Jude Devine Mystery Series

by Rose Beecham

  Someone yanked her into a run and she hurtled toward the minivan. She could hear Farrell giving orders but could not make out the words, her ears still ringing from the explosion. The gunfire seemed far away and was becoming sporadic. Agents ran toward the rear of the house, joining the two already positioned there. Jude was familiar with the drill. They would capture any subject trying to exit. The fact that they had left Summer and the child unattended could mean only one thing.

  As the dust settled, Jude felt tears crawls down her face. All that was left of the lives that might have been were two rag dolls in a crimson pool.

  *

  After the shooting stopped, a dark silence descended. In that time, Elias Rockwell arrived under escort. He was not at all what Jude had expected. Early thirties, no sign of the genetic traits that would make walking through a crowd of Colorado City polygamists a déjà vu experience. He wore an expensive three-piece suit, aviator sunglasses, and designer loafers. His hair was blond and fashionably cut to disguise the thinning around his temples. When he wasn’t marrying schoolgirls, Jude had the impression he was probably on a yacht or playing golf.

  Farrell showed him the scene. They were watched by Rockwell’s retinue, six rent-a-goons in cheaper versions of his suit. A few genetic similarities were evident in their ranks.

  “This is a shocking tragedy,” Rockwell said, as if the unfolding events had nothing to do with him. “These actions are the actions of a few deeply confused individuals, and in no way reflect the philosophy and aims of the new FLDS.” He walked a few paces away and got on his cell phone, speaking in an undertone.

  Moments later weapons were dropped from windows and a white flag appeared. On closer inspection, it was a pair of long underpants.

  “They’re ready to surrender,” Rockwell informed Farrell and they proceeded to the front of the house.

  The plygs emerged, their hands on their heads, and walked quietly down the front steps to assemble in the yard. Jude scanned the faces, seeking Epperson’s. She moved to Farrell’s side and said, “I have an arrest warrant for Nathaniel Epperson on charges of kidnapping and criminal homicide.”

  “He’s ours,” Farrell said. “We can quibble over jurisdictional matters later.”

  Nauseous, Jude walked around the side of the house once more.

  Over the ridge, agents were processing the women and children who had filed from the house, patting them down for weapons and taking their details. The small party rescued under fire were seated under a makeshift canopy, being examined by a doctor. Beyond the white minivan and the smoking wreck of the SUV, the two bodies lay uncovered as yet. Kneeling over them was a slightly built teenage boy in overalls. As Jude approached, he looked up, tears rolling down his face.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Jude said. “If you go down to the officers, they’ll take your information and give you something to eat and drink.”

  The boy didn’t move.

  Jude extended a hand. “Come on. I’ll walk down with you.” This was not a sight for a child.

  He shook his head and bent low over Summer. Gently, he lifted her head onto his lap. “She never liked her hair this way,” he said, and began unfastening her braids.

  Jude watched the tender ritual in silence and understood what she was seeing. After a time, she asked, “Adeline?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  A pair of eyes as dark as Chastity Young’s met hers. “Why did they do this to her?”

  Jude’s throat hurt and she blinked away tears. “In life, some things make no sense at all. This is one of them.”

  Adeline smoothed her sister’s snow blond hair and leaned over, placing a kiss on her cheek. “I wanted her to come with me but she wouldn’t.”

  Jude removed her bulletproof vest and stripped off her shirt, folding it to make a pillow. She handed this to Adeline, who eased her sister’s head onto it and stroked her eyes closed. They did not move the little boy, who had his face resting on Summer’s nightgown.

  “Your aunt is looking for you,” Jude said.

  “She’s here?” Adeline got to her feet.

  Jude pointed toward the mountain. “She went over that way on her bike.”

  Adeline wiped her eyes and picked up a makeshift backpack. Out of this she took the lid of a tin can. “I need to signal her,” she explained.

  They walked to the edge of the rise and Adeline bounced sunlight off the lid.

  “Do you know her cell phone number?” Jude asked after a minute or two.

  “Why do I always forget about phones?” Adeline gave a ragged little grin.

  Jude handed hers over. “Do you know how it works?”

  “Aunt Chastity says I might as well super glue mine to my ear.” She dialed and waited. Then her face lit up and she said, “It’s me.”

  Jude took a few steps away and stared out across the merciless plateau as Adeline cried into the phone. She should go get someone to take the bodies, she thought. But she didn’t move. Numbly, she watched an eagle soar high above, riding a thermal. She imagined herself up there, floating in the cool tranquility, divorced from the tragedy below, hearing nothing but the wind rushing through feathers and her own mournful cries.

  “She’s coming.” Adeline returned the phone and thanked her. “I told her where Daniel is and she’s going to go pick him up first. ”

  “That’s great. Would you like me to wait with you?”

  “Do you have time?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Got any water?”

  “No, but I can get some. Come on.” Jude offered a hand and Adeline took it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A month later, Jude sat on the front porch of the Epperson house and watched the FBI forensic team load the last of their gear into the backs of a fleet of vans. They’d owned the place since the shootout, and Jude had stayed well clear. Pratt had given permission for her to return for a walk-through once they received the okay from the FBI crime lab. This was supposedly aimed at straightening out a few details missing from her account of the shooting. Jude had a feeling he knew she just needed to come back.

  She’d been unsettled since that day, and not just because people had died needlessly. There was so much they would never know; she almost regretted that the Huntsberger case had all but solved itself once Zach walked into the Paradox station. On investigations where clues came slowly and detectives had to create their own luck, there was time to accumulate knowledge and develop theories. The work was methodical, detail oriented, and detached. There was order. And a sense of satisfaction when months of effort led to a good arrest.

  By contrast, Jude felt like she’d been swept into a situation that went completely out of her control almost before she could process exactly what was going on. With the benefit of hindsight, she thought she could have made some better decisions. She tried not to feel that she had shortchanged Darlene, and Poppy Dolores—all of Epperson’s victims.

  Sheriff Pratt was riding high. Shaking hands, kissing babies, appearing in photo opportunities with the Huntsbergers. He’d told the media justice had been done and he truly seemed to believe it, as did most of Cortez. Jude wanted to go after Jeffs and Rockwell, but Pratt said they’d bought themselves enough trouble and her FBI masters said it was someone else’s fight. Jude needed to wrap up the final paperwork and get on with her life.

  “Done?” she asked a bored-looking technician who emerged from the house.

  “Help yourself.” The guy strode away like a man who’d been waiting two weeks for a cold beer.

  Jude got up and stepped indoors. The place was whitewashed inside and out, consistent with the way the case had been handled in the press. A pack of religious nuts opens fire on women and children trying to flee for their lives. The FBI had everything on video, so there couldn’t be sticky questions left unanswered. Jude had seen the footage they released a hundred times over, trying to make certain she was unrecognizable. They’d done a good job of
blurring her features and it was comforting to see herself anonymously referred to as a “Denver detective at the scene on an unrelated investigation.”

  She entered the northeast-facing bedroom that had had the windows knocked out on the day. The bloodstains were still tagged. The splatter on the wall to her right belonged to Nathaniel Epperson, who had died of chest wounds at the scene, robbing them of answers to countless questions, but making his wife Naoma a happy woman, perhaps for the first time.

  Jude wanted to spit in his face, but she wouldn’t have that satisfaction and spitting on a man’s grave was not her style. Feeling cheated, she wandered through the rest of the house. It wasn’t like they didn’t know what had happened. A fairly clear picture had emerged from the statements given by those of the other wives who were willing to talk, Thankful in particular. Encouraged by a community of former plural wives living in Colorado, she had decided to make the state her home.

  After being condemned by Nathaniel Epperson, for reasons unclear to all, Darlene had been taken to her first husband, Hyrum, and told to seek his forgiveness as part of her purification. He had flown into a rage as he sometimes did and mauled her like a dog. Eventually Nathaniel and several of the older sons had managed to drag him off. One of them, Thankful’s oldest boy, had told his mother everything, even though they were sworn to secrecy. No one knew exactly what had happened after that, except that Naoma and Nathaniel had been heard shouting at each other, then Fawn Dew and Nathaniel drove off with Darlene and returned without her eight days later.

  Jude had been trying to interview Fawn Dew ever since, but she was holed up in Rockwell’s compound and it appeared the new prophet had struck a deal with Utah and Arizona. He had agreed to a gradual “modernization” of his flock, including public school education, in exchange for an injection of government funding to tidy up the twin towns and fund community development. His daughter was “unavailable for comment” and Jude had been referred to his attorneys.

  Adeline’s story had made headlines, and she and Chastity had appeared on a few television talk shows, putting a face to the countless women whose lives were destroyed by the so-called “sacred principle” of plural marriage. Jude had seen them again at Summer’s funeral in Salt Lake City. The Flemings had wanted to avoid publicity, so they’d allowed their daughter to be buried with her grandparents. They’d also signed over guardianship. Chastity said she’d paid her brother-in-law twenty thousand dollars for this. Child Protection Services had placed Daniel Epperson in a foster home where another of the “Lost Boys” of Utah was thriving, and it sounded like he was doing fine.

  Jude paused opposite a small plaque on the wall of what was once Naoma Epperson’s bedroom. Keep Sweet, No Matter What. Just reading it made her feel depressed and overwhelmed. Thankful had talked about being brought up in a home where crying was forbidden and children who did were badly beaten.

  Something she’d said played again and again in Jude’s mind. “I had to learn to be silent. It was the only way I would survive.”

  She’d been embarrassed talking about her past, as if she should have known better.

  Jude returned to the front porch and gazed out at the barns and the scraggly junipers, trying to imagine how the women living here must have felt. It had been too much for Poppy and somehow she had gotten away. Most of the wives admitted she’d been one of them, but seemed afraid to talk about her. Thankful said she was the ninth wife and that her real name was Valerie. She claimed to know nothing about her and Jude could sense that she was uncomfortable. Valerie had been a poofer, she said. There one day, gone the next. Everyone thought she was probably in Canada. Naoma was equally unhelpful. Valerie was one subject she was not willing to discuss and her plea bargain did not require her to do so.

  Jude took a plastic bag from her pocket and examined the key and ten-digit code. In their extensive search of the premises and outbuildings, the FBI had found nothing the small key would fit. The number made no sense to anyone. 2329159919. Jude reminded herself to look for the obvious. Living here, staring out at the surroundings, yearning to escape, what must Darlene have been thinking? What secret did the numbers represent? Why had she been singled out by Nathaniel for torture and murder? According to Naoma, God said Darlene had “betrayed” them. Clearly, this was Nathaniel’s opinion dressed up as a message from the Almighty.

  Jude paced back and forth in the shade, trying to put herself in Darlene’s shoes. Pregnant. Helpless. Desperate to contact someone from the outside world and let them know who she was. Had she stolen money and concealed it somewhere, imagining she could get to a town and buy a ticket out? There had to be a reason why Nathaniel lost his temper that day. He must have discovered something. If Darlene had physically hidden money or some other item, it had to be within walking distance of the house. There was nowhere else she could go.

  Jude studied the digits again and remembered something she had seen in Darlene’s room. A note pinned to her mirror that instructed her younger sister “leave my lipstick alone.” Every L in the note had been written l and in Darlene’s hand, the letter was stunted. To a lab tech in Quantico who thought he was dealing with a phone number, it would be easy to mistake the letter for the number one.

  In her mind’s eye, she replaced the ones with an L, and for a moment the revised code still didn’t make any sense, then she knew exactly what she was looking at. It was dead simple. Jude began counting her paces from the doorstep, walking in as straight a line as she could.

  Half an hour and two left turns later, she was staring at smooth boulder with a small trowel jammed deeply into the earth next to it. Jude dug her way around the boulder until the tip of the trowel struck something metallic. Scraping the dirt away, she eased a small locked metal box from the ground.

  The key slid into the lock and turned. Inside the box, a notebook was wedged on top of a pile of papers. Jude lifted it out and opened it at the first page. The owner had drawn a flower. Beneath this was written in a child’s hand, “My Story by Valerie Epperson.”

  Jude flipped the page and found herself staring at a photograph of Naoma as a young woman. On her knee sat a prettily dressed little girl. The caption under the photo read, “Me with my Mom.”

  Poppy Dolores was Naoma’s daughter. Nathaniel Epperson had taken his own child as his ninth wife. But that was not the ugliest secret Darlene had uncovered. Folded in the center of the notebook was a carefully drawn map in the distinctive turquoise ink Nathaniel Epperson used in his fountain pen. It showed the graves of seventeen people buried on the Epperson ranch. Each grave was numbered and a legend appeared on the back of the map. Beside each number was a name and next to that a brief statement of the individual’s sin and the method of “elimination.” The list was headed up “Atonement.”

  Nathaniel Epperson was a mass murderer.

  *

  “That’s fascinating,” Mercy said, glancing around the restaurant as she sipped her wine. They were in Denver, but she was still paranoid. “She must have found the box somewhere on the property, seen the value it could have, and hidden it while she tried to figure out how she could use it.”

  “I think she tried to blackmail him,” Jude speculated, mildly distracted by the outline of Mercy’s hard little nipples beneath her white shirt. “I think she told him that if he drove her back to Colorado, she would tell him where to find it. That’s why she had the note and the key. But then, at some point, she must have realized he was going to kill her, and she swallowed the information. Got the last word, in a sense.”

  “You think Epperson and Fawn Dew planned it all along? Drove all the way to Colorado intending to kill her?”

  “Probably. Then I think they buried the body somewhere, but had second thoughts. They were away for about eight days, according to Thankful.”

  “They dug her up…yes, that figures with the decomposition rate. But why?”

  “My guess is that they came up with a dopey plan to make it look like she’d been in Colorado all alon
g. I think they found the stake when they were looking for a dump site and hammered it into her heart to try and make this look like the work of a psycho killer.”

  “Which it was,” Mercy chipped in.

  “They wanted her to be found and identified so we’d focus on locals in the investigation. Hence the social security card. They were just trying to hide the fact that she had been in Utah.”

  “But she vanished two years earlier. Didn’t they realize we’d know she hadn’t been dead that long?”

  “I doubt forensic science or even basic biology formed part of their education,” Jude said.

  Mercy smiled. “Basic biology. Now that’s a topic we should discuss in private.” Her hand drifted across the table and her fingers lightly stroked the inside of Jude’s wrist. “Want to get a room?”

  Jude did. In the worst way. But she was still bothered about Elspeth. “You already have a girlfriend.”

  “She’s only here every few months. And we just sleep together for old time’s sake.”

  “So the next time she comes, you’ll relive those happy memories again?”

  Mercy shook her head, half laughing, half serious. “You’re being a Neanderthal about this.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation.” Impatience seeped into Mercy’s voice. “It’s my business if I choose to have sex with Elspeth or not.”

  Jude stared down at the table, wanting to agree and get out of the restaurant and escape to a hotel. “Okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s none of my business.”

  “Jude,” Mercy said softly, “we can’t do this if we’re not on the same page. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I’m not hurt.”

  “I don’t mind if you see other people.”

  For some reason, that was no consolation. Jude said, “I know.”

  That was exactly what she should do, she told herself. See other people. The fact that she only wanted to “see” Mercy was her problem. She signaled the waiter for the check and changed the subject.