Blood Atonement (28 page)

‘Thanks,’ Donna said.

‘Just one other thing,’ the woman added. ‘I didn’t send you.’

Half an hour later they had found Hooky’s, a subterranean dive tucked away apologetically down a side street to nowhere. The last building on the left, just before the pavement ran out. Nigel could sense Donna’s reluctance and he hesitated at the top of the stairs. ‘Looks like a nice joint,’ he said sardonically.

Heather brushed past. ‘A bar’s a bar,’ she said brusquely.

‘I should know, I’ve done my time in the pubs of the north.’

She headed down the stairs and through the door.

Donna and Nigel followed.

Inside, while by no means salubrious, the bar was at least clean and bright. A radio or jukebox played some muffled country music, while the only patrons were a couple of men drinking alone, who raised their heads as one to see the new customers. So this is where the local apostates celebrated the freedom to trash their liver, thought Nigel. The barman watched them approach.

Heather took a seat at the bar, ordered a beer; Nigel did likewise, while Donna went for a Diet Coke. Heather paid and remembered to tip, a custom Nigel couldn’t fathom.

They drank in silence for a few seconds.

‘Josiah Pettibone been in?’ Heather asked.

The barman narrowed his eyes. ‘Not yet. But he will be presently.’ He paused. ‘You from Australia?’

‘England,’ she replied.

‘Long way to come to find a man like Josiah.’

‘I’m hoping he can help us.’

The barman flashed a toothy smile. ‘I’d hate to know what your problem is if Josiah is your answer.’

Heather smiled and shrugged. The barman disappeared

to the other side of the bar. Heather turned to Donna.

‘Donna, you get back to Salt Lake City, no need for us to detain you. We’ll wait for this guy, book a hotel, and then hire a car to drive back in the morning. I’ll drive.’

‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll stick around.’

‘You sure? What about your kids?’

‘They’re with my sister and her husband.’

‘She’s OK to have them?’

Yeah. Hell, she’s got nine of her own. What difference’s another two gonna make? We better find a hotel, though.’

‘Well, if you’re sure.’

Donna asked the barman about a place to stay and then went outside to make a phone call. Heather turned to Nigel, who took the liberty of ordering another beer. ‘I spoke to Foster while you and Donna were in the library.

They’ve turned up nothing new. A bit like us,’ she added.

‘I hear you’re looking for me.’

The interloper was a tall man in jeans and a battered suede cowboy jacket, with a drooping moustache and straggling long hair, all of which suggested he was a casualty of the 1960s, except it seemed more likely that was the decade in which he’d been born.

Heather spoke. Yes, we are, sir,’ she said politely. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘That depends on what you want me for. I can hear you’re not from around here.’

We’re not.’ Heather got her badge out. ‘London Metropolitan Police. I can assure you that you’re not in any kind of trouble, but we’re hoping you might be able to help us with someone who is.’

‘Now you got me intrigued.’ He gestured to the barman. ‘The usual please, Jim.’ The barman grabbed a beer and filled a small glass with Scotch. He placed them on the counter. Pettibone picked up and downed the Scotch and took a sip of beer, then gasped his pleasure.

‘Never had a drink on the English police before. Tastes good. How can I possibly help you? I ain’t never travelled further than Ohio.’

‘We’re after some information about Temperance.’

‘Pretty ironic, huh, given you’re in a bar.’ He took another hit of his beer. His eyes wore the sad, haunted look of a heavy drinker.

Heather smiled. ‘Are you from there?’

He shook his head, swallowed his beer. ‘No.’

‘Oh,’ Heather said and frowned at Nigel.

Donna returned; Heather introduced her.

‘You’re not English.’

‘No, I’m not,’ she said.

You Church?’

She nodded. ‘Is that a problem? I can leave.’

A look of anger flashed across his lived-in face. He continued to stare at her. ‘No,’ he said finally, and the anger evaporated. ‘I like the look of you, which is more than I can say for most of your bastard Latter-day Saint cohorts.’

Why, thank you,’ she said, bowing sarcastically.

Pettibone took another swig of his beer.

‘Sorry,’ Heather said. ‘We were led to believe you could help us with some information about Temperance and its past.’

What do you want to know? I’m not from there, never been there, but I sure as shit know all about its past.’

‘Something happened there,’ Nigel said. ‘In 1890, people died. The newspaper reports are missing and we can’t find an account of what happened in any other source. Do you know?’

Pettibone wore a look of private amusement. ‘Do I know?’ he said slowly and rhetorically. He finished the bottle and looked at it.

Another round please,’ Heather said to the barman.

Another round what?’

‘Another round of drinks, please,’ she clarified. ‘Same again.’

Pettibone killed the shot of Scotch and winced slightly.

Colour had returned to his cheeks. Nigel guessed there was a direct relation between his pallor and his alcoholic intake. He breathed deeply. What the fuck is going on here? Two English cops, a Mormon researcher, someone in trouble. I’d like to know a bit more, please.’

Nigel caught Heather’s eye. She nodded. He reached for his satchel and picked out a copy of the picture they had found in the tin beside the body of Sarah Rowley. He put it down on the bar in front of Pettibone. He squinted and focused, then recoiled in horror.

Where the fuck did you find that?’ he said, eyes wide.

‘Do you know what it is?’

‘Do I know what it is?’ He leaned forward. ‘That old man there’ - his finger stabbed towards a bewhiskered gentleman in his late sixties holding a spade and wearing an expression of mourning - ‘is my great-great-greatgrandfather.’

He looked again, shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen this before.’

‘If you’ve never seen that photograph before, how do you know it’s your great-great-greatgrandfather?’ Heather asked.

‘I seen other pictures. He was a pretty distinctive looking fellow.’ He leaned forward, rested his head on his hands and stared intently, then let out a low whistle. Well, I’ll be … He must have died a few days after this was taken, because I was always told he went within a week of the fire. His heart just gave out.’

‘Do you know what it is?’ Heather repeated.

Pettibone sniffed. ‘There was a fire,’ he said. A pretty big fire. The ranch belonged to a man named Orson P.

Walker. His daughter was sworn to be married to my ancestor, Hesker. Greedy old bastard already had seven wives but, you know, he figured he could do with one more. Thing was, she didn’t much like the idea of it - and who could blame her? He was sixty-seven. She had eyes for a younger boy. So, things came to a head. One night, this boy he comes for her and they try to elope. Shots are fired. The barn goes up, the building next to it, the one next to that. Women and children are sleeping. Orson had plural wives and a heap of kids. Many of them burned in their beds. There wasn’t time. That’s their bodies you see lined up there; my ancestor was one of those set to bury them.’ He looked back at the picture and shook his head.

‘It was true. I kind of figured it might be a myth. But obviously not.’

‘How many died?’ Heather asked.

‘Around twenty or so. They sent out a search party to find the girl and the boy. But they never found them.

Lucky for them. They’d have tore them limb from limb.’

It all tallied with what Nigel had found on the census.

‘That picture was found in the grave of Sarah Rowley, nee Walker,’ Nigel told him.

Pettibone stared at him as if it was some kind of practical joke. ‘You been digging up the grave of Sarah Walker?’

he said with disbelief.

‘They fled to England. Changed their names and set up a whole new life,’ Nigel said.

‘But now someone’s coming back to get their descendants.

We think they’re seeking revenge for what happened in 1890. For the fire,’ Heather added.

‘So they finally found them,’ Pettibone said. ‘And they’re finally getting what they wanted after all this time.’ He sipped his beer.

What’s that?’ Nigel asked.

‘Blood atonement.’

Over more drinks, his face lit up by barlight and beer, Pettibone explained. Blood atonement was an old Mormon belief the Church had backed away from in its search for mainstream acceptance. It decreed that some sins were so awful, so unforgivable, that the atonement of Christ was not enough to provide salvation, and that the sinner could only atone by the act of spilling blood on to the soil in death. Murder was one such sin.

Heather expressed surprise about the Church’s violent beginnings. Pettibone merely raised a sardonic eyebrow.

‘Blood is woven into the warp and weft of Mormon history,’ he said dryly.

‘But the Church no longer believes it?’ Heather asked.

‘No longer believes it,’ Donna said with incredulity.

‘They claim it has never been practised by the Church at any time.’

‘Bullshit, of course,’ Pettibone said, wiping his mouth.

‘And where I come from, it still goes on.’

Where do you come from?’ Heather asked.

He smiled. ‘A little place a few hundred miles due northwest of here, named Liberty City. Don’t let the name fool you.’

Donna almost gasped. ‘You’re a member of the TCF?’

Was a member,’ Pettibone corrected. ‘Ain’t been anywhere near for twenty-three years or more, and I ain’t planning on ever going back.’

‘Just who exactly are the TCF?’ Heather asked.

Pettibone looked at Donna. ‘You go first, sweet cheeks,’

he said. ‘I wanna hear this.’

Donna smiled a half-smile. ‘The True Church of Freedom. It’s a Mormon fundamentalist group. One of many that has split away from the Church because of a disagreement over core beliefs. Not one of the bigger ones. But one of the most secretive. That’s about all I know. Over to you.’

Pettibone cleared his throat. ‘It was founded in 1891 by Orson Walker junior. He claimed Orson to be the prophet, and legitimacy for the Church, on the basis that Orson senior — who died shortly after the fire, too — had received the Gospel directly from the Lord, that the mainstream Church were apostates, and that he and his kin should form a Church according to the revelations and teachings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor and no one else.’

‘So every Church President up until Woodruff, who brought in the manifesto banning plural marriage?’ Donna said wryly.

‘You got it. My folks are fond of plural marriage.’ He took a hit of beer. ‘Orson junior blamed the fire on God, said it was His wrath at his father’s failure to break away and form his own Church. So the Walker clan, or what was left of it, the Pettibones, and a few families headed for the hills and the Utah—Idaho border, away from the prying eyes of the Church and the state, where they’ve lived ever since.

‘They practise polygamy?’ Nigel asked.

‘Hell, yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s old school up there.’

‘But why haven’t they been arrested or broken up?’

Pettibone shook his head. ‘Little matter of Waco put paid to that kind of stuff. You go in there all guns blazing and people will do some crazy things. I think the authorities don’t really care. The community up there is a thousand or so strong, pretty self-sufficient, they don’t bother folks outside much. Not till now, anyway. It was the people unfortunate enough to be born and raised there who faced all the trouble.’

“You left?’ Donna asked.

‘You could say that,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Or you could say I was asked to leave. I’m what you might call a “lost boy”.’

What do you mean?’ Heather reached for her notebook and began taking down some of what Pettibone said.

Well, you were a teenager once. Let me ask you: if you had a choice between being with someone around your own age, or being the sixth wife of a fifty-seven-year-old man, which would you choose?’

‘Are you kidding me?’ Heather spluttered.

‘Exactly. Unfortunately, the views of fifty-seven-year old men hold greater sway than those of fifteen-year-old boys and girls. My crime was listening to rock music’ His fingers painted quote marks in the air as he said the word ‘crime’. ‘But the real reason was that I took a walk with a fourteenyear-old girl who was earmarked to be the bride of someone older and more powerful than me. They don’t want you getting your hands on what is rightfully theirs. I was told to pack my bags and get out of town as quickly as possible. Or else.’

‘Or else what?’ Nigel asked.

‘I didn’t stay to find out. To be honest, I couldn’t get out of that fucking place soon enough. Sure I miss my family, even though some of them were crazy as hell.

That’s what happens when the gene pool is kinda limited.

But I don’t miss much else.’

‘It must have been difficult to adjust to life here after being in such a close-knit community,’ Nigel said.

He shrugged. ‘Llewellyn is hardly New York City There were some pretty hard times. But I found my niche. This bar, a job, a few friends, and no God of any kind. If your Mormon friend here will forgive me, I think religion ain’t worth shit.’

Donna shrugged. ‘Go right ahead. Don’t mind me.’

‘You said a fourteenyear-old girl was earmarked to be a bride,’ Heather said.

‘I did. That’s when the menfolk of Liberty deem them ripe for picking and marrying.’

We’re looking for a girl who was kidnapped on her fourteenth birthday, and her mother murdered. She was killed inside but her body dragged out the back of the house and her throat cut.’

‘Sounds like blood atonement to me. You gonna tell me they’re both descendants of Sarah Walker and Horton Taylor?’

We are.’

He went silent. ‘Jesus,’ he said.

You’ve heard of them?’ Heather asked.

‘Heard of them. In Liberty, those two are just about on a par with the Devil. Their heinous sin was drummed into the hearts and minds of every living person in Liberty.