Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

guests.”
    Juan’s face broke into a big smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Lawler. I will do that.”
    He went back into the house, a happy man.
    The conversation, minor as it had been, reminded me of something that had puzzled me earlier. Mormons liked large families, but nowhere throughout the ranch house had I seen any evidence of children or grandchildren. Could their absence have anything to do with the sadness in Virginia’s eyes?
    I eased into the question. “I have a friend, Slim Papadopolus, who runs a dude ranch back in Arizona. He tells me it’s a lot of work.”
    “Sure is,” Leo said. “Hiring ranch hands is easy, because young people always want to work with the horses, but when it comes to house help, it’s another story. We were very lucky to find Juan and Consuelo. And before you ask, yes, they’re legal. We have enough problems running this place without INS breathing down our necks.”
    Since an illegal alien had once saved my life, I didn’t care if Juan and Consuelo were legal or not. I kept the conversation on track. “Slim has it a little easier than you guys. He has five children and they all help out.”
    An uncomfortable silence greeted this information, but I burrowed on. “Virginia, why don’t any of your children help run the ranch?”
    She didn’t answer. Instead, she made a big show of fussing with the peach cobbler. Leo wouldn’t look at me.
    I felt a hand on my arm. Saul’s. “Lena, Virginia’s only child died some years ago.”
    “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
    Without asking, Virginia ladled a big scoop of peach cobbler into my dessert dish. When she finally spoke, her voice trembled. “I don’t like to talk about it, okay?”
    To ease us over the awkward moment, Saul left his own helping of cobbler cooling on his plate and resumed his story. “Anyway, Solomon had already taken my money and there wasn’t really anything else I could do for him. He figured I was even too old to help the other men add extra bedrooms onto their houses every time they got a new wife. So eventually I figured out that the ‘new family’ Solomon promised me was never going to happen. That’s when I started making a stink and the Purity Fellowship Foundation filed eviction proceedings with a Beehive County judge.”
    To hide my expression, I turned and looked through the lengthening shadows toward the corral, where a stable hand was dumping flakes of hay into the feed bins. The horses crowded around him, nipping at each other. Their squeals, mingled with the harsh tat-tat-tat of a woodpecker, drifted toward us on the freshening breeze.
    When I was confident that my face would give nothing away, I looked back over at Saul, who’d just revealed an excellent motive of his own for killing Prophet Solomon. Something else bothered me, too. Saul had referred to the dead child as “Virginia’s,” not “the Lawlers’.” Had the child not been Leo’s?
    Keeping my tone neutral, I said, “Maybe the Foundation will drop the eviction proceedings now that Solomon is dead.”
    “Naw. Davis Royal’s hell-bent on throwing me out of the compound, too, especially since I’ve stopped turning over my Social Security check to those thieves.”
    Maybe he was telling the truth, maybe not. “If they do succeed in evicting you, is there a chance you’ll be able to recoup any of your money?”
    He snorted. “As Prophet Solomon once explained to me, that money was a gift to God, and God isn’t into Indian giving.”
    I thought about what he’d told me. Saul Berkhauser would not be the first sheep to be fleeced by some flock’s phony shepherd, or the last. Still, men had killed for weaker reasons.
    Virginia rejoined the conversation, but with less joviality than she’d shown earlier in the day.
    “Solomon ripped Saul off, just like one of them con men you see on TV,” she said, her voice rising in anger. “But there’s a bigger shame goin’ on in Purity. You heard him tell how Solomon was out there giving talks at libraries? Guess where those guys been showin’ up for the last couple of years. Homeless shelters! The welfare office! Even the court house! It ain’t always too hard to convince some woman that if she moves to Purity her nutty ex-boyfriend won’t find her and beat her up again. And it ain’t hard to convince others they’ll find true love at Purity, either. By the time they find out it’s all a big lie, they’ve been cut off from everybody they know and they’ve got