“Are the police there right now?” Kurt asked. “Will they let you leave if I come up?”
How could I tell my husband that I hadn’t called the police and had, in fact, cooperated in covering up the murder? “It happened Tuesday morning and the investigation is still ongoing. But they’ve had the funeral already,” I said. This list of questions wasn’t what I had wanted when I called Kurt, but I’d known it would happen. It was part of why I’d delayed this moment.
Kurt let out a long breath. “Is that why you’ve stayed so long? To help his wives deal with the funeral and such?”
“Yes.” That was mostly true.
“Well, I can come up immediately, then. There’s nothing going on in the ward that can’t wait.”
I felt a wave of relief and love for him. He wasn’t demanding an apology. He wanted everything to go back to the way it had been between us before, just as much as I did. It wasn’t going to be that easy, but at least it was a start.
“Thank you,” I said. “And . . . well, just thank you.” He was always there for me. He really was.
“Do they know who murdered him? Was it one of the wives?”
“I guess I don’t really know.”
“And you’re not trying to find out?” He sounded surprised, and a little amused.
The man was my sanity, I thought. “I’m trying,” I said. “But failing, sadly.”
“Does it by any chance have anything to do with the FLDS?” asked Kurt.
It was such an odd question. “Why would you ask that?”
“Linda, I did some online research on Stephen Carter and his history after I left. I was worried about you, and about him.” Now he sounded embarrassed. My Kurt had done some investigating on his own? It did seem out of character for him.
“What did you find?” I asked, my curiosity leaping to the forefront of my emotions again.
“Well, first of all, I found out about the house fire Stephen mentioned,” Kurt said. “They only ever found the two adult bodies in there.”
“What? Not his brother?” I thought back to what Hector Perez had said. “Was he an only child after all?”
“No, why would you think that?”
I didn’t have time to go into my talk with Hector Perez, so I said, “What happened to his brother, then?” What was his name? Edward, wasn’t it? I tried to bring up the image of the tombstone, but failed.
“Well, in the newspaper article I found online, Stephen is quoted as saying that his parents had told him to get his younger brother out first, which he did. And by the time he tried to go back for the adults, it was too late. The flames were too high.”
Then why was there a gravestone for his brother? “Did the brother die soon after, from injuries related to the fire or something?” I asked.
“No, Linda. He’s alive.”
I felt my chest constrict. This mattered. This could be the piece of information that solved the case. And I hadn’t had it the day before because I wasn’t talking to Kurt. My pride, it seemed, had gotten in the way.
“Linda, he’s not only alive, he’s close by. Edward Carter owns a residence in Short Creek, Arizona, though he also seems to own a house in Spanish Fork.”
“He lives in Short Creek?” That made no sense. Short Creek was a very closed community, only for the FLDS. My mind leaped to Joanna, who had grown up in Short Creek.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Kurt said urgently, “Edward and Stephen were both in foster care for a number of years with a Grace and Thomas Jeffs, who are some of the Jeffs of FLDS fame. They’re apparently cousins of Stephen’s mother, and they took Edward back after the fire. To Short Creek.”
“Grace,” I murmured. Joanna’s oldest daughter was named Grace. The one born while she was still part of the FLDS. It could be a coincidence. But my gut told me it wasn’t. “But if the Jeffs took in Edward after the fire, why didn’t they take Stephen, too?”
“An article I read about the fire said that Stephen was eighteen by that time, which means he had aged out of the system. I suppose he could have petitioned for guardianship of his brother as a young man.”
“But instead he went to medical school,” I said, “and buried any memories of his brother in the backyard.”