Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

Esther’s terrified face. Rebecca’s.
    “I’ll do it,” I said.
    When we finished eating, Virginia took me upstairs to loan me one of the dresses discarded a few months back by a runaway polygamist wife. I studied myself in the mirror, aghast at what I saw. The long-sleeved, high-necked, ankle- length calico made me look like a refugee from the
Little House on the Prairie
television series. And underneath all that clothing? More clothing. The wool Temple underwear favored by Mormons in the nineteenth century and polygamists in the twenty-first made me itch in crevices I hadn’t even known were there.
    Those ridiculous layers of clothing did have one benefit, though. Even the most careful observer wouldn’t be able to spot the .38 holstered at my thigh.
    Pulling my hair tightly behind my head, I bobby-pinned it into a sloppy bun, exposing my scar even more than usual. I looked like a half-skinned rabbit, but apparently the men of Purity had a thing for half-skinned rabbits.
    I stepped back, studied myself again, and nodded in satisfaction.
    After Virginia went downstairs to help with the clearing up, I picked up the phone, hoping Jimmy remained at the office. Luck, and his workaholism, were with me and he answered on the first ring. When I told him my plans, though, he made his displeasure plain.
    “You’ve done some crazy things in your life, but this is probably the craziest,” he said. “There’s no way you’ll be able to pass yourself off as some meek plural wife.”
    “But there’s too much at stake for me
not
to try it.”
    After he finished lamenting my changed plans, I gave him a list of names I wanted run through the Lexis-Nexis Internet search. And if that didn’t work, to hack into whatever he had to hack into. When it came to unearthing information, Jimmy wasn’t always legal.
    “Saul Berkhauser might be a perfectly nice man, but I want to make sure,” I told him. “Same with Virginia and Leo. Yes, I know your mother likes them, but maybe they’re just a little too good to be true. Virginia worries me a lot. She’s down one minute, up the next. Maybe she’s just bi-polar or something, but I need to know what I’m dealing with. Saul mentioned she had a child who died, and the way he put it made it sound like the kid might not have been Leo’s. So see how many times she’s been married, okay? Maybe your mom knows her maiden name.”
    “Yeah, yeah.” I heard the click of computer keys. He’d already begun searching the Internet. Then, “Lena?”
    “What?”
    “I’m begging you. Please don’t do this.”
    “It’s the only way to help Esther and Rebecca.” I sounded braver than I felt.
    He grunted. “Well, at least there’s one polygamist you don’t have to worry about up there. Captain Kryzinski brought Abel Corbett back in here this morning, demanding that we turn Rebecca over. That guy is really steamed at you.”
    “Which guy? Kryzinski or Abel?”
    “Both, I guess.” He sounded glum.
    “I don’t care how steamed they are just as long as Rebecca’s safe. And she is safe, right?”
    “Of course. And she’s going to stay that way, too.” He paused for a second, then added, “I went down to the jail this afternoon to see Esther. She’s doing about as well as can be expected. I tried to cheer her up but I don’t think it worked.”
    I thought for a moment. “How many trips to the jail does this make for you? Six? Seven?”
    He mumbled something I didn’t quite catch and my worries increased. Jimmy had a bad track record when it came to his love life. He always seemed to fall for felons. The very fact that he’d obviously taken a shine to Esther did not bode well for her innocence.
    I opened my mouth to lecture him, then thought better of it. Telling someone whom they should or should not love was about as profitable as telling the sun not to rise.
    “Watch yourself,” I just said, and left it at that.
    Mutual warning session duly accomplished, Jimmy filled me in on the day’s events. There had been another fire at South Mountain Tire Storage.
    “It was just a shed this time. The tires didn’t go up, but I hear the folks from ATF are real antsy. They might be ready to make an arrest.”
    I wasn’t hopeful. Even if the feds arrested Miles Alder, his dad would probably bond him out. In Arizona even people suspected of mass murder were set free to walk the streets if they had enough money.
    “Stay on it,” I said. “Firebugs always lose control at some