Black Widows

by Cate Quinn

  I weigh up my options.

  “My past life.” I swallow. “Before I was baptized. I…I did those things. To men. For money.”

  “You killed people?”

  “No!” I’m outraged. “No. How could you think that?”

  She makes that strange expression she always does when she’s wrong and can’t admit it. I carry on talking.

  “Cutting off the air, it gives some people a high. They like it,” I say.

  “Men like that?” Rachel looks as though I just blew her mind. Her face shows raging panic.

  “Not all of them. Some. A few. It’s, like, a fetish.”

  For all her long words, I’m pretty sure Rachel doesn’t know what that one means.

  “A weird thing some guys like,” I interpret. “Not commonplace.”

  She pauses long enough for me to know what’s coming next.

  “Did…did Blake like it?” It comes out as a whisper.

  I nod, a lump in my throat. “Yes,” I say. “He did.”

  Rachel sits heavily on a chair. She’s still for a long moment, staring blankly ahead. The she puts her head in her hands and sobs.

  “I always knew I wasn’t enough for him,” she says through her tears. “I never could have done anything like that. Not even if he’d asked me to.”

  I venture nearer in my seat. Put a tentative hand on her back. “You were enough,” I tell her. “It’s him that was at fault. He wasn’t brave enough to be honest with us.”

  “You know,” I add, “Blake never told me, before we were married, he liked that stuff.” I touch my neck. “I never expected it was something I’d ever have to do again.”

  Her blue eyes look up at me, kinda soulful, acknowledging, I think, that I was not a little betrayed by it all. Traumatized and let down in my own way.

  “He needed us to make him feel complete. But he loved you. He loved all of us.”

  She absorbs this, the sobbing subsiding. Rachel wipes away a tear. More flow in its place.

  “Did you like doing it?” she asks, looking up at me.

  “No. Not really,” I admit. “Not at all, actually.”

  She kinda laughs. “I never liked cooking either,” she says.

  We both giggle in a slightly hysterical way.

  “All I wanted was a family,” Rachel says. “I guess I pushed too hard. God had other plans.”

  “You got a family,” I say. “Up until today, we were livin’ in the same house, eating meals together, fighting with one another. Sure beats what I had growing up.”

  Rachel looks uncertain. “That’s because of you,” I add, looking into her sad blue eyes. “If it hadn’t been for you runnin’ the household, I’d be downtown in a gutter, out of my mind on whatever drugs I could score. Emily would be, I dunno, in some institution. You’re our glue. Okay? Even though Blake is gone.”

  Her hands loosen on the steering wheel.

  “Thank you,” she breathes. Her eyes have lost their desperate look. Then suddenly, that vulnerable side has vanished, and she’s cold, orderly Rachel again.

  “I just can’t understand it,” she says sadly. “If you didn’t…” She stops herself.

  “If I didn’t do it?” I fill in.

  She ignores this. “I thought things had gotten easier for Emily,” says Rachel, shaking her head.

  I kinda laugh without meaning to. “Rachel. Are you serious?”

  Her expression doesn’t change. I sigh. “Rachel, I loved Blake and all. But even you must have seen he was a little crazy at times. I mean, all that stuff about storing a thousand gallons of water. The way he kept enlarging your storehouse so it fit three years, then six years. Then he was planning space to hold animal feed for animals we didn’t even have.”

  “You have to be prepared when the end comes. That’s our religion. You’re new to it.”

  “Rachel,” I say patiently. “I have met Mormons before. Believe it or not, we have ’em in Vegas. Many Mormons have large pantries—storehouses even. Not so many live out in the desert with a plan. And remember when Blake got started on the subject of government and conspiracies and medical records?” I rub my temples. “I don’t think Emily was finding marriage easy is all. Maybe she even felt cheated. Like she’d been promised a normal life and gotten Blake’s version of it instead.”

  Rachel shakes her head mournfully, and tears spring into her eyes. “Emily should have come and talked to me,” she says. “We’re sister-wives. Sealed together for eternity.”

  Luckily, she isn’t looking the right way to see the expression on my face. Rachel is looking forward, shaking her head. “How could she have done that to us? I don’t know if I can ever forgive her.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Tina, Sister-Wife

  I’m sitting staring at Rachel in disbelief. “You don’t really think that Emily did it?” I ask her, openmouthed.

  “Well,” says Rachel evenly in this maddeningly practical voice. “How can you be sure she didn’t?” There’s just a hint of accusation there, but I let it ride.

  “Well, first of all, Emily is about the size and weight of your average june bug,” I tell her. “Second, we know her. Yeah, she’s a big old liar. But she wouldn’t kill someone. She doesn’t have it in her. Emily just wants a little attention is all.”

  As I’m sayin’ it, though, it occurs to me that Officer Brewer is no dummy. I don’t figure she’d have arrested Emily unless there was something to go on. Gettin’ bawled out for wastin’ resources isn’t her style.

  So what if… My mind is ticking like a goddamn clock now. What if Emily knows…somethin’. Like she saw somethin’. Covered it up. Now that I could believe. Only question is, would she have covered for Rachel? Comes down to who she hated worse, I guess. Her wife or her husband.

  Rachel’s shaking her head like she’s tryin’ to dislodge somethin’.

  “You act like you’re this great judge of people,” she says. “No one knows anyone else for certain. That’s between them and God.”

  “You got major trust issues, you know that?”

  “Oh really?” she hits back. “Coming from someone who won’t rely on anyone for anything? Got to do it all by yourself, don’t you? Did it ever occur to you to ask me for help managing Blake? Or am I too darn provincial to offer advice on a man I’ve been married to a little over six years?”

  I don’t have an answer to that. I’m actually a little shocked.

  “Just let’s say you’re right, and Emily is innocent,” says Rachel, changing the subject. “Then what exactly do you propose happened out at the ranch?”

  There’s an uncomfortable pause. For a long moment, we just stare at each other. Rachel looks away first.

  “We know Blake met with a blond woman just before he died,” I say. “That was real out of character for him, right?”

  Pain flashes across her features. “You can’t really believe there is some fourth wife out there?” she asks. “A killer?”

  “Love and money, isn’t it? The two reasons people kill. Didn’t ya ever watch Law & Order?”

  “That show has a lot of bad language.”

  “Sure. Okay. Point is, maybe Blake got interested in someone. She was a little crazy, like, I dunno, Fatal Attraction or somethin’. It’s a movie,” I add.

  “That all sounds a little far-fetched to me,” says Rachel sensibly. “Besides, no one knew about that ranch but us. It’s not like Blake coulda gotten someone out there in secret.” She sighs. “I think you need to deal with your grief,” she says. “I think you’re hoping to distract yourself with this whole”—she waves her hands—“cops and robbers. You’re hurting. You need to process it.”

  This was always the part of Rachel that made me mad as hell. She’s so wantin’ to be the good girl, obey the rules. Emily and I always came last to that.

 
; “That’s our sister in there,” I tell Rachel. “Emily doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into. With no bail, they’re gonna lock her up. Sure, she’ll have a different-colored jumpsuit and a bigger plate at dinner, on account of not yet being convicted and all. But take it from me, prison is not a place where Emily will do well.” I let out a breath. “She’s family. You don’t give up on family, right? Even if they’re stupid-ass enough to confess to a crime they didn’t do.”

  Rachel’s mouth twists, like she’s maybe a little more admiring of me than she was but won’t admit it out loud.

  “The police won’t convict Emily if she’s innocent.” Rachel says it like she’s tryin’ it on for size, the idea of the cops as the good guys, but she’s struggling to really make it stick.

  I shake my head, frustrated. “Cops don’t solve crime, Rachel. They close cases to make their numbers up. Somethin’ like this. Somethin’ complicated… This goes straight in the bottom drawer. Believe me. They got their confession.”

  We’re both a little quiet for a moment, thinking of Emily.

  “All I know is there’s something not right,” I tell Rachel. “Blake meeting with mysterious blonds. Tryin’ to buy the Homestead property. Your cousin told us that land was in hot demand. Lotta people askin’, not just Blake. That’s a motive, right?”

  “You spoke with Marsha?”

  “Relax,” I tell her. “She didn’t say nothing bad about you.”

  It’s a joke, but Rachel does visibly relax.

  “Blake knew I didn’t like the idea of buying the Homestead,” Rachel says miserably.

  By rights, I should be mad. Neither of them told me or Emily anything about a land-purchase idea. But Rachel looks so hurt, I feel bad for her.

  “Blake had an idea in his head that buying the Homestead land could help my nightmares,” says Rachel, and I can tell she’s doin’ her usual thing, tryin’ to explain away our husband’s unreasonable behavior. “Like maybe if I confronted my fears, you know?”

  I consider this. “Sounds like Blake,” I tell her. “Making something to his own benefit sound like he was being real caring. Not to speak ill of the dead, Rachel, but I think our dearly departed was more interested in payin’ off his debts and maybe gettin’ in a few more wives than playing psychologist.” I glance at Rachel’s face, but it’s hard to know what she thinks about that.

  “Did Blake ever talk to you about someone named Dakota Jessop?” I ask Rachel. “A Realtor, maybe?”

  Rachel shakes her head blankly.

  “Blake left her number with one of your cousins, who passed it on to me and Emily.” I nod to my purse, currently sitting on the floor of the car.

  Rachel’s face does that thing again. “Can I see it?” She takes my purse without waiting for an answer and rummages in exactly the way I might do if I was with a fellow junkie and didn’t trust them to give me my fair half.

  “This?” She holds up the folded paper and starts to open it. As the Xeroxed image of Dakota emerges, Rachel’s reaction is kinda animal. A jolt of fear. I never seen a human being look so terrified, and I seen a lotta stuff.

  “I know that woman,” she whispers. “I know her. She ran the clinic.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Rachel, First Wife

  Words can’t describe my reaction to the picture.

  That face. That face.

  The sensations it invokes are physical. Like an immediate needle pain to the groin. A choking terror. I’m struck by a memory that is visceral.

  I’m in a place between waking and dreaming. Men are carrying me over butterscotch earth. The flat amber-yellow rocks clatter beneath their feet. In my semiconscious state, I have half a mind they’re taking me straight to hell. Then I smell the bleach and realize I’m in the clinic. My whole world is pain. Hot, awful pain. A familiar coil of fear unravels.

  For a moment, I consider not opening my eyes. But when I hear her voice, I can’t help myself. They pop open all by themselves.

  “Sit down,” she’s telling someone sternly. “You want your husband to know you made a show of yourself?”

  She’s over at the other side of the room. I feel my fists bunch.

  Please God. Don’t let her notice me.

  I roll to my side, looking away, my heart beating fast.

  That’s when I notice there’s someone in the bed next to me. A young dark-haired girl. My age, maybe. She’s curled in a ball on her side, hands clamped between her legs, like her downstairs hurts.

  “Rayne?” Her eyes settle on mine. I recognize her now. She’s a half sister of mine. Melissa. We used to play together as girls before her family got reassigned to the big house. She has very pretty sea-green eyes that contrast with her almost-black hair.

  “Holy heck.” Her eyes boggle. “You must be in some trouble.”

  I don’t answer that. Misery ripples through me.

  She reaches out a hand and locks her pinkie in mine.

  “It’s okay,” she tells me. “Brave like Jesus, right?”

  I manage a smile. This was one of the games we played as girls, daring each other to be as brave as the boys.

  “Brave like Jesus,” I whisper.

  There’s a weird sound from the other side of the room.

  “Poor girl,” says Melissa, her eyes trained behind me. “Aunt Meg is always hardest on the pretty ones.”

  I don’t know where these thoughts are coming from. All I know is I don’t want to share them with Tina.

  Instead, I say, “I was afraid of her.”

  I’m looking at Tina’s tanned hands rather than her face. Her pink polish is chipped at the edges.

  “You know her?” Tina sounds excited.

  The image is pixelated. Like someone blew it up large from an old photo and Xeroxed it a couple of times for good measure. But you can still see the clawlike hair, braided around her ears, and the set of the eyes. She has a real peculiar smile on her face, which is also familiar. Like I can see her face smiling down at me, but not in a nice way.

  Aunt Meg. Now that I remember the name, it seems impossible I ever forgot it.

  “She’s from the Homestead,” I say. “Like a nurse or something. I think her name is Meg. Aunt Meg, we knew her as.” It’s hard to say it aloud.

  “Huh.” Tina frowns at the picture. “So she changed her name?”

  “Most of us did that,” I say, “when we left.”

  “Well, she’s got blond hair,” Tina points out. “Maybe it was her Blake was meeting.”

  This idea fills me with the most awful feeling.

  “Do you think she and Blake could have been courting?” asks Tina.

  A white bed. Naked women, tumbling limbs. Hands are all over Blake’s naked back, touching, stroking.

  “Does it feel good?” he asks. “Can you feel the heavenly fire?”

  Meg’s face, underneath Blake’s naked body, her cold eyes fixed on me.

  “She’s married already,” I tell Tina. “You can tell by her hair.” I feel reluctant to touch the image. “See at the top where it’s braided behind the crown? Only married ladies do that.”

  Tina lets out a long breath, like she’s real relieved. “So a woman from the Homestead is working in real estate. Selling the place. Sounds corrupt if you ask me.”

  “Everything about the Homestead was corrupt,” I tell her. “The whole business was like a pyramid scheme. The Prophet ripping off his people. Did you call the number?” I ask.

  “Sure I did. Bunch a times. No answer. It’s a Las Vegas dial code though.” She taps the paper thoughtfully.

  I screw up my face, trying to think.

  “The Prophet went on the run to Vegas,” I say uncertainly. “They had a lot of safe houses there.”

  “Safe houses?”

  “Like…secret houses owned by members of t
he Church. They’re all over the country. A network. That’s how come he was able to escape arrest for so long.”

  We both ponder this. Tina’s cell phone beeps. She takes it out, and her face sorta lights in a smile. As if some cute date messaged her back.

  “It’s from Detective Carlson,” she says.

  I roll my eyes.

  “He says…” She pauses to read. “He’s looked into Dakota’s number for me.” Again that smile. “An’ guess what?”

  “What?”

  “He’s got a location for Dakota’s firm. An actual office address.” Tina looks at me, real determined. “I’m goin’ to Vegas,” she says. “Find out what Blake got himself into.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” I ask her.

  “I can take care of myself.”

  That’s when I realize. If Blake was trying to buy the Homestead, there could be pictures, maps. There’s no way I can let Tina go look through whatever real estate documents are out there. She’s smart enough to put two and two together.

  Now something else occurs to me. Like why is Tina so bent out of shape and poking around in this stuff? It strikes me as not a little suspicious.

  “Hey,” says Tina. “You hungry? How ’bout we go to that diner Blake said was too expensive? Grab a bite before I hit the road.”

  I don’t like this idea at all, since there is plenty of canned soup and pasta back at the house, and we’ve agreed to be careful with what little money we have. But I don’t want Tina out on her own, prying into Blake’s things.

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “Sure.” I put the car into Drive, pull out, turning over what to do next. Talk her out of going, I guess.

  “We can talk about Vegas over lunch,” I tell her.

  “Sure,” replies Tina. She turns her head to look out the window, the ghost of a smile on her pink-lipsticked mouth.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Emily, Sister-Wife

  When I was a little girl, I loved the confessional booth in the Catholic church. Pouring my stories through that little grill and hearing the priest gasp and tut. Visiting the bishop in the Mormon church wasn’t the same at all. Especially since I always got the strong feeling Bishop Young didn’t like me too much.