.
“You’ll take me back to my van?”
Elektra and I followed him down the hall and out the station door. Overhead the sun blazed, reflecting against the white concrete, and for a second everything flashed white and I couldn’t see. I lost my way and had to reach for Alton.
“Here,” he said. “Take this,” and the cop offered his big stone of a hand.
Welcome to
19thwife.com
! We’re the only online community (as far as we know!) of ex-plural wives (and their children) telling THE TRUTH about polygamy in America today! We take our name from Ann Eliza Young, who fought to end polygamy in the US in the 19th century. She was a totally bad-ass chick! To join,
click here
. To read, scroll down.
Posted by GirlNumber5 (July 2)
Can someone please explain to me how the LDS guys go around saying all the Doctrine & Covenants are the word of God and that Joseph Smith heard them through revelation but put an asterisk on that because it turns out Joseph was all wrong about the one that deals with polygamy. Huh? So if that one’s a mistake, what’s to say all the others are true? I mean, isn’t that why the Firsts, as much as I hate them, in some ways don’t they actually make more sense than the Mormons? They believe in all the D&Cs, they don’t pick and choose. How can the Mormons go around
editing
God? If you ask me, it proves the whole thing, whether LDS or Firsts or whatever, is a piece of crap. But I’m open to persuasion (doubtful).