“We don’t need money now,” Rebecca said, but she didn’t sound as sure as she had before.
“Of course you need the life insurance, Mom,” said Naomi. “But maybe there’s another way around this.” She looked at me for help.
“We can call the police this evening,” I suggested, stalling. “After Rebecca has had a chance to tell the other wives and the children.”
“No police. At all,” Rebecca insisted. “Nephi and Lehi can do the digging. Brigham can help. I’ll call them.” She tried to stand up, but Naomi held her down.
“Kenneth can take care of the grave digging,” she said, looking up at him. “He’s bigger and older. ”
Kenneth hesitated for a long moment and looked at me.
Would it be a crime if he buried the body? Probably. And if he did, the police could charge us all as accessories. Was I willing to face that? Yes, I was. But my son’s facing it was another question.
“Go on,” I said, encouraging Kenneth.
He closed his eyes for a moment, his straight back sagging as if I’d taken all the breath out of him. When he opened his eyes again, I couldn’t help but think of Kurt when he’d driven off in the truck, looking years older.
“All right,” he said. He couldn’t have known when he fell in love with Naomi that it would come to this, but he wasn’t willing to walk away from her, either, and I had to admire that about my son. Whatever Kurt had said about Kenneth not having commitment, he was wrong.
Naomi stood up. “Then I’ll send Nephi to call the wives to a meeting. Mom, you’ll be there with me. Linda, can you help Kenneth with . . . the grave?”
“All right,” I said reluctantly. I wasn’t sure I would add much to the grave digging, considering how badly I’d managed to fill in the cat’s grave when Kurt was here. I wished I could be there for the meeting with the wives.
“You’re going to have to have a death certificate to probate the will,” Kenneth pointed out. I hadn’t thought about this problem, but then again, I’d always intended to call the police eventually. It felt like that one decision early on, while Rebecca was still in shock, was making it more and more difficult to go back.
Naomi turned to Rebecca. “Is there anyone who would sign a death certificate for natural causes?” she asked desperately. “One of Dad’s colleagues, maybe?”
It would have to be someone who was blind and not very inquisitive, I thought.
“Dr. Benallie,” Rebecca said.
“Who is Dr. Benallie?” I asked. And why in the world did Rebecca think she would do something like this?
“She works with Stephen in his practice,” Rebecca said, which didn’t fully answer my question.
The fact that Rebecca thought she had in hand someone who would write a false death certificate made me go back to the question of whether or not Rebecca had planned this all out. For a moment, I considered calling the police myself. I had my own phone. I could even call Kurt and ask him to come and help deal with things.
But I didn’t, because of the reality of how I felt about Stephen Carter.
What if Rebecca really had killed her polygamous husband? What if she had gotten tired of him marrying younger and younger wives? What if she had snapped after the way he had manipulated her and everyone else on the compound? Maybe watching him mistreat Talitha after her cat’s death had been too much for her.
Did I really think she deserved to go to jail for that? I had come to like her and feel sympathy for her. Maybe if she had killed Stephen, she was justified in it.
I had never taken the law into my own hands like this before. But I’d never been in a situation like this before. Kurt had left and it seemed that God had kept me here. I didn’t feel any sense of divine encouragement, but neither did I feel that sinking sense of darkness that had always told me in the past that I was wrong.
So I exchanged looks with Naomi and Kenneth. Somehow, tacitly, all three of us agreed that we were going to go along with this. God help us all.
“What’s Dr. Benallie’s number?” asked Naomi.
“Just call the main number for Stephen’s office and ask for her. Tell her it’s Rebecca Carter calling. She’ll speak to you immediately.”
Kenneth and I waited as Naomi asked for Dr. Benallie using her mother’s name. Then she muted the phone for a moment. “What do I tell her?” she asked. “That he’s dead?”
“Just give me the phone,” Rebecca said. To my surprise, she very calmly explained that there had been a death “in the family” and asked Dr. Benallie to come see to the “legal details.”
“She should be here in a half hour,” Rebecca said, handing the phone back to Naomi.