Black Widows

by Cate Quinn

She settles into that strange drony voice people often use for Bible reading.

  “‘Suppose you found your brother in bed with your wife,’” she reads, “‘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.’”

  She looks up and, getting no reaction, licks a finger and turns one of the thin pages.

  “Then, we have here… ‘It is good and right to defend your family, even using lethal-force weapons.’ That have any significance to you, Mrs. Nelson?”

  “No. I mean, other than it sounds awful violent.”

  Something sparks in my mind. How Blake would get a bee in his bonnet about some part of scripture. Read Bible at us for so long, Tina and Emily would start giving each other funny looks.

  Brewer puts the book down.

  “Well, that wasn’t the only thing we found. Tell me, Mrs. Nelson, did you know your husband owned two cell phones?”

  When I don’t reply, Brewer slips out a plastic bag and dangles it. There’s a large black phone inside. Far more expensive-looking than Blake’s regular cell, though I’m not much of a judge of this kinda thing.

  “Have you ever seen this phone before?”

  “No.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You never saw Blake use it? Or another wife call from this phone?”

  “None of us used phones at the ranch,” I explain. “Blake had a work cell, but he kept it in his car. There’s no reception anyway,” I add.

  “Makes it even more surprising why this would be on the property,” says Brewer. “We found it locked away in a box. You certain you’ve never seen this before?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you wouldn’t know the code to unlock it?”

  “Blake never told me things like that.”

  Brewer does that face again. Like she’s judging my marriage.

  “Just so you know, Mrs. Nelson, I am in the process of applying for a warrant and tech resources to unlock this phone.”

  I guess it must show in my face that I don’t know what she’s talking about, because she clarifies. “We found this phone in a locked box containing objects of a sexual nature.”

  I flinch.

  “It’s my belief this phone contains recordings,” she adds, “of a personal kind.”

  I’m struck dumb.

  “Did your husband do or say anything during the marital act that made you feel uncomfortable? Things that might be termed abusive?”

  “No.” I’ve answered too quickly to sound convincing.

  “Only we found something else in that box. This, for starters.”

  She pushes a book toward me. I feel numb. The title is Christian Domestic Discipline.

  “You recognize that?” she asks.

  When I don’t answer, Brewer picks it up. Flicks it.

  “I’ve taken a look,” she says. “Seems to advocate the use of physical violence against women. Any reason why Blake would own this book?”

  “I believe Bishop Young gave it to him.” I’m flushed with the memory of this. “Shortly after he married Emily.”

  “So your bishop recommends”—she licks her finger and leafs through a few pages—“physically punishing wives who fail to carry out their perceived duties?”

  I close my eyes tight. Brewer is talking, but all I can hear is a boiling noise. Like the ocean. When I open them again, Brewer sits silently, and Malone is holding the book. It’s more of a pamphlet really, spiral-bound and eerily reminiscent of the things that were printed for our education at the Homestead.

  “Have you read this?” Malone is asking me.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  She thumbs through a few more pages. “There are tools recommended for the abuse of women. Hairbrushes, switches …”

  I realize there are tears on my face. I wipe them away.

  “I knew Emily and Blake were having some difficulties. Bishop Young was counseling them,” I whisper, sobs rising up. “I didn’t know… Is there a reason to think Blake used that book?”

  “Well, here’s a funny thing,” says Brewer. “The guys here at the station, they think your sister-wife Emily has either been groomed or kidnapped. Maybe even both.”

  My eyes snap to her in shock, affront.

  “See, Mrs. Nelson, we checked up at the hospital,” says Brewer. “No one came in that night under the name of Emily Martinelli or Emily Nelson. But there was a Miss Cagney. No given name.” She pauses to arch an eyebrow. “And the nurses remembered Emily when we showed them photos. Matter of fact, they’d already reported her admission to the police. Reason being she had a lotta old injuries, as well as that cracked rib. Scars in a fairly sensitive area.”

  She closes the pamphlet.

  “You know anything about that?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Tina, Sister-Wife

  I know it’s a dumb idea. To go out to Waynard’s Creek. Poor crazy Emily is on some mad play-pretend. Me, I’m just hurtin’ real bad that Blake was looking for another wife.

  I mean, like I can hardly process it. And like a scab you can’t help picking, I want to know. I want to know who Blake was puttin’ the moves on behind my back.

  As I swing the car along that dusty road, with Emily chattering away about cops and robbers, I realize how Rachel must have felt when I came along. Knowing you weren’t good enough. Your husband needed more. Maybe it even hurt twice as bad since he’d already taken a second wife. I glance at Emily, wondering if she had any of the same feelings or was just relieved to share the load.

  We’re putting more miles between us and the city, out into what I privately call the badlands. Places the authorities don’t even know about. A big old nothing stretching all the way around Salt Lake City and down as far as Nevada. Our ranch is toward the east of these parts, where the mountains are flat-topped and tan. Out this way is more copper-colored and craggy.

  I remember Blake telling me, as he drove me to our ranch, a story of a family who lived out in these parts for generations without anyone even knowing they existed. The way Blake talked about the land made it sound like Eden. All soft green grass and clear rivers between majestic amber mountains. That’s true in spring, when the flowers are real pretty. Rest of the time, the view from our window comes in three colors: dirt, sand, and a kind of faded army-green for any grass or brush stupid enough to try its luck—like someone ordered from a paint book with a whole bunch of pages missing.

  I’m used to the desert now. Maybe I even like it. But in the beginning, I remember tryin’ to talk myself down. Like, chill out, Tina. You can be a country girl.

  I just wasn’t prepared for the isolation. You could feel it, driving out from the city. Like you could get lost out here and no one would ever find you.

  “Like the Wild West, huh?” I remember Blake saying with a smile when I told him I hadn’t realized there was still wilderness like this in the States. “No one to bother us out here. Just us, a few birds of prey, maybe a couple of bobcats.”

  He loved that. Bein’ a cowboy. I remember coming outside, my hands over my ears to find him firing a gun into the sky to scare off birds of prey.

  “Gotta let ’em know it’s our territory,” he told me, the rifle butted against the side of his face, one eye shut. “You let the raptors in, wildcats come for the eggs.”

  “What kind of wildcats?”

  Blake lowered his gun, pulled me in close.

  “Don’t worry, honey.” He kissed me. “I would never let anything hurt my wives. God protects the faithful.”

  I had never been with a man like him before. A real-life all-American outlaw, muscled from outdoor work.

  “Be careful not to actually shoot ’em,” I told him. “Those birds are protected.”

  H
e laughed. “I’m real careful. If it bothers you so much, I’ll buy a box of blanks.”

  He did, but he never loaded them.

  It takes us a good hour driving into nothing before we get near to where we’re going.

  I’ve driven the main highway a few times, in and out of state, when Blake and I were arranging our wedding. That was back when I had my own vehicle. I’d just gotten myself clean. Picked up where I’d left off with my realtor’s exams. Got my license and put aside enough to buy an old Dodge. Don’t think I’ve ever been so happy, driving my own car down that long road from Vegas to Salt Lake, knowing I’d see Blake at the end of it. That Dodge has since been sold, on account of the family having financial difficulties, and you know what? Rachel never even said thank you.

  I take in the rolling horizon. Never been so far out into the wilds.

  “This place is somethin’ else,” I mutter, taking in miles of open space. The asphalt road ran out a long way back, and we’re rolling along over flame-colored ground and flat scree rocks now, blazing orange mountains in the far distance, a cloud of sand churning up behind us.

  “I think I see something.” Emily points to the achingly blue sky of the horizon. In the middle distance are dark square shapes that don’t belong to the empty wilderness. Shipping containers, looks like.

  The ground begins rolling down to a dusty valley spiked with hard tufts of grass, like the desert is havin’ a real bad hair day.

  Crowded on the flattest part, there’s approximately five rows of maybe ten to fifteen steel boxes each. Large ones, with peeling paint announcing whatever shipping company once used ’em. Behind is a big silo thing, like a water tower, mounted on rusted legs.

  “What do we do?” I’m getting nervous now. There’s a neglected, desperate air. For all its remoteness, this place feels a lot like the crack dens I knew in Vegas. Places where real dangerous people hung around. Park up too close while someone was bagging up, and you’re likely to get popped in the face by some wasted gangster.

  “You’re sure we should park up?”

  “This is the place.”

  “I mean about pullin’ up on someone else’s property. They’re gonna be armed to the teeth out here, right?”

  “Maybe,” agrees Emily. “We’ll try not to annoy them, right? I can’t see any guns,” she adds.

  “What, you think they’d lay ’em out in the dirt? This is Utah,” I say. “Seven-year-old kids carry concealed weapons.”

  I slow the car and grind to a sandy halt near the shipping container she pointed out.

  Every instinct is telling me not to get out of the car. Especially with a pathological liar for company.

  “Listen,” I say, “if we do this, you’ve gotta… Just try to be normal, okay? No lyin’.”

  At first, I think she’ll deny it all, but instead, she says “Ho-kay” in a happy little voice.

  As we exit the car, I’m soaking it all in. I can’t imagine Rachel anywhere like this. I mean, even her underwear is neatly folded. This place is like the apocalypse is nigh.

  It looks like the shipping containers serve for homes. Little girls in sturdy boots and neck-to-ankle dresses are playing a game, running over the top of them. A stray horse is mooching around, looking for something to chew on. Grubby washing hangs about. Judging by the orange color of it, they have to do laundry in the nearby sandy creek. There’s a stink on the air from some hole-in-the-dirt latrine.

  “It’s like that movie,” whispers Emily, “Mad Max.”

  I’m about to ask her how she saw that movie, since Blake was very strict on things viewed at home, when there’s a shriek of metal. One of the big sheets of iron than serves for a door is inching open.

  A woman emerges who couldn’t look more inbred if she tried. She has a great moon face with features kind of scattered about on it, a snaggled-up top lip, and real noticeable slant to her wide, solid-looking hips. Despite the squalor all around, her hair is glorious, brushed smartly up into a teetering quiff and braided intricately down her back. In her long pastel-colored prairie dress, she could be anything from twenty to late thirties, but I’m guessing somewhere in between.

  She waddles out toward us, and that’s when I notice she’s carrying a hunting rifle, which she raises in our direction.

  Whoa!

  “Whaddya want?” she demands, aiming the gun at first me, then Emily.

  “Let’s all slow down.” My hands are raised in the air, and I’m backing up.

  “Excuse us, ma’am. We’re wondering if someone showed up here,” says Emily in a polite, butter-wouldn’t-melt voice as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening. “Red hair, kinda good-looking. His name was Blake Nelson.”

  The woman hitches up the gun on to her shoulder. “None of us folk here wanna talk to you,” she says. “Frickin’ outsiders, comin’ ’round here, tryin’ to buy things them’s got no right to.”

  Emily and I exchange glances.

  “Are you tellin’ me,” I ask, “this man came to buy a wife?”

  “Get out,” she says, “before I put a bullet in ya both and bury ya out back.”

  We’re backing away now. The woman’s young-old face settles into triumph.

  “Come on, Emily,” I say, taking her hand. “Let’s go.”

  But Emily pulls back, like a toddler digging in its heels.

  “I’m gonna give ya ’til the count a’ three…” says the woman, glaring at Emily’s refusal to vacate.

  “Emily, come on,” I hiss. “You’re gonna get us both killed.”

  She ignores me, dragging against my grip. For such a slight girl, she is surprisingly strong.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” says Emily in this strange voice I’ve never heard before. “Just one last question. You know someone by the name of Rayne Ambrosine?”

  The woman’s face changes completely. Her gun drops a little.

  “Rayne?” she says. “What about Rayne?”

  “You know her personally?” asks Emily.

  “Well, dern it, yes. Me ’n her are cousins.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Rachel, First Wife

  A man I don’t recognize has arrived. He has a small-town-sheriff appearance—big, gold-buckled belt, shaved balding head, and a contemptuous expression in his small blue eyes. I figure him to be maybe early thirties but trying to look older and larger than he is, with his bulky gun holster and handcuffs all on show. He reminds me of the little bantam cocks we had at the Homestead, all puffed up and full of their own importance.

  “This is Detective Carlson,” explains Brewer, and there’s something strange in her expression, almost like an apology. “He’s taking over from Malone for the moment.”

  “The department got tired of namby-pamby,” says Carlson, hitching his flashy belt a little higher. “Think it’s better we get this thing closed down. Our boys just found a blood trail, leading from the river to your canned-food store. Pretty faint, but it’s there, and only a matter of time before forensics confirm it belongs to your husband.”

  He pauses, waiting for this to sink in. My heart is pounding a slow, flat beat.

  “Time you gave us some real answers, Mrs. Nelson.”

  He sits, scraping the chair on the floor. He’s a solid man, broad-shouldered and stocky. The kind of person who would intimidate criminals.

  “Officer Brewer here is new to these parts. I’m not. I dealt with you people from the Homestead before. You folk think you’re above the law—that you don’t have to answer to cops. Well, that’s not gonna fly with me, ya hear?”

  He pauses to let this sink in. A wave of despair washes through me. I guess he must have been one of the police officers who busted the Homestead. They tend to bear a grudge.

  “So,” he begins. “You take a lot of prescription drugs, that right?” He leans forward, eyeballing me.
<
br />   “I…” I’m suddenly so nervous at the aggressive line of questioning that I can barely stammer out a response.

  “You tryin’ to think up some clever answer, Mrs. Nelson?” He puts his elbows on the desk, closing the space between us.

  “No.” I whisper. My eyes track to Brewer. She seems to have retreated in on herself, like she’s thinking heavily behind those amber eyes. In contrast to Carlson, she looks even prettier, with her tan skin and shiny black hair. Like she’s a TV cop and he’s a real one.

  “Glad we’ve finally gotten the truth out of you.” Carlson shoots a triumphant glance to Brewer.

  “Mrs. Nelson has always been open and honest about her pharmaceutical use,” says Brewer in an icy voice. “I didn’t judge the consumption to be anything out of the common way.”

  We exchange a look.

  “Well, by my count, antidepressants, sleeping pills, and a dead husband are a long way out of the common way,” says Carlson. “We also found some… What do you call them, bladder pills?”

  I flinch in my seat. I can feel my cheeks burning.

  “Those were for urinary tract infections,” cuts in Brewer. “It’s something that affects a fair number of women. I don’t think we need to make Mrs. Nelson uncomfortable about it.”

  “An’ I think you’re being naive. You don’t experience any side effects from the antidepressants?” He turns his attention on me. “Fuzzy brain, memory problems?”

  This brings me up with a start. “No. I mean, aren’t they just regular kind?”

  “If you count crazy pills as regular, then sure,” he says with a little grunting, humorless laugh. “You don’t think your medication is of note, Mrs. Nelson? Given your background? Or did ya just forget you took ’em?”

  He moves forward, near enough to make me uncomfortable. I press back against my seat, trying to create some distance. I just have the worst feeling. Like this man is going to make me say something I’ll regret.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Rachel, First Wife

  I can’t quite describe the emotions boiling inside me. The idea that these strange people, not even members of the Church, can gain access to my private information! I don’t think I could feel more awful if they’d made me take all my clothes off.