Baptism for the Dead

by R. R. Irvine

  Tradition had the statue made of solid gold. But Traveler knew better. It was fourteen-carat plate only and hollow at that.

  An escaping breath steamed the windowpane. He wiped away the mist to check the street again. There wasn’t a car in sight now. And judging by the way the snow was piling up, only snowplows and lunatics would be moving by nightfall.

  On a clear day he could see much of the inner, dying city from his window. Once it had been Brigham Young’s glory, a town laid out logically and beautifully, with streets radiating from the center of its life, the temple. The most immediate streets around Brigham’s spiritual hub were, quite reasonably, East Temple, North Temple, South Temple, and West Temple. Beyond them lay First North, First West, First East, First South, and so on, all the way out to the city limits. Much of the city had stayed that way for a hundred years, hunkered down in the middle of the prophet’s desert sanctuary, guarded by a ring of mountains and the vast lake. Then suddenly the population exploded and, like cancer, grew out to touch the foothills and even the shore, though nature was having something to say about that with the ever-rising waters. Greater Salt Lake, it was called now, with over a million people and everything that went with them.

  “Stop thinking so much and go home,” Traveler told himself. “You’re under no obligation to Tanner.”

  But Willis was a friend, going all the way back to junior high school. In this case he was also a potential second client; two in one day would be unheard of for a private detective who’d been away from the land of Zion for so many years.

  “I’ll give you ten minutes, Willis. Starting now.”

  With that, Traveler began reassembling the rifle. The army had taught him to do it blindfolded. But this time he watched himself work.

  The scope was the last piece to lock into place. Once that was done, he fed in a clip of live ammunition. Only then was he satisfied that the weapon was in full working order.

  He unloaded the rifle and began stripping it down again, this time with his eyes closed. When he finished, each piece lay on the table in proper order, ready for quick reassembly.

  Willis Tanner never seemed to change. He still wore his bright red hair in a crewcut that went all the way back to the eighth grade. His face still screwed itself into a lopsided squint whenever he was under pressure. At the moment, it was completely askew.

  “Jesus,” Traveler said. “I know that look of yours.”

  Tanner condemned the blasphemy with a grimace.

  “You know me, Willis. A sinner in the land of Zion.”

  Tanner shook his head sadly and made an obvious effort to relax his face. Then he brushed snow from the shoulders of his overcoat and turned his back as though expecting Traveler to help him out of the garment.

  “I’m not one of your wives, Willis.”

  That brought Tanner whirling around, fists clenched. He was a high official of the church, sworn to defend it against the slander of polygamy.

  Traveler raised his hands in mock surrender. “You wouldn’t hit a defenseless gentile, would you?” To a Mormon, all outsiders were gentiles, even Jews.

  Tanner was shifting his weight to attack when he slipped on the snow-slick tile underfoot. The bulky overcoat restricted his movements. He had to grab hold of the detective to keep from falling. The office was so small they ended up lurching into a wall.

  “I took you once before,” Tanner said to cover his embarrassment. “I could do it again.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Traveler said, separating himself from his friend’s bear hug. “In those days you had size on me.”

  Tanner stood up straight as if intending to measure himself against Traveler. Even on tiptoe he couldn’t match the other’s height.

  Frustrated, Tanner took a deep breath to inflate his chest, but still managed to look fragile beside Traveler.

  As a troubleshooter for the LDS Church, Willis Tanner wasn’t required to use brawn, only his brain. His specialty was public relations. He knew every important journalist from Utah to California and was owed enough favors to suppress anything from heresy to murder, though as far as Traveler knew it had never come to the latter.

  “What you need is a drink,” Traveler said, meaning it. But his friend took the comment as sacrilege.

  “One shot at you,” Tanner said. “That’s all I ask.”

  “What do I get in return?”

  “Employment.”

  “I’m not looking for work at the moment.”

  Tanner sighed. “What am I going to do with you, Moroni? You’re my fallen angel.”

  “I’m named for my father.”

  Tanner shrugged out of his topcoat and laid it on the client’s chair. As usual, he was wearing an expensive, three-piece gray suit. But on him, it looked as if it had come off the rack at Sears. “Your father was named for our angel.”

  “He didn’t ask for it and neither did I.”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered about it? You must have been named Moroni for a reason. Perhaps you’re destined to become one of us after all.”

  “When you start talking like that, Willis, you make me nervous.”

  Tanner’s squint had returned. Sight of it made Traveler squirm inside. In the past Willis had made it through heresy trials without looking troubled in the least. So whatever was bothering him at the moment had to be one hell of a problem.

  “I can’t help you,” Traveler said. “I’m working on something.”

  “Has Claire been calling you again?”

  “Maybe I ought to hire you as a detective.”

  “Hey, Mo, it’s none of my business. But she’s been making your life miserable ever since you moved back home.”

  “I still think of L.A. as home.”

  “You were born here. That makes you a Utah boy forever.”

  There was too much truth in that for Traveler to deny it.

  “Face it,” Tanner went on. “You’ll never have any peace until you get Claire Bennion out of your life.”

  “Maybe she’s my fallen angel.”

  “Angels don’t get themselves lost all the time and expect private detectives to come find them.”

  “That’s what I do, find people.”

  “Exactly.” Tanner couldn’t have looked more pleased if he’d converted Traveler to the Word of Wisdom as pronounced by Joseph Smith.

  “All right,” Traveler said. “Tell me about it. But I’m not promising anything.”

  Instead of answering Tanner stepped to the window, cleared a patch in the mist with the palm of his hand, and stared out. After a moment he stepped back just far enough to point, his fingernail tapping the glass. “You’re a lucky man having a view like this. The temple, our angel, seeing them both every day.”

  “I need all the inspiration I can get.”

  Tanner didn’t move. “We’ve been friends a long time.”

  Traveler smiled. Between a Mormon and a gentile, true friendship wasn’t really possible. He would always be an outsider, even in death. Church doctrine excluded all nonbelievers from salvation. As boys they had been close, before theology got in the way.

  “I see you haven’t stopped playing with guns,” Tanner said, one hand waving vaguely in the M1’s direction.

  “A man needs a hobby. Besides, this particular gun is part of my past.”

  Tanner shrugged. “Does the name Varney mean anything to you?” he asked quietly, without turning around.

  Traveler grunted to cover his surprise.

  “The family goes all the way back to the beginning, Moroni.”

  “So?”

  “The present-day John Varney is a member of the Council of Seventy.”

  “The question remains. So?”

  Tanner slumped as he turned from the window. “He wants you to find his daughter and she’s not even missing.” He smiled; his good humor looked forced.

  “Stop playing games, Willis.”

  “I don’t understand it myself,” Tanner said. “They say children are expe
cted to rebel against their parents. But I never did any such thing.”

  My God, Traveler thought, Willis had a short memory. “I remember you smoking cigarettes with me when we were thirteen years old.”

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  “The fumes of hell, you told me years later when you were getting ready for your mission.”

  “Sometimes I think you know me too well, Moroni.”

  “Come on, Willis. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

  Tanner’s squint closed down one eye altogether. “Varney’s daughter, Penny, left home a few months ago. Somehow she got it into her head that her father was to blame for her mother’s desertion. By the way, the woman ran off and joined one of those crackpot fundamentalist cults.” He grimaced like a man taking medicine. To a man like Tanner, fundamentalists were no better than devil-worshipers.

  “Which one of them are we talking about?” Traveler asked, feigning ignorance.

  “They call themselves the Church of Zion Reborn.”

  “What’s the official line on them?”

  Tanner’s teeth clenched so hard muscles danced along the line of his jaw. His lips pressed together. He had the look of a man who desperately wanted to swear. What came out of him was a gulping sound, as if he were swallowing sharp-edged obscenities.

  Finally he said, “They claim to be the modern-day inheritors of Mormonism. They say our church has strayed from the true teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Naturally, they practice polygamy.”

  “Jesus,” Traveler murmured. “Does it never stop, these revelations from God so that horny old men can hump every woman who’s willing?” He stared at his boyhood friend and shook his head. Maybe he should have stayed in Los Angeles. There, at least, nothing was sacred except money.

  Tanner, his head tilted slightly to one side, had taken on the intense look of a man listening to his own inner voices. “These people don’t respect the law. So how can we be expected to stop them?”

  Traveler said nothing, but knew it wasn’t as simple as that. The church had influence enough to stop just about anybody or anything if it had a mind to. But when it came to polygamy, doctrine wasn’t all that clear. A century ago pragmatism and a federal army had put an official end to multiple wives. But to this day, there were still those who followed Joseph Smith’s revelation, prefaced as it was by words that gave no leeway. For behold, I reveal unto you a new and everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then ye are damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.

  “Church policy is strictly hands-off,” Tanner went on. “Officially, we don’t even recognize these people.”

  “I still don’t understand what this has to do with Penny.”

  Tanner sat heavily on top of his damp overcoat. His eyes looked everywhere but at Traveler. His words, when they came, sounded rehearsed. “ „Suppose you found your brother in bed with your wife, and put a javelin through both of them, you would be justified, and they would atone for their sins and be received into the kingdom of God.’ ” He gulped a breath. “Brigham Young wrote that.”

  “You’re talking blood atonement.”

  Tanner nodded like a man whose head worked independently of his body. “There has been a lot of bloodletting in these cults over the past few years. This morning we had another killing, just outside the city limits in Bountiful. The dead man’s name was Jordan. Earl Jordan. He belonged to the Church of Zion Reborn.”

  “Goddammit, Willis, have you got a bug in here?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Penny Varney was here less than a half hour ago. The name Jordan came up in the conversation. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that already.”

  “When these cults start killing one another a lot of blood gets spilled.”

  “Penny’s mother?”

  “We have no information on her at the moment.”

  Traveler moved to the window, used one finger to rub a peephole in the mist, and peered toward the temple. But there was only swirling snow to be seen. He leaned forward and breathed on the glass until the hole disappeared. “My understanding is that the Church of Zion Reborn is headquartered in Arizona.”

  “Hey, Mo. We have to root out heresy wherever it exists.”

  “That sounds suspiciously like you had the man killed yourself.”

  “I do God’s work, nothing else.”

  “Out,” Traveler said, pointing at the door. “I’m hungry and I want to go home.”

  “Don’t get excited. There’s more to tell. John Varney wants to hire you to keep an eye on his daughter. If you can convince her to come back home, he’ll pay a handsome bonus.”

  “I see. I watch the girl and you watch me, is that it?”

  “He hasn’t seen his daughter in months. Think of it as a missing person case.”

  “As you well know, I already have a client.”

  “If it wasn’t for this murder, we wouldn’t care what the girl did. As it is, the church has no choice but to get involved.”

  Traveler bent down to stare at his friend. Not exactly a friend, he reminded himself. This was church business now. A gentile was wanted, perhaps as a sacrifice. He straightened. “Spell it out, Willis. I want to know exactly what I’m expected to do.”

  “That’s easy. Protect our interests. Keep Penny Varney and her mother out of the papers. We don’t want them connected with the likes of Earl Jordan.”

  “Bullshit. You own most of the papers. Those you don’t will look the other way if you ask them to.”

  “There are always wire-service stringers to contend with. You can’t trust journalists.” Tanner kneaded his face as if he were trying to remold it into something less revealing. “We want you on Penny’s case, not the police. At least not officially.”

  “There’s already been a murder, for God’s sake. Besides, you own the police, too.”

  “You never know when one of them might get religion.”

  Traveler blinked. “I think you made a joke, Willis.”

  Tanner shook his head as if to deny it. Then he took a quick breath and said, “We’ve already gone ahead and arranged a contact for you at the police department, Lieutenant Anson Home. He’s been instructed to give you whatever help you might need.”

  “We?”

  “Elton Woolley is taking a personal interest in this.”

  Traveler pretended to examine his disassembled rifle. Automatically his hands busied themselves applying another coat of oil to the M1’s trigger housing.

  Elton Woolley was president of the Mormon Church. To believers, he was the living prophet on earth. Through him, as it had been with Joseph Smith in the beginning, came the word of God. Without question, Woolley was the most powerful man in the State of Utah. He could make life impossible for someone like Traveler.

  “You do this for us,” Tanner said, “and you’ll never lack for work in this town.”

  “Give it a rest,” Traveler said and gave up his charade of working on the M1. He wiped his hands carefully on a paper towel, but the smell of gun oil remained.

  “I have a copy of the police report on the killing.” Tanner dug an envelope from his inside coat pocket and held it out like an offering. “You’re seeing this before it reaches the chief’s office.”

  Traveler grunted appreciatively. The murder couldn’t have been more than a few hours old.

  He didn’t bother reading the Xeroxed sheets. “All right. Tell me what’s been left out of the news reports.”

  Abruptly the squint left Tanner’s face. So did all color. He swallowed noticeably. “The girl can’t be involved in this, Moroni.”

  “You’d better explain that.”

  Tanner squirmed in his chair as though suddenly realizing that he was sitting on his wet overcoat. Then he sprang to his feet and stepped quickly to the window, where he feigned looking out without even bothering to clear a hole in the mist.

  “Someone saw a girl
leaving the scene. A blond girl.”

  “Salt Lake is known for its blondes.”

  “Martha Varney used to be a blonde.” From his wallet Tanner produced a small snapshot. “She was much younger then, of course.”

  “I thought I was supposed to be keeping an eye on Penny Varney.”

  Compressed into a one-by-one-inch square, Martha Varney looked different from her daughter’s larger photograph. This time she had light hair and wasn’t smiling.

  “Is she a natural blonde?”

  “As far as I know.” Tanner clicked his tongue. “She doesn’t look like that anymore, I’m told.”

  Traveler turned the photograph over in his hand. A twenty-year-old date was penciled on the back. “What good is this going to do me, then?”

  “Elton Woolley thought you ought to have it, that’s all.”

  “I don’t believe he even knows my name.” He sure as hell hoped not.

  “Our prophet keeps track of all Moronis.”

  “Sure. Angels all. Now tell me, is there anything else you haven’t mentioned?”

  “You’ll do better talking to John Varney.” Tanner extracted one of his calling cards from an expensive-looking leather holder. “His address and phone number are on the back. He’s expecting you within the hour.”

  “Were you that sure of me, Willis?”

  “I’ve known you a long time, Mo.”

  “I’ve raised my rates.”

  Tanner raised an eyebrow. “We’ll cover any legitimate costs.”

  “If I agree, I’d want something in advance.”

  “Like I said, I’ve known you a long time.” Tanner counted out two thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills.

  “The girl comes first. If I can find her mother and keep an eye on her at the same time, fine. Otherwise, it’s no deal. I’m not spending a dime of your money either, not until I find all the strings you’ve attached.”

  “John Varney’s the one you answer to.”

  “Not Elton Woolley?”

  Tanner slipped into his overcoat.

  “I’ll give you a receipt.”

  “No, no,” Tanner said, backing away. “We don’t want anything in writing. The church isn’t involved in this. You haven’t even seen me.”