Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

to answer, but after heaving a deep sigh, he said, “I don’t know how. All I know is that after Father caught her at it one night, he barred her from Highest Heaven. He could do that, you know. He was still God’s chosen prophet, at least he was until he turned against me.”
    I could imagine the scene. Martha, leaning over the tiny body, Solomon discovering her. The curses, the tears. But no matter how deep his rage, Purity’s prophet would never have turned the demented woman over to the authorities, not when he believed he had the power to separate her from the rest of her children throughout Eternity.
    “Your father told the Circle of Elders what she’d done, didn’t he? That’s why after he died, they sent her to live in that trailer with Brother Vernon. She was being punished.”
    Meade nodded miserably. “Sister Esther figured it out, too, and before she left Purity, she threatened to tell the sheriff if it ever happened again. But it didn’t happen again. My father banished Mother from his bed.”
    Another piece of the puzzle slid into place. “You hated Esther for that, didn’t you? So you didn’t mind when she was accused of your father’s murder.”
    “Sister Esther had no right to tell anybody on the Outside anything about Purity!” he cried. “’Specially not after my father took care of Mother’s problem!”
    But Esther didn’t take it to the Outside. Purity’s habit of secrecy proved too ingrained, and she never told anyone, not even me. Would it have made any difference if she had?
    “Meade, those babies were your own brothers and sisters. Don’t you want some sort of justice for them?”
    He began kicking rocks again, throwing hate-filled glances at me. As if shifting position, I stretched my hand to the side and patted my spread-out skirts, feeling for the comforting contours of my .38.
    Meade didn’t notice. “You think I’d tell the sheriff on my own mother? What for? Women are prone to sin, but their sins can be forgiven as long as they remain obedient plural wives. I’m going to fix it so Mother can ascend to Highest Heaven, right along with me and my brides and all my children.”
    And what a nice family reunion that would be.
    Since Meade was obviously in a talking mood, I asked him about something else that had been bothering me. “Tell me about your uncle Jacob,” I said, curious about Esther’s father. “Did he kill one of his daughters when she refused to marry some guy he picked for her?”
    Meade stopped his pacing. This subject didn’t make him half as nervous. “Yeah. She’d been reading some stuff over at that public school in Zion City we used to go to, some stuff about genes or something. She said marrying her uncle wouldn’t be right.”
    Receiving confirmation of my suspicions would probably prove irrelevant in the end. So much time had passed that the chances of bringing Jacob Waldman up on murder charges weren’t good, especially considering his condition. Same with Martha Royal. Yet I’d been proven wrong before. Perhaps with the right prosecuting attorney…
    First things first.
    “Meade, you know we need to do something about all this, don’t you?”
    I didn’t like the sly look that crept across his face. “Don’t be silly. I told you all this stuff because no one around here will take your word for anything, especially after all those crazy charges you made against Davis yesterday.”
    “You heard about that, did you?”
    “The Circle of Elders tells me everything.”
    Of course they did. After all, Earl Graff and his henchmen believed that Meade was God’s chosen prophet, not Davis.
    Time to play my hand. “Meade, I know that my word doesn’t count for much around here, me being a woman and all. That’s why I taped this entire conversation.” When I opened the front of my dress and pulled down my bra, it was a tossup as to which horrified Meade the most, finding out our conversation had been taped, or seeing so much bare womanly flesh.
    Meade shrank from me as if I’d turned into Satan himself. Then he recovered and held out his hand. “Hand that tape over, Sister Lena. I command you.”
    Poor little Meade. He still didn’t get it. I wasn’t one of Purity’s subservient women. I never had been.
    “The tape stays with me, kid, but here’s what I’ll do. I’ll go with you to the county attorney. When you talk to him, leave your own feelings for Cora out of it, just tell him you were so overcome by revulsion that your