by R. R. Irvine
“I want you to give Mr. Traveler five minutes of your time. After that, Nat, come find me.”
“I’m expected back at my post.”
“We’ll need to talk first.” McConkie patted the man on the shoulder and walked away.
Traveler eased himself into a cross-legged position facing Beasley. “I just came from the motel. Your wife told me everything.”
Beasley removed his hard hat, laid it beside him, and knuckled his eyes.
“I know about the letters to the medical board,” Traveler said to prime the man, to make him think that there was no longer a need to hide anything.
“What do you want from me?” Beasley said after a while.
“I’m an adopted child myself,” Traveler said, stretching the point. “My father and I don’t share the same blood. That bothered me for a long time, when I was too young to know better. I did some research on genetics in those days. But you know what my father said? It’s not the genes that count, it’s your upbringing.”
“I’ve done a little checking myself. It’s not impossible for dark-haired parents to have a redheaded child.”
“What are the odds?”
Beasley swung a fist at Traveler but missed. Momentum and exhaustion left him flat on his face in the dirt.
Traveler started to help him, then thought better of it. “You heard the bishop. I’m here with his permission. He expects you to answer my questions.”
“It would kill my wife if this got out.”
“I’m after a killer, not gossip.”
Beasley righted himself. “All right, for God’s sake. Why shouldn’t I tell you? Anybody with eyes could see it. At first, my wife said it was just temporary, him having red hair. All babies are blonds, she said. But instead of getting darker, it just got redder. So what do you expect? Of course I got suspicious. Who wouldn’t? Is that what you want to hear?”
Traveler looked away from the man’s tortured eyes and kept quiet.
“For Norma’s sake, I pretended he was my son.”
“He is your son.”
“I even let her name him Baby Joe. But I think she must have known too, down deep, that he wasn’t mine. I could see it in her face sometimes. A sadness. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t like she’d been unfaithful. Hell, she didn’t even know what was happening to her during those exams. Doctor Joe was clever that way. He’d been treating people around here for twenty years. Twenty years of getting away with it. There are still some who don’t believe it. I heard them at the Bishop’s Court. Women swearing on The Book of Mormon that the man was a regular saint.”
“What kind of women still believe in him?” Traveler asked.
“I know what you’re getting at, that the man must have left the old and ugly untouched.”
Traveler thought about Norma Beasley. She wasn’t a pretty woman, but then he hadn’t seen her before the pregnancy.
Tears mixed with soot on Beasley’s cheeks. He unbuttoned his shirt and used the front of his Mormon undergarment to dry his face. “It wasn’t like that. He preyed on the shy ones, the women who wouldn’t understand what he was doing. Or wouldn’t admit it. You must think I’m a fool. That we’re all ignorant fools. What we are is small-town people. It’s as simple as that. We’re not suspicious of folks, especially our friends and neighbors.”
“Did you ever ask your wife what went on in the doctor’s office?”
“Norma’s too shy to talk to me about things like that.”
Too shy or too smart, Traveler thought. The need for a child may have clouded her judgment. Or perhaps she was afraid of what her husband might do if all doubt was removed.
“Even at the Relief Society, where the women chatter all day long, my Norma’s a quiet one,” Beasley said. “Ask anybody.”
Traveler decided to bring his thoughts out in the open. “Do you think Doctor Joe could have been murdered?”
“You’re looking at me, aren’t you? Well, I don’t blame you. After the Bishop’s Court, I wanted to kill him myself.”
“Is that when he was excommunicated?”
“You’re damned right. I wanted to strap him onto that table of his, put his feet in those stirrups and cut his balls off. So did a lot of others around here. But the bishop wouldn’t let us. ‘Let God deal with him,’ he said. ‘He’s done enough to our town already without turning us into killers.’ ”
Beasley ground his teeth. “That’s easy for the bishop to say, turn your cheek and all that. As for me, I hope the bastard’s burning in hell.”
“Was he a religious man?”
Beasley ignored the question. “I can’t understand people sometimes. Especially those who believe he was railroaded by a few hysterical women. I mean, for God’s sake. Damn near every woman in town was on that table of his at one time or another.”
“Your wife said he prescribed tranquilizers before her examinations?”
“Strong stuff, let me tell you. She’d take one an hour before seeing him and be walking around like a zombie by appointment time. I didn’t dare let her drive by herself.”
“I don’t get it,” Traveler said. “Why did it take so long for someone to realize what was happening?”
“It was strange how we found out. Shirley Colton was visiting relatives in Salt Lake and took sick and—Damn, I shouldn’t be telling you this. I probably wouldn’t be, either, if I wasn’t so tired.” He shuddered. “Sick and tired of everything that’s been going on.”
Traveler waited, knowing a wrong word or expression could end the interview.
“Like I was saying,” Beasley continued, “Shirley was sick, some kind of female complaint, and went to see one of those woman doctors. When she gave Shirley a pelvic, Shirley couldn’t believe how quick and easy it was. Nothing like what Doctor Joe put her through. So she asked the woman about it, and saw the proper instruments for herself. And that’s when she realized what Doctor Joe had been dilating her with all those years.”
“She told you this herself?”
“It was Lew, her husband, who spilled the beans to the rest of us. That was the night I kept him from murdering Doctor Joe Sutton.”
“What held you back?”
“He hanged himself. He didn’t have any choice once we found out about him.”
Traveler let that go for the time being. “What did Melba Nibley’s suicide have to do with any of this?”
“All we know for sure is that she had a bottle of those damned tranquilizers the doctor gave out. But don’t go telling all this to Ellis. He’s one of the few people in town who missed the Bishop’s Court. That’s when we all got together and decided he had enough on his mind without worrying about what was really happening on Doc’s table.”
“Did Doctor Joe leave a suicide note?”
“He had cancer.”
“Sure,” Traveler said. “A terminal case if I’ve ever heard of one.”
38
THE HEAT, a hundred and one degrees of it if the thermometer in front of Odell’s Drug Store was to be believed, had turned the asphalt streets as sticky as old gum. By the time Traveler reached the motel, crossing its gravel parking area was like walking on hot coals. Each step brought fresh waves of mosquitoes up from Cowdery Creek to attack with kamikaze-like frenzy.
Slapping at his ears, he ran to the screen door. It was locked. Through it he could see Martin and Dora Neff staring at one another across the open space that separated the bungalow’s twin beds. They looked as shy as lovers the morning after.
“I’m being eaten alive out here.”
“Sorry,” Martin said, coming to the rescue.
Once inside, Traveler ran cool water in the bathroom sink and bathed his face and hands. While he was drying himself, he explained the situation. “In case you haven’t noticed, the wind has stopped. So as of now, the fire is static. Even so, the bishop has asked all the women to gather at the Co-op in case they have to be evacuated. I need to talk to one of them. Maybe more.”
“The last time
you were there they ran you out,” Martin said.
“That’s where Dora comes in.”
“I don’t like hiding behind a woman,” Martin said.
“Don’t be so old-fashioned,” she told him. “That’s why you brought me, isn’t it?”
Ten minutes later Traveler and Martin were standing in front of the Co-op waiting for Dora to come out. They kept the Jeep’s door open for a quick retreat. Underfoot, the street tar felt as if it were about to lose all surface tension.
Martin squatted and dug his fingers into the asphalt to collect a gummy ball. “I used to chew this stuff when I was a kid. Poor man’s Wrigley’s, we called it.” He stood up, rolling the tar between his fingers.
“She’s taking a long time,” Traveler said.
Martin sniffed the tar ball. “Do you remember this one? ‘My mamma gave me a penny to buy some candy. I didn’t buy the candy, I bought some chewing gum. My mama gave me a nickle to buy a pickle. I didn’t buy the pickle, I bought some chewing gum.’ ”
“You’re not going to chew that, are you?”
“It’s all right,” Dora called from the Co-op’s open door. “It’s safe to come in.”
A few feet inside the doorway, a quilting rack had been set up, blocking their way. A quilt, the same one Traveler had seen Mrs. Joe working on, effectively screened off the rest of the Co-op.
“This is the only way you’re going to get your interview,” Dora said. “Mrs. Colton’s willing to speak with you, but not face to face. Not now that you know what happened to her.”
“How can I be sure it’s her I’m talking to?”
“I know her by sight,” Dora said. “She’s sitting on the other side right now. You have my word on it.”
A metal folding chair stood at one end of the rack. Dora sat on it, taking hold of the quilt’s edge like a net judge at a tennis match.
Joseph Smith had used a similar setup, hiding behind a blanket, when he translated The Book of Mormon from golden tablets using magic glasses supplied by the Angel Moroni.
“She says you may ask your questions,” Dora said.
Traveler wondered how many women were listening on the other side. “Do you realize what happened to Claire Bennion?”
“She’s nodding that she does,” Dora said.
Martin rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall.
Traveler shook his head. He should have asked for two more chairs. “I need your help to find out who killed her. Before someone else gets hurt.”
“She’s nodding,” Dora said. “She agrees.”
Martin started chewing on something. Traveler hoped it wasn’t road tar. A line went through his head. My mother gave me a dime to buy a lime. I didn’t buy the lime, I bought some chewing gum.
“Let’s start with Melba Nibley. Is there anything about her that you left out the first time we talked?”
Dora nodded.
“If I’d known who you were,” Shirley Colton said, her voice calm, “I wouldn’t have spoken to you at all.”
“I apologize for misleading you.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
When she didn’t continue, Dora smiled at one side of the quilt and then the other. Traveler concentrated on the pattern, tracing his past movements on the hand-sewn map of Wasatch. He’d reached the Uinta Hotel when the Colton woman continued.
“I don’t know everything that went on, only what Melba told me. It’s hard to remember it now, after so much has happened. She kept coming to see me every day. Each time she’d tell me something new and then get so embarrassed she’d have to leave. But the next day she’d be back, picking up the story and going forward with it until she couldn’t face me anymore. Like me with you now, Mr. Traveler.”
Traveler nodded. Dora picked up the movement and passed it on to the other side of the quilt.
“She never did come right out with it, what Doctor Joe had done to her. She kept beating around the bush. But I knew what she meant, all right, because I’d gone through it myself.”
Traveler found the doctor’s house on the map, remembered the rusting examination table, stirrups and all, that had been tossed out like junk.
“Melba felt she had betrayed her husband. ‘I’ve committed adultery,’ she said. I told her it was rape but she wouldn’t believe me. She kept reading from our good book. ‘If he murdered he was punished unto death; and if he committed adultery he was also punished.’ ”
The quilt bowed as if someone had touched it gently from the other side. “She got a rash and called it her punishment. She thought it was a venereal disease. I tried to tell her she was being foolish but she wouldn’t listen. That it was nothing but hives. That if Doctor Joe had VD, half the women in town would be diseased. But nothing helped. She got hysterical and couldn’t breathe. She got chest pains and I thought she was going to die. I wanted to call Ellis, but she didn’t want me worrying her husband at work, so I took her to Doctor Joe’s office. I figured even he was better than nothing in an emergency. Looking back on it, I thank God he wasn’t there.”
The quilt moved again, as if a finger were tracing a line across it.
“He was at a medical convention in Salt Lake, Mrs. Joe told us. So all she could do was lay hands upon Melba while we both prayed. When the pain kept up, Mrs. Joe went into her husband’s office and found something for Melba to take. Whatever it was, it relaxed her right away. Probably the same tranquilizers he prescribed for all us women. Dear God, we made it easy for him. ‘We don’t want an attack of nerves,’ he’d say. ‘So take one capsule an hour before coming in to see me.’ Like sheep, we’d do it.”
She paused; her harsh breathing registered against the quilt. “Once I forgot to take mine, but even then I didn’t realize what was happening, only that I was embarrassed because his examination seemed so much like sex with my husband. It took a stranger, another doctor in Salt Lake, to tell me what was actually going on.”
The quilt trembled. “If it hadn’t been for that,” she said, “I’d still be going in there for my pelvics and letting him do it to me.”
Without touching the quilt’s surface, Traveler ran his finger parallel to Main Street, stopping at Odell’s Drug Store. A hangman’s noose had been stitched in black in the upper left-hand corner of the square representing the building. Doctor Joe’s office, he remembered, was on the second floor.
“When Melba’s chest pains stopped,” Shirley Colton went on, her voice devoid of emotion, “Mrs. Joe said she should be anointed with oil for a true cure. ‘Oil, the laying on of hands, and prayers. That’s worth more than all the doctors in the world.’ Mrs. Joe’s own words. ‘I’ll do what’s necessary to save her.’ So I left Melba there, with Mrs. Joe. But the cure didn’t take, because that night Melba killed herself. Ever since, Mrs. Joe has blamed herself.”
Traveler waited a long time before breaking the silence. “Did Doctor Joe give you the tranquilizers personally?”
“At first he did. Free samples, he said, that he got from the drug companies. But after a while he wrote prescriptions for us.”
“For all his women patients here in town?”
Dora, blinded by tears, shook her head at Traveler.
“I can’t vouch for that,” Shirley Colton said.
“Can you vouch for the women who wrote to the State Medical Board?”
“Yes. They . . . we all took his tranquilizers. Like a bunch of foolish sheep to the slaughter.”
“Are you certain that Ellis Nibley doesn’t know any of this?”
“Of course.”
For the first time, he didn’t believe her.
He was about to pursue the matter when he heard footsteps on the other side of the quilt. The footsteps were followed by a whispered conversation. As soon as that ended, Shirley Colton spoke to him again. “The sheriff just called, checking to see if you were here, Mr. Traveler. He wants you to meet him at the Nibley place. He says it’s an emergency.”
39
TRAVELER PARKED across
the street from the Nibley house. Except for the sheriff’s car out front, the place looked as deserted as the first time he’d seen it. But then the entire town looked as if it had been abandoned to the fire.
He turned to Dora Neff, who was sitting in the back seat. Crying had left her eyes swollen, her nose red. Tears had uncovered deep wrinkles beneath her makeup.
“I hope you won’t need me in there,” she said. “A woman’s presence would only embarrass the poor man.”
“I agree,” Martin said from the passenger’s seat. “It’s best that you talk to Nibley and the sheriff alone. But if you need us, you know where we’ll be.”
Humming his chewing gum song, Martin got out of the front seat and slid into the back beside Dora. “We’ll be right here.”
As Traveler walked up the overgrown path toward the house, he heard his father singing, “ ‘My mother gave me a dollar to buy a collar. I didn’t buy the collar, I bought some chewing gum.’ ”
The door jerked open before Traveler had time to use the heavy brass knocker. Ellis Nibley, wild-eyed and disheveled, stood there pointing a gun at Traveler’s chest. Traveler risked a glance back toward the car, but his father was singing to Dora Neff and oblivious to the situation.
The revolver—a .357 by the looks of it, a twin of the one Sheriff Hickman wore— twitched, a movement meant to wave Traveler inside. He obeyed carefully. Nibley bolted the door behind them.
A narrow entrance hall, crammed with a turn-of-the-century hat rack and a massive marble-topped sideboard, opened into a parlor on one side, a dining room on the other. Sheriff Hickman was in the parlor, facedown on an oriental rug, blood oozing from a gash on the side of his bald head. He groaned when Traveler knelt beside him.
“Are you all right?”
“More or less.”
“He may have a concussion,” Traveler said for Nibley’s benefit.
But the man, whose eyes were fixed and unblinking, didn’t respond.
“What happened?” Traveler said.
