Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

Solomon Royal, Prophet Royal, as he was known in the area. Before his death, Mr. Royal was the leader of a religious group just north of the Arizona border.”
    I was enjoying this. “Oh,
that
Solomon Royal. I think I remember reading something about him in the Scottsdale
Journal.
When you say he was the leader of a ‘religious group,’ don’t you really mean those Mormon polygamists?”
    Benson’s face tightened, as I knew it would. Members in good standing of the Church of Latter Day Saints don’t like it when someone describes modern-day polygamists as Mormons. I knew full well that the official church had renounced polygamy more than one hundred years earlier, but after the hand-shaking incident, I wanted to yank Benson’s chain. I had never liked smug men, and with his prim, ferret face and ramrod back, Benson looked way too full of himself for me.
    “Mormons? You know better than that, Ms. Jones!” Benson snapped. “Solomon Royal’s group, the Church of the Prophet Fundamental, is not part of the Church of Latter Day Saints and never has been. The people at Purity belong to a heretic sect which has absolutely nothing to do with our modern church. By taking plural wives, they are breaking the law.”
    I wasn’t impressed. “So why don’t you arrest them? I mean, you
are
the sheriff.”
    Jimmy stared at me steadily from across the table, as if warning me to be careful. He had been adopted by a Mormon family and raised in Utah, and although he had returned to his Pima Indian relatives on the reservation that abutted Scottsdale, he still retained strong ties to his adoptive parents and the Mormon community.
    Captain Kryzinski’s voice intruded upon my game. “Lena, I told you I’ve guaranteed the Scottsdale P.D.’s cooperation.”
    “Good thing I’m not Scottsdale P.D. anymore, then, isn’t it?”
    After receiving a bullet in the hip from a drug dealer, I had left the force almost a year earlier. I was my own boss now at Desert Investigations and no longer had to take orders from anybody, especially not from some badly dressed man. But Kryzinski couldn’t seem to get our changed relationship through his thick skull. He kept trying to order me around like he had done since I’d been a rookie. The fact that we frequently worked opposite ends of the same case did not help.
    “C’mon, Lena.” He wiggled around on the hard chair, his corpulent body stuffed into one of his many too-small Western suits. Today’s howler was pale blue with chocolate piping on the lapels and pockets, the ensemble completed by a black bola tie and purple ostrich-hide cowboy boots. Kryzinski’s clothes had caused mirth around the station house for years, giving rise to many hummed choruses of “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Originally from Brooklyn, Kryzinski, like many other imports to Arizona, had taken to the Western lifestyle with a vengeance.
    Jimmy took pity on him and fetched some bottles of prickly pear from the office refrigerator. Kryzinski and Yantis gulped them gratefully. I noticed that he did not offer any to Benson.
    Oblivious to the slight, Benson leaned over my desk and continued his attempt at intimidation. “Mr. Royal was shot to death a week ago and we know there’s an Arizona connection. A Scottsdale connection, to be exact. That’s where you come in. Our sources tell us that an attractive blond woman with a scar above her right eyebrow was seen hiking in the area three days before he died. That certainly describes you, doesn’t it? And we were also told that a woman who used to live in Mr. Royal’s religious community hired you to pull her daughter out of there. Now, you can continue to play cute if you want, but in the meantime, somebody’s getting away with murder.”
    Well, there’s murder and there’s murder.
    “Tell me why I should care anything about one of those Purity men getting murdered,” I said to Benson. “And while you’re at it, answer my question. Why don’t you and the rest of you Utah law enforcement types round up the whole bunch of them and throw their asses into prison where they belong? After all, as you so succinctly pointed out, polygamy is against both church law and state law. So what does that make you, Sheriff Benson? A double scofflaw for knowing about it and not doing anything?”
    The healthy tan on Benson’s face darkened in an angry flush. “It’s not rape if there is consent.”
    I laughed. “Come on, Sheriff. In Arizona, when a sixty-eight-year old