by R. R. Irvine
In Utah there are friends and there are Gentiles, Traveler reminded himself. The latter seldom qualified as more than acquaintances, since the Saints, as Mormons called themselves, had little time to waste on nonbelievers who were to be denied salvation anyway.
“Almost thirty years,” Traveler said.
“In all that time have I ever traded on our friendship?”
“You weren’t always working for the prophet.”
“What does that mean?”
“That owing you would be like owing the church.”
“We want your soul, Moroni, not your money.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Martin said. “The Saints always want their ten percent.”
“They tithe on your gross,” Bill reminded. “Not your net. To prove yourself worthy of temple entry, you have to produce your 1040s.’
Tanner’s squint came back. “You Travelers are named for our angel. I’ve taken that as a sign since the day I met you.” His gaze settled on Traveler’s father, who’d exchanged the name Moroni for Martin the day he entered first grade. “I pray for the day of your return to us.”
“Why are you here, Willis?” Traveler said.
“As a reminder that I’m always available to help.”
Martin snapped his fingers. “Dammit, Mo. That reminds me. We’ve got a client waiting for your help.”
He pulled his son toward the courtroom door.
Clint intercepted them, barring their way with an outthrust crutch.
“Claire gave me this for you,” he said, handing Traveler a note.
He hobbled away while Traveler read it. The ways of the Lord and his angel Moroni are mysterious. So are mine.
He tried to find her in the crowd, but she was nowhere to be seen.
2
A WEST Temple wino, two blocks east of his normal beat, was waiting for them on State Street. His baseball-capped head bobbed like one of those dashboard dolls as he loped along inside Mad Bill’s sandwich board. Today’s proclamation, posted on both sides in newsprint, declared THE FIRES OF HELL AWAIT.
Bill exchanged places with the man, who hurried away the moment Charlie paid him off with a bottle, a half pint judging by the size of its brown bag.
Bill spread his arms and took a deep, dramatic breath. “Smell that. Manna from heaven.”
Charlie pointed toward the Wasatch Mountains. “Smoke signals from God.”
Traveler followed the Indian’s finger. Usually, the mountains were a constant reminder of Mormon efficiency. Of how they’d crossed that ten-thousand-foot barrier on foot and in covered wagons to find their promised land. Which turned out to be a desert sinkhole no one else wanted. Only Brigham Young knew better, knew that the mountains were high enough to hold snow the year round and thereby keep the creeks and rivers flowing in the hottest of summers.
Today, however, the mountains were a blur, obscured by smoke from the fires on the east bench.
“I feel like walking,” Traveler said. The office was five blocks away, uphill all the way to South Temple Street.
“You’ve got a client waiting,” Martin reminded him. “He’s been there for hours.”
“Don’t worry about him,” Barney Chester said, unwrapping a fresh cigar. “I left him plenty of magazines to read, Improvement Era and Church News.”
Both were Mormon periodicals that Barney kept stocked in magazine racks behind his cigar counter. He claimed they sold better than Playboy.
“Besides, I told him we wouldn’t be back for hours.”
“Then we’ll walk,” Martin said, “as long as we stop by the bank on the way.”
“A wise precaution,” Chester added, speaking around his cigar, his voice a bad imitation of Edward G. Robinson, whom he thought he resembled. “That way Bill and Charlie can act as guards.”
They began walking north, Traveler and Martin in the lead, with Barney right behind them. Bill and Charlie held back a few yards, so they’d be free to solicit donations along the way. Panhandling, the police had called it on occasion. Bill preferred to think of it as tithing for his and Charlie’s two-man religion, the Church of the True Prophet.
“Why do we need guards?” Traveler asked after one of Brigham Young’s blocks, seven to a mile.
“Because of all the cash,” his father answered. “The bail money.”
“I thought you said we wouldn’t need it.”
Martin spread his hands, a gesture of innocence, while his face pleaded guilty.
“How much?”
“Not much. After all, Critchlow said the worst that could happen was probation.”
“Dad?”
“We figured you might need getaway money,” Chester said.
“Bribes,” Bill called.
“Tithing,” Charlie intoned.
Martin shook his head. “You turned down Willis Tanner’s offer of help. That could have gotten you jail time, and a man my age doesn’t want to be separated from his son. Even for a short time.”
“Come on, out with it. How much cash are we talking about?”
Martin stopped at Third South. Zion’s Bank was still four blocks away, three north and one west. He pulled a wad of bills the size of The Book of Mormon from his coat pocket. “I figured the bigger the war chest the better, so I cleaned out our savings. Barney added another two thousand to the pot. I didn’t have time to mortgage the house.”
“You’re talking ten thousand dollars, for God’s sake.” Traveler checked the area for suspicious-looking characters, but found no one the equal of Bill or Charlie.
“Enough to get us out of the country if we had to,” Martin went on, stuffing the money back into his pocket where it made such a bulge Traveler wondered why he hadn’t noticed it in the first place.
“Out of state would have been good enough,” Traveler said. “They don’t usually extradite for simple assault.”
“The church has a long reach. I’ve heard it said that your friend Willis is a member of the Danites.”
“Who told you that?”
“Willis, actually. He hinted at it anyway, when I saw him this morning.”
“He’s bluffing,” Traveler said without conviction.
The Danites were said to have been disbanded years ago, though no one believed it. Whatever their present-day duties, membership was a closely guarded secret. In the beginning, they’d been Joseph Smith’s spiritual vigilantes, empowered by the church’s concept of blood atonement to murder as a means of cleansing sinners’ souls.
“Wait a minute,” Traveler said. “Why were you and Willis together this morning?”
“Another precaution,” his father said.
“What was his price?”
“Don’t worry about it. We only had to pay up in the event of conviction.”
Traveler started walking.
“Wait up,” Bill shouted. He trotted forward, his sandwich board banging his shins at each step. When he caught up he said, “Charlie thinks you ought to get out of town for a while, Mo.”
The Indian nodded, a more usual comment from him than speech.
“That’s what I’ve been telling you all along,” Martin said. “That’s why I took an out-of-town case for you.”
“If you knew I would be free to take the case, why did you withdraw the money?”
Martin looked away, but not before Traveler saw the mist in his eyes. Traveler draped an arm around his father and squeezed affectionately.
“For Christ’s sake,” Martin growled. “This is Salt Lake. People will think we’re a bunch of fairies.” He kept his distance all the way to the bank.
3
NEPHI BATES and another man, presumably Traveler’s client, stood in the center of the Chester Building’s lobby, their heads craned back to admire the Depression-era frescoes on the ceiling. Brigham Young was up there, leading a handcart battalion. So was Jim Bridger, the first white man to see the Great Salt Lake and spill the beans about it.
When Bates’s eyes came down to earth, his look of adoration ga
ve way to instant disappointment.
“I was hoping for a conviction,” he said.
Usually he confined his comments to religion, giving rise to Barney Chester’s contention that his elevator operator was a temple spy from across the street.
“We’re sorry to disappoint you,” Martin said.
“My prayers have been answered just the same.”
Traveler waited for an explanation. When none came he looked to his father, who shrugged and said, “This is our client, Ellis Nibley.”
From a distance Nibley had looked to be in his early forties. Up close he had the face of a sick old man, bone thin, with ashen skin and wrinkles like streaks of pain. Martin had been right about him. He’d be hard to turn down.
“Brother Nibley is just back from a baptism for the dead,” Bates said.
“That’s one of the reasons I’m here in Salt Lake,” Nibley said.
Traveler wasn’t about to ask about the other reasons in the lobby. “Would you please run us upstairs, Nephi?”
The elevator operator bit his lips before stepping to his gilt cage. Traveler gestured Nibley inside. The others knew enough to stay behind at Barney’s cigar stand.
Traveler’s office was on the third and top floor. One window looked north, toward the temple, the other east to the Wasatch Mountains. Both windows had been left open to catch a cross-breeze. But the rising heat of October’s Indian summer was too much for the Chester Building, which had been built long before air conditioning.
Traveler shed his coat and tie and suggested that Nibley do the same. Nibley’s only reply was to brush absently at his sleeves. His suit—Traveler pegged it for Sears or Montgomery Ward—still had store creases.
“You’re not what I expected,” he said.
Smiling, Traveler slipped behind the desk, his back to the temple window. His client sat down with a sigh, squinting against the light coming over Traveler’s shoulder.
“You said something about coming here for a baptism,” Traveler prompted.
“My wife’s.”
“Wasn’t she a member of the church?”
“She was temple eligible all her life until the end. After what happened, I couldn’t take the chance she wouldn’t join me when I passed on.”
Such baptisms were usually conducted for long-gone relatives who’d been born prior to Joe Smith’s revelation on the subject of salvation.
“She strayed at the end,” Nibley went on. “So I had to offer her the chance to rise.”
She could turn it down, of course, which Martin promised to do if anyone tried raising him.
“Just what is it you want from me?” Traveler said.
Nibley’s eyes widened as if suddenly adjusting to the light. “This city’s too big for me. I feel lost the moment I arrive. The only reason I ever come here is to visit Brigham Young’s temple. Here is where it started, so here is where I come to restore my faith.”
His gaze shifted. From the look on his face, Traveler knew the man had focused on the temple spire across the street, probably on the golden statue of the Angel Moroni.
A gust of wind, crossing from one window to the other, played a note that might have come from Moroni’s trumpet. At the sound Nibley shuddered. He shook his head hard to get his eyes back on Traveler.
“And did you restore yourself?” Traveler asked.
He bowed his head. “I never knew myself before . . . before Melba, my wife, passed on. I lived my life from one day to the other, never thinking ahead, never questioning my life. I accepted things as they were. I took them at face value.” His head came up. “I thought life was perfect in Wasatch, that we were good people, blessed by God.”
Traveler blinked. Wasatch was one of several small towns clustered in the middle of Sanpete County at the center of the state. A small county as population goes. Claire came from Sanpete.
Traveler got up and crossed the room to his father’s desk. Half a dozen case folders, representing investigations still pending, littered the glass top. Not a bad case load for a man who claimed to be retired. The only thing Traveler had pending was Ellis Nibley.
Traveler pushed the folders aside to study the map of Utah that was under the glass. The cluster of towns at Sanpete’s hub included Fairview, Mount Pleasant, Moroni, Spring City, Ephraim, Manti, and Wasatch. Adding them all together, the population couldn’t have been more than ten thousand.
Moroni, Claire’s hometown, looked to be no more than twenty miles from Wasatch.
Born in Moroni, she used to say, raised in Moroni, and screwed by Moroni.
Traveler swung around quickly, hoping to catch Nibley with a guilty look, something that might give him away as another of Claire’s ruses. But Nibley had moved to the window, his face pressed against the pane.
“Does the name Claire Bennion mean anything to you?” Traveler asked the man’s back.
No giveaway twitch, nothing, just a shake of his head as he backed away from the glass.
Traveler waited until Nibley settled back into the client’s chair before continuing. “She comes from your part of the state.”
“In my business—I own Nibley’s General Store by the way—names are important. You greet a man by name when he comes into your place, chances are he’ll be back.”
He paused to run a forefinger among the fleshy folds of his ear. “Take the name Bennion, now. Claire doesn’t come to mind. But I do remember a family of Bennions living over Moroni way.”
“That’s got to be them.”
“The Bennions I’m thinking of could trace their stock back to one of the handcart battalions. Duane and Naomi Bennion, if I’m not mistaken.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“A big family.” Nibley massaged an earlobe. “Sensible people when it came to having children. I remember my wife saying that. The Bennion boys arrived first, then the girls. Big brothers to look after them, that’s what Melba said.”
Nibley’s hand dropped from his ear and landed in his lap, where it folded fingers with its mate. “The whole bunch of them, six or seven at least, used to come into the store whenever they visited Wasatch for a movie or to shop.”
He sighed and closed his eyes. “I can see them now, Duane treating everybody to sodas and Popsicles.”
“Tell me about the girls.”
Nibley’s eyeballs moved rapidly behind their lids. “Three of them, I think there were. Towheaded. Melba used to scoop them up, one after the other, and give them free peppermints. They reminded her of our daughter, Louise.”
“The Claire Bennion I’m talking about is thin with black hair,” Traveler said. “She’s not someone you’d forget.”
“They stopped coming about the time Moroni got its own general store. Though I seem to remember hearing that the family moved away about the time their youngest girl entered high school.” He opened his eyes and nodded. “Her name was Kit if I’m not mistaken, not Claire. Why do you ask, anyway?”
Traveler glared at him, hoping for some telltale sign of guilt. “Let’s get back to you, Mr. Nibley. You still haven’t told me your problem.”
Nibley took a deep breath. “It’s not easy talking to a stranger.”
Suddenly Traveler felt ashamed of himself. One look should have told him that Ellis Nibley wasn’t Claire’s type of co-conspirator. His was the same tortured face Traveler had seen in his own mirror often enough.
“I lied to you before,” Nibley said. “My real reason for coming to Salt Lake was to hire a private detective. I’d planned on picking one out of the phone book, but then I read about you in the newspaper. About how you took on three men and won.”
“That had nothing to do with business,” Traveler said.
“I admire a man who doesn’t back off.”
“Sometimes that’s the smartest thing to do.”
Nibley tilted his head to one side as if trying to get a look at Traveler from another angle. “I was married to my wife for nearly thirty years, Mr. Traveler. That’s why I have
to know why she killed herself.”
Traveler swiveled his chair around until he was looking at the temple. “That’s the kind of question best answered across the street.”
“You’d think a husband would know his wife better than anyone, wouldn’t you? God knows I thought I did. If I was wrong about that, I could be wrong about anything.”
Nibley’s reflection pointed at the temple.
“Was she ill?” Traveler said.
“I checked with Doctor Joe’s nurse. She said Melba passed her annual physical with flying colors.”
Deliberately, Traveler kept his back to the man. “How were things between you and your wife?”
“Some personal problems cropped up recently. But nothing important, not after living together for thirty years. At least . . . Hell, I don’t know anymore.”
Judging from the way he said it, the problems were probably sexual. Menopause perhaps, male or female.
Traveler swiveled just enough to better his angle at Nibley’s reflection. Glare off the Angel Moroni blurred the man’s expression but not the fact that he was rubbing his face with both hands. The movement produced a scratching sound, either rough skin or whiskers, Traveler couldn’t tell which without turning around. Yet Nibley’s sigh was clear enough. It was a sound of surrender.
“We hadn’t slept together in a long time, what with Melba going through the change and all. She made it without a hitch though. Doctor Joe said so himself. I’ll tell you, that man was a healer, a saint, a . . .”
He covered his face again in a vain attempt to muffle a sob.
Traveler spoke quickly. “Do you suspect something other than suicide?”
“Oh, no. She left me a note.”
“What did she say?” Traveler asked softly.
“Only that she was sorry.”
Traveler faced his client once again. “Take my advice, then. Leave it at that.”
Nibley had eyes only for the Angel Moroni. “Melba worked in the store with me since the day I opened it. Now it feels empty, no matter how many customers I’ve got. You see”— he was aiming his words at the angel—“I never loved another woman, spiritually or physically. That’s why Melba and I married in the temple, so we could be sealed together for time and all eternity.”
