The Bishop's Wife (24 page)

But there were also three phone calls to a Nevada area code.

I punched in the number and waited for an answer. A male voice picked up, and I was startled for a moment until I realized it had gone to voicemail. The voice said that the man's name was Will. The same Will who had picked up the now-dumped cell phone? It sounded like him, but I wasn't sure. I would have to try back later.

That night, the news revealed that Carrie Helm had purchased a bus ticket from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas early on the morning of her disappearance. There was grainy security camera footage of her buying the ticket, and the clear image of her family car in the background. And her husband, Jared, standing behind her, wearing a thick coat with the hood thrown back so his face was visible.

Jared had given a brief interview to reporters outside the police station as he left, and I could see his father hovering in the background as if to make sure he stayed on script.

“Yes, I took my wife to the bus station. And yes, I lied about not knowing where she had gone.” His words were dull and emotionless, not what you would expect of someone who was truly remorseful about concealing the truth.

“Why did you lie?” a reporter asked.

“I lied because I was embarrassed that she was leaving me.” He didn't look embarrassed. There was a flicker of something—possibly anger—in his eyes. But it was quickly tamped down. “I also thought it would be more difficult for Kelly if she knew her mother had gone willingly.”

“And what about the cost of the investigation for the police?”

Jared glanced back at his father, and seemed to swallow hard. “I never wanted the police involved in this. It was her parents who
did that. They are the ones who are at fault for making this more than it might have been.”

Their fault and mine, I thought. Carrie Helm had apparently wanted to disappear quietly.

And what about Carrie Helm herself? Why hadn't she contacted the police herself? Or her parents? Or her daughter? Or Kurt? She could have done any number of things to save us all this anxiety and pain, and she hadn't. She hadn't looked back.

Maybe she was truly as selfish as Jared and Alex Helm claimed. All the anger I felt for them was now directed at Carrie instead.

“But you could have told the police the truth from the start,” said a reporter. “Are you going to face charges for misleading an official investigation?”

“I did what Carrie asked me to do,” said Jared. “And I never lied to the police. Not directly.” He glanced back at his father again.

“And why did she leave without taking anything? Not her purse or phone or even some extra clothes?” another reporter asked, this one a woman.

That was the right question, I thought. I stared more closely at Jared on the screen, and found that my anger was dissipating. Maybe I was just too tired to feel it anymore. “She felt that she didn't deserve to take anything away from the marriage if she was leaving it,” said Jared.

“You didn't make it a condition of her leaving peacefully that she give up everything?”

Jared shook his head. “Of course not. I wouldn't have done that. She said she wanted a new start. She said she didn't want any reminders of her old life.”

“What about her young daughter? She didn't ask for a custody arrangement?” asked the female reporter.

“She trusted me to take care of Kelly,” said Jared. “She knows I love our daughter very much.”

“And what about her parents, who say that you abused her and
that she wanted to escape from you because of that abuse?”

I saw a flash of Alex Helm in Jared as he turned angrily and stepped toward the reporter. But he stopped himself and took a breath, then said through gritted teeth, “I loved Carrie. She chose to leave despite my wishes. But it wasn't because I threatened her. And it wasn't because she feared for her life or for Kelly's. That's the end of this conference. Thank you,” he said, and got into his car.

I turned off the television and thought about what I had seen in those garbage bags in the basement. Would any woman really leave that much of her life behind?

I
HAD TO
find out the truth. I called the Nevada number I'd found on her cell phone over and over again that day and the next, always getting the voicemail. Then, at last, Will answered. Just my luck that it was Wednesday night and Kurt wasn't involved in something at the church. He came into the front room just as I was saying, “Hello. Is this Will?” I was hoping the man wouldn't immediately hang up and get rid of this phone, the way someone had gotten rid of the cell phone Carrie had called Kelly on.

“Yeah. Who's this?”

“Linda Wallheim. I'm a friend of Carrie Helm's,” I said, staring at Kurt. So much for keeping secrets.

“Carrie Helm?” he said. “Um, I don't think I know anyone by that name.” His tone was defensive.

And it should be. This was the same voice I'd said all this to before. “Well, that's interesting, because she has this number on her cell phone. She's been missing for over a month now. She's a wife and mother from Draper, Utah. You may have seen her on the news.” I didn't know if anything about her disappearance had gone on national news, but it might have. “And also you and I talked on the phone just a few days ago.”

“Hmmm. Well,” he said.

This had to mean Carrie really had called Kelly that day, that she
was in Las Vegas just as Jared had claimed. “Can I talk to Carrie, please?” I asked.

“Sorry, but she's not here right now.”

“Are you just saying that to get me off the phone? Because I'm going to keep calling back if I have to, and you may end up with a visit from the police if they can trace this phone to your address. Is that what you want?”

Kurt had seated himself on the couch. I was acutely aware of him there, watching me work my way into more secrets. Other people's secrets.

“Look, she was here, but she's not anymore. You've got to believe me.”

“Why should I believe you?” I asked.

I was just a middle-aged woman a state away, but somehow I'd frightened him. “I swear, it's the truth,” he said. “Please, don't keep calling me. I can't take it anymore.”

“Then you need to get Carrie to come home and answer some questions. Make sure she appears on TV so that people know that she hasn't been harmed.” Kurt was trying to tell me something in sign language. I turned away. He was distracting me and I needed my focus.

“Harmed?” asked Will. “You mean by me? But that's the whole reason she came here, so that she would feel safe.”

“Was her husband threatening her life?” I asked.

“Was she still married? She told me he was her ex.”

Ex-husband? My suspicions about Jared Helm cooled and my suspicions of Carrie rose to boiling. “They're still married,” I said. “Legally, anyway.”

Will swore.

“And she has a daughter. A five-year-old. Kelly. Did she tell you that?”

He swore again. “No,” he said. “She didn't tell me that either.”

“So you can see that Carrie needs to come back. If she wants a
divorce, she needs to get one legally. And she needs to deal with custody issues. Even if she doesn't want to see her daughter, she should legally give over her rights so that there are no questions.”

He sighed. “Well, good riddance to the bitch.”

The disdain in his voice seemed to echo Alex Helm's, and I cringed. Had Carrie gone from the frying pan into the fire? “What do you mean by good riddance?” He'd said she was gone, but I'd thought he was prevaricating.

“All her crazy—it's nothing to do with me anymore. She's gone. She left last night, while I was asleep. She didn't tell me she was leaving. She didn't leave a note or nothing. She just disappeared. So good riddance, like I said.”

She had disappeared again, I thought. This was starting to sound like Carrie Helm's M.O.

“Did she say anything about why she was leaving?” I asked. Was it because of the television news coverage? “Or where she was going?”

“I didn't ask her to come here in the first place, you know. She just showed up, and it wasn't a fun time. But I was trying to be the good guy. And then she just disappeared like that. Proves she never cared about anyone but herself.”

The more he talked, the less he sounded like the kind of person Carrie should have expected to help her. What had she been thinking? Was this proof of desperation or real mental illness?

“Did you call the police?” I asked. “Are you at all concerned that something might have happened to her?” She hadn't come back home, as far as I knew. Maybe she would appear any moment and the news vans would get the story of the day. Or maybe she had moved on to another man, another cell phone, another city where she could get lost.

“Why would I call the police?” he said. “It isn't as if we were married. I don't even know that much about her.”

Clearly. I was getting the sense that sex with a random woman
who needed a place to stay was par for the course for this guy.

“Now, I've got to go—” he began.

How was I going to keep him talking? I could see Kurt giving me a baleful look, but I wasn't finished yet. He was just going to have to wait his turn to yell at me.

“You don't want anyone to think that you had something to do with whatever happens to her next, do you?” I asked.

“I didn't do anything!” he said, his tone strained.

“Of course you didn't. But that's not how it might look to others, especially if she gets into trouble. Do you know if she was involved with drugs? Or if she had financial problems?” I was racking my brain, trying to think of reasons that Carrie was behaving this way, and at the same time trying to make sure Will didn't hang up.

“I didn't see any drugs while she was here, but she claimed she didn't have a credit card and she didn't bring any money. Like I said, she was all about what she needed from me.”

“Did she tell you anything that might be useful in trying to track her down and make sure she isn't hurt?”

“She didn't tell me anything that wasn't a lie, or so it sounds like from what you're saying. She wasn't anything like she seemed online. She was always wanting to stay inside, keeping blinds closed, and refusing to talk.”

“You met her online? How long have you known her?”

“About two years, I guess,” he said.

And how much of that did Jared Helm know about? Did that affect the way he'd reacted when she asked him to drop her off at the bus station? Was that the reason he hadn't let her take anything with him? Had he forced her to cut herself off from her daughter?

I kept hearing Alex Helm's voice in my ears, the word “whore” echoing. If she'd had a relationship with another man while she was married, it might not matter to him whether or not it involved actual physical sex.

“Did you meet in person before she came to stay with you?” I asked.

“A few times,” he said.

So. There it was. This was who Carrie had become, or maybe who she had always been. I wouldn't call her a whore, but I hated the thought that Alex Helm might have seen some truth about her that I had not.

She was alive, I kept telling myself. That was the important thing. But it seemed that Jared was more and more the wronged husband here, just as he had always claimed.

“And she left recently?” I asked.

“Last night. And I really don't want to talk to the police about this. Or her husband.”

Of course he didn't.

I thanked him briefly, made no promises, and hung up. The cell phone beeped at me that its battery was low again, and I went upstairs to plug it in.

When I came back down, Kurt was waiting for me in the kitchen with some lemonade. “You know we have to tell the police what you found out. They need to know where she's been all this time,” he said. “And that she's not in danger. Her parents need to know.”

“It will only make it look worse for Carrie,” I said.

“You mean like Jared looks right now?” said Kurt.

I thought about it, but in the end, it was the image of Kelly's face that decided me. It was Kelly who was the most vulnerable. Carrie was an adult, or at least she ought to be one. After what I'd found out, I couldn't see her as the victim.

“She isn't there anymore,” I said. “In Las Vegas.”

“But she was there? Since she disappeared?” said Kurt.

I nodded. “It sounded like she went to him as soon as she got off the bus.” Though I hadn't asked Will that directly.

“Then we have to tell the police. We have to give them the cell phone you found. Where did you find it, by the way?” said Kurt. His eyes narrowed.

“In the basement of the Helm home when I went over there
yesterday. All her things have been bagged up,” I said. And somehow the police hadn't found it. Had they not been looking very hard?

“Hmm,” said Kurt. “That makes it trickier. The police might not be able to use it as evidence if it was stolen.”

Irrationally, I was annoyed with Kurt. Why did he have to take my victory away from me? “I'll take it back,” I said. “And after that video footage of Carrie getting on the bus, no one thinks she is dead anymore.”

“What about her parents?”

“I'll call them,” I said. “Just give me a little time.”

“All right, Linda. You know I trust you,” he said, and I was glad he didn't add the proviso, “most of the time,” which I was sure he must be thinking.

He went to bed, and seemed to expect that I'd do what he said on Thursday. But I didn't. I kept the phone and I didn't call the Westons. Not yet. I just felt this niggling sense that things weren't quite what they seemed to be. Or maybe it was that I wanted Carrie to be better than she was. She'd been a good mother, I thought, and she'd been an interesting thinker. I hated to imagine that I had been so duped, and it was worse somehow to be duped by another woman than by a man.