Bounty (Walk the Right Road) (21 page)

Zac took the paper. Diane knew what she was saying. She understood it well. “Keep sweet” was what the community was all about.

“Hey, Jeremy, cops are here to see you,” an older man at the saw mill yelled over to a guy driving a forklift.

“What do they want?” Jeremy yelled back, sounding annoyed.

“I don’t know. Get your ass out there and talk to them, and make sure you keep them out of the back, or we’re going to have the union reps jumping down our throat.”

A tall young man in his early twenties, wearing blue jeans, a ball cap, and a grungy gray and blue t-shirt with the logo of the Canucks on it, jumped out of the parked forklift. He lifted his ball cap, ran his fingers through his reddish wavy hair, and tucked it back on his head.

The corporal had tagged along with them and said, as Jeremy approached, “Jeremy Whitmore?”

“Yeah, what do you want?” He stopped right before them. He had strong arms, broad shoulders, and a flicker of worry in his dark brown eyes.

“These folks here came all the way up from Sequim, in Washington State. They’re investigating a murder, and they’re looking for help in identifying the girl. She’s a polygamist, from what they can tell, wearing one of the dresses the girls all wear in Bounty.”

Jeremy’s expression changed to wariness and then to what Diane could only assume was anger. By the way he was watching her when she gazed up, she wondered for a moment if he recognized her. Jeremy would have been three or four when she left; of course he didn’t recognize her. She was just being freaky again.

She flashed her badge. “Diane Larsen. I’m a detective with the Sequim detachment.”

“I’m Zac, with the coroner’s office,” Zac said, interrupting Diane before she could introduce him.

Jeremy didn’t shake their hands but crossed his arms as if waiting for them to speak their piece.

“I’m wondering if we could show you the girl’s photo and if you could tell us if you know her,” Diane said.

He gestured with his hand to the parking lot. “Do you mind if we move over there to talk? I don’t want anyone around here knowing why I’m talking to you.”

“We were told you were once part of the community,” Zac said.

Jeremy grunted. “Community? No, I was from a family with eight mothers and thirty-five children. I was thrown out after good old Dad wanted my wife. He had me cast out, beaten to a pulp, and dumped on the side of the road. I didn’t know a damn thing about the outside world, growing up there, understanding that I had to follow their teachings, obey the leader, pray for salvation or be damned to hell. Now I’m well on my way there, I guess.

“The only thing pounded into our heads and taught to us was religion. I can barely read and write, and the only thing to hope for was to work for the leader, my father, or Joseph, running fencing, chopping wood, doing what they told us to do and working for nothing. Out of that nothing, I had to pay ten percent to the church and then had to come up with a thousand dollars every year, a special tithing fund, they called it, to give to the leaders. You had to pay to show you were deserving of your wives or, in my case, wife. I couldn’t pay the last time because I had to put food on the table, and for that my wife was given to my dad. There isn’t a damn thing I can do to find them, to get her and my kid back. Let me see the photo, and then you can get the hell out of here.”

He was angry, and, as far as Diane was concerned, he had a right to be.

Zac handed his phone to the young man. “That’s her there. There’re a couple other photos there, as well, if you need to have a better look.”

“No, I don’t need to see any more.” He handed the phone back. “That’s Katie, one of Joseph Butterworth’s daughters.”

Diane could feel how close Zac was to her. His arm, the heat of it…she could reach over and touch it, but she kept her expression guarded even though her ears were ringing so loudly she couldn’t hear the traffic on the road behind them. She managed to clear her throat. “Who’s the mother?”

“Rebecca,” he said. “If you’re planning on talking to her, I can tell you right now that she won’t say a word. She won’t say anything to an outsider.”

Diane was having a lot of trouble holding it together, and she was grateful that Zac didn’t look at her as she fought to keep her composure. Rebecca would talk to her; Diane would make sure of it. After all, a mother owed it to her daughter. She’d make her talk.

“It’s not okay, what they’re doing to the kids, what they did to me, taking away our ability to think for ourselves. For the women of Bounty, having a mind of your own is an unforgiveable sin,” Jeremy said. He spit on the ground beside him and then walked away, a man filled with such sadness and confusion, something Diane understood all too well.

“Are you sure you want to do this now?” Zac studied her from across the roof of the sedan.

Diane stood in the open passenger door and watched as the corporal disappeared inside the detachment. She rested her hand on the dark rooftop and smoothed the surface. “Not really.”

“Look, let’s take a break. It’s late afternoon, so let’s grab a bite, get a room for the night, and figure out what we’re going to do next.”

She knew what he was trying to do, but what he didn’t get was that if she allowed herself to sit and think on any of this, she’d go out of her mind. She turned away, giving Zac her back, and took in the buildings, the roads of this rural town, the mountains that served as the backdrop, and the older cars and pickups driving by.

“Diane.” He tapped the rooftop, worried. She understood that. She was worried, too.

“Zac, if I don’t do this now, I won’t ever do it. That was my mother, Rebecca. What if that girl who died really is who Jeremy said? That makes her my sister, and I can’t even start to reconcile in my head how to deal with this. Please, let’s just do it.”

Maybe he really did understand her need to finish this even though it was the dumbest thing she could be doing right now. She was about as far from objective as any cop could get, and if anyone in her detachment, or even the corporal here in Creston, found out about her family connection, she’d be asked to step back.

It didn’t take Zac long to drive them out to Bounty. Diane directed him on each turn to make from the driveway to go down to an older two-story white farmhouse. He pulled in behind an old green pickup truck and parked. Diane swallowed, and Zac reached across the seat and touched her hand, but she was so numb she got no comfort from his touch.

“Ready?”

She opened her door without saying a word and started up the walkway. Zac was right behind her. She swallowed the lump in her throat. Beads of sweat popped out under her arms, down her back, but she could do nothing to stop it. She walked up the steps to the screen door and knocked. There were whispers, voices, but she wondered if it was all in her head. Even all the years she’d been gone, it came back to her so easily.

The woman who opened the door was tall, older, with a strong jaw, wearing glasses. Her dark hair was graying, but she had the same icy blue eyes. It was Elsa, the head wife, the first one, and she stared at Diane in a way that creeped her out. She fought the urge to grab at her chest, to step back and cower. Zac stepped closer until she could feel him pressing against her.

“Elsa, I’d like to speak with Rebecca,” Diane spit out.

The woman frowned. “How do you know my name?”

Diane found it easy to smile in that moment, because the woman didn’t have a clue who she was. She pulled out her badge and flashed it in her face. “Here’s my badge. Now, could you please call Rebecca?”

The woman wouldn’t budge, and her expression became guarded. Diane wondered if she’d ask them to leave. “Rebecca is not here,” she replied.

Diane pushed the woman aside and stepped into the large front room, which hadn’t changed. The dated sofas, the tables, the quilts, the handmade pillows, and things made of lace filled the space. “Rebecca!” she yelled. A number of children raced into the room, and mothers, too, standing behind them.

“Diane.” Zac set his hand on her arm, but she pulled it away.

“Where is she?”

One of the children started whimpering. The last thing she wanted to do was scare the kids, but she noticed the way the small boy had looked up. She followed where he was looking. There was a woman, her brown hair graying, her face slender, and she glanced over at Diane with eyes that were so much like her own that it took her back to when she was a small girl and her mother had smiled at her. This woman looked beaten down, old, and thin. She stayed where she was, the fear written all over her.

Diane stepped closer, staring right at Rebecca, who was dressed in a drab gray dress, a white apron pinned to the front. “Hello, Rebecca,” she said.

Rebecca met her gaze, and Diane stepped around Elsa. “Did Katie find you?” Rebecca said.

“Zac…” Diane couldn’t finish what she needed to say, because her throat and eyes burned. This wasn’t what she expected.

Zac pulled out his phone and held it up to the woman. “Is this Katie?”

Diane watched as her mother gasped, a trembling hand covering her mouth. “Is she okay?” Rebecca said.

“No, she’s not. She’s dead,” Diane said so coldly she didn’t recognize her own voice.

“What’s going on in here?” a man’s voice bellowed.

Diane stepped back, bumping into Zac. For a second, she felt herself spin back to being that little girl, terrified of her own shadow. Zac stepped around her to block the man’s path so he couldn’t get any closer. The other women scurried, and the children were ushered out. Diane stared at the one man who’d haunted her dreams and turned her childhood into a nightmare
, but he wasn’t as tall as she remembered. He was rounder in the middle, an old man, one she could easily take down.

“Get out of my house now!” he yelled, shoving his finger toward Zac and Diane. Then he pointed a warning finger at Rebecca and said, “Go in the kitchen. You’ll stay there.”

Diane stepped around Zac and reached out to Rebecca, taking her arm. “Don’t you dare run and hide from him! Not again,” she said. She could feel her father’s eyes on her as if he was trying to figure out who she was. Her heart was hammering so loudly that all her senses were overloaded. As she stared at the man she had feared all her life, she realized he wasn’t worth one more second of her time.

Zac stepped closer to her father. “We’re with the Sequim police,” he said. Diane picked up the edge in his voice, but it could have been her imagination, as everyone was upset. The room had now cleared, but Diane could still see how her mother cowered from her father. She cast her eyes down and kept them lowered. Just him standing there, his shadow in this house, had her mother shutting down.

“You have no jurisdiction here,” Joseph said. “You will leave my house now.”

Zac didn’t say anything, and Diane couldn’t take her eyes off her mother, who was looking to flee. There was a shuffle behind her. She didn’t see what had happened, but Zac had her father on the floor, and then he was on top of him. “Diane, give me your cuffs,” he said.

“Zac, what are you doing?” she said. She handed her cuffs to him, and he snapped them around Joseph’s wrist. Then Zac yelled at her, pointing to Rebecca. “Take her outside!”

Diane slid her hand around Rebecca’s elbow and held tight. “Let’s go,” she said, but she was staring at Joseph, on the floor. His glasses were sideways, his gray hair a rumpled mess, and with the way he was watching her, Diane felt her skin crawl
, but this time she found it easy to walk away.

“Rebecca, you don’t talk to them!” Joseph shouted as Diane led Rebecca out the front door.

Diane felt it the instant Rebecca understood the warning. She opened the back door of her car, and her mother sat and then looked up at her with an expression of sadness. “It’s just us,” Diane finally said. “Was Katie my sister?” It came out sounding a little harsh.

“Yes,” Rebecca replied so meekly. “What happened to her?”

“She was strangled. Her body was laid across the highway not far from where I live.”

The woman started weeping from the seat. “I’m so sorry. God is punishing me, I fear.”

“This is nothing to do with God. She was murdered, and a note was pinned to her chest.” Diane waited for her mother to look up. “You sent Katie to find me. How did you know where I was, and why now?”

“I didn’t always know where you were. I wondered if I did right that night, sending you away. Your father knew I had done something. I don’t know how he found out where you were, but he has an army of people who are his eyes and ears out there, and they searched for you for a long time. I did something I shouldn’t have: I listened to all of his meetings for a long time, just to find out if he was still looking for you. Someone said you had been picked up by a man and were living with him in Port Townsend, and I always remembered. I worried for a long time he’d go after you, and then, when the years went by and I gave him another child…I should have known better. You were one of his flock, and I made him look bad in the eyes of the man who was to be your husband. But then Katie, she was so young. She turned thirteen, and your father said he was giving her to the man you were supposed to marry sixteen years ago. He’s an old man, and I just couldn’t do it.”