Authors: J. A. Jance
Randy Trotter looked at Joanna. “Do you have any information that Carol Mossman was involved in that kind of thing?”
“Not really,” Joanna replied. “I know she had a troubled family life and that, as an adult, she had a hard time keeping it together. Periodically her grandmother would have to pitch in and help out. At the time Carol Mossman was murdered, she was living rent-free in her grandmother’s mobile home.”
“Hey,” Detective Cruikshank objected, “I live rent-free in a place my grandmother owns. What’s wrong with that?”
The last thing Joanna wanted to do was offend the detective. “Nothing,” Joanna said quickly. “Nothing at all.”
She was saved by the ringing of a telephone. Randy Trotter reached over to answer it. “Sure enough, Bobby,” he said. “We’ll finish up here and be at the morgue in ten minutes or so. Thanks for coming all the way into town for this. It’s a big help.”
It was only a matter of blocks from Randy Trotter’s office to the morgue. After a short discussion, they decided to walk. A hot, dusty wind blew in their faces, but off to the south Joanna spotted a bank of clouds building on the horizon. The summer rains had missed Bisbee’s Fourth of July fireworks display, and so had Joanna Brady; but it looked as though the monsoons might come—sooner rather than later.
The Hidalgo County Morgue consisted of two rooms carved out of a basement corner of the Lordsburg Funeral Home. “Hello, Bobby,” Sheriff Trotter said to the middle-aged man waiting just inside the front door. “This is Mr. Diego Ortega. We believe he knows both victims. One of them is believed to be Mr. Ortega’s sister.”
Bobby Lopez nodded gravely. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” Diego said softly, squaring his shoulders. “Let’s get this over with.”
Bobby Lopez opened a door to usher them into an interior room. Joanna hung back. “Are you coming?” Randy asked.
Joanna shook her head. “Identifying victims isn’t a spectator sport,” she said. “And Mr. Ortega doesn’t need an audience. If you don’t mind, I’ll wait right here.”
“Good thinking,” Randy said. “I believe I’ll join you.”
Detective Cruikshank and Diego Ortega, looking decidedly pale, were back in the lobby in less than a minute. “It’s them,” Diego said shakily. “It’s Carmen and Pam. Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he added, taking a cell phone from his pocket, “I need to call my mother. From the descriptions, we were pretty sure, but she’s back home in Garden Grove hoping against hope that we were wrong.”
He turned back to Bobby Lopez. “Any idea when the bodies will be released so my mother can start planning a funeral?”
The ME’s assistant shook his head. “Dr. Lawrence will perform the autopsies on Monday. It’ll be several days after that.”
“I understand,” Diego said. Holding the phone to his ear, he stepped outside. Joanna and the others stayed where they were.
“We’ll need the other victim’s next of kin as well, Sheriff Trotter,” Bobby Lopez said.
“Right,” Randy said. “We’ll try to get it for you.”
Diego remained outside for several long minutes. Joanna was more than happy to be out of earshot. It was bad enough to have seen the despair on Diego’s face as he emerged from the morgue’s back room. She didn’t want to bear witness to the phone call that would finally shatter all of a grieving mother’s hopes and dreams for her daughter.
When Mr. Ortega returned to the waiting room, he seemed to have regained control. “All right,” he said. “What next?”
“We’ll need to gather some more information, if you don’t mind,” Johnny Cruikshank said. “There’s a little coffee shop just around the corner. Maybe we could go there and talk.”
Esther’s Diner was a long, dingy place with a counter on one side and a string of booths on the other. At mid-afternoon on a Saturday, the place was virtually deserted. Even so, Johnny led them to a booth in the far corner. With no peanut butter anywhere on the menu, Joanna settled on ordering a tuna sandwich. Johnny Cruikshank ordered key lime pie, while Randy Trotter and Diego Ortega had coffee.
“Please tell us about your sister,” Johnny urged Diego once their gum-chewing waitress had departed with her order pad.
Diego’s eyes dimmed with tears. “She was always such a cute little kid,” he said. “She was what my mother called an afterthought—one of those babies that come along when women think their childbearing days are over. My brothers and I were all in high school or college when Carmen was born. My parents were good Catholics. They wanted to have a whole bunch of kids, but after I showed up, Mama had several miscarriages in a row. The doctor told her she’d never have another child, but he was wrong. When Mama was forty-two, along came Carmen.
“When she was born, things were different from the way they had been when the rest of us were little. For one thing, Dad was making good money by then. We older kids always had to make do with secondhand clothes and hand-me-downs. But then we were all boys, so that made a difference, too. Everything Carmen got was brand-new, from her crib to her clothing.
“The truth is, I think my brothers and I all resented her a little—thought she was spoiled rotten. And she was, too, but it wasn’t her fault. Dad and Mama just worshiped her and wanted her to have the very best. Which is how Carmen ended up going to St. Ambrose, a private Catholic school, while all the rest of us went to public schools. One of the parish priests at St. Ambrose is the one who molested her.”
“But she didn’t tell the family about it right away,” Johnny Cruikshank put in.
“Of course not,” Diego agreed. “That’s not the way child abuse works. When it came time for Carmen to go to high school, Mama and Dad were ready to enroll her in another private high school, but she wasn’t having any of it. She wouldn’t go. In fact, she absolutely refused. About that same time, she stopped going to church, too. She wouldn’t attend mass or go to confession. It broke my mother’s heart. But Mama’s never been one to take something like that lying down. She insisted that they go to counseling. That’s when she first learned that Carmen was…well…different.”
“You mean that she was a lesbian?” Johnny asked.
Diego nodded. “It’s also where Carmen first told our mother about what had happened to her all those years ago when she was in second grade. Mama was furious. She went to the bishop and found out that the priest had been transferred to another parish—one right here in New Mexico, I think.”
“Right,” Randy Trotter said. “It’s common knowledge that for a long time the Catholic Church used New Mexico as the dumping ground of choice for pedophile priests.”
“Sure enough, the priest was still up to his old tricks,” Diego Ortega continued. “Mama hired a lawyer and took her case first to the bishop and then to the cardinal. I think she would have gone all the way to Rome itself, except the Church settled. It was one of the early settlements, the ones that came complete with a nondisclosure agreement. In other words, they paid, but the terms of the deal kept all parties from revealing the amount of the settlement or even that a settlement existed.”
“Hush money,” Joanna murmured.
Diego nodded again. Their food order came then. Joanna’s tuna sandwich was surprisingly good, but she had to edge herself into the far corner of the booth to keep from smelling everyone else’s coffee.
“The settlement was large enough that it paid for Carmen’s education, with some left over, but Mama always said it wasn’t enough. She’s convinced the abuse Carmen suffered is what made her turn out the way she is. I don’t think that’s true, and neither does…” He paused and took a deep breath. “Neither
did
Carmen,” he corrected. “She told me once that she always knew she was different. But Mama’s set in her ways, and none of us are about to try convincing her otherwise.”
Joanna nodded. “Good plan,” she said.
“So, anyway,” Diego continued, “when Fandango wanted to do a piece about the pedophile priest scandal, Carmen went knocking on their door and begged them to let her work on it. She had done some other freelance work for them prior to that. They hired her for the project and teamed her up with Pamela. Carmen told me that when she and Pam met, it was love at first sight for both of them.”
“Tell us about Pamela Davis,” Johnny Cruikshank urged. She had finished her key lime pie and was taking detailed notes.
“Her father, Herman Davis, was an executive for one of the big studios,” Diego Ortega said. “Herman died of a stroke years ago, but I understand he was one of the off-screen movers and shakers behind launching that first
Star Trek
series. Her mother, Monica Davis, is in her eighties now. In her heyday, before she married Herman, she made a decent living as a bit actress in B-movies.”
“Do you know how we can get in touch with her?”
Diego nodded. “She lives in an assisted-living facility in Burbank. It’s called Hidden Hills, and it’s exclusively for movie and television folk. I can get you the number if you want, but I’m not sure it’ll do you any good. She’s an Alzheimer’s patient, and she’s pretty well out of it. If you contact her, she probably won’t know who you’re talking about.”
“But the facility may have a list of other people—other relatives of Pam’s—who should be notified,” Johnny persisted. “And don’t worry about the number. I’m sure I can get it from directory assistance.”
“Did Ms. Leigh say what kind of a story Pam and your sister were working on here?” Joanna asked. “Not more pedophile priests, I hope.”
“Bigamy,” Diego Ortega answered.
“Bigamy?” Johnny Cruikshank demanded.
“They spent the better part of two weeks up in northern Arizona, in both Page and Kingman. Ms. Leigh said they made several trips to a place called the Arizona Strip investigating a breakaway Mormon group called The Brethren. From what I understand, The Brethren practice bigamy quite openly.”
What Joanna Brady knew about the Arizona Strip came from Arizona Sheriffs’ Association meetings where Mojave County Sheriff Aubrey Drake had complained at length about trying to enforce the law—any kind of law—in the part of his jurisdiction that lay north of the Colorado River. Relatively inaccessible, it was a haven for people who had a penchant for wide-open spaces and a lack of law enforcement oversight. It was an open secret that bigamy was practiced among some of the reclusive people living on ranches in and around some of the more remote communities.
“They’re not,” Johnny Cruikshank announced abruptly.
“Not what?” asked Sheriff Trotter, looking at his detective with a puzzled frown.
“The bigamists aren’t real Mormons any more than the 9/11 terrorists are real Muslims. They’re jerks who’ve decided to use religion to justify any kind of outrageous behavior.”
Not even the dim lighting of Esther’s Diner concealed the two angry red splotches that had suddenly appeared in Johnny Cruikshank’s tanned cheeks.
So she’s a Mormon,
Joanna realized.
Joanna turned her attention to Diego Ortega. “I’ve heard of The Brethren,” she said. “Edith Mossman, Carol’s grandmother, mentioned that her son Eddie, Carol’s father, belonged to a group by that name.”
Diego Ortega’s eyes hardened. “Have you talked to him yet?”
“No,” Joanna said. “We’ve been trying to contact him, but as far as I know, he’s still in Mexico.”
“If I were you, I’d do more than just contact him,” Ortega said.
“Why?”
“Because,” he replied, “Carol Leigh told me that Carmen and Pam made contact with a second group, one that calls itself God’s Angels. It’s made up of women who have escaped from bigamy situations. The whole purpose of God’s Angels is to help other women do the same thing—escape. Within two days of making contact with that group, Pam received a threatening e-mail that she forwarded to Candace Leigh at Fandango Productions.”
“Do you have any idea what it said?” Joanna asked.
Diego reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I can do better than that,” he said. “I can show you. Look.”
He unfolded the paper and placed it on the table. The message was short: “Leave my daughters alone” was all it said. It was signed Edward Mossman.
“At the time, no one at Fandango took it seriously, not even Carmen and Pam,” he said quietly. “Nobody believed it was a death threat. Unfortunately, now we know it was.”
Twelve
A n hour later, when Joanna finally emerged from Esther’s, she found herself in the strange half-darkness of a full-fledged dust storm. The humidity had shot up, making the heat that much worse. Off to the south, but far closer now, thunder rumbled in unseen clouds. It was the oncoming storm that had finally brought the joint interview with Diego Ortega to a halt. He was hoping to take off and fly north far enough to escape the brunt of the wind and rain.
“Are you sure you want to head home in this?” Randy Trotter asked as he walked Joanna back to her Civvie.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Most of the culverts on Highway 80 have been replaced. And usually there’s not that much runoff from the first summer storm.”
Famous last words. The rain hit just as she turned off I-10 onto Highway 80 at Road Forks. The wind-driven rain had so much dust mixed in with it that the water turned to blinding mudon her windshield. For the better part of an hour she crept along at twenty and thirty miles per hour. By the time she finally made it as far as Rodeo, the roadside ditches and dips were beginning to run. The storm let up for a while, then returned with renewed vigor about the time she hit the curves at Silver Creek. One after another, the newly replaced culverts were running with deep reddish-brown, foam-flecked water, spreading from one sandy bank to another. The place where the speeding Suburban had crashed off the road and landed upside down was totally underwater.
Joanna breathed a quick prayer of thanksgiving.
If that accident had happened tonight rather than last night,
she thought,
those people would have drowned. It could have taken months just to find the bodies.
Once she was inside radio range she checked in with Dispatch. “How are things?”
“This is a major storm,” Tica replied. “Two cars washed away in the dips between Double Adobe and Elfrida. Everyone’s safe, but we still have units on the scene, including Chief Deputy Montoya.”