The Bishop's Wife (39 page)

I had no idea if the transformation was on purpose or not, but it was eerie and it stopped me in my tracks. I had been ready to demand, to scream, to make a ruckus. Now I was tongue-tied.

“Sister Wallheim, what a relief to see a friendly face. Come in,” she said, looking behind me as she reached for the door, checking one direction and the other.

For news vans? Or for neighbors? A church court wouldn't be public, but it wouldn't be private, either. And even if people aren't supposed to talk about what goes on behind closed doors, the
results would likely be immediately obvious to anyone who was in the church itself.

“How are you?” I asked her, trying to play along with her warmth. She clearly didn't know I had anything to do with instigating the church court all the way over here in Sandy, and I wanted to keep it that way as long as I could.

“It's been difficult,” she said, her expression strained.

“You look—different,” I said. She looked like a woman who was trying to be a teenager again. Did she know that made her look even older? If I were truly her friend, I would pull her aside and gently tell her that she didn't have to compete, that her wisdom and experience were of far more value than jiggly boobs or a clear complexion.

She held out her hands and looked at the cotton-candy-colored fingernail polish. “I'm trying to be my best,” she said. “I'm trying, even if no one notices.” She caught her breath on a sob, and then she sat down abruptly and covered her face with her hands.

How could I not have seen that something was wrong with her before? So deeply, deeply wrong. Gwen Ferris had said that her mother had been complicit in the rape of her daughters, but this went beyond complicity.

I stepped closer and put a hand on Judy Weston's shoulder. “You can get out of this situation,” I said, each word clear as cut glass. “You don't have to stay here, no matter what he has said to you, no matter how many years you have put up with things you knew were wrong. You can start over. There are people who would be willing to help you.” I was done playing roles here. I had to see who she was.

She threw off my hand immediately and looked up at me frostily. “I don't know what you are suggesting. I will stand at my husband's side no matter what terrible accusations are thrown at him. We are married eternally, and that's what those vows mean to me and every other woman who loves the church and God.”

But I still didn't know. Was she a monster who had sacrificed her own daughter to the god of a terrible, fiery pit? Or was she simply sick?

I tried to speak calmly to her, let her take her time to see the truth. “I'm sure this has all been very difficult for you. It must make it hard to see what the right choice is.”

“It hasn't made it hard to see the right choice at all,” she said, playing with her hair like a child. She looked up at me. “But it has put a great deal of pressure on my husband. It makes him angry at times, though he is normally such a calm and peaceful man. You know that. You saw him before.” Her childlike tone made me want to shake her, and I had to clench my hands to keep them at my sides.

“I saw him,” I said. I had seen him in a fervor about Carrie's disappearance. I wouldn't have called him calm. He had been a force even then. I just hadn't realized what kind of a force.

“But someone is spreading a terrible rumor about him and now Aaron has been called to a church court. This very morning he spoke to our stake president.”

I said nothing to this.

“And he blames me,” she went on. “He thinks that I had something to do with it, that I told the Relief Society president in our ward or one of the other leaders. No one will give him a name, but he is sure that it was me, and he will not speak to me. Maybe you could talk to him and explain that I would never do something like that.”

If only it had been her who had told the truth about him. I felt a heaviness settle on my chest and shoulders. Here it was, the revelation I had been waiting for. She wasn't unaware of what had happened to her daughter. She wasn't afraid of her husband hurting her if she told the truth. She was just afraid of it upsetting her perfect life.

“He blames me for the other girls, too. He says that it is my fault they won't speak to him anymore.” She was literally wringing her hands over this.

“How many other daughters do you have?” I asked. I had never had the chance to ask Gwen Ferris if she knew. Gwen had sisters, but I hadn't realized Carrie did. Strange that her father hadn't
mentioned that in any of his numerous television interviews. The sisters had never been interviewed. They hadn't been at the funeral, either. And as far as I knew, Carrie hadn't been in touch with them.

“Three,” said Judy. She looked cautious now of my questions, and I knew I would have to tread carefully.

“I hope they fared better than Carrie did. Did they marry well?” I asked.

“Yes, indeed they did. He was very proud of their marriages. It reflected well on him to have his daughters make such good matches.”

“Was that all he cared about?” I said.

“No, of course not!” She shot me a sharp look. “He only wanted them to be happy.”

Staring her in the eye, I asked, “And are they happy?”

I could see her struggling to hold my gaze, but she didn't look away. “When they first left, he had a good relationship with them. They would call him two or three times a week. Sometimes they would not talk to me at all. They wanted their daddy, and he spoiled them. He gave them money for clothes and to go out to dinner. When they were in college. It wasn't right. I told him that they needed to grow up, but he wouldn't listen to me. He said that they would always be his little girls.” She kept looking at me, as if waiting for me to give her some kind of approval.

I withheld it. It seemed the only piece I had to play in this game. I didn't accuse her, just let her talk and try to get me to nod and smile at her, as everyone else seemed to.

“You said the relationship was good when they first left,” I said. “Does that mean it's not so good anymore?”

“It wasn't his fault they stopped calling for him. They didn't ask him for money anymore, either. I thought it was a good thing. They needed their independence, and all children will go through stages, won't they?”

“Will they?” I said.

“Yes, of course they will. But it was a trial for both of us. One of
our daughters wouldn't even let him come to her first baby's blessing. We didn't even know she was pregnant. She just sent us a card in the mail after it was done. Can you imagine how that hurt us both?”

Good for her, I thought, but all I said was, “Mmm.”

I felt sorry for Judy Weston. I felt sickened for what she had accepted, as a wife and mother. But I could not like her. And my desire to try to help her escape was gone.

Carrie's choice in marriage had been dictated by her mother's example of submission, blindness, utter loyalty no matter what her husband's flaws, and she had only realized years later how limiting that kind of marriage was. Though perhaps she had still wanted to come back to it, for the comfort it offered her.

“What about that letter that Aaron had from her?” I asked finally. “The one you shared at the press conference? About Jared abusing her? Where did you get that?”

The red spots on her cheeks spread so that all but her lips seemed suffused in color. It was a strange thing to see, her lips pale against her darkened face, as if she had become a digital image with coloration reversed, not a human being.

“Aaron said that Carrie sent it to him,” she insisted.

As I stood staring at her, trying to suppress my disgust, she burst out defensively, “We were good parents to her! We gave her everything she needed. And we would have done anything for her. She should have known that.”

“Oh?” I said. Direct questions appeared to be less effective than nudging and letting her talk.

“Of course. We sent her Christmas gifts every year, and birthday gifts. We both wrote to her every month, and sent her scriptures to help her along in daily life. We were concerned about her, but we never pushed her. We only wanted the best for her. We wanted her to be happy, and she wasn't happy with Jared. Anyone could see that.”

“But she was happy with you?” I said.

“Well, she was when she was younger. When she got older, she
was confused. She started dressing provocatively. You must know what that's like with a teenage daughter.” She made a dismissive hand gesture, completely unaware of the searing pain she had just caused me.

No, I did not know what that was like. And I never would.

“She started dating just about any boy she could. And Aaron would catch them together, practically naked, here at the house. But he never got angry with her. He disciplined her, but he didn't shout and he didn't hurt her. He loved her too much to do that.”

He loved her indeed.

“He was always looking out for her online. He found out how to see her Facebook posts, even though she wouldn't friend us. He needed to know how she was doing.”

He had stalked her via the Internet. That did not surprise me. “Of course he did,” I murmured.

“And when Aaron saw that she had posted photographs of herself online—photographs like that—he had to go see her and talk to her. He had to stop her.”

I felt the world shimmering around me. “He saw the photographs she had posted online from Las Vegas?” I said. This was too obvious, wasn't it? She couldn't have just told me the last clue in the puzzle of her daughter's murder.

“That wasn't from Facebook,” said Judy. There was a strange pride in her demeanor now. “He watches certain sites. He does it to check on the girls in the ward, and the women. He wants to make sure that they are safe. Sometimes photos are posted as a cruel joke, or by a woman who is in a fury and changes her mind later. He is only looking for people he recognizes, so he can help them.”

“I have to go,” I said to Judy Weston. I needed to tell the police this. Then they could arrest Aaron Weston for the murder of his daughter at last. They could trace him on the Internet, surely. Then I could go home to my own family, where I was safe, and where the whole world wasn't upside down and inside out.

I left the Westons' house, not bothering with any social niceties and leaving Judy gawping behind me. I drove home and called the police while I was still buzzing from the adrenaline rush.

After that, things moved quickly. Late Saturday night, Aaron Weston was announced as a suspect in the case of his daughter's murder. The police served a warrant on his house and took possession of his computers and his car. According to the Sunday morning news, they were looking for proof that he had driven to Wendover and that he had killed his daughter in his own car. I was not happy with the ending of this sad story, but at least it was an ending. I had done something for Carrie Helm at last, even if it wasn't nearly what I'd wanted to do. And Kelly Helm would be as safe as I could make her, though I might not see her often.

“It seems the best ending I can hope for,” I told Kurt when he got home from church meetings after ten.

“But who will his daughters be sealed to, then?” asked Kurt. “I know I should simply trust in God, and I do. But I wonder even so.”

It was one thing to think of a woman with children sealed to someone besides their father in the eternities, but it was another again to try to imagine a way out of this mess. Would the daughters all be sealed to different families? Then what about their connection to each other? I could not imagine that God would bind them forever
to a mother like Judy Weston. They say He forgives all and that we will all be changed beyond recognition, once the work of redemption is complete. But could those daughters ever have happy marriages and relationships with their own families after this? All I could see was generation to generation, daughters and mothers set adrift from sealings. More questions that had no answers.

M
ONDAY
I
HAD
the television on to watch the news, as I usually did during lunch. I didn't expect to hear anything about the Westons, but around noon, their house appeared on the screen, surrounded by SWAT vans. People in uniforms were converging on the house with guns.

“Breaking news. Aaron Weston, father and suspected murderer of young Draper mother Carrie Helm, has locked himself and his wife in their house and threatened to kill her and then himself rather than surrender to police, as he was supposed to earlier this morning. Police say that Aaron Weston has a weapon and that he has spoken to them on the phone. He claims that he is innocent and that his daughters, who have made statements against their father to the police, have been subject to brainwashing worked on them by his wife.”

He had turned on her, and I couldn't feel sorry for her. But I felt no satisfaction. I might think Judy deserved to lose her daughters in the hereafter, but I didn't think she deserved to die. Not at her husband's hands.

I turned the television off immediately and got in the car. I called Kurt and told him about the news as I drove south.

“What are you doing? Why? No. Linda, this is none of your business. They're not in our ward. They're not your responsibility.”

“Yes, they are,” I said. “You know they are. This is what I have to do. I started all of this and now I have to finish it.”

“Is this about Georgia?” said Kurt.

It was the first time he had said her name in years. It jolted me
a little, and I had to work harder to focus on the road. “Not really,” I said. “Not in any direct way.”

“Then why are you doing this? Why put yourself in danger?”

I could see the Draper temple in my rearview mirror, the Oquirrh temple to my left behind the South Jordan temple. The Salt Lake temple was less visible ahead of me. So many temples, where only good thoughts and godliness were supposed to be, and so much horror in the real world around them.