“No, he didn’t. He refused to say that she was involved.” But in a way that made me pretty sure Gwen was right.
“She had to have been.” She counted off on her fingers. “Carlos, Bertran, Jesus, Gabriela. They had to have been involved in the robberies.”
“Proof,” I said again. “We have to have proof.”
“All right, let’s go talk to Bertran,” Gwen said, checking her phone for the right apartment number.
“Remember, let’s try to be nice again, at least in the beginning to get him to talk,” I said, but I wasn’t sure she was even paying attention to me.
We went down two flights to apartment 34 and knocked again. The door didn’t open fully, and we got only a glimpse of a young Hispanic woman’s face. Bertran’s sister? Girlfriend? Wife? She didn’t seem to recognize Gwen, or if she did, it didn’t make her open the door.
“Is Bertran home? We need to talk to him about Bishop Hope.”
She was handling this too roughly, so I stepped in, “Yes, about a ward matter. We need his help,” I said calmly.
The woman looked at Gwen. “Hermana Ferris?” she said.
“Yes. I was friends with Gabriela Suarez. You knew her? The one who was murdered—”
That was as far as she got before the door closed. So much for our good not-cop/bad not-cop strategy.
“Now what?” Gwen asked.
“You’re not even listening,” I said. Why was she bothering to ask me anything?
“There has to be proof of all of this somewhere. Maybe if I go back and look through the newspapers again, I’ll find another name. Or maybe one of the members of the ward will decide to come to me.” She shook her head, clearly frustrated.
“Maybe we can come back after Thanksgiving?” I asked. People might be more relaxed then. I was certainly having a hard time focusing on anything but my plans for tomorrow.
Gwen let out a long breath. “Yeah, sure.”
Together, we walked out of the apartment complex. I thought we were headed home, but Gwen pointed suddenly ahead of me and then started running. I did my best to keep up with her as she ran to the back entrance of the apartment building just in time to collide with a young Hispanic man who was small, but muscular. His face was riddled with acne, and he looked like he couldn’t have been older than Samuel.
“Bertran?” Gwen asked, her face flushed with triumph.
His head jerked to the side. “What’s it to you?” he asked. He didn’t seem to recognize her from the ward. I wondered if that could be to our advantage?
“We were wondering if we could talk to you for a minute,” I said.
“About what?” he asked.
“Your mother seems worried about you,” I said, nodding back to the apartment.
“That’s not my mother,” he said. “That’s my aunt.”
Damn. Well, I’d blown that one.
Gwen took over. “We want to ask some questions about Greg Hope and Celestial Security,” she said.
Bertran’s response was as clear as it was disgusting: he spat a gob on the ground, then glared up at us. “I’m not saying nothing without a lawyer,” he said.
“We’re not accusing you of anything,” Gwen said quickly. “We just want to know the truth. Don’t you think people deserve to know who Bishop Greg Hope really is, and how he’s making so much money?”
Bertran stared for a long moment. “Why should I trust you?”
“We wouldn’t be here unless we already suspected something was wrong,” Gwen said. “We just want to hear your side of the story.” Finally, she was following my less confrontational lead. But too late, it seemed.
Bertran spat again and looked up, then pushed past Gwen, nearly knocked me over, and ran headlong past us in the door.
“Damn it!” Gwen said.
“We can’t force him to talk,” I said. “Look, let’s take some time to process this. We can regroup on Friday.”
But Gwen was fixated. Her whole body was tense. “He’s afraid, just like Jesus was. This is what Hope is to them, do you see that? Not a bishop, a monster.”
Softly, I said, “They seem more scared of you right now than Bishop Hope.”
Her face fell. “That’s not fair, Linda. They’re afraid of me because of him. They’re afraid of what he’ll do to them if the truth comes out. I’m trying to help them. They just can’t see that because he has so much power over them. If it ever comes down to his word against theirs, they must feel like they can’t win. He’s a bishop and a successful, well-known businessman with endless resources. He might even be dangerous.”
I didn’t argue. I was just as disenchanted with Hope and his business as she was. “We can’t just make it seem like we’re using them, just like he has,” I said.
Head bowed, Gwen walked back with me to the car. Once we got there, I wanted to relax, but I couldn’t quite yet.
“He’s making money off both ends,” Gwen said bitterly. “Sign up and pay every month, or you get robbed to make you sign back up.”
A sour taste filled my mouth. Even if by some miracle Hope wasn’t involved in this string of robberies, I didn’t like the idea of Kurt working with him.
Gwen dropped me off at home.
Frustrated with the whole situation, I got out one of the pumpkin pies in the outside fridge, eating half of it as I tried to think. Then I started making two new ones, because that was how I dealt with stress.
Chapter 36
I woke up at 5 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day to put the turkey in the brine. We were using one of the old root beer coolers that Kurt had taken to scout camp on many occasions. It still smelled faintly of that, but I didn’t think it would affect the turkey’s flavor.
I tried to go back to sleep after that, but couldn’t, and when Kurt woke up, we occupied ourselves more pleasantly for a while.
“I’ve got to go get the bread drying,” I said eventually.
“You know, you could just make stuffing with pre-dried bread from the store,” Kurt said.
I goggled at the suggestion. Who would want to eat stuffing that was made from stale, store-bought bread? That wasn’t going to happen at my house, not while I was still breathing. Though he’d hit on one of the reasons I hadn’t allowed any of my daughters-in-law to volunteer for certain dishes. I didn’t want to eat stuffing made from a boxed mix. Or rolls from a store, either.
I didn’t particularly care when it came to sweet potatoes or anything green. Marie was bringing a salad, Willow a green bean casserole, and Naomi a dessert that wasn’t pie. I wasn’t going to complain about more dessert, though I suspected it might be near midnight before our stomachs were empty enough to give them all the attention they deserved.
I put the turkey in the oven at around noon without Kurt’s help, though he offered. It wasn’t that big, and if there came a time when I couldn’t lift a turkey into the oven, maybe I would start going to the gym. Until then, I got enough of a workout kneading my roll dough by hand, as it should be. If more people took their aggressions out on dough, the world would be a better place, in my opinion.
Kenneth and Naomi arrived first, along with Talitha. She had brought a turkey-building craft activity with Rolos (the head), Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (the body), and candy corn (the feathers). More sugar, thank goodness!
Naomi asked me if there was anything she could do to help. “I feel so guilty, just showing up here and eating. That’s not the way it was at home.”
She came from a huge polygamous ex-Mormon family, and as the eldest daughter, she’d acted more like mother to her younger siblings in many ways. But I wouldn’t let her do that here. “I’ve got it handled. You just go sit down and enjoy yourself,” I said, and nudged her out of my kitchen.
Adam and Marie arrived next. Marie had indeed brought a green salad—a green Jell-O salad. After all, what would any Mormon gat
hering be without Jell-O? I guessed Marie had missed the memo on how much I disliked Jell-O, especially in salad form. This one had shredded carrots and cucumber in it, along with chunks of mandarin orange and apple.
“Mom, I want your roll recipe someday,” said Marie as Adam snuck a piece of the dough.
I slapped his hand, but he’d already put it in his mouth. “That’ll grow in your stomach and make you explode, you know,” I teased. This was one of our oldest jokes.
Zachary was next. After being so excited for us to meet his new girlfriend—or whatever he was going to call her—he came alone.
“What happened?” I asked.
He only shook his head, tight-lipped, and refused to give any details. I gave him a hug and told him I loved him. Then I sent him to play with Talitha—he’d always gotten along well with kids.
Finally, Joseph and Willow and baby Carla arrived. She had plumped up nicely and was just about the chubbiest little thing I’d ever seen.
As promised, Willow had brought a green bean casserole, complete with a layer of cornflakes toasted on the top. I liked the Mormon classic more than I cared to admit.
“It looks delicious,” I told her.
She smiled. “Thank you. I know you don’t give compliments about cooking easily.”
Was it true? Was I stingy in that way?
After that, I shooed her out of the kitchen. It was time for me to start mashing the potatoes that had been boiling for twenty minutes, and then simmering the gravy. And the rolls had to come out of the oven fresh and golden. And the turkey had to rest before Kurt carved it.
Once I’d disgorged the turkey’s insides, I put the stuffing back in the oven for a moment to make sure that it was warm and crunchy on the sides, just how I liked it. I wished for the umpteenth time that I had a second oven. But only twice a year. A disappearing second oven.
People talked about how quickly the food you spent all day cooking got eaten, but it took us well over an hour to get through it. Then Carla started to cry, and Willow said the baby needed a nap. She already knew she could go upstairs and lay the baby down in Samuel’s room in the portable crib we kept there.
When she came back, we made the candy turkeys Talitha had brought, and Kurt had us go around and say what we were thankful for this year.
No one mentioned my stuffing or rolls, but I was pretty sure that was implied, judging by how much had been eaten.
Joseph said he was grateful that Carla would start walking soon, so he wouldn’t have to carry her around everywhere.
Adam said he was grateful school was almost finished.
Kenneth said he was grateful for Naomi and Talitha.
Zachary said morosely that he was grateful for text-message breakups, which the rest of us tried carefully not to react to.
I said I was thankful that my family was growing each year without me having to have more children myself.
Kurt said he was thankful that I was still in one piece, which made all the boys laugh. They’d heard about what had happened to land me in the hospital last summer.
“How’s Samuel doing?” Kenneth asked after a lull.
“It sounds like he’s having a great time,” Kurt said effusively. “I think we’re going to have to get him a warmer coat this year, though.”
Kenneth looked at me with intent. “I heard he was transferred three times in two weeks. That seems unusual.”
“He called me about that,” I said.
“What?” said Kenneth.
“I thought that wasn’t allowed,” said Naomi, whose brothers hadn’t gone on missions, though perhaps her father had, before he’d decided to practice polygamy and been excommunicated from the church.
“It’s not, usually,” said Kenneth. “He must’ve gotten special permission.”
Kurt was trying to communicate something to me with a meaningful stare. Probably that I should go along with his cheerier take on Samuel’s mission life since it was Thanksgiving.
“He called from the mission home with special permission from President Cooper,” I said.
“Really? Why?” asked Adam, who was now curious as well.
“Because your mother was worried about him, that’s all,” Kurt said.
I considered leaving it at that. But these were Samuel’s older brothers. They deserved a more accurate version of events. Especially Kenneth, after what had happened to the gay companion on his mission, a young man who had been sent home and ended up committing suicide. “I called the mission president and chewed him out the week before.”
Kenneth laughed. “Go Mom!” he said.
Based on Kurt’s dark expression, he was not thinking the same thing. He didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving talking about problems like this. But I wasn’t sure I understood what the point of family was if you couldn’t talk about what was really going on.
“I think Samuel deserves to be treated well, and if the other missionaries are mistreating him, they should be the ones punished, not him,” I said.
“That’s not always the way it works,” said Adam, subtly siding with his father.
“One of the many times I’m glad I didn’t go on a mission,” said Joseph, who had gone to school and gotten married instead. That wasn’t always accepted as a legitimate choice in Mormonism, but the older Joseph got, the less people questioned it. There was other proof now of his devotion to God and the church.
“One of the transfers wasn’t about Samuel at all. He was helping clean up a messy relationship between other companions who’d become physically violent with each other,” I added.
“Better him than me,” muttered Joseph.
“Sounds like the kind of thing the mission president’s pets get asked to do,” said Adam.
“But Samuel isn’t even an AP,” said Kenneth.
“What about the other two transfers?” asked Naomi.
I relayed the stories Samuel had told me about the homophobic companion, and the one who’d come out of the closet and gone home.
“You know, if the Mormon church didn’t teach people that being gay was wrong and had to be fixed in the next life, it wouldn’t be such a big deal,” Kenneth said, fists clenched and face flushed.
“Our church is about love and inclusion,” Kurt insisted. He’d turned his back on the conversation, but he couldn’t let it go without saying something like that.
I sighed, unsure what to do to make Kurt feel better.
“Let’s play Pictionary, okay?” said Willow.
“That’s boring,” said Talitha. She suggested Scribblish, which was like Pictionary combined with telephone. You drew a picture, then someone guessed what it was, wrote that down, folded the paper down to cover the picture but left the words showing, then passed it along for someone else to draw for the person after that to guess, and so on until you ran out of paper.
We played for an hour. I ended up with several Book of Mormon-themed pictures that were easy to guess, including the one with Ammon cutting off dozens of arms and Captain Moroni with the “title of liberty.” I also got one that looked too risqué for a game in mixed company, so I guessed that it was a banana, ignoring the genitalia-esque hairs, and found that I was actually right. Kenneth had intervened along the way to make it funny, since he’d known it was coming to me next and that Talitha wouldn’t see.
Finally, it was time for dessert. It seemed that the bad feelings of the day had dissipated, and I didn’t have to make an official apology. Kurt and the boys started cleaning up and I relaxed on the couch with my daughters-in-law. When they were all gone, it was just me and Kurt.
“That was a good day,” Kurt said, pulling me close for a hug.
So he wasn’t mad? “If every day was like today,” I started. “We’d—”
“We’d all end up as wide as we are tall,” Kurt finished for me.
I pushed h
im gently. “No, we’d all forget about going to heaven, because we’d be perfectly happy right here and now,” I said.
Chapter 37
The next morning I was watching television on the couch in a post-Thanksgiving-indulgence coma when the phone rang.
“Hello?” I answered unhappily, not ready to leave my comfortable spot.
It was Gwen, of course. “Linda, we have to go back and see Carlos again. I want to ask him about the robberies and if he and Gabriela were involved. That has to be what he was holding back on the last time we were there.”
I decided it would be rude of me to ask how her Thanksgiving had gone. “I thought we were going to try with Jesus and Bertran again,” I said.
“No, I’ve been thinking about this for the past two days. We have to talk to Carlos now, before word gets back to Bishop Hope,” she said, her words rushed. “I keep thinking about the phone message she left. She was terrified. She must have known she’d pushed Hope too far. She’d become too big of a threat, and he had to make sure she was out of the picture.”
She was right; I wasn’t ready to let this go either. “If you’re sure,” I said.
“I’ve already arranged it. We have to go, Linda. It’s the only way to figure out the last piece of the puzzle,” she said.
I sighed. “All right. I’ll come.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Gwen said.
I thought about Kurt, still asleep upstairs. Today might be the only day he took off all year. We didn’t go shopping on Black Friday as a rule and he had no bishop commitments. He’d been talking yesterday about watching my favorite old movies all day while eating leftovers, and now I was skipping out on him.
He wouldn’t be happy with me when he woke up—did I care? Of course I did. But I also didn’t want Kurt thinking he was in charge of me. This was an issue of conscience, and I couldn’t let it go for the sake of convenience within my marriage.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” I said, though I knew I was behaving like a teenager, sneaking off so she didn’t have to talk to her parents.
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