Bounty (Walk the Right Road) (20 page)

“Diane.” He sounded concerned, and she heard the signal light flick on as he slowed.

“No, Zac, don’t stop. Keep going. You’re close. Just around the corner you’ll see houses, farmland, but it’ll look like a small community.” She reached across the distance between them and touched his arm, feeling his warmth, but it did nothing to stop the icy chill inside her.

She spotted the first house, and then there were several scattered throughout the pastures with well-tended gardens, a few with smoke pluming from the woodstoves that existed in each and every house. It was colder today, especially here.

She pointed. “Over there, by that crop of trees, is a pullout.”

They passed a sign:
Thou shalt not park here.
She remembered all too well that it had been put there to discourage looky-loos. She spotted a school, which looked almost new and hadn’t been there before. Pickup trucks filled each of the driveways, curtains fluttering on some of the houses. Of course they had been spotted. Children were outside, running, playing, and her heart sank when she took in their clothing. A shaky hand covered her mouth when a front door opened and a large women in a black, old-fashioned long dress called out to the children and ushered them in. Others would follow. They didn’t like visitors, and the element of surprise was not on Zac and Diane’s side, not here.

She sighed. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” Zac asked.

“Into Creston,” she replied. “We won’t get any answers here. Not today.”

Zac parked outside the RCMP detachment in the Creston valley. It was a cluster of communities, and driving through seemed so inviting. She sighed as she stared straight ahead. Her head was filled with ghosts from her past, and maybe that was why Zac unclipped her seatbelt and pulled her across the seat against him. His arms snaked around her, and she wanted to lean into him, to feel him and let him take some of this agony off, but it was rooted so deeply in her body there wasn’t a chance in hell she could shake any of it, not right now.

“Hey, just breathe. Do you want to take a break, get some coffee, a sandwich? You have to be hungry.”

She had no idea what time it was. Hours had passed since she choked down the egg sandwich at breakfast, still sitting like lead in her stomach. “No.”

“Diane, talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking. What are you feeling right now?” He rested his cheek against the top of her head and held her to him. He was rubbing her arms, and it was then she realized she was trembling.

“I recognized the houses. Did you see them? The kids…it was as if I was looking back in time and nothing had changed. The school, did you see it? There was never a school before.” She stared straight ahead, out the window at the one-story brick building beside them. The red and white Canadian flag fluttered in the wind.

“Did you recognize the woman who walked out of the house?”

Diane pushed away from Zac because she couldn’t think about it. The thick, dark hair tied back, the matronly walk. No, she didn’t know for sure. So much time had passed. How many more women were there?

“I don’t know.” She sighed and slid her hand around his arm. “We should go in.” But she made no attempt to slide away. “Zac, I just want to finish this and get the hell out of here. Please,” she pleaded with him, because she didn’t know if she could finish this. Right now, in this second, she was fighting the horrible urge to run away.

“No, let’s just take a minute. You’re as white as a ghost, and you’re still shaking.” He opened his door and moved back his seat so she could slide off his lap and scoot out the door. Diane smoothed down her jacket and pulled at the sleeves before starting toward the station, but Zac had other ideas, as he slipped his arm around her and turned her the other way.

“No. Coffee first, then cops.”

***

“As I said, we’ve been investigating this group for some time.” The dark-haired Mountie, Corporal David Hodges, smiled in a sad way. His dark moustache appeared in need of a trim.

Zac and Diane sat across from the RCMP officer in a room in the back of the detachment. Diane still couldn’t get over how the desk sergeant out front had buzzed them right in, leading them back and introducing them to Corporal Hodges. They were expected, how about that? Even the welcome felt genuine.

“As a whole, these people are liked in the business community. A few of the men have businesses in town, and the younger men work, picking up part-time jobs here in Creston. They’re well liked and thought of as being extremely honest. For this particular polygamist group in Bounty, we’ve been working on criminal charges for child exploitation, trafficking. As you know, the whole polygamy issue came under attack not long ago. There was a question about whether it was consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it’s sparked a really heated debate among so many. It’s all about the rights of freedom of religion and freedom of association. That charter they’re hiding under is the same one that protects the gay community and common law relationships, as well as unfaithful husbands and wives.” The corporal sighed and appeared frustrated.

“Well, didn’t that case come down to a ruling of two competing visions, state intrusion versus personal harm? It was a challenge, for sure, to the polygamy laws, and the judge did find there’s great harm to women in polygamous relationships and to their children,” Zac responded.

Diane was surprised, because she had no idea of any test case and hadn’t followed anything to do with Bounty. Even though she had been born here, a Canadian, she knew there’d be no public record. It was as if she had erased every part of who she had been before Jack took her in. She was an American in her heart, but on paper, if anyone looked too hard, they may have questioned how, fifteen years ago, Diane Larsen never existed.

“They’re investigating still, so I can’t comment. A new prosecutor has been assigned to the case, as the last two prosecutors dismissed all charges. We’ve interviewed so many people from here, to Utah, to Nevada, to Idaho, but it’s hard talking to the ones who really matter. The women here won’t talk, and neither will the children. We don’t hear about it until months after a child disappears, taken across the border as a child bride. Parents have started taking them across now, as it’s easier. We’ve alerted the border patrol and are working with them, and we’ve fingerprinted the girls coming up with their American husbands, keeping a list.

“We’re doing our best, but this girl here…” The corporal held up Zac’s phone and skimmed through the images. “I wouldn’t recognize her.” He handed the phone back and pulled open his top drawer, sliding a business card across the smoothly polished desk. “This is for Karen Davis, a social worker with Child Services. Call her. She may know, as she’s made a point of showing up in this community, in the school and at the doors to these homes, talking to the women and children, at least those she can, even though she’s been chased away again and again by the men in the community. She’s persistent, a pain in the ass to these people, and she may recognize her.”

Zac reached for the card.

“Corporal Hodges, thank you for your time and your cooperation,” Diane said, still surprised by the man’s openness. This was far different from the welcome they’d received from Chief Roberts.

“You’re welcome, Detective. Just wish I could be of more help. When are you planning on visiting these families?” he asked Diane.

“I guess we should really speak to this social worker first. If she knows who the girl is…”

“Hang tough a second,” the corporal said, interrupting her. He picked up the phone and dialed. “Let me see that card again.”

Zac handed it back to the corporal, who glanced at the phone number and then punched more numbers into his phone.

“Her direct line,” he said to Zac. “Karen, it’s Corporal Hodges. Listen, do you have time to come to the detachment? I have a detective and a coroner here from Sequim, Washington, about a young girl they believe may be from one of the families in Bounty.” He covered the mouthpiece on the phone. “She’ll come right over, if you can wait?”

Diane glanced at Zac.

“Of course we’ll wait. Appreciate it,” Zac offered.

The corporal hung up the phone. “Can I get you folks some coffee?”

Diane shook her head, because her stomach was still burning from the tasteless coffee Zac had bought her at the corner café down the block. “No, none for me.”

Zac shook his head. “No, thank you.”

The corporal smiled and started to step out. “Mind if I ask how you got the burns?” He gestured to Zac’s face, and it startled Diane, as she hardly noticed anymore.

Diane watched Zac, waiting and wondering how he’d respond. She saw how tightly he held himself before saying, “Iraq.”

“You were in the military, a soldier?” the corporal asked.

“I was a trauma surgeon. We took fire. I got a medical discharge.”

The corporal just nodded and said, “I’ll be right back.”

“He’s nice. Helpful, too,” Diane said when Zac wouldn’t look at her. He really didn’t like talking about what had happened in Iraq, and she wondered if she’d ever get him to open up about it. She set her hands on the chair arms and then pushed herself up and stretched her back, trying to work out the kinks in her muscles. Perching on the desk in front of Zac, she extended her legs until she touched his jean-clad ones. It took him a moment before he responded to her touch, as he leaned on the chair arm, his fingers surrounding his chin. He reached out and slid his hand over her thigh before resting it on her hip.

“You all right?” she asked.

He lowered his hands and reached for hers, pulling her closer. “Could ask you the same thing.”

She looked at him and shook her head. “Just want to get this over with and get the hell out of here.”

He let her hands fall away when the door slid open. Diane stood up and cleared her throat, unable to shake the sense of awkwardness, the way the corporal took them in with a sharp glance and didn’t break stride.

“This is Karen.” He gestured to a large woman with short dark hair wearing a striped green blouse and black pants, carrying a large over-the-shoulder bag.

She extended her hand, offering it first to Diane and then Zac. “Corporal Hodges was filling me in on your case. You think the girl’s from around here?”

The corporal stepped out and returned a second later with another chair. He shut the door.

Zac slid back his chair, making room for Karen’s. “We’re focusing on the closest FLDS groups we can find. We started in Bonner’s Ferry.”

Karen set her briefcase on the floor. “I’d love to see the photo.”

Zac grabbed his phone from his coat pocket. “Do you know the kids, met any of them from Bounty?”

“Only the ones registered at school, and they did that to get money, opened their own school, with some of the wives working there. Sadly, I still don’t know some of the kids.”

Zac opened the photo of the girl on the screen and slipped it into Karen’s hand. Her hand was lovely, Diane noticed, with long fingernails, nicely manicured, painted with pink nail polish. She wore a gold band on her ring finger.

“There’re a few photos there. Just tap the screen to go to the next,” Zac said as he gestured to the phone.

The corporal leaned in and looked at the photos again. Karen went from one to the other and then back, set her finger to her lip, and appeared to consider something. She shook her head.

“I just don’t know.” She handed the phone back to Zac. “Sometimes these kids look the same. She could be from Bounty, part of Lucas Whitmer’s brood or even Joseph Butterworth’s.”

Diane felt the cold, icy tentacles of awareness poking the skin of her face and wondered if she was showing any of her shock. Hearing her father’s name, Joseph Butterworth, she went back to being that little girl, Ruth Butterworth, a scared fourteen-year-old who’d fled in the dead of the night to become Diane Larsen.

“Diane.” Zac pressed her hand. She was daydreaming and hadn’t heard what they said, but Zac knew; with the way he watched, he understood where she went in her head, of course. She knew he was concerned, but thankfully the corporal and Karen were still distracted, talking over a file.

“Karen just mentioned there’s a man in town we should talk to, as well, son of Lucas Whitmer,” Zac explained. “Apparently, he was shunned from the community a few years back. His wife and child were taken from him, given away. He hasn’t been able to find them.”

“You know it may be unrelated completely, but he lived there and grew up there,” Karen said. “He was a young man then; he’d know for sure about the girl.” She scribbled an address on a piece of paper and then flipped through her address book before adding a phone number. “He’s not always home, but try his work first. I like to check on him now and again to see how he’s doing. You do know that in Bounty, there are only four men over the age of forty? Young men have to wait their time to have a wife, allowed only by the leader. If they complain, they’re forced to leave. Some, like Jeremy, are shunned. He said his father coveted his wife, and she was given to him, to Lucas, but she and the child disappeared after that. We think they were sent across the border.” Karen pursed her lips, her round face free of any makeup. She appeared as if she carried the worry of the job in the lines of her face. “Again, talk to Jeremy before you go out to Bounty so you know who to talk to. Once the doors are shut on your face and they know why you’re there, anyone who would help you will disappear.”