Joanna considered it for a moment, her face caught in the sunlight and flattened by the lack of shadow in the midday sun. Then she shook her head firmly. “Sarah is always angry. But she has her paintings as an outlet. If Stephen shouts at her or Rebecca nags her, she just disappears into the shed.” Joanna nodded to the shed we’d passed on the way up, which I needed to put on my list of snooping spots.
“Then which of the wives do you think is the most likely to have killed Stephen?” I asked, because there was something about Joanna’s childishness that brought out blunt honesty in me, as if nothing I said could offend her. I wasn’t sure why.
“Jennifer.” She offered a ready answer.
“Why Jennifer?” I said, surprised.
“Because she hated him the most. I think she’s always hated him.”
“But why would she marry him if she hated him?” I asked. I wasn’t sure that Joanna really understood all the relationship dynamics here. She was the newest wife, and very young. Jennifer seemed coldest to me, the least likely to stab someone with a kitchen knife.
“I don’t know why, but it’s the truth. And she has a murderer’s heart.” She shivered dramatically.
“Well, I’ll think about it.” Joanna’s testimony wasn’t exactly the final clue to present to the police, was it?
“Are you going to find out who killed Stephen?” she asked.
“I’m going to try,” I said. “To make sure the rest of you are all safe.”
Joanna’s eyes shifted for a moment and then I had a weird feeling that made the hair on my arms rise up. I’m not sure I would call it a spiritual feeling because that was usually calm and peaceful to me, filled with love, and this seemed more alien and even eerie.
“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice,” she said in a low, deadened voice.
“Joanna?” I said.
She didn’t respond until I snapped fingers in front of her face. Then she pulled away, blinked several times. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What did you say?”
“You quoted that Robert Frost poem. About the world ending in fire or ice. What did you mean?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember saying that. Who is Robert Frost?”
With the lack of education among the FLDS, I found I could actually believe she didn’t know who Robert Frost was, so I let her go. As strange and unpredictable as she was, she had the least reason to want Stephen dead. She was fragile, young, adoring of Stephen, without worldly skills that would let her survive elsewhere, completely dependent on him financially, though perhaps not as emotionally dependent as Carolyn. But what she’d said about Jennifer was interesting.
Before I went back down to the cemetery, I checked the door to Sarah’s painting shed, but it was locked and I couldn’t see in very well with the light at this angle. I sighed. I’d just have to make an excuse to see inside later. I also needed a chance to talk to Sarah about last night and about who she thought was the most likely to have wanted Stephen dead.
I stumbled my way down the trail again to check on Kenneth, who was sitting on the side of a knee-deep hole long enough to fit a full-grown man lying outstretched.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine.” He held up his hands, which were blistered despite the gardening gloves he’d been wearing. “Just taking a break. Are you finished with your detecting?”
“Not by a long shot,” I said, but I needed time to think for a bit. Did I really think Jennifer was a more likely suspect than Sarah? And what was it about Joanna that made me believe her gift was real?
Since he looked to be so close to done, I stayed with Kenneth as he went back to work and finished digging about forty minutes later. I reached down and helped him out of the hole, only narrowly avoiding being pulled back in myself. Maybe it wasn’t exactly six feet deep, but it was pretty close.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now we go back and wait until they’re ready for the body to be buried,” I said.
Kenneth wiped at his forehead and then stared at me. “You, wait? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that.”
I made a face at him. I could wait. If I had to. And in this case, it wasn’t going to be just waiting. There’d be plenty of poking around mixed in there, too.
Chapter 18
Kenneth used his shirt to dry off the sweat, then pulled it back on as we walked back to the house.
Rebecca and the other wives, including Joanna, were in the front room now, talking to the gathered and silent children, none of whom seemed to have been crying or in shock over their father’s sudden death.
After what Joanna had said, I took a chance to observe Jennifer, who looked cool and collected. “Stephen’s will made provisions for the families,” she was saying to Rebecca, who had just asked her a question I hadn’t caught. “You’ll all be staying in the homes here. There’s no worry about that.”
So she had seen Stephen’s will, apparently, and knew what was in it. Did it benefit Jennifer herself? Could that be a motive for murder? I needed to see the will somehow. I wondered how I could manage that.