Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

face, then continued. “But that’s not the real reason, which is that the more babies the women pop out, the more money the compound gets. See, the women are divorced, and that makes them single mothers. In this state, single mothers collect hefty welfare. The more children, the more welfare they collect, so when you figure that there’s about three or four hundred single women out there, each of them having an average of a baby a year…” He let his voice trail off.
    I suddenly understood. “Holy shit! That’s a lot of money!”
    Leo’s frown reminded me that I was in the presence of good Mormons.
    “Excuse my French,” I muttered. “But, Leo, that’s got to be a small fortune!”
    Virginia stared at her husband, and for a moment, I thought she might say something, but she didn’t. For such a loquacious woman, she remained oddly silent.
    Leo continued. “The women never see a penny of it, either. All the compound’s welfare money, all the profits from their cattle, mining and gaming interests—yes, they own a couple of casinos—is funneled through the Purity Fellowship Foundation, supposedly a charitable trust. Even the homes at Purity, they’re all owned by the Foundation. It’s been estimated that the Foundation controls anywhere from $150 million to $300 million, but nobody knows for sure. Not that it makes any difference, because as the financial arm of a religious organization, it’s tax-exempt.”
    My jaw dropped so low I was surprised it didn’t fall off my face. Any decent detective knew that the two primary motives for murder were love and money. So my next question was a no-brainer. “Who manages the Foundation?”
    “Prophet Solomon Royal used to manage everything, but the job’s been passed to the new Prophet of Purity.” Leo paused and looked at me in anticipation.
    I dutifully asked the next no-brainer. “And the new prophet is…?”
    “Davis Royal, Solomon’s favorite son.” Leo sat back against the sofa cushions with a satisfied smile, having made clear his own suspicions about the murderer’s identity.
    Virginia looked up from the floor, her face tense with irritation. “Money, money, money, all the time you talk about the money. What about those poor girls?”
    I sympathized, but I saw Leo’s point. Sons had killed their fathers for a lot less money than the Purity Fellowship Foundation controlled. It would be interesting to find out exactly how well Solomon and his son had gotten along, but in the end, I doubted it made any difference. One of my recent cases had shown me how little love mattered when big bucks entered the picture.
    Virginia wouldn’t drop it. “The girls, Leo. Tell her about the girls. She needs to know before Saul gets here.”
    “Saul?”
    Leo smiled again. “Oh, just an old friend. He’s joining us for dinner tonight, and he has a very interesting proposition for you. But Virginia’s right, you do need to know more about the women.”
    I was becoming more and more uncomfortable with this. “Look, I’m just here to catch a murderer so I can get my client out of jail. I’m sorry life is so hard for those women, but I don’t have time to get involved.”
    Leo grunted. “Trust me. You’re going to need to know exactly how the women in Purity are treated and how they behave. But we’ll hold off on that until Saul arrives. For now, there’s something you might find more directly useful about the political situation.”
    I leaned forward and listened.
    “We’re beginning to suspect that the polygamists are in collusion with certain government officials.”
    I frowned. “Name names.”
    “For starters, Jepsom Smith, the governor himself, is descended from polygamists. He issued a press statement once to the effect that polygamy, because it’s a religious belief, is protected under the First Amendment. Good thing nobody’s sacrificing babies to the great god Baal, right? Given Smith’s weird interpretation of the First Amendment, we’d sure have a lot of dead babies around Utah. But he’s not the only nut. Some of our legislators are even trying to get the anti-polygamy laws repealed.”
    Utah sounded goofier than Arizona, with its flying saucer landing pads and New Age vortices. I told him so.
    “You don’t know the half of it,” he said. “There are anywhere from thirty to fifty thousand people still practicing polygamy, mainly in Utah, but some in Arizona. Maybe even more. At least ten thousand of them live right here in