Avenging Angel (11 page)

“In Denver? The Mosier Street in Denver?”

“Even so.”

The long, bumpy climb back was hot, and the wind carried the dust into the cab to coat Wager’s teeth with a gritty film and to make his watering eyes itch. Tears dried at their corners, making them crusty, and he felt the sweat glue his back to the jiggling, thumping seat behind him.

“Do you think he doesn’t know Mueller?”

“He said Mueller was a Gentile. He wants nothing to do with Gentiles, alive or dead. Zenas wouldn’t lie, Gabe; if he or one of his church members had killed Mueller, he’d tell you. Kruse and Beauchamp are important to him, but Mueller’s not.”

“Why did he come to you about those two?”

“You mean did he expect to know them? I’m not sure, Gabe. When Tice showed me the angel drawings from the Denver and Pueblo killings, I drove out and asked Zenas about them. Maybe he guessed it was them—he knew Beauchamp was in Denver. Certainly any mention of Danites is enough to make him curious.” The man reached inside his flannel shirt and scratched somewhere on his bony chest. “Zenas isn’t going to tell everything he knows, not to me, anyway. But both men had families—big ones—and the destroying angels are angels of death to all their enemies.”

“He could have written Beauchamp’s family. He had their address, and he could have written to find out if it was Beauchamp without ever talking to you.”

Winston tipped his hat back off his forehead. The gleam of sweat dried quickly in the hot air. “Maybe he did, and got no answer. Or maybe he didn’t want any letters leading from Beauchamp to him. I think Zenas is afraid.”

“He doesn’t seem to be the type.”

“Not for himself—for his family and his church. He sheltered Ervil, and he belongs to the same sect as Ervil. I think Ervil ordained Zenas as a High Priest of Melchizedek. That makes Zenas an enemy. And all his people.”

“Melchizedek?”

“The immediate ordination by Jesus Christ himself. Just like he laid hands on Saint Peter and ordained him.”

“Aw, come on!”

“True, Gabe. Joe Smith claimed a vision that told him to restore that priesthood. Your orthodox Mormons have the same thing, but of course they don’t recognize Zenas’s ordination. Which is only fair,” he added, “since he doesn’t recognize theirs.” Orrin glanced at Wager. “Zenas isn’t crazy, Gabe. I think he’s one of the sanest men I know, and absolutely dedicated to the welfare of his family and church—spiritual and physical. He just believes different things, that’s all. His values are of his faith, not his bankbook. There’s that statue of Brigham Young built by the church in Salt Lake City—Zenas says the orthodox church placed it with Brigham’s backside to the Temple and his hands out to the bank, and that’s a sign from God how wrong they’ve become and how right he is.”

Wager remembered how, as Orrin’s truck backed in a turn from the ranch, a giggling boy with bare feet and sun-white hair ran from a toolshed to jump into his father’s arms. Zenas lifted the boy high, swung him grinning across the sky, then wrapped him in both arms and nuzzled his rough beard against the boy’s ticklish neck. Their laughter carried clearly over the straining clatter of the truck.

Watching the two show their love for each other, and seeing the isolated ranch and its shelter of trees and rock, Wager realized how, with only a slight shift of assumptions, all that Zenas believed could seem normal. And he realized, too, that if avenging angels did come after them, they could drop down through the narrow gullies and crevices, suddenly raid and slaughter without discovery, and fade back into the desert canyons. No one would find the victims for weeks or even months. All in the name of God’s love.

“Lord, what a story,” said Winston half aloud. “I don’t know how much of it the cousins will let me use, but what a story when it finally breaks!”

“Why would they hide in Denver and Pueblo?” Wager waved a hand at the serried and hazy shadows that, with the sun moving behind them, had grown mysteriously dark and far away and almost cold. “Why wouldn’t they hide out here?”

“That desert’s home to all of them. It’s the first place Willis would look, and he knows that country. But a quiet house in a city surrounded by people who look no different from them … Camouflage, isn’t that what they call it?”

Wager nodded, his mind still on the man behind them and the involved web of relationships revealed by Zenas and Orrin. “Is he a younger ‘cousin’ of yours?”

“Yeah,” said Orrin. “The youngest of all. They say that’s what really killed Pa—he ran out of the alphabet with Zenas.”

W
HEN
W
AGER FINALLY
eased the Trans-Am into the parking slot behind his Denver apartment, the ten o’clock news was on the car radio. He sat, half listening, and rubbed his fingers across his burning eyes before hauling the overnight bag out of the back seat. The news headlines were tiresomely familiar—wars and rumors of wars, homicides attempted and completed, prices rising and quality falling. He suspected he could have written the headlines before he left for the Western Slope and then simply filled in the names of people or places when he got back. Clicking off the radio, he rode in the stuffy elevator up to his apartment and spent the next five minutes opening windows and doors and chasing out air pent up for the last three days and even staler in contrast to that of the Western Slope. The answering machine sat cold and dark, no messages, but the little pile of mail wedged into the box in the lobby was full of letters trying to sell him things he didn’t want or asking for money for the things he shouldn’t have bought. One folded slip of paper had neither stamp nor address, just a hastily scrawled “Welcome back—J.”

He glanced at his watch; a bit late to try, but what the hell. He dialed Jo’s number anyway and let it ring more than the usual six times. Maybe over at her mother’s; a date, maybe. It wasn’t as if he owned her or asked her not to date anyone else. But he couldn’t help that little empty feeling as he hung up the phone and stood for a few minutes in the cool air of the balcony and listened to the rush of traffic below, a wet sound that was strangely harsh to ears that had listened to silence for the last three days. As he gazed down at the swirling lights and wondered if she was at her mother’s, it came to him that when he was mulling over all those half-formed ideas for retirement or getting the hell out of Denver, not once had he included Jo in those thoughts. As predictably as the radio news or the standard offense form, his thoughts had been peopled only by himself; perhaps it was best that way—best for her certainly, and perhaps for him, too. When isolation became that comfortable—that reflexive—perhaps it was best not to try to break it.

Rummaging through the refrigerator for a frozen dinner that would not make demands on time or taste, he slid it in the oven and then stood for a long time under the pummeling needles of a hot shower. What he really wanted was sleep, but he went on duty in less than two hours. A shower and shave would have to do instead. What the hell, it wasn’t the first time.

He arrived at the division offices just before midnight. Munn belched and asked sourly, “You had some time off?”

“Special assignment. Anything going?”

“Same old shit.” He tossed a list of addresses to Wager, locations where statistics said crimes were likely and patrols—marked and unmarked—were to be increased. “Had an officer shot at over near Bayoud and Raritan. No suspects. I don’t know what Max has got. He never gets here early.” Another belch. “Golding’s my partner on this shift. He’s out eating supper, for Christ’s sake. Mexican food. I wish to hell I had a special assignment to get me away from this goddamn place.”

“Take the rest of the day off.”

“Big deal—ten minutes.” But his hand was already pulling the door closed as he said it.

Wager poured the watch’s first cup of coffee from the stained Silex and settled to his desk and its stack of unopened mail. Most of it was junk, a different version of the crap that came to his apartment. But, like idle conversation used to pass the hours of a boring tour of duty, most of the pieces of paper asked conventional questions and called for conventional answers. He threw away the ads for a new kind of quick-release holster manufactured by a Hollywood supply company, for the Brotherhood of Peace Officers insurance package, for a complete set of study manuals with practice examinations for all grades of law enforcement. He tried to concentrate on the requests for information concerning this or that missing person described as “last seen wearing”—sometimes they turned up in the morgue. Mostly juveniles, male and female, though there seemed to be an increasing number of middle-aged women. Statistics would come out with that discovery one of these days and send a circular around on it. Half a dozen other notices on unsolved homicides, with their characteristics. But no more angels. FBI alerts to the following armed and dangerous criminals believed to be approaching or in your vicinity. Memos on procedure changes, saturation areas, special directions for the uniformed watch that plain clothes should be alerted to … Wager made a strong effort to focus his attention, but even as he stared at the familiar papers and their familiar phrases, he felt a ludicrous sense of the distance between himself sitting here and himself this afternoon sitting in Winston’s truck as it labored up the steep walls of the benchland. It did not seem possible that such divergent geographies and times could be within hours of each other; that this, the electronic world of Denver, was unfelt by those on the other side of the mountains. But why not? Winston and all his cousins had existed over there for a long time, and Wager had never heard of them, either. Would still exist unperceived, except for the avenging angels. It was as if time had moved at a different speed for them. But was their life really that different? Wager, sitting here surrounded by the mechanically printed data of electronic surveillance and retrieval, the automatic copies of in-house communications, the glowing screens and printouts of “processed” words, was still dealing with the same timeless fears and hatreds that were found on both sides of those mountains. The deeper currents of life were the same in all places and all times; and, in one guise or another, avenging angels were with us always. The trick was to catch them.

“Evening, Gabe.” Max, his own memos and notices a small wad in his fist, greeted Wager as always. “Good trip?” And at Wager’s nod, “I went around to most of the Mormon churches. Nobody recognized those two John Does.”

“I’m not surprised.” He waited until Max was seated at his desk and leafing through papers before adding, “But I got positive i.d.’s and a local address.”

“What?”

He said it again.

“Jesus, Gabe, why didn’t you call it in?”

“I wasn’t near a phone until late this afternoon, and I was on my way back anyhow.”

Max’s eyes narrowed. “What time did you get in?”

“Couple hours ago.”

The large head wagged once, a mixture of wonder and resignation. There was no sense trying to coax Wager to take the day off; Max had seen him do this too many times and knew what the answer would be. Still, he couldn’t help hinting: “There’s not a damn thing new since you’ve been gone. A couple weapons fired; no deaths. There’s nothing I can’t handle by myself.”

Wager tossed another handful of paper into the trash. “I’m all right.”

Max sighed. “Okay. So who are the victims, and why the angels?”

When Wager finished, Max gave that mostly silent whistle between his teeth that told Wager he was turning each fact over and fitting the pieces against one another in different ways. “You went by the Beauchamp address already.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. No answer. No lights.”

“Yeah—they probably ran as soon as they read Beauchamp’s description in the papers.” Then, “That explains why we have no missing persons on him. They were too afraid to even claim the body.”

“And no government records of any kind. They don’t join anything,” said Wager.

The little whistle. “It’s a closed subculture, isn’t it? It shares space with the dominant culture, but it doesn’t live off it, and it doesn’t mix with it. It’s actually invisible.”

Wager shifted uncomfortably; once in a while, Max slipped into that college sociology bullshit. “Except when they kill somebody.”

“Right. The one they found in Loma Vista, he’s part of this same group?”

“Mueller. I don’t think so. I can’t figure how he ties to Beauchamp. Not yet, anyway.”

“Maybe he knew something. Or saw someone.”

That was possible, and Wager had already thought of it. But those were just two more of a number of possibilities at that end of the case, and none of them seemed to pull the facts together. Wager drained his cup and drew out the manila file labeled John Doe #17. He rummaged through the tangle of forms and slips and paper clips in his desk drawer for a roll of gummed labels. When he was finished, the folder read “Beauchamp, Ervil” and held a half-page synopsis of what Wager had found out so far. He wedged it back into the full tray of active cases and slid the drawer shut. For the rest of the night, Wager and Max would deal with the kind of violence they were at home with: the logical insanity of East Colfax and Capitol Hill. Tomorrow he could focus on the more exotic kind, which had splashed over from Loma Vista.

In the morning light the Beauchamp house looked as empty as it had last night. Wager, unsuccessfully fighting off a yawn that made his jaw crack, spent a few seconds looking at the house before knocking once more at the door. It was, like its neighbors, a tract house with the look of the late ‘50s—square, small entry porch centered in a wall of Masonite siding, one story with a low roof of asphalt shingles, full basement, whose windows peeped above metal wells along the foundation. A patched sidewalk evenly divided the small square of lawn, which was shaggy and brown in spots. At each side, he could glimpse a chain link fence, masked by tall lilac bushes, which sealed off the backyard. The curtains, drawn across the picture window, didn’t move, and no one answered his knock.

He walked around to the fence and peered through the lilac leaves into the backyard. There the grass was worn to gray dirt by traffic, and a well-used swing set hung idle among a brightly colored scattering of toy trucks and plastic shovels and pails. No sound came from the large yard or the house.