For Time and All Eternities Page 19

  “Hello?” I called out. When he turned to face me, I waved. “I’m from Stephen Carter’s house.” I hoped he didn’t know all the wives by sight or he’d know I wasn’t one of them, and then I’d have a long explanation to give.

  “Hello,” the man said.

  I drew closer and in the light from the house I realized he was a white man with broad shoulders, though he wasn’t particularly tall. I guessed he was in his early fifties, with a full head of graying hair tied back in a ponytail. He looked nothing like the old man and the teenage girl who had come to the funeral, and I was suddenly unsure of his identity.

  “I’m here to talk to the Perezes, if I you don’t think it’s too late,” I said.

  “Go around to the front and knock on the door. They’re both still awake,” said the man. Then before I could ask his name, he took off his gloves and offered his hand. “John Edwards,” he said. “I was assigned as Hector’s home teacher.

  “Linda Wallheim,” I said in return. A home teacher—that meant the Perezes were Mormons.

  “Nice to meet you, Linda,” he said with a nod. “I help Hector out with the garden now and then, when I can fit it in with my other work schedule. Hector loves his garden so much and when he started to get older he really needed help to keep it up.”

  I was absurdly pleased that Mr. Perez was being looked out for by the local Mormon ward. A man of his age needed someone to check in on him. “That’s very nice of you,” I said. I surveyed the well-kept beds around me. There were roses of all colors here. I remembered then that Joanna had roses in her room. The Perezes must be close family friends indeed. Could what Joseph had said be true—that Stephen had been courting their teenage daughter?

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  “I suppose,” he said, looking at the darkening sky.

  “It’s about Maria Perez.” .

  “Maria’s a very good girl. A loyal granddaughter. A good student,” he said.

  I hadn’t meant for him to feel obliged to defend her. How could I put this? “Have you noticed the break in the fence back there?” I asked, motioning north to the perimeter.

  “Of course. Stephen made it so that Joanna could come back and forth and visit Maria. You didn’t think Maria did it herself, did you?”

  “No, no.” That wasn’t what I was getting at. “I was wondering whether Stephen ever visited.”

  “Oh, well, I know he’s not officially a member of the ward anymore, but he’s always been a good neighbor to the Perezes. He comes down sometimes and chats with me to make sure Hector is being looked after.” He smiled gently and I had the feeling he really had gotten along with Stephen, despite the excommunication. He was talking about him in present tense, which I guessed meant he didn’t know about the funeral. I didn’t correct him. I was more concerned about Maria.

  So I tried again. “Does Maria date?”

  He tilted his head and looked at me oddly. “Not that I’ve noticed. Hector doesn’t approve of his granddaughter going out at her age.”

  That sounded exactly like what a man of that generation would say. Poor Maria, if she wasn’t allowed to date at all. “Did you ever think that Hector—Mr. Perez—had cause to be angry at Stephen? Did he ever say anything to you about him doing anything improper?”

  John Edwards’s eyebrows rose. “No, but he might not have. That would be a private thing, not to be shared with a family friend like me.”

  A private thing Hector Perez might feel obliged to deal with on his own? With a kitchen knife in the morning before anyone else appeared? With the break in the fence, he wouldn’t have needed a key.

  “How long have you known Hector Perez?”

  “Oh, a few years,” was the answer.

  “And what do you think of him?”

  “He’s the most kind-hearted man I’ve ever met.” John Edwards gave me an affectionate smile.

  “Well, thank you,” I said.

  “Why don’t I walk you around to the front?” he asked. “It’s getting dark and there are some tricky spots in the lawn.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said. He offered me his arm, and I could feel the strong muscles there. I thought for a moment about Kurt and how much I missed him.

  When we got to the front of the house, he stopped. “Good night, Linda,” he said.

  “Good night,” I echoed.

  I wished I’d learned more from him, but at least I did know that Stephen had come to visit. I stepped up to the porch and took a few moments to orient myself.

  I noticed that the Perez house was smaller than any of Stephen Carter’s homes and looked like it had been built long before them, with old red brick and white trim that hadn’t been updated in decades. The windows and the door were tiny and I suspected the house had been built in the 1800s by people who were much smaller than we were now.

  I rang the bell and after a long minute, the porch light flicked on and the elderly Hispanic man I’d seen at the funeral answered the door. He was only about five foot five and had a thick, gray-flecked handlebar mustache. He sported cowboy boots and a cowboy shirt over Wrangler jeans, and I wondered if he thought they were actually comfortable to wear in this heat or if he was trying to fit in with some perceived cowboy dress code in Utah.

  “Mr. Perez?” I asked. Even setting aside what John Edwards had said about Hector Perez being the kindest man he knew, the idea of this man killing Stephen now seemed ridiculous, considering his size and age. But he had been one of Stephen’s last phone calls. Maybe he had something to tell me that would help.

  “Yes. How can I help you?” he said with a noticeable accent. His tanned skin was spotted with age, and his head was nearly entirely bald with a few white wisps around the ears.

  I put out my hand and introduced myself again. “Linda Wallheim. I’m a friend of the Carters.” I nodded up the hill. “I think we saw each other at the funeral just now.”

  He looked more carefully at me. “Ah, yes. I remember now.” I wasn’t sure that he really did remember. How old was he? Seventy? Eighty? He could be a hundred, for all the wrinkles on his face. “Very terrible, what happened, Stephen dying and leaving so many grieving behind,” he said.

  “Yes. Terrible,” I said, then quickly added, “I’m sorry to disturb you, but Rebecca thought that you might have talked to Stephen the day he died. She was hoping that there might be some last message he had given to you.” I was working wildly to come up with a reason for what were sure to be intrusive questions.

  “Stephen spoke to Maria on Monday morning,” Mr. Perez said. He turned around and called for Maria quite loudly. He took a step back into the house and gestured for me to enter. “Come in, come in.”

  I wasn’t going to wait for a second invitation.

  Inside, the house smelled heavily of perfume, and of a stale mustiness. The couches he led me to were covered twice, once in plastic, and a second time in crocheted blankets of red and orange and yellow flower patches. They looked very worn, but I could see the beauty in the pattern, the petals standing up as if to greet the morning sun.

  In a few moments, the young woman I’d seen at the funeral came down the stairs. Up close, she looked even younger than she had before. Her skin was perfection, without a mole or freckle, without a line anywhere, and she had that willowy figure of youth. Her long dark hair was very straight, though it might have been flat-ironed that way. She wore heavy black eyeliner. She was possibly the last person I would have imagined might have been interested in a man of Stephen Carter’s age or situation in life.

  “Abuelo?” she said in a low voice.

  “Mrs. Wallheim has come to ask you about Stephen. Rebecca sent her,” said Mr. Perez.

  Her mouth tightened into an “Oh,” but there was no sound.

  “I understand that Stephen was here on Monday,” I said.

  “He was in a hurr
y, yes, Maria? He said that he had visitors coming and he had to prepare for them,” said Mr. Perez.

  “I think so, yes,” she agreed.

  On Monday Kurt and I must have interrupted Stephen’s visit here, which was why he had been late when we arrived.

  “You must be very upset,” I said to Maria.

  “Yes, of course. I will miss him, as will Abuelo.” Her English was perfectly Midwestern, with a few hints of Utah twang in it.

  The way she turned to her grandfather again made it clear that she thought that he and Stephen were closer than she and Stephen were. Which made me wonder what Stephen had really been doing here.

  “Did Joanna come with you?” Maria asked, looking behind me to the door.

  “No,” I said. “I’m sorry.” Of course, she and Joanna would be closer in age and must be friendly.

  “Oh, well, I miss her. Will you tell her I hope she will come soon? I have a video I want to show her on YouTube.”

  Considering her FLDS background and old-fashioned clothing, I was surprised that Joanna would be interested in anything on the Internet, but I nodded. “I’ll tell her when I go back. Right now I’m wondering if Stephen said anything special to you on that last day, something I could pass along to Rebecca to remember him by.” It was lame, but it was the best thing I could think of to get her to talk to me about Stephen.

  “To me?” Maria said. “Why would he do that?”

  “Stephen loved you, Maria,” said Mr. Perez. “You know that he did.”

  “And I loved him, like an uncle, Abuelo.” She sounded cautious now, as if she didn’t want to offend her grandfather, but she also wasn’t far from disgust.

  “It would have grown into more than that, Maria. Stephen was waiting for you to be ready.”

  So Stephen had been grooming a teenager? Was that what he’d done with Joanna, too, planting the idea of marriage and then waiting until she was eighteen? At least now I had a reason Stephen might have wanted to change his will, if he was planning to take on Maria as a sixth wife. Then again, why would he change the will now to include her if he was going to wait two more years before they got married? This wasn’t quite adding up.

  Maria stared at her grandfather. “Stephen was nearly as old as you are. He was your friend, not mine. I’m only sixteen. I’m going to college. I’m going to have a job, a life. And when I get married, if I get married, it will be to someone my own age who I choose myself.” She looked and saw me, and then flushed with embarrassment that I’d overheard her scolding her grandfather.

  Mr. Perez tsked at her. “He was not nearly as old as I am, Maria. He was a young man, still vigorous. In his prime. And he had much to offer you.” He turned to me. “These teenagers, they do not understand the real world, do they? They do not see the danger in it, and how they need protection.”

  I had no idea how to answer that. It was uncomfortable for him to be involving me in the conversation, but also useful that it was unfolding in front of me.

  He turned back to Maria, whose jaw was tight. “Maria, he would have built you your own house. He would have provided handsomely for your children in time. My great-grandchildren.”

  “Children? With Stephen Carter?” said Maria, shuddering.

  “You do not know what’s good for you, Maria. I do. I have lived much longer than you have. I have watched my son and daughter-in-law both die, and they made me promise I would make sure that you had a better life than they did. Stephen was my way to honor my promise to them. I am not going to be here much longer, you know.”

  Maria seemed caught between shouting at her grandfather and comforting him. She chose comforting in the end, going to his side and wrapping an arm around him. “Don’t say that. You’ll be here for a long time yet. Long enough that you don’t need to worry about marrying me off like that.” She seemed to remember I was still in the room. “This must all seem crazy to you. I don’t know what Stephen thought, but whatever it was, I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “Of course not,” I said sympathetically. Her grandfather hadn’t killed Stephen, I decided. He’d approved of the relationship Stephen intended. And Maria wouldn’t have killed Stephen, either, since she didn’t seem to even know what was going on. It seemed like coming here had just steered me back at the wives for my list of suspects.

  “Excuse me. I’m going to bed now. I’m very tired and it has been a difficult day,” Maria said. She hurried upstairs after a long look at her grandfather, leaving me alone with him.

  I tried to think of anything else I could ask. Was it possible Mr. Perez knew anything useful about the murder? I couldn’t ask him if he knew who’d killed Stephen without revealing that he’d been buried without a police investigation. “Mr. Perez? What did you think of Stephen Carter?” So vague it might yield nothing.

  “I thought he was a great man. A true Mormon, with courage to live as God meant us to, from the beginning,” said Mr. Perez warmly.

  “Do you mind if I ask if you were born here? And if you’re a member of the Mormon church?”

  “Of course I am a member of the church. But I was born in Mexico, to parents sealed in the covenant. I came to the United States to be near the temples. But I did not know that so many had fallen away from the true Principle,” said Mr. Perez.

  What? He was a polygamist, too? I knew that many polygamous Mormons had fled to Mexico in 1890 to continue to live the Principle there long after it was illegal in Utah. How old was Hector Perez? Old enough to have been taught to believe in polygamy, apparently.

  “Did you have more than one wife yourself?” I asked.

  “I had two,” he said, “though they both died before I came here. I had so few years with them. They taught me so much about being selfless. I came here to the United States when Maria was a baby, when she and I were all that was left.” His hands moved to his chest as if to cradle a child in his arms. “Stephen and I had written many letters to each other and he had invited me many times to come here. This house was old and inexpensive. I improved it greatly, back in those days, when I had energy to do my own work.”

  I had not expected this long-term relationship with Stephen. He might know more about Stephen’s life than anyone else.

  “How long ago did you first come in contact with Stephen?” I asked.

  “Oh, more than thirty years,” Mr. Perez answered. “We wrote each other letters, we studied God and the Principle together. He wanted to know about how I had been raised in the Principle, and we told each other about our families and our plans.”

  I tried to cover my surprise. “Thirty years? So was that before he married Rebecca?”

  “Yes, before that. He was so happy to find a willing woman. He knew she would see the truth of the Principle. I felt so much joy for him when I heard he was getting married. She’s a good woman, Rebecca.”

  I was turning over what I had just learned—Stephen hadn’t just come across polygamy ten years after he and Rebecca were married. He had known all along he planned to practice polygamy. He had just been waiting for the right time to tell his wife about it and convince her he was right—a time after they already had children and a life together. I wanted to run up and shout the truth at Rebecca, so that she knew what kind of a man Stephen was. But it wouldn’t help her now.

  “Were his parents polygamous?” I asked, though Mr. Perez might not know this.

  “No. But Stephen told me about his childhood, how his parents died in a house fire, leaving him alone in the world, poor boy.” Hector Perez put a hand to his heart.

  “His parents and his brother,” I said, because I’d heard the story before.

  “Brother? No, Stephen was an only child. His mother could not have children for many years. And then, like Abraham and Sarah, his mother was blessed to conceive in her old age, and she had Stephen, a blessed child. It was one of the reasons that he believed so strongly in
the Principle, because he knew that in order for his father to have posterity like the sands of the sea, he himself would have to have more than one wife.”

  What twisted version of Mormonism was this? And it was somehow combined with Stephen’s past, from which he had for some reason erased his brother. Stephen had been excommunicated from his ward for polygamy, but it seemed that Hector Perez had not. Maybe John Edwards had never talked to Hector Perez enough to know about his past polygamy? Or had he thought he was too old to be disciplined for something he was no longer practicing?

  I supposed I could understand John Edwards’s covering up the truth for an old man to allow him to remain in the church he loved for the last few years of his life, but it made me wonder again about the bishop of this ward and the “wink-nod” attitude about polygamy that Naomi had mentioned. Maybe it was something Kurt would eventually need to bring up with higher authorities in the church—if I ever had a chance to tell my husband about all of this.

  Disgusted, and with my mind’s wheel spinning, I said a quick farewell to Mr. Perez and made my way back through the opening in the fence, up the hill, past the now empty graveyard, and toward the main house, tripping twice over rocks I couldn’t see in the twilight.

  Chapter 24

  I had intended to head directly to the bunk room and sleep, but I saw the lights on in the shed and figured now was my chance to go in and see Sarah in her element. It occurred to me then that maybe it would be wise for me to see what exactly had happened there.

  I knocked on the door of the shed lightly.

  Sarah opened it a moment later, obviously surprised to see me. “Yes?” She only allowed me to see her face through the crack in the door.

  “I was hoping to see some of your paintings,” I said. “If you’d be willing to show me some of the remaining ones.”

  “It’s a mess right now,” she said, glancing behind her. But she stepped back, allowing me inside.