higher authority [042-066-4.8]

By: Stephen White

Synopsis:

Dr. Alan Gregory's fiance, attorney Lauren Crowder, is thrown into a
maelstrom of violence as a case of sexual harassment strikes a
devastating chord among the nation's most powerful leaders. But this
legal time bomb soon explodes when crucial evidence disappears, and a
killer strikes.

Higher Authority is a work of fiction. The characters and events
described are entirely the product of the author's imagination. Much of
the story takes place in a uniquely American and uniquely western world,
that was created by the Mormon followers of Joseph Smith in a land
Brigham Young called Deseret. We call it Utah. The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as the Mormon Church, is
depicted in this story as an essential cultural and religious backdrop
to fictional events and fictional characters. All locales described in
the book are used fictitiously. No actual event or incident is
intentionally portrayed; any resemblance is coincidental. Although
certain prominent Mormons, some alive and some deceased, are quoted in
the book to provide contemporary context for the story, any resemblance
between a character and an actual person, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental, with the exception of Senator Orrin Hatch, who appears
briefly as a character. In no way does the book attempt to portray
Senator Hatch's actual conduct.

A SIGNET BOOK


Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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Published by Signet, an imprint of Dutton NAL,
a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.
Previously published in a Viking edition.

First Signet Printing, February, 1996

10 9 8

Copyright Stephen W. White, 1994
All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK--MARCA registration

Printed in the United States of America

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of
this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without
the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are
used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this
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payment for this "stripped book."

to Alexander

A NOTE TO THE READER
Higher Authority is a work of fiction. The characters and events
described are entirely the product of the author's imagination. Much of
the story takes place in a uniquely American and uniquely western world,
that was created by the Mormon followers of Joseph Smith in a land
Brigham Young called Deseret. We call it Utah. The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as the Mormon Church, is
depicted in this story as an essential cultural and religious backdrop
to fictional events and fictional characters. All locales described in
the book are used fictitiously. No actual event or incident is
intentionally portrayed; any resemblance is coincidental. Although
certain prominent Mormons, some alive and some deceased, are quoted in
the book to provide contemporary context for the story, any resemblance
between a character and an actual person, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental, with the exception of Senator Orrin Hatch, who appears
briefly as a character. In no way does the book attempt to portray
Senator Hatch's actual conduct.

I left Great Salt Lake a good deal
confused as to what state of things existed then--and sometimes even questioning in my own mind whether a state of things existed there at all
or not. mark twain, roughing it

It is almost impossible to write fiction
about the Mormons, for the reason that Mormon institutions and society
are so peculiar that they call for constant explanation. wallace
stegner, mormon country

PROLOGUE.

11 JUly

Blythe Oaks ran almost every morning. Early. She (liked to time her
workouts so that she was heading east just as the sun cracked the
horizon. This late-summer Monday she was on the Mall in full stride, the
Air and Space Museum on her right, the Capitol dome ahead of her. As she
approached the border of the Reflecting Pool she stopped abruptly and
pivoted to check the path behind her. It was deserted. A few homeless
people had begun to stir on the periphery of the Mall. But no other
runner was within a hundred yards. Blythe ran in place while she
monitored the progress of a far-off jogger and watched a woman glide
gracefully in the distance on in-line skates. Neither approached her.

Neither even seemed to take notice of her. Despite the respite from her
workout, Blythe's pulse didn't slow. She glanced at her watch and took
off again, striving to cleanse her mind of fear by concentrating on
achieving good hip extension and not landing too far back on her heels.

In minutes, she covered the long stretch of ground that extended west
toward the Potomac. Blythe Oaks ran fast when she thought she was being
followed. As she approached the street where she lived alone in a
second-floor apartment, she prayed that she wouldn't find a flower
waiting outside the front door to the building. She mouthed the prayer,
her mantra to God, "Please, no flower, please, no flower, please, no
flower." wane Please, stride, no flower, stride. Blythe had already
decided that her stalker bought a fresh bouquet only once a week,
because every morning for seven days the single stem left by her door
would be of the same variety. The flower was always wrapped in tissue
paper color-coordinated with the hue of the bud. The flowers were
freshest on Saturday. So, she had concluded, the stalker bought them on
Friday. Maybe Fri- day night after work. But this past weekend, no
flower. Before her run this morning, no flower. A month before, a blue
Toyota Camry with D.C. plates had prompted Blythe's paranoia. The first
time she had spotted the car it was parked on the street outside her
apartment building, directly across from her own beige Taurus. Blythe
remembered noticing the car that first time mostly because the person
behind the wheel had turned away abruptly when Blythe looked toward the
car. In her mind she had a snapshot image of the driver, recalling long,
dark brown hair, a suede jacket, and a baseball cap--the Orioles?--with
a plastic adjustable strap in back. Later that day, she thought she
spotted the same Camry outside the Supreme Court Building, where she
worked. The next day she saw it again, back on the street in front of
her apartment. Sometimes she was certain she saw the car drive past her
when she jogged. Once, the blue Camry had parked right next to her
Taurus at the supermarket. Blue Camry. After six strong miles Blythe
turned the final corner toward her building and decided she liked her
new Nikes. A clerk who had assisted her on Saturday had suggested this
shoe. The woman apparently knew what she was doing. Blythe fantasized
briefly about returning to the store and asking the clerk if she wanted
to go for a run sometime. She shook off the impulse. She knew she
wouldn't ask. One reckless mistake was enough. More than enough. A
reflexive vigilance intruded as she neared her building. Blythe was
becoming a car expert. Between breaths she quietly called out the makes
as she passed them in their slots along the curb: "Camaro, Buick, Honda,
pickup, minivan, Saab." Stride, stride. No Camry, no flower. One step up
to the walk. Five more to the door. With what felt like monumental
effort, Blythe forced herself to look up. Immediately she started to
cry. Such pretty blue buds. A note card of heavy gray paper. The
beautiful cursive hand. "Nice shoes!! Soon everyone will know about us!"
the note read. Standing by the door, the card between her fingers, the
flower at her feet, Blythe smiled awkwardly through her tears to greet a
neighbor who was heading out the door to go to work. Inside, she took
the stairs two at a time to the second floor, now crying in a
desperately muted voice, "Please don't call, please don't call, please
don't call." She knew she was talking to the stalker now, no longer to
God. She unclipped the safety pin that secured her key to the waistband
of her sweatpants, unlocked the door, and walked into her quiet
apartment. Long, lean shafts of sunlight cut a diagonal swath across the
living room. Breathing deeply twice, she tried to stem her tears.

Involuntarily she looked at the kitchen telephone, then quickly away. If
she didn't look at it, she wanted to believe, maybe it wouldn't ring. A
minute passed. Her breathing slowed. Warily, Blythe moved into her
bedroom to shower and get ready for work. She had almost finished
stripping off her running clothes when the telephone came alive. With
the back of one hand she covered her mouth and focused her eyes like
lasers on the bright red phone by her unmade bed. If she picked up the
receiver, the stalker would say nothing. No breathing. No profanities.

Nothing. As if the stalker's only wish was the vacant connection and the
sound of Blythe's once confident, now hollow

"Hello." Soon everyone will know  ...  No! No one can know. For the
first time that day, the hundredth time in a week, she reviewed her
options. A meager, familiar list. Call the D.C. police. Or the Supreme
Court police. Report the stalker. "A woman? Why might a woman be
following you, Mrs. Oaks?"

"Well, Officer, perhaps it's because I'm a closet lesbian." She
admonished herself for the fantasy. Right, Blythe. Not a chance. Maybe I
should just leave. Go back to Utah. Give up my job. Give up my dream.
Steam drifted from the shower. Water pelted the tile. The phone rang and
rang. Standing naked but for her sweaty socks, Blythe Oaks cried again,
loudly this time. She didn't know what she was going to do. part one EVU
SPEAKING t Those who would take prophets out of politics would take God
out of government. ezra tail benson, PROPHET, church OF jesus christ OF
latter-day saints Criticism is particularly objectionable when it is
directed toward church authorities, general or local. Evil speaking of
the Lord's anointed is in a class by itself. It is one thing to
depreciate a person who exercises corporate power or even government
power. It is quite another thing to criticize or depreciate a person for
the performance of an office to which he or she has been called of God.
It does not matter that the criticism is true. [Emphasis added.] dallin
H. oaks, FORMER JUSTICE, utah supreme court; APOSTLE, church OF jesus
christ OF latter-day saints Robin Torr tapped the eraser end of a pencil
against the cleft in her chin and said, "The truth, Lauren. Why did you
come all the way to Salt Lake City?" Lauren Crowder crossed her legs and
tried to shake off the mental malaise of her cross-country flight from
New York.

"Because," she said, lifting one eyebrow, "I thought it would be harder
for you to turn my sister down if I was sitting in the same room with
the two of you." Robin laughed. "That's just what I figured. But it's
been a lot of years since law school, Lauren. And I've gotten tough."
She raised her right arm and flexed her biceps. "I'm not the same little
flit you remember from Berkeley."

"Given your record lately, I suspected that," Lauren said. "And that, of
course, is really why we're here." Robin Torr smiled again. Lauren knew
her old friend would be pleased that her blossoming reputation as a
civil rights litigator had hopped the state line from Utah to Lauren's
home in neighboring Colorado. Robin hooked her thin hair behind her ears
and adjusted the frame of her eyeglasses before speaking again. "You
should know from the outset that I go into this willing to disappoint
you. Both of you." Lauren's expression conveyed her skepticism. Robin
persisted. "If your sister's story has merit, Lauren, I'll listen. If it
doesn't, I'll pass. I step on toes all the time now. It doesn't bother
me anymore, not like before." She caught herself, realizing she was
treading the thin line between confidence and bluster. Now it was
Lauren's turn to smile. "Have you stepped on the toes of any United
States Supreme Court justices lately, Robin?"

"What?"

"Why don't you hear Teresa out? Okay?" Teresa Crowder tugged at her
skirt before she spoke. Her smile was magnetic.

Although she was able to adopt a posture of composure and confidence, at
twenty-five an aura of postadolescence still hung over her. People would
describe her as a young woman. A beautiful young woman. She opened with
a question. "Do you remember when Orrin Hatch died? In the men's room in
that hotel in Los Angeles? That's actually when it all began, I think.

Should I start there?" Teresa turned toward her sister for a signal.

Lauren gave a permissive smile, trying hard not to influence the meeting
any more than she already had. She wanted to see how her little sister
and her old friend would negotiate this territory without her
interference. Robin looked at the slender young woman with the perfect
posture and the long legs who was sitting across from her. It was like a
time warp. Teresa was Lauren, the last time Robin had seen her in
Berkeley--what, eight years ago, nine? But she wondered if Teresa
possessed her sister's fire. Lauren's intensity had been almost a legend
in law school. Without any effort Robin recalled the news stories about
Senator Hatch's sudden death in a deserted men's bathroom on the
meeting-room level of the Bonaventure hotel in L.A. She thought. What
does that have to do with anything? With barely suppressed irritation
she said, "This has to do with Orrin Hatch? Senator Orrin Hatch? I don't
get it; the man's been dead at least a year. I thought you said on the
phone this was about sexual harassment?"

"It is." Teresa flicked another tense glance at her sister. Lauren
smiled her encouragement. "Go on, Teresa," she said. Robin Tore stifled
a tired sigh. "Yes, please. Start wherever it makes sense. But it's
getting late, so let's start somewhere."

"Well  ...  after Orrin Hatch died, and Lester Horner was appointed to
fill his Senate seat, he--"

"Wait. This is about Justice Horner? You know Justice Horner?"

"I didn't. I met him on an airplane.

And he offered me a job and I took it. I worked for him--well,
indirectly worked for him--for a short time when he was in the Senate."
Robin's stomach flipped. The contentious confirmation hearings that had
ultimately vaulted Lester Horner from the U.S. Senate onto the U.S.
Supreme Court had been nasty and divisive. He had been confirmed by a
single vote. She said, "Hold it. This harassment complaint we're
discussing isn't about United States Supreme Court Justice Lester
Horner, is it?"

"Well, sort of indirectly it is, I guess. But no, not really." Robin
forgot all about trying to grab dinner somewhere before the Jazz game
started. She reminded herself that it was only the preseason. She'd just
have to eat concession food at the Delta Center.

"And the job was in his Senate office here in Utah?"

"No, no. It was with the Utah Women's Symposium. I think I was their
token gentile." Robin Torr was familiar with the symposium, a nonprofit
organization that ran a huge annual meeting that paid lip service to
women's issues in Utah. "And the job was  ...  ?"

"Assistant to the coordinator."

"And you took it?"

"Yes, sure. I was getting tired of what I was doing at the time. The job
he was offering me sounded great."

"And the coordinator of the symposium? She was your boss?" The young
woman nodded. "And she's the one who harassed you?"

"Yes." Finally, we're getting somewhere, thought Robin. "Go on, then.
Tell me exactly what happened. Please don't leave anything out." For the
next fifteen minutes Robin listened without interruption to the
obviously rehearsed presentation. During the entire discourse the Salt
Lake City attorney was fighting an impulse to shake her head in
disbelief at the story she was hearing. She desperately wanted to cut
this interview short, to smile and say, "Toto, I've a feeling we're not
in Kansas anymore," but she feared the young woman wouldn't get the
allusion. Lauren watched as Robin sneaked another glance at her watch.
In her mind, Robin computed that she had ten minutes to wrap this up and
still have a chance to eat something other than dubious pizza at the
basketball game. Robin Torr was the youngest and only female partner
with the Salt Lake City law firm of Lewis, Frank and Zeiem. In her
relatively brief trial career she had forged a solid reputation in labor
and civil rights cases and had recently made a couple of big splashes in
the Tenth Circuit on Title VII appeals. That reputation now attracted to
her door a steady Great Basin parade of discrimination victims and
discrimination-victim wannabes. Torr prided herself on her ability to
differentiate between the two groups with accuracy and dispatch. Teresa
Crowder paused at the conclusion of her presentation. Although the young
woman's wide smile was as pleasant as spring, Robin detected heat in her
tight eyes. In an effort to fight a reflexive temptation to smile back,
she slid her long fingers beneath her round eyeglasses and squeezed the
bridge of her nose. Lauren's eyes were intent on her old friend. A
prosecutor in Boulder, Colorado, Lauren found herself fascinated not
only by the novelty of Robin's edgy demeanor but by her little sister's
unusual resolve. Robin couldn't resist tipping her incredulity at what
she had heard. Her voice was hoarse from the residue of a cold. She
hoped, instead, it sounded husky.

"You haven't lived here long, have you?" she said. Teresa Crowder shook
her head. "Not quite a year." Robin cleared her throat and focused on
her prospective client. She tried to convince herself that her old
friend from law school was temporarily out of this equation. "And I take
it you're not a member of the Church, are you?" Anyone living in Utah
for more than a week would have immediately gauged the question for
sarcasm. In Utah, the question of what church did not require
clarification. And in this case the answer, Torr knew, was preordained.

The young woman shook her head again. "I thought about it for a while.

Senator Horner--Justice Horner-- certainly encouraged me to convert. But
if you want a career, becoming a Mormon woman doesn't seem to have much
upside. And the option of becoming a Mormon man wasn't ever discussed."
Lauren laughed out loud at her sister's joke. Robin didn't join in. She
couldn't decipher how much of Teresa's response was editorial and how
much was an attempt at humor. Either inclination in a prospective client
concerned her. "Do you have any idea how influential Lester Horner is
around here?" "Of course," said Teresa. "He was a general authority of
the Church. You must know that."

"Yes, I know. And now he's the newest justice of the U.S. Supreme
Court," Teresa said. "I guess he got himself a promotion." The attorney
sighed. That morning she had lost two motions in what should have been a
slam-dunk hearing. She damn well knew she shouldn't have lost either of
them. The failure had soured a mood already foul from another night of
too little sleep. Now she had to struggle with an old friend asking her
to help a relative with a case that, despite its merits, was frosted
with political land mines. "What's a general authority?" asked Lauren.
Robin responded. "A Mormon leader.

There's a group of men in Utah who run the business and spiritual end of
the Church. They're called general authorities. There are a dozen senior
general authorities in a group called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

The president of the Church--the prophet, seer, and revelator of all
Mormondom--has two advisers, like a cabinet, in something called the
First Presidency. Below them is a group called the First Quorum of the
Seventy. Lester Horner was a new member of the Seventy when he accepted
the Senate appointment. That put him on a list to someday, maybe, become
the prophet, to run the whole Church." Robin turned back to Teresa.

"Just for the sake of argument--or at least for your sister's
benefit--let's pretend you don't understand how these things work in
Utah. "For Justice Horner, filling the remainder of Orrin Hatch's term
in the U.S. Senate, and then moving on to the Supreme Court, can be
considered a personal sacrifice, not a promotion. If you had a choice
between becoming a Supreme Court justice and being on a shortlist to
become God's next prophet on earth, which would you prefer?" Deadpan,
Teresa replied, "Well, at least they're both lifetime appointments."
Robin Tore cracked a smile. Teresa's confidence ballooned. She said,
"Ms. Torr, I'm not accusing Justice Horner of anything. He has been
incredibly kind and generous to me from the first day we met. He has
always treated me with, well, with dignity and respect. This isn't about
him." Robin cleared her throat again. Her voice sounded normal to her,
finally. She flashed a sympathetic smile. "Teresa--may I call you
Teresa? It doesn't make any difference that you're not accusing Justice
Horner of anything improper. I wish it did, but for the purposes for
which you are seeking my representation, it just doesn't make any
difference. If you accuse his lifelong friend and chief clerk of
harassment and discrimination, you might as well be accusing him." In as
even a tone as she could muster, Teresa said to the attorney, "I guess
you're right, Ms. Torr. I guess I don't understand. I'm sorry. Why
doesn't it make any difference that I'm not accusing Justice Horner of
being involved in any of this?" Robin removed her glasses and lay them
on the desk beside her buff-colored legal pad. Turning back to Teresa,
she arched her eyebrows, despite knowing what that little act did to
highlight the spray of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She said,
"It's"Robin," okay? And the answer is: Because, Teresa, we're in Utah."
Robin hoped that pointing out the simple geographic and cultural reality
of the current circumstances would be sufficient argument to convince
Teresa Crowder of the foolhardiness of pursuing any action against the
senior clerk of the only Mormon ever to sit on the United States Supreme
Court. Teresa nodded. She said, "Yes, we are. I've noticed, believe me.

It's so hard to get a good cup of coffee." Lauren laughed again. Robin
smiled reluctantly before she continued her argument. "Some recent
history might be helpful in putting this in context. The LDS Church was
ambushed by Horner's appointments to the Senate and then to the Supreme
Court. If the Church leadership had anticipated either appointment, the
prophet would never have called Horner to serve on the Seventy in the
first place. The Church ended up enduring a very unpleasant inquisition
and expending an incredible amount of political capital to get Horner
confirmed to the Supreme Court. The person you're accusing of harassment
is just too close to him for him to escape your allegations untainted.

Hell, Justice Horner handpicked her. "And speaking of 'her," I doubt
that I need to point out that the accusation you're making is of
female-female harassment. Do you have any idea what an abomination
homosexuality is to the Mormons?" Teresa knew. She was unswayed. She
looked toward her sister. Past her. "And I guarantee you that there are
a lot of influential people in Utah--in the LDS Church in Utah--who will
not want you to prevail. And where there is an abundance of Church
influence in Utah, there is also an abundance of Church money. And what
you want me to help you with will be terribly expensive." What Robin was
implying, but didn't say, was that the other partners in Lewis, Frank
and Zeiem were about as likely to agree to take this case on contingency
as Utah was of reviving the ERA. Teresa glanced down at her hands,
folded in her lap, offered a rueful version of her wonderful smile, and
looked back up at the woman who she was hoping would agree to represent
her in a complaint alleging sexual harassment and job discrimination
that she wished to file against her former superior on the Utah Women's
Symposium. As sincerely as she could, she said, "I know we're not in
Kansas anymore." Robin finally laughed out loud. Then she caught
Teresa's gaze and held it. As compassionately as she could, she asked,
"Why do you want to do this? Other than because you feel you've been
screwed, why do you want to do this?" Lauren waited with Robin for her
sister to respond to the blunt confrontation. Teresa handled the
challenge deftly. "I look at the question differently, Ms. Torr--Robin.

I see every reason to do it. She harassed me. She punished me for
refusing to have sex with her. She expected me to take the punishment
quietly and not be a problem to her. The only reason not to do it, not
to sue them, is because these people are more powerful than I am. It's
taken me a while, but I've decided that that's a rotten reason." Lauren
was surprised at the cogency of her sister's reply. Robin said, "What
about the cost? This sort of thing isn't cheap." Lauren jumped in.

"Money's not an issue for now, Robin. I've got money from my divorce,
and I'm going to pay for this for a while. At least until we see what we
have. How strong a case we can put together." Shit, thought Robin. She
had been hoping for an easy way out. She said, "It's not just the money,
Lauren. This is political dynamite. And you both know it." Lauren
remembered her friend as an old-time rabble- rouser. With a hint of a
smile, she asked, "Is that good or bad, Robin?" Robin was all business.

"You know me. I don't mind causes. I don't even mind high-profile
causes. But I'm not particularly fond of stupid."

"And what do you think this is? Is this stupid?" After going to
exaggerated lengths to be certain the bottom edge of her legal pad was
perfectly aligned with the bottom edge of the desk in front of her,
Robin Tore decided to ignore the question. Instead she said, "Let's make
sure we all understand what we're discussing here today. I want to say
this once, out loud. For all of our benefit. "Your boss, ex-boss--the
one you refused to have sexual relations with, and the one who, you
maintain, shortly thereafter sabotaged your continued employment by the
Women's Symposium--is a woman? Right?" Teresa shrugged her
acknowledgment. "And this woman is, at this very moment, the chief clerk
of the first and only Mormon ever to sit on the United States Supreme
Court?"

"Yes."

"So, in a nutshell, this is what we've got: You, a very attractive young
gentile woman, are retaining me to file a sexual harassment suit against
a respected, married Mormon woman who is a lifelong friend of one of the
most influential men in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
And who now happens to be his chief clerk on the United States Supreme
Court?" Another nod from Teresa. "Yes, that's right, Ms. Torr."

"And you want to do this little trick in Utah?"

"Again, yes, Ms. Torr."

"This," said Robin, "is nuts."

"Probably, Ms. Torr. Probably." Teresa looked at her lap. "There's one
other thing I should tell you."

"Yes?"

"My new career? Since I got canned by the symposium? I'm trying to get
established as a stand-up comedian. I wait tables sometimes, too." She
forced a self-conscious smile. "I thought you should know." Robin Torr
broke out laughing. She was beginning to find something about this woman
irresistible. Shaking her head, which released her fine, straight hair
from behind her ears, she said, "What about before that? What were you
doing when Horner recruited you for the symposium?"

"I was skating with Disney's World on Ice. For the last six months
before I retired I was the Little Mermaid." Robin held out her hands as
if to say, I give up.

She couldn't help beginning to compose tabloid headlines in her head.

"Little Mermaid Hooks Horner" came immediately to mind. She turned to
Lauren. "I have a feeling I'm going to regret this, but I'll seriously
consider taking the case on one condition. Lauren, how long can you stay
in Utah? If I'm going to get into this mess, you're not going to get off
just writing me a check. I want to put you to work for a while." Robin's
unexpected plea caused Lauren Crowder to sit up straight. She said, "I
don't know, Robin. I was only planning on visiting with Teresa for a few
days. I've already been away from Boulder for a long time. Alan, the guy
I'm seeing, might kill me if I don't come home by the end of the week."

"Well, think again. If I'm going to agree to look into this, you have to
stay long enough to help me see what we've got. If we find we have
something strong enough to run with, I'll commit, okay? And then you can
go home."

"I'm not actually due back at work until the end of October. I guess I
could stay," Lauren said. "But, Robin--"

"That's a great idea!

Lauren, please?" said Teresa. "What?" asked Robin. "I don't think I'm
quite the same person you might remember from law school." Teresa smiled
at her sister and said, "Lauren, don't be silly. I think it's a
wonderful idea." Robin wondered what Lauren meant by her last comment.

"Good, then. We're set. And one more time, just for the record," she
said, touching her pencil to her legal pad, "what's the name of this
woman we're about to make world-famous?"

"Her name," replied Teresa Crowder, "is Blythe Oaks." Where the state of
Utah isn't mountain it is high desert. In 1847, when a revelation from
God directed Brig- ham Young to lead his saints in search of Zion, the
Kingdom of God on earth, he guided the first of his flock of fourteen
thousand Mormon followers from their beseiged home in Nauvoo, Illinois,
across the Great Plains through the Wasatch Mountains to the Great Basin
and the banks of the Great Salt Lake. The emigrating saints arrived to
find a high-desert paradise sparsely populated by Indians, mostly Utes,
ringed by mountains, and bordered by the southeastern shore of one of
the largest dead seas in the world. For the Mormon pioneers the most
important features of the topography were the natural barriers that
Brigham Young felt would protect their nascent state of Deseret from the
influence of belligerent, unholy gentiles. Standing guard to the east
were the Wasatch Range and the majestic Rocky Mountains. To the west
were the huge lake, vast deserts, and the imposing Sierra Nevada. Almost
one hundred and fifty years later, Lauren Crowder had arrived in Utah's
capital city to find a sprawling metropolis with a small, modern
downtown that had a familiar, conventional, western appearance that
belied its underlying character. In truth, Salt Lake City is no more a
typical western American city than Mormonism is a typical Christian
religion. Salt Lake City is probably the only major western American
city where ice cream parlors outnumber bars, and where streets are
assigned names based on their geographical relationship to a temple. And
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is surely the only
Christian faith whose Word of Wisdom includes rigid codes regarding the
underwear to be worn by believers, and whose beliefs include the surety
that the biblical Garden of Eden is really in Jackson County, Missouri.

On a roundabout drive from Robin Torr's office to her small rented brick
bungalow just off Fifth South, below the University of Utah, Teresa
pointed out the sights to her sister. Despite the fact that Salt Lake
City was, at only fifty percent LDS, the least Mormon city in Utah, the
sights in Salt Lake City were almost all Mormon attractions. In Teresa's
old Volkswagen Rabbit, afflicted with a bad muffler and a worse clutch,
they drove downtown to Temple Square, parked close by, and walked to the
walled site of the Mormon Tabernacle and the Mormon Temple. Teresa was
determined to inject her sister full of Mormon significance and Mormon
culture. "This place isn't what it seems to be," she said. "Utah. It
isn't like any place else in the country. If you're going to be helping
me with this, everything depends on your understanding that." Acting as
an unofficial guide to the attractions of Temple Square, she spent a few
futile minutes trying to explain to her sister the significance of the
bronze handcart and the Sea Gull Monument. When Lauren interrupted her
and asked, "A miracle? Really? Just because some birds ate some
grasshoppers?" Teresa finally gave up in frustration and led her sister
to the center of the square to wait for a guided tour. As they lingered
in the beautifully manicured courtyard awaiting a sufficient number of
tourists to assemble to justify a tour, Lauren turned to her sister and
said, "I didn't know some of the details you told Robin today." Teresa
said, "It's not a nice story, Lauren. I don't like to think about the
details." She looked away. "No, it's certainly not a pretty story." But
Lauren wanted to go over it again. "She called you a slut? I didn't know
that part."

"After dinner, in the bathroom at the restaurant, when I threatened to
scream, yes, she did. She called me a few names. That was one of them."

"And she actually touched your breast? I thought--I guess I
assumed--she'd just, like, fondled you through your clothes."

"No. By then she had me backed up against a toilet. I was using both my
hands to prop myself up on the wall to keep from falling over backwards.
She touched me on my throat, very gently"--Teresa's hand rose to her
neck, to a spot just above the hollow--"then she slid her fingers inside
my suit jacket and  ...  and she touched my breast."

"You weren't even wearing a bra?" Teresa laughed at the question.
"Lauren, with my boobs?

Are you kidding? When have you ever known me to wear a bra?"

"And that thing that happened in the shower. That was before dinner?"

"Yes, that was earlier." Teresa looked up to be certain that her sister
wanted her to continue. Lauren's face was all curiosity and compassion.
Teresa said, "We had adjoining rooms in the hotel. When we came back to
the hotel from our last meeting on Capitol Hill, she came into my room
with me. We were talking about something, visiting the Holocaust Museum
the next day, I don't know, something. She stayed for a couple of
minutes.

Then, when she went next door to her room she used the connecting door.

I guess I never closed the door on my side all the way after that. Five
minutes later I saw her reflection in the mirror. She was standing in
the doorway to my bathroom. She said she'd come over to find out whether
I wanted to stay in the hotel for dinner or go out."

"But you were naked?"

"I had a washcloth. Does that count?" Lauren smiled at the joke.

Her sister could find humor anywhere. "And she didn't leave right away?"

"No, she stood there asking me questions," "What, like "Pizza or
Chinese?"

"Basically, yes. I remember she asked me if I liked sushi."

"Was she dressed?"

"She had a bathrobe on."

"Was she modest?"

"Yeah, she must have been. I think I'd remember being flashed."

"Was she, like,. looking? You know what I mean. At your body?"

"In retrospect, I guess, yes, she was. But she wasn't staring. I didn't
feel ogled."

"Did you tell her to leave?"

"Not right away. I tried to act cool. Lauren, for the last three years
I've been in a hundred locker-room situations with dozens of different
women, including some who were my bosses. Being naked in front of
another woman like that just wasn't that strange for me after all the
time I spent on the road with World on Ice. I mean, it eventually got
weird when she just stayed and stayed and stayed. But showering in front
of a female coworker just wasn't that awkward for me.

Finally, when it seemed like she was never going to leave, I said
something like"I'll be done in here in a few minutes, okay?" And she
left."

"But you were pleasant about it?"

"Yes. Of course I was pleasant."

"And the whole time you didn't do anything to cover yourself?"

"No, I didn't. Again, if you don't count the washcloth."

"You didn't think her behavior might be inappropriate?"

"Then? If I had thought about it I might have considered it, I don't
know, odd, maybe. But inappropriate, no. Not until later." Lauren tried
to picture the situation and wondered what she would have done. "Whose
idea was it to stay at the hotel for dinner?"

"It was mine. I was tired.

I wanted to go to bed early." Teresa looked up high in the sky at the
statue of the angel Moroni on top of the temple. "You know, I don't like
the way this conversation is going. I know what you're thinking."

"What am I thinking?"

"You're thinking that this isn't going to sound too good in court."

"You're right. That's what I'm thinking." Lauren decided not to push her
sister any further. That was a task, thankfully, she could leave for
Teresa's new attorney. Teresa apparently wanted to change the subject,
too. She asked how well Lauren knew Robin Torr. "We were good friends
for a while at Berkeley. Pretty good friends. For law school, anyway.
But she was a year ahead of me. Then she got involved with somebody, and
I met Jake, and, I don't know."

"You drifted apart?"

"We were never that close. The friendship was really just starting.
Jacob didn't like the guy Robin was seeing. And vice versa. Just one of
those things. She's different now."

"How?"

"I don't know. Robin was always kind of meek in school. She was a
pleaser. Bright and energetic, but a behind-the-scenes person. Now she's
got herself quite a reputation as a scholar, and she's become a scrappy
litigator, too."

"You somehow don't sound too pleased with the change."

"I've been struggling with it since we left her office. She's--I don't
know, brittle now. She has an edge to her I don't remember. Maybe she's
too determined to appear like a hardass. She reminds me of somebody I
don't like to remember."

"Jacob?" asked Teresa. Jacob was Lauren's ex- husband. Lauren took two
steps before she replied. "No, She reminds me of me. Not too long ago."
Soon, a call to assembly intruded. For the next hour they heard Sister
Cella, from Tucson, Arizona, tell the parts of the story of the LDS
Church that the Mormon leadership deemed appropriate for public
consumption.

Although the tour group never got closer than ten yards away from any
door to the imposing granite temple, they visited the famed Mormon
Tabernacle and for most of an hour digested a version of Mormondom so
sanitized that the Church could have been mistaken for a mainstream
Protestant sect. The terminology spoken and the icons visible during the
tour were traditional Christian ones. The themes presented were
fundamental and conservative; the tone was subtly, but richly,
patriotic. Overall, the impression made was as perfect as if it had been
produced by Universal Studios Tours. Just as the benches in the
cavernous tabernacle were made of western pine but had been meticulously
hand-finished by Zion pioneers to make them appear to be of oak, the
Mormon religion was packaged for the general public to appear as
something other than it was. That effect was exactly what Church leaders
intended. When the sisters returned to the car, Teresa drove east into
the steep foothills of the Wasatch Front, past the University of Utah,
and up Emigration Canyon to the base of the monument honoring the
leaders of the Mormon pioneers. She parked the car. She was frustrated.

Her sister, she was afraid, wasn't getting it. "You can't help me much,
Lauren, unless you know this place. Utah. The version you just heard was
pure vanilla. But it's not the way it is here. It's not what Mormondom
is all about. At least it's not what Utah Mormondom is all about. Salt
Lake City isn't just a funny western town that used to be full of
polygamists and now has a great choir and wants to host the Winter
Olympics. This"--she spread her left arm toward the sprawl of the Utah
Valley as the light waned in the desert--"is the center of one of the
fastest-growing and wealthiest Christian churches in the world. Salt
Lake City is a true religious capital--a major one, like Rome, or
Jerusalem, or Tehran. You can't forget that, ever, if you're going to be
of much help to me." Lauren was about to offer some reassurance, but
TERESA bulled on, her voice swollen with passion. "Considering a lawsuit
here isn't the same as doing it in Denver or Seattle. Robin Tore is
absolutely right. How can I make you understand this place? "Can you
imagine going to Rome and not being able to visit a church? Or going to
Israel and being excluded from a synagogue? Well, the holiest place in
the LDS Church was in that square we just left, and no one is ever, ever
allowed in it who isn't a Mormon in good standing. And part of being in
good standing is promising--pledging your life and your afterlife--never
to reveal the secrets of what happens in that temple. Because in that
temple there are secret ordinances with secret handshakes and theatrical
baptisms of dead relatives and dramatic re-creations of your entrance
into heaven. "Don't be fooled. This is not a conventional Christian
denomination. They don't tell you that on the tour we were just on. They
don't tell you that in heaven, the holiest of Mormons--but only
men--will progress to become gods themselves, that Jesus is but one god
among many. They don't tell you that the spirit of every living soul,
born and unborn, is as old as God. They don't tell you that every
twelve-year-old Mormon male begins to accumulate priestly powers that
allow him to communicate directly with God and to heal in His name. They
don't tell you that they take the Book of Revelation literally and that
the year 2000 marks the beginning of the millennium and that the work of
the LDS Church is going to change earth into its version of a moral,
just, and saintly place to prepare for the gathering of the faithful in
the Wasatch Valley. Then, Jesus Christ, in His next coming, will lead
the faithful back to Eden, which is someplace near Kansas City,
Missouri, for heaven's sake," Teresa's eyes were dappled with greens and
grays. The sky to the west was awash with the colors of fruit ice.

Despite the beauty of the setting, Lauren was transfixed by her sister's
unusual intensity. She saw some of her old self reflected in the
passion. Whatever was fueling the change in demeanor on her sister's
part, it was working. Teresa had captured Lauren's attention. "It's hard
to explain the culture here, and I don't know if I'm doing a good job.

I'm afraid you actually have to live here to understand it," Teresa said
a few minutes later, almost apologetically, as she stood with her sister
beneath the imposing statue of Brigham Young, Heber Kimball, and Wilford
Woodruff in Emigration Canyon. "Some of the time living here feels
normal. It's a beautiful, peaceful place--clean, not too much crime,
wonderful mountains, great climate. Then one day I realized that it's
the most segregated place I've ever lived. There are two absolutely
parallel communities here: one LDS, one gentile. "Mormons make up about
half of Salt Lake City, closer to eighty percent of the rest of the
state. But even after being here over a year, I have no close friends
who are LDS--none. And none of my friends have friends who are LDS.

Acquaintances, sure. Neighbors, yes. Coworkers, yes. But except for the
brief time when I was working for the Women's Symposium, I don't even
speak with any Mormons on a meaningful basis. "I don't want this to
sound anti-Mormon. It's easy to make fun of the Mormons. People have
been doing it, apparently, from the start. See, with one another, these
saints can be remarkable people. They help one another as unselfishly as
you could imagine. Some of them actually do seem filled with grace at
times. Justice Horner's a good example. As a group of people they are
absolutely consumed with the welfare of their own community. But the
rest of us, the nonmembers--the gentiles--once we're identified as not
being interested in conversion, it's like we disappear. "And every day
there's something here that makes you remember how powerful the Mormons
are in Utah--economically, politically, culturally." Lauren couldn't
tell if her sister's version of the Utah LDS Church was just bitterness
talking. Or maybe fear. For the first time she wondered whether there
was some political motivation behind her sister's allegations. Teresa's
slant could not have been more different from the presentation they had
just endured in Temple Square. The Crowder kids had been raised
Episcopalians. Over the years Teresa had toyed with fringe spiritual
groups Lauren considered much stranger than the Mormon Church. "Were you
ever tempted to convert? You've always been the family seeker, T."
Teresa examined her sister's face for signs of criticism. "I thought
about it. Sure. At first, every Mormon you meet checks you out as a
potential convert and begins to indoctrinate you. What they do is they
entice you with the sense of community. It can be subtle, and it's
seductive, believe me. Especially for a newcomer. The fibers of the
Church community are everywhere in Utah. Births, deaths, community
projects, welfare projects, constant meetings at the ward house or the
stake, classes for the kids, or visits to the temple to perform
ordinances. Girl Scouts, soccer and basketball leagues--it's all run by
the Church in Utah. And when Mormons aren't going out to participate in
Church activities, home visits, firesides, and home teaching come to
them, with elders constantly checking their allegiance to the lines of
authority. It's constant. Constant. An active Mormon will be involved
with the Church twenty hours or more a week. If you don't happen to have
one of your own, it's an entire life. But it was months before I really
learned any doctrine, and even that I had to do on my own. "Senator
Horner was always pushing gently on me to join. He invited me to
services with his family when they were in town. He was constantly
alluding to how wonderful and comforting being a Church member could be.

He would quote little tracts from the Book of Mormon or remind me, as I
sipped a Coke, how right Joseph Smith had been a hundred and fifty years
ago about the Word of Wisdom. But nobody, not him, not anybody else,
would really talk to me about doctrine. And nobody wanted to talk about
the structure and inviolability of the Church's authority. "It feels
like a secret club. Once you join you get to find out the rules. And the
first rule you learn after you join is. Do not ever question what it is
you've joined."

"And the doctrine? What's so strange?"

"It's funny. The Church leaders encourage saints-- they call themselves
saints--not to focus on the doctrine. The party line from the top is
that intellectual inquiry into doctrine and Church history is misleading
and can only serve to undermine spirituality and obedience. The LDS
Church has this amazing concept: activities, behaviors, and even
thoughts are seen as either 'faithpromoting' or 'not faith-promoting.
And the Church leadership, these men called the general authorities, get
to decide which is which. They decide what you should think. What you
should read.

What you should do. How you should act. With whom you should associate."

"Horner is one of these general authorities?"

"Yes. Was briefly, anyway, before he went to the Senate. He's young and
he's pretty influential in the Church. He's only fifty-four or something
like that. What makes Lester Horner unusual is his age. Most of the top
guys are antiques. I mean ancient. A prophet younger than eighty would
be considered youthful, maybe even unseasoned." Lauren wanted to lighten
things up.

"So, if I understand you right, what you're doing with this lawsuit is
the rough equivalent of accusing one of the pope's lieutenants of
messing around with an altar boy?"

"The Mormons wouldn't have much patience with the Catholic analogy, but
yeah. Even though I haven't accused Lester Horner of a thing, to accuse
a Mormon as prominent as Blythe Oaks of homosexual behavior is about as
irreverent as you can get. The only thing I can think of that would be
worse would be to accuse her of being an abortionist. To the Mormons,
you could say I fall into the category of not being particularly faith-
promoting." Lauren Crowder took a step over to her younger sister and
hugged her. She said, "I'm with you on this, Teresa. I don't know how I
feel about anything you've just told me. But I can promise you that
you're not alone. I'm here because I love you." Teresa, awkward with the
show of affection, was slow to return her sister's embrace. "Lauren?
There's something else. I'm glad Robin asked you to stay, and I'm glad
you'll be here for a while. But, urn, I don't know how to say this
exactly. I don't have as much faith in my ability to stick with this as
I wish I did. What I need most from you, I think, is for you to believe
in me and to help me keep from quitting, no matter how nasty it gets.
Okay? It's gonna get nasty, right?" Lauren said, "Yes, probably."

"Well, I don't want to run. Help me not to run this time. Even if they
get mean. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?" Lauren kissed her
sister on the nose. Certain things about their childhood were only ever
discussed in vague references. "Yes, I know what you're talking about.
I'll be there. I'll give you a shove when you need it, Teresa." She
caught her sister's gaze and held it. "It is a worthwhile fight. We'll
take it to the end, together. Okay?"

"Thanks."

"But as fascinating as I find this tour of the promised land, it's time
to go to your house. I'm exhausted. I need to rest. My indentured
servitude with this case of yours starts tomorrow morning. I'd like to
be awake for it." Teresa put an arm around her sister's waist. "Lauren?"

"Mmm."

"No running? Even when it gets mean."

"No running." Lauren wasn't certain how to tell Alan she wasn't -coming
right home to Colorado. As she lifted the receiver to place the call,
she imagined him in his living room, reading. In jeans and a sweatshirt,
on his green leather chair. She wondered how long he had let his hair
grow. Whether this was a bearded phase or a clean-shaven one. Whether
the leaves were changing below him in the Boulder Valley. Whether he
would be longingly disappointed or just plain angry. What she said after
she said

"Hi, sweetheart" was simply "It looks like I'm going to have to stay in
Utah for a while, Alan." A few heartbeats of silence followed.

Then Alan asked, "Why?" Although his voice stayed as soft as ever, his
tone was challenging and not particularly curious. Lauren said, "You're
disappointed, aren't you? I am, too." She'd been away from Boulder and
from Alan Gregory for a long time already. Her stop in Utah on her way
home to Colorado was supposed to have lasted three days, just enough
time for her to give her sister some support while she shopped for an
attorney. "Of course I'm disappointed, Lauren. I really miss you. What's
a while?"

"Couple weeks. Maybe three. Depends. Teresa's attorney, my old friend
from law school, wants me to help her out here while she investigates
the complaint. Teresa wants me here, too. It's not a bad idea. It could
save me a lot of money in legal fees." The last part was a
rationalization. "Oh," he said. "You can come to Utah and see me. It's a
lot closer than New York, and I won't be here that long." She realized
he wasn't inclined to make this any easier for her. "Look, I'm sorry,"
she said. "I want to come home and be with you, too. But this is
important for Teresa." When he didn't respond immediately, she added, "I
don't ask for much, Alan."

"No, Lauren, you don't. But when you do, it usually has to do with me
tolerating not seeing you for one reason or another. It's hard for me.
And I don't think I can come to Utah. I've already got that bike trip
planned with Sam Purdy in Crested Butte in a couple of weeks. I can't
leave work any more than that." Alan Gregory was a clinical psychologist
trying to rebuild a practice that had been decimated by misconduct
charges. "Maybe I can get away and meet you in Crested Butte for a few
days."

"With Sam there?" She laughed. He joined in. The tension began to ease.
She said, "That would be an unusual weekend, wouldn't it?"

"To say the least." Ten minutes later, after they had hung up, Lauren
took off the clothes she had been wearing all day and pulled on a robe.
She had expected Alan to be upset about her decision to stay in Utah.
She had also expected that they would work it out. The exact same set of
circumstances would have led to a tantrum from her ex-husband. She
curled up on her side on the bed in her sister's spare bedroom. The room
oozed nostalgia. The furniture was from Lauren's childhood bedroom. It
had been handed down to Teresa. Lauren closed her eyes. Something, she
knew, wasn't right. The doubts that stirred her discontent felt as
juvenile to her as the surroundings.

Alan's disappointment tugged on Lauren like gravity. She had been
looking forward to seeing him. But she also knew that her own letdown at
not being able to go straight home to Colorado didn't approach the
intensity of his chagrin. That worried her. She was planning to marry
the man. She should yearn for him, shouldn't she?

Pratt Toomey was ten minutes early for his three- o'clock meeting with
Robin Tore the next day. Elsie Smith, Torr's secretary, had been
anticipating Toomey's arrival and had a cold can of 7 Up waiting for him
on the corner of her desk. Elsie's grief over her thirty-eight-year-old
husband's death from cancer was waning after a year, and she had her eye
on Pratt Toomey, whose own wife had surreptitiously left Pratt, the
Church, and Utah with the five Toomey children while Pratt was
volunteering during the previous July's Pioneer Day celebration. Elsie
had decided, for both herself and Toomey, that enough grief was enough
grief. Pratt gently lowered his tall frame onto the chair next to
Elsie's desk. "Your boss hasn't been requiring my services enough
lately, Elsie. I'm finding myself having to manufacture excuses just to
spend a few extra minutes in your company."

"That's so sweet of you, Pratt. But you don't need an excuse as far as
I'm concerned. As a matter of fact, I was sitting here wondering if--"
The static of the intercom interrupted Elsie before she had a chance to
suggest that Pratt join her and her kids for a picnic that evening.
Robin Torr's voice. "Elsie, is Pratt there yet? You know he's always
early. Anyway, if he's there, send him in, please."

"Duty calls?" asked Pratt, just a tad too much disappointment in his
voice. He stood, the soft drink in his hand, and let himself into Robin
Torr's office. Pratt didn't recognize the woman sitting on the small
sofa across the room. Robin was behind her desk, her hair held back from
her face by a pencil over each ear, her glasses on top of her head. In a
conspiratorial whisper, without looking up, she started teasing Pratt
about Elsie. "Pratt, someday, I swear, Elsie is going to thank me for
protecting her from a fate worse than a month of nonstop temple tours.
Whether you know it or not, Elsie has decided you are The One. A few
more visits out there and she'll be sizing you up for her dead husband's
old clothes and start asking you for help tuning up her lawnmower And,
Pratt--all revelations aside-- she's much too sweet for you. By the
way," she continued, raising her voice to a conversational level, and
looking up and gesturing across the room, "that's Lauren Crowder. She's
an old college friend of mine and an attorney from out of state who's
going to be assisting on the case we'll be talking about today." Lauren
nodded an acknowledgment. "Lauren, this is Pratt Toomey, one of the
investigators we use. He's a good investigator and a great flirt.
Actually, I'm giving him a little too much credit. Pratt's a fair
investigator and a slightly better-than-average flirt." Pratt mentally
checked his posture and smiled. "As I've told you before, I can manage
Mrs. Smith's affections just fine, Robin. And it's very nice to meet
you, Miss. Crowder.

Delighted to have you in Utah, and I do look forward to working with
you." Robin continued to tease. "Pratt, you can cut the charm. One,
she's engaged. Two, she's not LDS. And three, she's more than smart
enough to see through your crap."

"Robin, I'm offended."

"Yeah, right, Pratt." Lauren waved across the room at Pratt Toomey.
"Hello, Mr. Toomey." As Robin searched around on her desk for her
glasses, one pencil fell out from behind her ear and her thin hair
shadowed her face.

She said, "Enough pleasantries. Let's get to work, folks. We've got some
chores to divide up."

"What's the case?" asked Toomey. "The stuff of your nightmares, Pratt."

"Truly?" Pratt smiled like a man whose nights held no terror. "And what
might that be, Robin?"

"Well, one that involves the hierarchy of the LDS Church, lesbianism,
and sexual harassment. What did Boyd Packer say were the three big
dangers facing the Church in the nineties, Pratt? I think they were
feminists, gays, and so-called scholars. Well, this case looks like it
should be all-inclusive." Elder Boyd Packer was a senior member of the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Pratt thought she was joking. "Do you
have a problem with it, Pratt? I'm serious, now. This case will probably
involve some serious Church intrigue. Tell me now." Pratt Toomey paused
until he was sure he had the floor. He wanted to ask some questions, see
what he was agreeing to. But he hated appearing indecisive, especially
around attractive women. "Robin, the Church and I have an understanding.

I've got to make a living if I'm going to tithe. And the Church
certainly does like for me to tithe. And the immutable truth, in case
you haven't noticed, is that the woods in these parts are full of LDS.

So if you're going to hike in these woods--as I've been known to
occasionally--you're occasionally going to step in the droppings of a
member. But where providing for one's family is concerned, both God and
the Church believe that a man's got to do what a man's got to do." Robin
didn't look up. "Nice speech, Pratt, but get real. Around here a man's
got to do what his bishop tells him he's got to do. I don't want
platitudes. I want you to consider whether you can offer unbiased help
on this case. We're talking about the possible involvement of general
authorities. Who knows, maybe even apostles." Darn, thought Pratt. /
wish I didn't need the work. "Big bears, little bears, all God's
creatures defecate, Robin. And it's all the same when you step in it."
At the conclusion of his metaphor about bears in the woods, Pratt took
three steps toward the sofa and lowered himself onto a chair across from
Lauren Crowder. He was prepared to gaze warmly into her eyes, but she
didn't bother to look up. Tore stood at her desk and made her way over
to the worn sofa. She said, "By the way, Pratt, I may have forgotten to
mention it, but Lauren here is the plaintiff's sister. The plaintiff's
name is Teresa Crowder." She sat down. "Here's the story. My client was
offered a job working in the Utah Women's Symposium by Lester Horner
when he was a new U.S. senator. You heard of the symposium, Pratt? You
know, the Mormon version of feminism in the nineties. Now there's an
oxymoron if I've ever heard one. Anyway, it's right up your alley." He
nodded. He didn't know what else to do. "Teresa's immediate superior was
Blythe Oaks, whose husband, by the way, is assistant director of the
Missionary Training Center in Provo. Another Church hotshot. Rumor is
that when Blythe comes to her senses and resumes her rightful place
beside him in the home, he'll be on a bullet train to the Seventy.

Anyway, Teresa traveled with the female Oaks to Washington, D.C., on a
business trip to meet with staff members of the Utah congressional
delegation. Okay so far?" Pratt said, "Sure."

"On the last night of the trip, Oaks unexpectedly drops some of her
Mormon decorum. At dinner, she drinks a significant quantity of pretty
good white Burgundy and begins to seduce our client. Our client is no
virgin. She knows when she's being seduced. "Our client is uncomfortable
with her boss's advances, to say the least, and excuses herself from the
table to go to the ladies' room to ponder how to make a graceful exit.
"Oaks follows her. Ends up pushing her into a stall and kissing and then
intimately touching our client while she is straddling a toilet trying
to get away. "Shortly thereafter, Lester Horner is appointed to the
Supreme Court. Our client, who has been led to believe she is doing
great work, is told her services are no longer needed by the symposium.
In no time, Blythe Oaks is heading off to D.C. to clerk for Horner."
Pratt had heard enough. He felt like bolting. Instead, he swallowed and
asked Torr where she wanted him to start work. "Our first problem,
Pratt, is finding some evidence to support our allegation that Blythe
Oaks has a harasssmenthistory, primarily with other women. If we can't
find evidence of that, then we'll probably have a pretty difficult time
convincing a Utah jury that the harassment occurred." She turned to
Lauren. "And except for her harassment of your sister, Lauren, we have
no indication that Oaks has been anything other than an exemplary Mormon
wife. I made a couple of phone calls, and the picture I get of Oaks is
that if you forget her legal career, she looks like a textbook Mormon
wife and mother; temple recommend, just enough kids. Relief Society,
welfare farms, basement full of old food, the whole nine yards. Only
blemish is her employment history."

"You mean the type of work she did?" asked Lauren, puzzled.

Robin smiled. Time for a Utah lesson. "No, I mean the fact that she
worked at all when she didn't have to. Although many do, it's not
considered desirable for Mormon women to work." Lauren made a mental
note to ask someone to translate into English for her the other
characteristics Robin had listed that make up "an exemplary Mormon
wife." Lauren said, "Don't forget about Washington, Robin." Robin turned
back to Pratt Toomey. "Right. Our client thinks that some people,
specifically the restaurant staff at the hotel in Washington, D.C., may
be helpful to us. We'll probably need to interview them at some point.

But Lauren has already made some calls today and will do the initial
phone contacts there."

"So where do we look around here for evidence of harassment?" Lauren
asked, her gaze going to Robin Tore before settling on Pratt Toomey. "I
take it the Mormons don't keep a register of lesbian members that we can
refer to." Robin waited for Pratt to answer. When he didn't, she said,
"The LDS Church is actually quite fond of lists.

Almost as fond as it is of secrets. So the odds are that they do keep a
register of suspected lesbian members, but it's not terribly likely
they'd let us see it. That would definitely not be a faith-promoting
piece of paper. So I think we're left to start looking in all the places
where Oaks worked. "Teresa's harassment happened on the job. We begin
there, and see if we can find any evidence that Oaks has done this
before. It turns out she's worked for Horner for years. First at
BYU--Brigham Young University-- that's in Provo, Lauren, about an hour
south of here. Then she clerked for him during the brief time he was on
the Court of Appeals. Then she ran the Utah Women's Symposium when
Horner was in the Senate. It's a privately funded nonprofit thing that
was loosely tied to the senator's office.1 That office is downtown, a
couple of blocks from here. That's where Teresa worked. All in all, we
probably have a lot of people to talk to. We just need to pray that Oaks
hasn't been too discreet. Or, at the very least, that she's angered
somebody enough that they'll talk to us. Pratt, any thoughts?" Pratt
Toomey would rather have talked about anything other than gays and
lesbians. As far as he was concerned, the Church had no homosexuals. He
waited until neither woman was talking before he spoke. "You may find
that somebody's willing to say a few discouraging words about Sister
Oaks, Robin. That's possible. There are going to be folks around here
who think she had no business going to Washington to work for Justice
Horner at all. Leaving her husband and kids here, like she did. I know
the kids are grown. Still, some-- more than a few--will say it wasn't a
woman's place. But the homosexual thing, I think it's a dry hole," he
said. "Why?" snapped Lauren. She immediately scolded herself for not
being more level. Pratt responded evenly. "You're talking good, moral,
conservative. God-loving people. God-fearing people. Not homosexuals.

We're talking Brigham Young University in Utah County, Utah. A great
university. We're talking a Women's Symposium that was started by a
fine, fine man, Orrin Hatch. We're talking the United States Senate
office of onetime general authority Lester Horner . We're talking the
Supreme Court of the United States of America. What Mormon women you're
going to find in these places are going to be family-oriented,
God-serving women; you're not going to find any homosexuals. You might
as well be looking for turds in an operating room." When Pratt Toomey
said "homosexuals" the word came out as "hummasexuals." Lauren
considered Toomey's preoccupation with excrement and his apparent
homophobia while she was trying to decipher the expression on Robin
Torr's face. Lauren was surprised that Robin didn't appear more troubled
at the bias and skepticism they were hearing in her investigator's
appraisal of the task in front of them. Lauren turned back to face
Pratt. She tried to make her voice sound merely curious, not
disbelieving. "Pratt, are you maintaining that Blythe Oaks is a fine
Mormon woman?"

"Some, as I said, may disagree. Some will say she shouldn't even have
gone to law school. Some would say she should have just stayed at home
with her kids and continued to volunteer with the Relief Society.
Apparently, she's worked out of the home many years when she didn't have
to. There are elders who frown on that. But what I'm saying is that
she's going to look like a good Mormon woman on paper.

And she's going to look like it to her co-workers. And she's certainly
going to look like it to the Church, given the current circumstances.

Many will stand up for her just to stifle the inevitable Utah-bashing."
Lauren's reaction was a few degrees shy of fiery. She swallowed twice
trying to temper it. "What is it really, Pratt? You think my sister's
making this up? Or do you think she somehow seduced Ms. Oaks into
assaulting her in a hotel bathroom?" The growing confrontation between
her team members finally grabbed Robin Torr's attention. She sat up
straight and rehooked her hair behind her ears, looking back and forth
between Crowder and Toomey. She made a quick decision not to intervene.

Yet. "I don't know what happened that evening in Washington Miss.
Crowder. I'm just sharing my impression about how fruitful I think it's
going to be to interview a hundred of Blythe Oaks's co-workers, when
ninety-eight of them are going to be LDS and when the Church is already
going to have suggested to its members that speaking with us may not be
in accord with promotion of the faith. You may consider what I'm saying
to be nothing more than a professional opinion relating to strategy as
it relates to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--of which
I am a proud, proud member." Lauren's eyes flashed. Her voice stayed
level. "If you think my sister's lying, Mr. Toomey, just say so. I'm
sure we can find another investigator." Pratt Toomey enjoyed a long pull
from his 7Up and then placed both palms flat on his thighs before
looking up. He made eye contact first with Robin Tore, then with Lauren
Crowder. "No. I don't think she's lying. To be frank, I think the three
of you are nuts for thinking of pursuing something like this at all. But
to consider the possibility that you would do any of this in Utah if you
believed it weren't true, I'd have to admit to myself that I'm probably
working with certifiable psychotics." The room was ripe with silent
tension until Robin Torr cleared her throat and said, "That's quite a
vote of confidence coming from you, Pratt. It's nice to know we can
count on your unbending loyalty up to and until the time that we begin
drooling." The other pencil slid from its perch behind her ear. "Lauren,
anything else for Pratt?"

"No, Robin. Nothing else for Pratt right now."

"Well, then. Let's find a way to divide up this work. Because it seems
we have the unenviable task of inviting a few dozen faithful saints to
assist a gentile in indicting one of their own as a lesbian sexual
harasser." She looked first at Pratt Toomey, who was stone- faced, then
at Lauren Crowder, whose face remained flushed with anger. "Now tell me,
isn't the law great?" One Hand Laughing is on the garden level of an old
stone building on State Street in Salt Lake City. When headliners who
have cut their teeth on The Tonight Show or Letterman come to town for
weekend engagements, the spartan room that holds the comedy club rocks
with laughter. On Thursday nights, things tend to be more sedate. The
acts aren't exactly open-mike, amateur-night stuff, but the comedians
who hone their sets to sparse houses on slow weeknights in Salt Lake
City, Utah, are generally no closer to an HBO special than Madonna is to
an audience with the pope. But on the Thursday night when Teresa Crowder
took the One Hand Laughing stage, only three days after her initial
meeting with Robin Torr, the comedy club had a few dozen more patrons
than usual. Some of the extra chairs were filled with people made
curious by rumors that had begun to spread around Salt Lake that
aspiring comic Teresa Crowder was considering filing a lawsuit alleging
that the Mormon female clerk of the newest justice of the U.S. Supreme
Court was guilty of sexual harassment. A smattering of applause rose,
then quieted as the comedy club darkened. Teresa was dressed all in
black-- leggings and a long sweater. She walked confidently onstage and
stood silent, staring up at the microphone. It jutted into the air about
a foot above her mouth. The owner of One Hand Laughing was a
six-foot-seven in-betweener named Harold O'Shay who had played a couple
of seasons for the Utah Jazz before the coach resolved the question of
whether O'Shay was a big guard or a small forward by deciding he was
neither, and cut him. O'Shay cleared waivers, stayed in Salt Lake, and
invested a chunk of his signing bonus into launching One Hand Laughing.

While introducing comedians he always raised the microphone stand to
accommodate his atypical height, and he always left it way up there
after his introduction. Touring acts were judged by the local audience
on the elan with which they handled the elevated mike. This was her home
turf. Teresa Crowder was prepared. She wore a stage face--blush high on
her cheekbones, bright red lipstick, highlighted eyes. The makeup made
her look more adult. She scratched her head and stepped away from the
chrome stand until she was just out of the harsh ring of the spotlight.

Gazing back up at the microphone, then behind her at the circle of light
on the wall at the rear of the tiny stage, she said, "You know, never
before have I noticed the shape of the shadow that thing leaves."
Titters now from the audience, not laughter. She hesitated, then she
grabbed the pole and pulled it toward her, twisting the chrome ring that
separated the two halves of the staff this way and that, futilely trying
to release the extended mast. "The problem I'm having here is that it's
not logical," she called up into the mike. "To get things shaped like
this to come down, they usually don't need to be unscrewed." Lauren
Crowder was sitting in the back row, left rear corner , watching her
little sister's act for the first time. She was with Robin Tore- and
Robin's husband, Wiley. Wiley Torr's face was covered by a wide,
cheek-puffing smirk. Without looking either at his wife or at Lauren, he
said loudly, "Well, Robin, although it may be true that this new case of
yours is stirring up just a smidgen of controversy, at least your client
seems to blend right into the neighborhood." Lauren reached over and
touched Robin Torr's hand in a gesture of reassurance. Robin dropped her
forehead onto her arms, already folded on the table in front of her, and
thought seriously about taking a nap. Before Teresa had gone onstage
that night, Robin Torr had demanded and received assurances from her
client that she wouldn't discuss her allegations during her set and that
she wouldn't say anything inflammatory about the Mormons. Teresa was
true to her word. Robin found herself laughing during much of the
remainder of her client's routine, which centered mostly on making fun
of fly-fishermen. She also found that she had arrived at a conclusion
about how well Teresa's comedy would be received by the dominant culture
in Salt Lake City: not well. Robin quickly decided that she would stop
pressing her argument that her client shelve her touring aspirations and
stay in town to be available to help with the case. This was one act
that would definitely play better in Peoria. The Side Pocket sat on a
dusty corner just a few blocks west of where North Temple Street shot
straight as a laser from downtown Salt Lake City to the airport. From
outside, the pool hall and tavern looked as if it had originally been
designed as a small-town jail--salt-and-pepper brick walls,
eight-foot-high security bars on the darkened windows, a shingle roof
the color of weak tea. Half whiskey barrels with unhappy junipers
planted in them were the management's only attempt at providing an
enticement for strangers to enter. The occasional stranger who did enter
the Side Pocket was either desperate for a place to shoot some pool or
ignorant about the west side of Salt Lake City or, more likely, both. On
Friday, after a long two days helping Robin manage the media fallout
from the rumors spreading around the city, Lauren had stopped back at
Teresa's house just long enough to hang her suit, tug on a pair of old
jeans, and get directions to the only place her sister knew in Salt Lake
City where Lauren could find a pool table. Lauren parked Teresa's
recalcitrant Rabbit on the viaduct side of the tavern and walked
self-consciously into a smoke-filled room scattered with a half-dozen
people who probably wouldn't have been welcomed with open arms in nearby
Temple Square. She carried her cue stick in its narrow case in her left
hand as she approached an unremarkable laminate- capped bar on the far
side of the room. The bartender stacking glasses behind the scratched
counter sucked hard on the butt of a Marlboro and took her sweet time
turning her head to talk to Lauren, who immediately surmised that the
blouse she was wearing was the only silk the Side Pocket had seen in a
long, long time. "Yeah?" Lauren smiled. "I understand you have pool
tables?" The woman sucked the filter on the cigarette so hard her gaunt
cheeks collapsed in on her pitiful teeth. "In back," she said, raising
her right cheekbone to indicate the appropriate direction. "You wanna
drink?"

"Sure. Please. A beer."

"You gotta be a member."

"Of, of what?" Lauren asked, momentarily fearing that this odd
establishment, too, required some unusual LDS initiation. The woman
smiled, exposing gums eroding and black. "This is Utah. This is a
private club. You need to join. To play nine ball. To have a beer. You
gotta join. Just fill this card out, we'll make you a member right
quick." Lauren dug her driver's license from her wallet and filled out
the little application card, and in short order she received her
membership card to the Side Pocket.

"Kind of beer you want?"

"Anything but Coors." The woman nodded once, affirmatively, and said,
"All right. I'm from Philadelphia, myself," and gave Lauren a Rolling
Rock in a long-necked bottle. "Glass?"

"No thanks."

"Jerry'll set you up in back. It's not busy yet." The bartender nodded
at Lauren's cue case and said, "You look serious about this, hon.

Tables four and six have new felt and decent cushions. Tell Jerry I said
to give you one of those. I'm Odelle." Lauren's tension eased. She said,
"Thanks," and walked down the narrow hallway toward the pool room. She
tripped over a piece of loose carpet strip and had to shake a little
tack from the sole of her shoe before she continued. Jerry was easy to
find. She gave him the message from Odelle, and he set her up on table
six. Two other tables, neither nearby, had players. As promised, the
felt on table six was new. A quick examination showed the cushions to be
serviceable, and the pocket level she kept in her case revealed the
slate to be true. Lauren was impressed with the quality of the table,
despite the fact that the back room of the Side Pocket was absolutely
the grubbiest place in which she had ever unpacked her cue. She racked
up the balls and broke hard and started to limber up. Four in the
corner. Thwack. Six-eleven combination. Tap. One ball off the cushion.

Crack, thwop. Halfway through the first rack she failed to sink the
seven on a tough but playable angle across the table. Her concentration
wavered for just a moment while she reflected with some regret about how
things were going with Pratt Toomey. She cursed his condescending manner
and her own impatience and then deftly sank the seven with her next
shot. Pratt, she surmised, wouldn't be so easy to pocket. She was rusty.

Over the next two racks she missed at least four shots she should have
made. After one cross-table touch-shot missed by a hair she checked the
slate again with her level and again, to her disappointment, found it to
be true. Two large, loud, Budweiser-fortified men began playing on table
five, next to her. Lauren spied them for a spare second before her
concentration returned, and she played on. An hour stretched into two,
and the big room filled with players and sharks, and the sharp sounds of
colliding billiard balls swelled the air along with the aroma of smoke,
stale beer, and male sweat. Everyone who entered the back of the Side
Pocket noticed the black-haired stranger in the silk blouse with the hot
hand. Twice she was approached and offered a game. Twice she politely
declined. A man wearing worn corduroys and an orange polo shirt came
over and straddled a beat-up metal folding chair near the wall across
from table six to watch Lauren Crowder's impressive style. After five
minutes or so he got up and retrieved a fresh Rolling Rock from Odelle.

He placed the bottle next to Lauren's half-finished one and said, "Only
drunks and Englishmen drink them warm, you know. Here's a fresh one for
you." Lauren was racking the balls. "Thank you," she said, her voice
pleasant but not inviting, "but I can get my own."

"I'm quite sure you can. I am quite sure you can. Mind if I watch?"

"You've already watched.

I'm not interested in a game, if that's what you're wondering." He
laughed. "With you? Me playing pool with you would be like me
arm-wrestling one of those boys from Tonga over there. My watching you
is from pure admiration. I am a man who admires quality wherever I find
it, but I am both blessed and cursed with absolutely no competitive
zeal. If you want, I'll play a game of darts with you. I'm passable at
darts. But pool? There's only two players I know who could take you on,
and that's only because in addition to being good, they're both stupid.

You would destroy either of them. My name is Harley, by the way." He
smiled mischievously. "I can tell you've been dying to know that."
Harley drank from a can of Diet Pepsi. Lauren smashed the racked balls.

Although she found his manner charming, she didn't return his smile.

Harley persisted between shots. "I'm not trying to annoy you. Although
on more than one occasion I've been told I can be annoying, even at
those times when I'm not particularly trying. I am trying to be
friendly, however. And you are not making it easy thus far. But, among
other things, I am known as a patient man." Lauren rested her cue
butt-end on the linoleum floor. "Harley?"

"Actually, my name is John Harley. But everyone calls me Harley."

"Harley. You seem nice. But I'm not here for company. I'm just here to
shoot some pool. It relaxes me.

I've had a hard week and I need to shoot some pool. Please. I don't mean
to be rude." Harley scratched his neck. "What kind of hard week?"

"I'm not sure that's any of your business." She didn't look up. Harley
guarded his smile, his gaze directed at the floor. "Please, I don't
disagree with you," he said. "I'm quite sure it's none of my business.

See, where I come from, which a long time ago was Charleston, South
Carolina, this banter I keep starting with you is called conversation.

You tell me you had a hard week. I say, "Oh, really, tell me about it."
You say this and that, and I commiserate. Then you notice that I'm
drinking diet pop instead of cold beer and you ask me about it and I
tell you I'm a recovering drunk. Then I ask you if you're married, and
you say no, and then, in obvious non sequitur, you say you're here on
business, and immediately regret the disclosure. And then you don't ask
me if I'm married, because you really could care less, but I tell you
anyway that yes, I am, and I've got two girls, seven and nine. And then
I surprise you by telling you I love my wife but she wants nothing to do
with me right now cause I smoke and drink and hang out with gentiles in
pool halls." Lauren opened her eyes wide. "Really. That's how it would
go were we to have a conversation?" Harley nodded. "Just like that. I've
done it a thousand times. Well, maybe five hundred."

"Well, if all you say is true, why does it seem like you're trying to
hit on me?"

"Hit on you?" Harley pulled his patrician hands to his chest and put on
his most innocent face. "Please don't misread my intentions. I'm here
solely because of what we have in common." Lauren had returned her
attention to lining up a shot. Harley's last words interfered. She
looked up from the table and said, "You and I? We have something in
common? What on earth is that?"

"We're both polite renegades. At this minute, you are the only female
hustler in the pool-hall end of the Side Pocket. And I am the only
Mormon, recovering alcoholic, associate professor of sociology in the
pool-hall end of the Side Pocket. You and I are renegades. But we've got
a certain class. Don't you think?" Lauren said, "I am not a hustler."
Blythe Oaks knew her stalker's gentle -/ handwriting almost as well as
she knew her own, she had never heard the woman's voice. Blythe had
studied the curves and loops on the note cards that always accompanied
the flowers and had matched them to examples in a book she had purchased
on handwriting analysis, all in an attempt to begin to know something
about this woman who was stalking her. But the soft handwriting was all
Oaks had; her stalker's voice was only a whisper in Blythe's nightmares.
Owing to her ignorance of her stalker's voice, and a lifelong propensity
toward denial, Blythe wasn't at all alarmed by the pleasant young female
who greeted her on the phone at work. The voice, breathy and unaccented,
anxious only to an attuned ear, said, "Blythe Oaks, please."

"Speaking," she said. The young woman who had placed the call swallowed
once and stared at the crib sheet in her hand. She had rehearsed
possible variations on this conversation at least a dozen times. Still,
as her hair blew into her face and her wet palms clung to the black
handset of the pay phone--foul and sticky from a thousand grimy hands
before her--she felt as though she couldn't even remember her middle
name, let alone the direction this conversation was supposed to take.
For a moment she was distracted by thoughts of what might have fouled
the disgusting receiver she gripped much too hard in her hand.

"It's me," she said finally, awkwardly. Blythe's denial about her
vulnerability included an assumption that she was unassailable at the
Court, that no one--absolutely no one--would be foolish enough to mess
with her while she was in Lester Homer's chambers at the United States
Supreme Court. "I'm sorry. Who is this, please?" Blythe was reviewing a
draft opinion written by one of Justice Homer's other clerks on a case
involving the Shoshone tribe and high-stakes gambling. The young woman
looked at her notes before she responded. She read, aloud, "You know.

Your friend with the flowers." Blythe's glands pumped adrenaline. "What?

Oh God! Oh God!" Her voice rose in exclamation, then crashed into a
whisper. She wheeled around in her chair to see if anyone was within
listening distance. This person talks. She talks. I don't want her to
talk. Please, please no. "Why are you calling me here?" Oaks demanded,
as though the caller's sin involved this new intrusion into the sacred
halls of the Court and not her persistent violations of Blythe's life
and privacy. The young woman practiced her next line silently once, then
said aloud, "I want to meet you. I want you to meet me, really. I
already know that I like you. I want you to see how much you can like
me." Blythe's voice rose involuntarily, and the next words tumbled out
rapidly, the softer sounds masked by the shear volume of air escaping
her lungs. "Why are you following me? Who are you? You sound so young.

What do you want with me? Please leave me alone. Please." The young
woman recoiled at the alarm in Oaks's voice. Of course she'll sound
scared, she reminded herself. That's the point. She forced her attention
back onto the sheet of paper in her hands, grateful that she had brought
the script to keep her focused. She had tucked the phone down between
her shoulder and her head. The plastic seemed to stick to her ear. Her
skin crawled. She yearned to rush home and bathe in the hottest water
she could tolerate. "I can't leave you alone," she read. "You must know
that by now. I need for you to meet me. To know me. To give me a
chance."

"No. No. That's crazy. I can't meet with you. I can't. Please leave me
alone. Please. Just leave me alone. I'll call the police." She had
assumed they would end up here. Still, she dreaded it. Just stick to the
script. Every whisper of threat absent from her voice, as she'd
rehearsed, she read, "And what will you tell them? Will you tell them
about visiting the Laredo? Or maybe another lesbian bar. Or about what
really happened at the Mayflower Hotel? Will you tell them why a woman
is following you and why she wants to meet you? Of course you won't. If
you just meet me and give me an hour and you don't want to see me ever
again, then I'll leave you alone. I think you'll like me. I'm a nice
person. You'll see." Blythe was stunned by the new implication of
threat. This woman knew everything. Despite the blackmail implicit in
the young woman's words, Blythe desperately wanted to believe the
innocence of the offer. An hour with this woman--heck, girl--and then
freedom. Despite an attempt to stay even-tempered, a scolding anger
leapt into her tone. "You're a woman. Don't you know how terrifying it
is to be followed? How can you do this to me?"

"I want you to meet with me. I need you to. I don't want to hurt you."

"What kind of car do you have?" Blythe demanded, seeking credentials.
The shock and anger in her voice were being replaced by desperation. "A
Toyota," the young woman said. No Camry. No flowers. Oh God, please no.
"What kind of Toyota?" This wasn't in the script. But she figured she
had better answer. "It's a Camry," she said, then panicked and thought.
Please don't ask me what year. I don't know what year the stupid car is.
"What color is it?" demanded Oaks. "It's blue." Blue Camry. Blue Camry.
Blythe Oaks promised herself she would consider her options carefully
before following through with the rendezvous, but right now, she
decided, the best course of action was to be agreeable and meet with
this young woman. Maybe then at least the flowers and the phone calls
would stop. The young woman insisted that the meeting be late the next
afternoon. A picnic in Virginia, along the Potomac. She gave directions.
"I'll bring everything. You don't have to do a thing. We'll have a great
time." After a day of second thoughts, and three conversations with her
friend Audrey Payne in Utah, Blythe parked her Taurus in the agreed-upon
location an hour before the four-o'clock rendezvous and hid in a
carefully selected spot in some woods above the picnic area. Oaks wanted
to watch the blue Camry arrive; she wanted to control this encounter as
much as possible. Ultimately, she planned to be the one who decided
whether to go through with the meeting. Her friend Audrey had advised
her to forget the meeting, to just pack her bags and get out of
Washington. But Blythe had convinced herself that too much was at stake.

And maybe this demon in her life was nothing but a confused, harmless
kid. Though she needed to be sure. Blythe Oaks was so intent on watching
for the arrival of the blue Camry and on making an early assessment of
her stalker that she paid almost no attention to a person who was
walking a dog through the woods where she was hiding. She was sitting
cross-legged between a hollow log and a hefty maple tree. At first,
Blythe thought that the man behind her was ambling the forest aimlessly.

But when he began throwing sticks for his dog to retrieve, he seemed
gradually, almost purposefully, to be approaching Blythe from the rear.

With each call to his dog, with each footfall of the man, Blythe felt
the distance close between them. She found his presence distracting.

Finally, to her dismay, she heard him arrive right behind her, his feet
crackling loudly on the kindling and twigs. He was preceded by his dog.

Reflexively, Blythe reached out and petted the friendly dog that
snuggled up to her. Please go away, she implored the man silently. I
don't want to talk. The wide brim of the felt hat she was wearing kept
her from seeing above his waist without turning or twisting her head.

Irritated at the intrusion and at the familiarity with which the man had
approached her, she rested her weight behind her on her palms and tilted
her head back to look up at him. She hadn't quite decided what to say
when he reached down and slit her throat with a single rapid motion of a
three-inch pocket knife. Blythe Oaks's blood spurted from her neck for
twenty diminishing beats of her dying heart, then drained slowly from
her severed artery, down through the mulch and leaves, until it
saturated the earth at the man's feet. The man watched, grateful that
her felt hat had fallen forward to cover most of her face and that he
couldn't see her eyes. He tightened his grip on his curious dog's lead
to keep her from the warm, aromatic blood. Finally he nodded in somber
satisfaction. In as soft a voice as he could manage, he said, "Heel,"
and returned up the hill in the direction from where he had come. He had
expected that his pulse would be racing. It wasn't. He had thought he
might vomit. He hadn't. And his judgment had been correct all along. The
dog's presence had made his approach less threatening. As they crossed a
narrow swale, he reached down and scratched her neck. He said, "Good
girl." A couple of harmless hours with John Harley, LLAUREN
rationalized, would at least provide an opportunity to get some of her
Mormon questions answered. Although she was reluctant to admit it, even
to herself, she was also a bit intrigued by Harley, a Mormon so
different from Pratt Toomey that the two might have been separate
species. She agreed to accompany him someplace for what he called
breakfast. Harley explained that there were only a few places open all
night in Salt Lake City, which severely limited the collection points
for the drunks who spilled from the clubs when the bars closed. Bill &
Nada's was Harley's personal favorite. Although Lauren accepted Harley's
offer of midnight breakfast, she declined his offer of a ride. She
climbed into her sister's cranky Rabbit and followed Harley's Ford
Escort, which was belching blue smoke, to Bill & Nada's. Her shoulders
ached and she quickly decided she would gladly trade her sister's car
for a good massage. Bill & Nada's was an aging shack with ample parking
out front and friendly, nonjudgmental people inside. The coffee was hot,
the food either white-bread plain and reliable or downright eccentric,
like brains and eggs, veal heart, and pig's tongue. The decor was an
eclectic mix of western kitsch and the owners' collections of ethnic
oddities from around the world. In the high desert of Utah, Bill &
Nada's was an oasis for the underdog. The waitress delivered coffee and
toast to Lauren and decaf and pecan pie to Harley. Lauren sipped once
from her coffee and directed a question to John Harley. "What sort of
characteristics would make up an exemplary Mormon wife?" Puzzled, he
replied, "Let me get this straight. You want to know what constitutes an
exemplary Mormon wife?"

"Please, Harley, it's important."

"You're sure this isn't a tourist question, like going to Orlando and
asking what's the best ride at Disney World?" Lauren assured him that
her question was sincere. "Okay, then, I'll tell you about my wife.
She's a good Mormon woman. There'll be some caveats here, but by and
large, Jules is a fine example of a Mormon wife. "Caveat one: She can't
have any more kids. Two kids in an LDS family is seriously below
average. Let me play sociologist here for a minute. Did I tell you I'm a
sociologist? I did, didn't I? The birth rate in parts of Utah--like Utah
County, for instance, that's where BYU is, in Provo--exceeds the birth
rate in some third-world countries--heck, probably most third-world
countries. LDS believe that the spirits of all human beings already
exist and that those spirits can only be rescued and endowed with an
afterlife through birth and then through sacred temple endowments and
ordinances. So each birth is the essential step in the beginning of the
rescue of a soul. A spirit-baby. It's why Mormons are so ardently
pro-life. To make a soul eligible, for an afterlife, it first must be
born. Large families rescue more spirit- babies, just by definition."
Lauren's mind was generating questions faster than a curious
four-year-old's. But she let Harley continue talking unimpeded. "So
Jules, through no fault of her own, hasn't rescued a large enough quota
of unborn souls through childbirth.

She tries to make up some of the deficit through genealogy. The other
way saints can rescue souls is by doing proxy baptisms for relatives who
have died without the good fortune of a temple baptism. Since the angel
Moroni led Joseph Smith to the gold plates only around one hundred and
seventy years ago, countless generations of ancestors had already died
ignorant of the teachings of the Book of Mormon. They all lie waiting in
their graves for proxy baptisms so that they may enter the celestial
kingdom. Identifying those relatives is the province of genealogy. My
Jules has a true gift at mining obscure sources for ancestors whose
souls are hanging around in need of redemption. She has already greatly
exceeded the four generations that are expected of her. "Caveat two for
Jules is me. She, it could be argued, made a mistake of spiritual
judgment by marrying a recently converted man, yours truly, who had a
relatively short and questionable track record with the Word of Wisdom.

You know the Word of Wisdom?" Lauren looked at Harley wide-eyed and
shook her head. "It's a book of pronouncements by Mormon prophets,
starting with Joseph Smith, about what we saints should and shouldn't do
in order to live faithful, obedient lives. I'm sure you've heard about
the famous ones: no caffeine, no alcohol, no tobacco." Harley sipped at
his coffee. "Well, as I've said already, I'm a drunk. Currently a sober
one, for about nine weeks now." He knocked on the scratched laminated
tabletop. "And although I don't smoke when I'm drinking, I smoke a hell
of a lot when I'm quitting drinking. And caffeine is something I've
never been able to get too worked up about, spiritually speaking. I'm
pretty sure I can dump caffeine if I ever succeed in stopping drinking
and smoking simultaneously for any reasonable period of time. "So I,
John Harley, am another black mark on Jules' record. Good Mormon women
have husbands who are a bit more spiritually exemplary than yours truly.

"What else? Jules and I tithe based on my salary. A straight ten percent
to the Church, off the top. That's just good Mormonism. Good LDS women
don't work. Their primary responsibility is taking care of their
husbands and their families. So Jules doesn't work outside the home. The
president--of the Church, not the country--has said that a married woman
should not compete with men in employment, that her place is in the
home, not the marketplace. Jules listens to the elders. Good Mormon
women do that. "Jules and I attend our ward-house services and we do
temple ordinances whenever I'm being righteous and have earned entrance
into the temple. We raise our children according to Church guidelines.

We do family home evenings. Our basement is full of preparations for
Armageddon. She's constantly replenishing our seventy-two-hour kit to
take us through any emerging catastrophe, and she has a two-years'-plus
supply of food in the basement to provide security for the family during
the end- times. She's an active volunteer in the Relief Society-- that's
the Church's welfare organization. "She respects the priesthood in the
home. That means she recognizes that I am the authority on matters of
faith and reason within our home." He teased her with his eyes. "That's
a scary thought, isn't it?" Harley grew somber as he reflected further
on his wife's qualities. "She's a good woman, Lauren. Jules is an
honest, funny, reliable, good woman. She's a great mom to the girls.

She's been beyond patient with me. If I'm sober through the end of the
semester and stop smoking and I clear things with my bishop, I'll be
able to move back home." Lauren thought she saw something poignant slide
across John Harley's face. She remained quiet. "But, you know, the
things that make her a good LDS woman aren't the things that make Jules
shine in my eyes. Maybe that's a failure of the spirit on my part. Maybe
I should appreciate more the things she does for her faith. She would
say that being a good Mormon woman is as important or more important
than being a good woman, or maybe she would say it's all the same thing.

The fact that I don't agree, she might say, is an argument for the
weakness of my faith." Harley accepted a refill on his coffee and
scooped up the remains of his pie. "Another thing Jules is, Lauren, is
that Jules is nothing at all like you." As Lauren pondered how to
respond to Harley, Pratt Toomey marched up to the booth where they sat
and said, "Miss. Crowder, good evening. Please excuse my interruption."
Lauren flushed at the sight of him but recovered to make an awkward
introduction. "Pratt Toomey, this is John Harley."

"Hello, Harley. Nice to see you again."

"How you doing, Pratt?"

"Just fine, Harley. Jules and the girls are doing well?"

"Great, Pratt. Great indeed. Thank you for asking." Lauren watched,
intrigued, as the two men resumed some strained acquaintance. She was
momentarily distracted from her initial surprise at seeing Pratt Toomey
in Bill & Nada's after midnight. Pratt turned to Lauren, and with
exaggerated politeness said, "Miss. Crowder, may I speak with you a
minute? Privately?"

"Please, Pratt, call me Lauren. Can this wait?"

"Mrs. Tore- doesn't think it should wait. She asked me to find you."

"What is it then, Pratt, that can't wait?"

"May we speak somewhere more private, please?"

"This is fine with me. Go on." Toomey scratched his forehead. He was
perplexed at the very fact that his suggestion had been rejected. He
said, "Mrs. Torr asked me to tell you that Blythe Oaks is dead. She was
murdered this evening in Washington, D.C."

"Murdered?" Lauren said the word as though its meaning weren't clear.
Her silver eyes instantly darkened to gray and seemed to lose their
sparkle. "Yes, ma'am. And Mrs. Torr is concerned because we've not been
able to locate your sister. She thought you may be able to help us find
her." Her breathing quickened. "She's not at her house?"

"No, ma'am."

"Oh, shit."

"Yes, ma'am. Although I'm not particularly fond of profanity, that does
about cover it." News of the brutal murder of the chief clerk of the
junior justice of the United States Supreme Court was splashed on page
one of virtually all the major metropolitan dailies. The story value was
significantly enhanced by the fact that the victim had been the object
of recent allegations of sexual harassment made by an obscure stand-up
comedian from Utah named Teresa Crowder. Law-enforcement authorities
scoured the woods along the Virginia banks of the Potomac for clues
about Blythe Oaks's murder. Local homicide detectives and U.S. Supreme
Court police were left wondering about a motive for the attack, and the
tight-knit LDS community in Provo was preparing to bury Sister Oaks's
body. And Robin Torr was contemplating how, and whether, to proceed with
Teresa Crowder's case, given the tragic death of the defendant. All
things considered, Torr's impulse was to retreat. During warm-ups before
the Jazz's preseason game against Indiana that afternoon, Lauren told
Robin she still hadn't heard from Teresa and was a little worried. Robin
responded that she wasn't sure how much it mattered anymore. She wanted
to recommend that Teresa drop the complaint, anyway. Lauren was
surprised and said so. Robin had anticipated a protest and had prepared
herself to counter any arguments. "Let me state my case, okay? I'll
grant that there are ways to proceed despite the murder. First, we can
go ahead and press a suit against Oaks's estate instead of suing her as
an individual. That's simple. Second, her death doesn't really affect
any action we might take against the Women's Symposium. So, yes, legally
there are ways to proceed. We both know that. "But now, with Blythe
dead, we'll also have to contend with the complications posed by Utah's
Dead Man's Statute, which could conceivably compromise the testimony we
thought we could use from those restaurant staffers in D.C. about what
they overheard Oaks say to your sister. In Utah, the Dead Man's Statute
provides limitations on testimony in civil cases about what a dead
person said. If we're facing a competent defense attorney and a
solicitous judge--and I can pretty much guarantee you that if we file
suit against Blythe Oaks in Salt Lake City, we'll be facing both--the
odds are at least even that the defense attorney will make a motion to
suppress the testimony and that the judge will grant it. "But even if we
ignore for now the complications posed by the Dead Man's Statute, we
still have new problems with how Teresa's going to be perceived. With
Oaks dead, especially given the way she died, she's become an even more
sympathetic figure than she was already, which was a significant hurdle
in a battle like this from the start, and--" Lauren grabbed Robin's
shoulder as the Jazz players strode casually onto the floor of the Delta
Center. "These guys are huge, Robin!"

"The Jazz aren't actually that big a team, but--"

"Why do they call them the Jazz? Is that a Mormon thing, too?" Robin
laughed. "No. The team used to be in New Orleans. Utah kind of hijacked
them. Salt Lake's a pretty small market for an NBA team." Their
fifteenth-row seats were about even with the foul line behind the Jazz
bench. The arena was filling slowly. "Are they any good?"

"The Jazz? Yeah, we're good. We used to be on the verge of great. But
we're getting old." Lauren thought it was an apt metaphor for her entire
generation. "Can I get a beer here? Or do I need to become a fan-club
member or something?" Robin smiled. "You can buy three-two beer without
joining anything. And that's all they sell at games, anyway." Robin
pressed her argument for quitting the case. "You know, with the
exception of those witnesses in D.C.--who may be of limited use to us
now--you and Pratt and I haven't exactly been discovering a treasure
trove of new information to help our case. All we have so far, really,
is Teresa, and that's it. There's got to--" Robin interrupted herself,
grabbed Lauren's wrist, and began whispering in her ear. "There,
standing in the aisle. Here's what you were asking about. See that
couple? The lady with the red hair? They're LDS. You can see the lines
of her garments through her clothing. See? That underwear she's wearing,
those are temple garments. Half the people here, more or less, are
wearing them." Lauren tried to imagine what kind of undergarment would
leave lines like the ones she was seeing etched beneath the woman's
tight clothing--a scoop just below the neck, lines a couple of inches
above the knees. "Is it one piece?"

"Yes, I think so. I've never actually seen one."

"I want some, Robin. As a souvenir of Utah." Robin shook her head in
amusement. "You just don't get this place, Lauren.

Those garments aren't quaint, they're sacred. The local stores won't
sell them to you without a temple recommend." Lauren looked over at her
friend. "Let me get this straight. I have to join a club to buy real
beer and I need ID to buy underwear? Utah," she said, "is a very
interesting state." /U Jiepccn vrditc As the moment of the introductions
of the players neared, the mood in the Delta Center became electric.

"How do you have time for this, Lauren? To give your sister all this
time? When I asked you to help, I actually expected you to say no, which
I thought would have let me bow out of this mess gracefully. What about
your life? Your cases in Boulder?" Lauren had been anticipating this
conversation. She said, "I'm on leave from work," suspecting the inquiry
wouldn't end there. "Like a sabbatical?" Lauren and Robin had to stand
to permit a family of eight to move past them to their seats. "No, I'm
on medical leave. I've been off work for over six months. I'm due back
soon." Robin turned and examined Lauren's body as though she expected to
find evidence of a tumor she had previously overlooked. "You look fine
to me, sweetheart. I'd die for your hair." Lauren sighed, looked away,
then back. "I have multiple sclerosis, Robin. The reason I was in New
York City before I came here to help Teresa was to receive some
experimental treatment with a new drug. But I am fine." The lights in
the Delta Center dimmed. The national anthem started. Robin whispered,
"Gosh, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be, it's--"

"My mom's sister has MS. She's my favorite aunt. She's in a, um,
wheelchair." The crowd sang robustly.

Lauren was grateful for the interlude. She moved the conversation back
to the consequences of Blythe Oaks's death. "Well, I want to go on
record with an opinion. I would very much like to continue to
investigate as though we were going to file suit. At least until we know
what supportive evidence we can put together."

"Lauren, you know it's not up to you or me; it's up to your sister. I'd
rather see what she'd like to do. Her vote is the one that counts most
here."

"So if she wants to go on, you'll continue?"

"Yes. At least until we see what we dig up in the next couple of weeks.
No promises after that."

"Well, then I guess all I have to do is track her down."

"Finding my elusive client would be of significant help. There's no
doubt about that." Teresa still hadn't surfaced. She hadn't left Lauren
any indication of where she was going, only a cryptic note that she
would be away for "a few days." Lauren tried to explain that she
considered it progress that Teresa had left a note at all. Robin
professed skepticism and small faith in that progress. "Is it really
that much of a problem that she isn't in town, Robin? I mean, do you
really want her going onstage in Salt Lake City two or three times a
week? You saw her act. It's not likely to create a lot of sympathy
around here."

"You won't get an argument from me about that. Maybe it's not so
important that she be here. I guess what I need is, I need to know her
heart's in it. All the way in it."

"I've never seen her this intense about anything but ice-skating. She's
in it. Trust me."

"I also need a way to reach her. I'll insist on that." Lauren said,
"That's reasonable." Robin told Lauren that she hoped Teresa hadn't used
her brief holiday to visit Blythe Oaks. She didn't think the case could
endure any evidence linking Teresa and Washington, D.C., during the time
of the murder. Lauren brushed off the concern. "I'm not worried about
it. That's not her style, Robin. When Teresa goes off, she goes off
alone. She gets as far away from stress and pressure as she can. As a
kid she would go off into the woods or to a friend's house. Now that
she's older she tends to take vacations she can't afford. Once, after
she broke up with some guy and he refused to accept that it was over,
she went off to Hawaii for a weekend and charged the whole thing.

Another time, believe it or not, I had to wire her money in Quito,
Ecuador. I've told you before that my dad drank, haven't I?" Torr
nodded, puzzled at the apparent non sequitur. John Stockton controlled
the opening tip, immediately drove the lane, and dished off to Karl
Malone underneath. Robin tried to follow the action and listen to Lauren
at the same time. Lauren said, "He went on benders, my dad. That was the
extent of his drinking. Every so often--sometimes it'd be six weeks,
sometimes six months--he'd get in the Ford and go to town, always by
himself. Him being by himself was the tip-off, because other times when
he went to town he would rustle up one or two of us kids to ride along
with him. Buy us some candy or a pop. Brag about something we had done.

Tell people how proud he was of us. But on those trips to get beer he
always went alone. Probably went to the next town, or even the next
county, so nobody would know. "As the pickup would head off down the
lane kicking up dust, my brother would say, "Everybody get ready, I
think the Schlitz is about to hit the fan."

"We'd all just wait to see if we were going to get targeted, every one
of us feeling absolutely out of control. "Except for Teresa. Teresa
would split. She would hide someplace where she could watch the pickup
come back down the lane, and she would count the cases and then she'd be
gone. And then we'd count the cases and we would know how long Teresa
would be gone. One case, one day. Two cases, two days. Holiday weekends,
three cases, three days. The first time it happened  ..." Robin touched
her friend's face. From the baseline, Stockton sank a three. The crowd
roared. Robin didn't even look at the court. She said, "I know this is
important, and I want to hear every word. But will you tell me about it
during halftime? I want to see if this first- round pick we drafted out
of North Carolina is truly the next David Thompson." The first time
Teresa ran, Jersey Crowder was six hours--ten beers, maybe fifteen--into
a two-case bender.

When Jersey exploded--and everyone in the family had known he would
explode sometime on that July third Saturday--Teresa, eight years and
two days old, was arguing with her mother about how she was going to
dress for church the next morning, insisting that her friends would not
be wearing dresses, and neither would I-IH-.MCK AU 1 MUKI IT / S she.

Jersey Crowder--a big man, six-one, two hundred and ten pounds--came up
behind the argumentative Teresa and hefted his fifty-pound daughter
under her arms, spun her around in the air, raised her face to within an
inch of his own, and shook her. Of what happened next, Teresa remembered
only the roar and the smell and the fear. The terror chilled her like a
blast of freezing rain, and she trembled. She looked to her mother, who
stood across the room impassive and tearful. No more than ten minutes
later, Teresa ran. That first time she ran she just hid in the orchard.

Twice that day she eluded family members and neighbor kids whom Lauren
had rounded up to go searching for her. Teresa didn't eat; she didn't
want to. Late at night, she crept into the garage, into the back seat of
her mother's Lesabre, and slept there until she retreated back to the
orchard just after dawn. The Crowders didn't see their younger daughter
again until the annual fireworks show down by the river on Sunday night.

At dusk, Teresa weaved unselfconsciously through the crowd waiting
impatiently in the riverside park for the start of the fireworks, walked
up to the blankets where the family picnic was spread, sat down next to
her sister, Lauren, and said, "Is he asleep?" Lauren nodded solemnly.

Teresa said, "Good," fetched herself a piece of cold fried chicken from
a covered dish, smiled at her mother, and acted as if nothing at all
were wrong. Her mother offered a silent prayer to heaven and asked
Teresa whether she would like some potato salad. Before they fell asleep
that night, Teresa told Lauren all about it. "So she could be anywhere?"
said Robin Torr, trying to process the story Lauren had told her during
halftime. Lauren was distracted, gazing up at the distant rafters of the
Delta Center. "You know, I can't believe how many people are here. But,
yeah, Teresa could be anywhere you can imagine. Even some places you
wouldn't imagine."

"How long will she be gone?"

"We'll hear from her soon, would be my guess. She'll be back. Just show
up, no apologies. Or else she'll call me from someplace to send her some
money."

"I'm beginning to fear that judgment is not one of your sister's long
suits." Lauren was tempted to argue. She tried hard to stay
even-tempered. "It's not her judgment I question, Robin, although when
she's under stress she can be pretty impetuous. Teresa doesn't pick
fights; you have to keep that in mind. She runs from fights, from
conflict. That's what's so important about this stand she's taking now.
It's different. She's telling us she's being pushed around, and she
wants to fight."

"Lauren, I'd like to believe you. I like your sister. And I'm trying to
help her.

My increasing concern here, however, is that Teresa is having second
thoughts about this particular battle and she's decided that it is you
and I who she wants to do the fighting on her behalf. I won't stay in
this crusade unless I know real soon that she's in it to the end.

There's too much at stake here. You wanting her to stay in it till the
end isn't enough for me."

"Crusade?"

"Yeah, it's a crusade. Who are we kidding? Teresa is fighting for the
same damn territory that Anita Hill failed to capture. Hill had
impeccable credentials, credibility, and nothing to gain. The fight was
good media-- black-on-black, national TV, gloves off. And I want to
remind you that for all the territory she might have captured during the
battle, in the end, Anita Hill lost.

"Teresa, on the other hand, is young; her credentials are in a rather
odd corner of show business, not on a law school faculty; and regardless
of her principles, she'll end up suing for monetary damages. The
publicity will help her career, so she's not going to appear pure no
matter how we wrap her. And this is in no way a clean fight that I've
been enlisted to coach. By taking on Oaks, she's taking on Lester
Horner, and by taking on Lester Horner, she's taking on the hierarchy of
the LDS Church, whether she likes it or not. And the LDS Church is
absolutely not going to permit Lester Horner to be soiled by this, even
indirectly." Robin looked hard at Lauren. "Do you understand why this is
so important to the Mormons? I mean, do you really understand?" Lauren
said, "I don't know. I keep thinking I do. But maybe I don't."

"As a general rule, the LDS Church shuns secular attention. The only
reason the Church risked the shellacking it endured during Homer's
confirmation hearings is that the Mormons consider the U.S. Constitution
a divinely inspired document. I mean that literally. The Church
leadership feels that the forces of Satan have eroded God's
constitutional intent over the years. Abortion rights, strict separation
of church and state, soft treatment of criminals and drug dealers,
erosion of family values, permissive homosexual rights--you name it,
Satan has poisoned it.

"Lester Horner is the first advocate of the Church's interests on the
high court, ever. And with the ridicule they've had to endure to get him
there, they feel they've earned that seat. They have been waiting,
planning, and plotting to land this level of judicial influence for over
a hundred years. Now that they have it, Horner will absolutely be
protected from the slightest blemish. The leadership of the Church has
wanted to get a saint on the U.S. Supreme Court for over a century, and
now that they have one, they are not going to let a twenty-five-year-old
female, gentile, stand-up comic blow it for them. If it is in their
power to stop her, they'll stop her."

"Are you implying something about Blythe Oaks's murder, Robin? You're
not suggesting the Church might have had something to do with that, are
you?"

"No, of course not. Well, no, not really. No. But now that Blythe Oaks
is dead, the Church will expect your sister to put her tail between her
legs and go away. You can bet on it. They will not expect us to continue
to investigate this."

"Why not?

They must know we're not Mormon." Torr laughed. "By now, Lauren, you can
assume the Church knows what brand of tampons we use. My point is that
they will expect us to fold, because with Oaks gone, the path of this
arrow we're shooting goes directly to Lester Horner--his judgment, his
credibility, his reputation--and they'll think we're too smart to take
him on."

"Are we too smart?" Robin paused and picked at a pebble of yarn on her
sweater, reflecting on the good will this case was going to cost her
with her partners. She said, "Apparently, I'm not. I don't know about
your sister or you, but I'm suspecting that this particular dementia is
rather contagious." ' The lights changed inside the Delta Center to
highlight the court for the start of the second half. As the players
strolled back onto the court, a high-pitched chirping caught Robin's
attention, and she dug around in her purse and pulled out a portable
phone. Distractedly, she extended the small antenna, flipped open the
mouthpiece, and said hello, expecting some mindless reminder from her
husband, Wiley. The phone was his; she didn't usually carry it.

Lauren found what Robin was doing much more engrossing than the
basketball game. Robin's end of the two-minute conversation consisted of
"Yes," "Yes," "You're sure he said that?" and "Of course, I'll do my
best. Bye." She closed the phone and turned to Lauren. "That sound you
just heard was the other shoe dropping. That was Val Zeiem, our senior
partner. The FBI is looking for Teresa. They want to question her about
Blythe Oaks's murder." She watched Lauren swallow. "I think we'd better
find her before they do." W iley Torr didn't look at his wife as he
spoke. But these days, he rarely did. Sunday-night dinners together as a
couple had become a tradition with them since they moved to Utah.

Between the demands of working late during the week and the pressures of
socializing with friends and colleagues on Friday and Saturday nights,
Sunday had become the only night they could count on being alone
together." ...  because your defendant's dead, Rob. And because the
facts as you present them don't exactly seem to support an EEOC filing,
anyway. The statute says a hundred and eighty days, and you're way past
it. It's that simple." Wiley Torr grabbed a chunk of bread and scanned
the small dining table. "Can't you ever remember to put butter out? Just
because you don't eat it, it doesn't mean that nobody does." Wiley
walked over to the refrigerator and retrieved a blue tub of margarine.

The tub was decorated with little flowers. Robin Torr momentarily
addressed herself to her husband's empty chair. Since when did he read
Equal Employment Opportunity regulations? "I didn't know that you wanted
any. And I know the EEOC criteria, Wiley. And if it turns out that I
can't pursue a Tide VII filing, then I'll just go with a tort, since
Utah's FEP is such a joke. I've done it before. Going straight for the
tort has its advantages. It may even be the strategy of choice." Wiley
sat back down. "Political advantages, sure, Rob. I think you're managing
to be naive and political at the same time. It's your Donna Quixote
complex again. Now that Oaks is dead, you think Lester Homer's going to
try to coax a settlement just to avoid some publicity? Wrong. Heck, he's
just going to sit back and hide behind the biggest darn bench in the
country while you spin your wheels. His supporters here will file a
zillion motions and delays and bleed your client absolutely dry, until
you're backed into a corner that even you can't squirm out of. And don't
count on the press. They'll lose interest in Utah. They always do. This
case is going to bury you in paperwork, and your partners are gonna
scream about the costs. Anyway, a tort based on what?" Wiley looked
around for his napkin, which had slid off his lap onto the floor.

"Assault and battery, for openers."

"For propositioning her? This whole thing is preposterous, anyway.
Blythe Oaks? Come on. Them words in that fancy toilet in Washington must
have been fighting words."

"There's more to it than that, and you know it, Wiley." Robin wondered
why her husband was being so combative and tried to consider why she was
being so argumentative. Maybe this was just another edition of their
already copyrighted Mormon argument. Wiley had grown up viewing the LDS
Church as a largely positive influence in Utah. Robin viewed the
monolith in her adopted state a little less benignly. "I don't know
anything. You won't talk to me about the details. Please pass the salt.
And what about damages? You can't prove that's why she lost her job.
It's almost impossible to prove." Wiley Torr was a hectic eater. His
inborn agitation always seemed to be least bridled while at the table.
"Well, like emotional distress."

"What? The poor girl's in therapy? Like half the gosh- darn world's in
therapy. So what? Ever wonder why there are so few Mormons in therapy?
Huh? Ever wonder that?"

"Because their bishops tell them not to. Because the housewives eat
Valium and Xanax like M&M's. That's why. And my client's a woman, not a
girl, Wiley. And I know what the hell I'm doing. I know this law better
than you do, and I'm not at all certain I can't use loss of employment
and failure to promote. There's more to this case that we haven't talked
about. Okay?

Trust me." Robin's appetite had evaporated. She set her fork down, put
her forearms beside her plate, and tried to capture her husband's
elusive gaze. "And what do you mean by Homer's supporters, Wiley? This
isn't about the impregnability of the United States Supreme Court. Your
interest in this case is because of the Church. Did your partners ask
you to shut me up? The mighty Seventy doesn't want the bad press, huh?

Sexual harassment by a Mormon woman, Wiley! By the Mormon clerk of the
first Mormon Supreme Court justice! "The apostles don't want the press.

And the prophet certainly doesn't want the press--if he's not already
too senile to read it. This is juicy; Wiley. New York Times, Newsweek,
USA Today stuff." He didn't even look up from his spinach lasagna. "So
what are they going to do to stop this woman, Wiley? I mean, let's face
it, with the right slant this particular little tumor has the potential
to make the Salamander thing look like a goddamn zit by comparison. So
what's it going to be? You should know. Your firm does plenty of Church
work. Will it be the pimple-faced boys in suits, two by two,
proselytizing at her door day and night, quoting the Book of Mormon
until she either tithes or goes crazy? Or are they going to play
hardball? Bring out the fabled Danites? Ooooooooh. Or maybe sic the FBI
retreads in Church security on her? Or maybe this will be treated as a
bloodless indiscretion and she'll get to get rich like Mark Hermann and
I'll end up having a discreet meeting in the foundations department at
ZCMI with a representative of some apostle who will offer my client a
sizable sum to confess the error of her ways and drop her action." Wiley
looked up from his plate. He was pleased that he had finally goaded her
into sounding shrill. "Please don't curse. And you know I don't like it
when you ridicule the Church. I think you're overreacting, anyway. Which
is my point. You know the local terrain as well as I do. You know the
rules. This lasagna's great, by the way." Robin Torr clenched her
already taut jaw and sighed. She knew the law. Maybe she didn't know the
rules. She only knew one rule. The Utah rule. Don't piss off the Church.

And with this lawsuit, there was little doubt, she was breaking that
rule. Wiley, in his uniquely condescending manner, had just reminded her
of that. She sipped at her iced tea and manufactured an artificial
smile. "Thanks. But don't you think that's enough salt, Wiley? Gosh. You
know you use too much." Later; she sat across from him and watched him
sleep. His blond hair was as bright as it had been when they had met,
but his once-firm body had begun to soften. She reflected that she had
probably changed much more than he over the years. He had been in the
top ten percent of their law school class. She had been solidly in the
obscure middle. She had always felt that he was more attractive and
competent than she. Lately, with her promotion to full partner, things
had begun to change. Maybe she couldn't outlawyer him, but she could
outwork him. Could begin to level out some of the power. He had been the
man she couldn't get--handsomer than she deserved, more successful. Her
mother had warned her. "You're marrying up, dear. Just like I did. It's
a dangerous direction to have your nose." Now she had changed. She could
easily be moved to guilt about that, as though it were her job to be
static and not challenge him with change, with confidence. But why did
it always have to come out sounding so hostile? Wiley was unmoving in
sleep, soundless. "I swear you could sleep in an envelope, Wiley," she
had joked early on in their relationship, astonished at how still he
slept, how unmussed he left the covers. "I could just slide you in and
lick the flap and you wouldn't even wrinkle the paper by morning." At
the time, he had responded that she could "lick his flap anytime she
wanted." Now, ten years later, she had difficulty recalling the last
time either of them had had their flaps licked. After cleaning up the
dishes from their late dinner, Robin Torr recognized an urge to have
sex. She considered making the first move. She didn't. She pondered
whether she would like it if Wiley made the first move. She wouldn't.

For Robin Torr; the desire to make love no longer had anything to do
with Wiley Torr. Robin debated making some zucchini bread, didn't, and
scanned the Tribune mindlessly instead. Later, she moved from the living
room to the cozy window seat in the bay in their bedroom and read a
novel. A three- quarter moon filled the valley with light and twinkled
off the forbidding granite faces of the Wasatch Front. She tried not to
look at the flash of blue light made by the illuminated clock on the
table by the bed and tried not to consider the now familiar dilemma
presented by her desire when her only prospective partner didn't
interest her. Always careful with words, Robin played with "repulsed"
before settling on "didn't interest." Why did I take that damn case? And
why can't I shake this need to shove it back in their faces? Where the
hell is my client? Why did I say "I do"? She masturbated and faced the
dawn without a memory of sleep. Pratt Toomey's contacts in Salt Lake
City significantly outnumbered his contacts in Provo, so Robin Tore "
decided that it made sense for him to continue to stay in the metro area
to learn what he could about any evidence of previous harassment by
Blythe Oaks. Although Lauren remained suspicious that Toomey's
enthusiasm for the task was less than sincere, she judged that her
latitude for arguing with Robin had ebbed dangerously low, and she
decided to let it alone. She took some solace in the fact that Pratt's
assignment in Salt Lake left her to fend temporarily for herself, and
she had no trouble talking Robin into permitting her to sniff around
Provo, Blythe Oaks's hometown, and the site of one of the most
homogeneous LDS populations in Utah, and therefore the world. The Monday
morning after Blythe Oaks's murder, Lauren, with nothing but distrust
for her sister's Rabbit, rented a car and drove south out of Salt Lake
City shortly after rush hour, with morning shadows still darkening the
Wasateh Front to the east. The mountains on the western edge of the
narrow valley south of the Great Salt Lake were already washed with
daylight. Lauren left metropolitan Salt Lake City behind sooner than she
would have guessed, and in less than an hour she was skirting the high
bluffs above Utah Lake, where the city of Provo sits wedged against the
towering faces of the Uinta National Forest. The little college town was
still shaded by the cliffs looming to the east. A surprising chill laced
the air. Lauren's home of Boulder, Colorado, had a geography similar to
that of Provo, but she had to admit to herself that morning that in the
category of breathtaking beauty, the compact city of Provo held a
significant aesthetic advantage over Boulder's relative sprawl. The
highway into town took Lauren directly to the campus of Brigham Young
University. She stopped her car and received directions to the law
school from a young man dressed in dark gray slacks, a white shirt, and
a tie. The student had been walking with two other young men who were
dressed virtually identically, and with two young women dressed in
chaste blouses and skirts that hung nearly to their ankles. All carried
day- packs or oversized purses crammed with books. Lauren mused to
herself that despite the geographical similarities between Provo and her
hometown, there were certainly some differences. The only time she ever
noticed University of Colorado students dressed as formally as these BYU
students was during rush week for the sororities and fraternities. Even
then, she reminded herself, their styles were a little more adventurous
than these. No, make that a lot more adventurous. In Boulder, the dressy
fabric would be stretched tight over young male buttocks, high up young
female thighs. These BYU kids certainly were polite; she had to give
them that. A minute later, lost already, she stopped another student in
a white shirt and a tie, who directed her to a visitors' parking lot not
far from the J. Reuben dark Law School. Lauren Crowder was dressed
modestly, she thought--a loose cotton crewneck sweater and a rayon skirt
that reached to the top of her knees--but as she walked the short
distance from the car to the law school, she felt almost naked. Male
students looked at her, then quickly away. Two female students actually
seemed to stare, their stares confirming their initial impression: this
lady was no saint. Lauren started her quest at the office of the clean
of the law school. Without an appointment, with the last name of
Crowder, and with the hem of her bright skirt above her knees, Lauren
found that her inquiries about Blythe Oaks were received less than
enthusiastically. The receptionist in the dean's office politely but
firmly dispelled any illusions Lauren might have had about seeing anyone
that day and left her with the impression that other days were no more
likely. And, no, the receptionist could not think of anyone else at the
law school who might be of any help. Lauren walked across the campus to
the Registrar's Office and learned that Blythe Oaks, born Blythe Truste,
had received her A.B. from BYU in 1963 but hadn't earned her law degree
until 1989, when she had graduated in the top five to her class. Lauren
already knew that quite a few of the intervening years had been spent on
the law school staff as Lester Homer's secretary. A brief visit to the
Alumni Association and a perusal of their database provided information
on Oaks's activities since leaving law school. Blythe Oaks had spent one
year clerking for a judge on the Utah Supreme Court, one year clerking
for Lester Horner on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a brief period
coordinating the Utah Women's Symposium, and part of the last year of
her life as the chief clerk of the newest justice of the United States
Supreme Court. Crowder walked back across campus to the law school
library and used a computer search to look for evidence of Oaks's
scholarship. She found two law review articles and two co-authored
pieces in major journals. A brief examination revealed the work to be
thoughtful and cogent. Not brilliant, but damn good. As Lauren tried to
remember what her rental car looked like and where in the spacious lot
she might have parked it, she reflected that Biythe's curriculum vitae
was as impressive as anyone could hope to assemble four years out of law
school. Now all Lauren had to figure out was what forces conspired to
cause her sister and Blythe Oaks to collide in the ladies' room of the
Mayflower Hotel in Washing- ton, D.C., and whether Biythe's murder might
have anything to do with what transpired that night. Lauren found a
small restaurant a couple of blocks from campus, and after finishing a
quick lunch, innocently ordered a cup of coffee. The waitress looked at
her in a slightly embarrassed manner before pronouncing, "I'm sorry, we
don't serve coffee, ma'am." Lauren said, "Of course, I'm sorry," and
immediately scolded herself for apologizing for wanting some caffeine.

MS-driven fatigue tended to grip her sometime between late morning and
mid-afternoon each day, and she despaired at the thought of making it
back to Salt Lake without a caffeine boost. She plotted strategy for the
rest of the afternoon, jotted some notes in her appointment calendar,
and paid her bill. Outside the restaurant, she received directions to
the main BYU library from yet another gray-slackswhiteshirtand-tie
twenty-one-year-old. At the main information desk, Lauren asked where
she could find old BYU yearbooks and was directed to the Special
Collections department on the fourth floor. The librarian who led her to
the stacks examined Lauren's outfit as though Lauren were the only
female in Tehran without a veil. The collection of BYU yearbooks dated
back to 1909. Lauren pulled the 1960 through 1963 editions from the
shelf and retreated to the anonymity of a carrel. As Lauren flipped
through the pages of pictures of the freshmen entering in 1959, her eyes
were drawn to the photograph of Blythe Truste well before she spotted
her name. At the age of eighteen, Blythe Truste had eyes so bright and
lively that they twinkled even in black and white. The only other
yearbook references to the young Blythe Oaks related to membership in
two campus religious organizations. Lauren searched a little more but
discovered nothing further of interest other than the unsurprising news
that both Paul Oaks and Lester Horner were also members of the Class of
'63. She asked where she could find a copying machine and then spent a
few dollars making copies of the class pictures from all four years
before going back downstairs. She found a bank of public telephones and
the Provo directory. In a minute she had located a long column of
listings for the wards and stakes of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. Teresa had explained the congregational structure of
the LDS Church. The basic unit was the ward. A stake comprised four to
eight wards, and from a thousand to four thousand members. There were
too many wards from which to choose, so Lauren punched in the number of
a stake. To her surprise, the voice that answered said simply, "Stake
president."

"Hello, is this the president himself?"

"Yes, this is the stake president--in the flesh. How may I help you?"
Lauren thought she detected the residue of an ancient Texas drawl.
"Well, I'm trying to find the location and time of Blythe Oaks's
funeral. I was hoping you could help."

"I think I might just be able to. Sister Oaks will be buried this
afternoon after a service here in the chapel at the stake center. Bishop
Chames, from her ward, will conduct the service. The service will begin
right at three- thirty. And I suggest you arrive early. We expect quite
a crowd. Sister Oaks was a beloved lady."

"Thank you. I think I will try to arrive early. Could you please give me
directions to the stake center? I'm not familiar with Provo." Lauren
jotted down the directions offered by the kind voice on the telephone
while she checked her watch and made a quick computation of how long it
would take her to get to the mall she had passed on the way into town to
find an outfit suitable for a Mormon funeral. She decided she could make
it if she hurried. The service in the stake chapel surprised Lauren with
its air of celebration. She had heard so much innuendo from her sister
and Robin Torr about bizarre secret Mormon ritual that she was confused
by how conventional and traditional and uplifting the funeral service
was. The chapel was jammed with mourners, who raised their voices
proudly with the opening hymn. A prayer from Bishop Charnes followed,
and then two old friends of Blythe Oaks, one man and one woman, spoke at
some length about her life. The anecdotes they related bore evidence of
Oaks's good humor; her athleticism, and her accomplishments, first as a
mother and wife, and later as a legal mind of whom the entire community
could be proud. Her generosity to the community was applauded, her faith
revealed and polished. Then, one after another, a long succession of
friends and colleagues stood and shared warm memories of Blythe. Supreme
Court Justice Lester Horner spoke last. He addressed a hushed room. His
presence and his accomplishments, both within the Church and in the
government, quieted the congregation as though he had raised a finger to
his lips. Horner described Blythe Oaks as one of his oldest, dearest
friends. He told tales of their college days and of their many years
working together. He thanked Paul Oaks and the Oaks children for sharing
their wife and mother with the Church and with the Lord and with the
community and with him, and asked them to take great pride in all that
she had offered and accomplished. He asked forgiveness for taking her to
Washington and ultimately to her death. And he asked everyone to
celebrate her journey into eternity and the steps she had taken to be
closer and closer to the Lord. Another prayer, another hymn, more tears
and more smiles, and the service ended. Lauren stuffed the photocopied
description of the service she had been handed at the door into her
purse and joined the congregation as it departed the chapel. She left
certain of one thing and nursing doubts about another. The certainty was
that Blythe Oaks had been loved and respected by a lot of people. The
doubts were about all the negative things she had been hearing from her
sister and from Robin about the Mormon Church. What, she wondered, is so
odd about this religion? The memorial service she had just attended had
seemed absolutely normal, uplifting even. What am I missing? Exhausted,
Lauren found a motel and slept until the Utah Valley was almost dark.

She woke slowly, showered, and, after watching the little bar of soap
slither around the shower for the third time, noticed with some
curiosity how difficult it seemed to be for her to grip the little
thing. Although the depth of her fatigue tempted her to spend the night
in Provo, she was eager for news of Teresa's return. She checked out of
the motel, stopped for some fast food on her way out of town, and drove
north toward the Great Salt Lake. Her curiosity about the lack of
coordination in her hand developed into moderate concern as she realized
she was having trouble gripping the steering wheel of the small car with
her right hand. By the time she reached her sister's house, Lauren
Crowder was incensed that her arm no longer seemed to be taking specific
instructions from her brain. For Lauren, when it came to her multiple
sclerosis, anger always came first. Fear was just an echo. She searched
the house for evidence of Teresa's return, found none, tried Robin
Toreat home and got her machine, and finally, furious at her failing
arm, called Alan in Boulder. His soft voice brought her to tears. He had
gotten over his disappointment about her extended stay in Utah. She told
him everything that had been going on with the case. About her
frustration at not being able to find her sister. "I've called everybody
in the family," she said, "all her friends, everyone I could think of."

"It sounds like you haven't ruled out the possibility that the murder is
somehow related to your sister's lawsuit."

"I haven't. Obviously, the cops haven't, either. What do you think?"
Alan exhaled. "I don't know much about the murder, sweets. Just what
I've read and seen on the news.

The woman had her throat slit in some park. Wasn't raped. Wasn't robbed.

No suspects."

"That's all we know, too, basically," Lauren said. "Except for the
suspects part. I keep wondering about the Church or Horner, but I guess
it doesn't make sense. Murdering her would be such an inelegant way to
stop us. They could just settle the case and gag us that way." Alan
perceived a hole in her reasoning. "Settling might stop you. It wouldn't
stop her--the defendant. Not if whoever killed her saw her as a loose
cannon. You know, somebody who was likely to do something like she did
to your sister again. Someone who would keep bringing dishonor on the
Supreme Court and all that."

"That's something I hadn't considered.

Still, it's probably a coincidence. The murder."

"You don't sound convinced, Lauren."

"I guess I'm not. Apparently, neither is the FBI." With some difficulty
she told him about her arm. They talked for most of an hour before
hanging up. During his days investigating in Salt Lake City, Pratt
Toomey learned little about Blythe Oaks's character that he couldn't
have learned simply by attending her funeral. After a futile flurry of
phone calls he succeeded in coercing two of Biythe's former co-workers
in Salt Lake City to speak with him. Actually, what it turned out they
had agreed to do was to lecture him. They praised Oaks and defended her,
and chastised Toomey for working for gentiles and against the faith.
"What's going on here is Utah-bashing, Pratt. Pure and simple. You're
just a tool." One of the two people who spoke with Toomey pointed out
that Blythe and her classmates from the BYU class of 1963 might actually
be the single most distinguished and successful group of saints in the
twentieth century. The alumni group included two general authorities--
three if you counted Lester Horner. Paul Oaks was the assistant director
of the Missionary Training Center in Provo. The class also boasted an
internationally famous cardiac surgeon, a member of the BYU board of
trustees, an assistant director of the FBI, and a former secretary of
transportation. Blythe Oaks herself was the chief clerk of a justice of
the United States Supreme Court. And, of course, there was the brightest
star of all, Lester Horner, once a general authority and now the first
LDS member of the United States Supreme Court. "And that," said Blythe
Oaks's friend as she spoke to Pratt Toomey in the dead-end corner of the
corridor outside her office, "is mostly just Biythe's group of personal
friends from college. Who knows what the rest of the class has done."
She listed a few other names from memory. "You, Pratt Toomey, should be
ashamed of yourself. If I were you, I would certainly consult with my
bishop before proceeding any further on any of this." irst thing Tuesday
morning, Supreme Court Justice Lester Horner dropped off his rental car
at the Salt Lake City airport and climbed into the narrow cabin of a
commuter plane for the short ride south to Farmington, New Mexico. The
seat he filled was next to that of his old friend Will Price. Homer's
impression of Blythe Oaks's funeral service was that it had been marked
as much by shock at the circumstances of her death as by either grief or
rejoicing at her welcome into heaven. A mind-numbing reception had
followed the brief graveside service. A thousand condolences still
echoed in Lester Homer's ears and left him feeling as hollow as a dry
kettle. Biythe's husband, Paul, had whispered something to Horner about
shared pain, which he had struggled to recall for a while after the
service. He never was able to remember precisely what Paul had said.
Justice Horner had considered trying to escape his remorse and his pain
either by visiting with old friends in Salt Lake and Provo for a few
days or by returning immediately to Washington and immersing himself in
the intensity of the Court's new term. Ultimately, though, he accepted
Will Price's invitation to go south and spend a couple of days on their
hands and knees digging in the kiva they had been working on the tribal
lands of the Ute Mountain Utes, in southwest Colorado. Horner made plans
to catch a late commuter flight into Denver the next evening and connect
with the redeye back to D.C. He would be in his Supreme Court chambers
by early Thursday morning. This trip to the southwest with Will Price,
Homer's ninth or tenth to the Ute Mountain reservation, was not only
religious service but also personal therapy for the justice. He hadn't
planned on being able to get a chance to work the dig again until the
following spring. But the murder of his longtime friend left him in need
of solitude and direct access to God. His most significant personal
revelations from the Lord had occurred on Lamanite land. He sat quietly
in the passenger seat of the car Price had rented in Farmington, the
morning sky a sharp blue sheet seemingly held aloft by buoyant white
clouds. He thought of Blythe. Things decomposed slowly in the high
desert in fall and winter. Leaves. Animals. Dear friends.

Horner could taste the slow, dry decay. With every breath, he could
taste the decay. He wondered if his own ambition had killed his lifelong
friend. Not a man prone to guilt, he wondered if that is what he was
feeling. He felt alone and blessed with the solitude. Farm- ington's
dust and sand provided a degree of anonymity that Horner had begun to
cherish since his elevation to the High Court bench. No one in the
airport had even looked at him twice. No one knew he sat on the Supreme
Court of the United States of America. It was arguable whether anyone
would have cared. One of Lester Homer's revelations from the Lord had
revealed that the land of the Ute Mountain Utes would be the site where
the first hard evidence would be discovered to support the Mormon belief
in the emigration of the Lamanites and the Nephites from Egypt to the
New World. Somewhere, Horner believed, in the enchanting canyons that
branched out from the Mancos River, he would find evidence of the
subsequent migration of the Lamanites to the Land Northward. He intended
to still the doubters. Now, he promised himself, he would dedicate the
discovery to Biythe's memory. Homer's friend Will Price was a big man
with big features and a big voice. His head was no larger than average,
maybe even a little smaller, but its parts--his eyebrows, his nose, his
ears, his mouth--all seemed to have been taken from a much larger model.

Price's everyday voice boomed with such crispness and clarity that it
cut through the surrounding clutter like a chain saw through pine. In an
airplane, in a theatre, in a restaurant, if Will Price spoke in a normal
tone, you heard his voice more clearly, and attended to it more readily,
than you did to the voice of the person sitting right next to you.

Price's hands were meaty, each finger thick as a sausage, his arms
heavy, like hardwood timber. His deep brown eyes were kind and warm.

They invited. As always, Lester Horner accepted. "You were right about
Blythe, Will. You said I shouldn't ask her to be my clerk."

"Sometimes we know things, Lester. When I'm righteous, the Lord lets me
know things. I'm grateful for that." Price's advancement in the Church
had been much more pedestrian than Homer's. At various times he had been
chosen to serve as bishop and as stake president. He had only recently
finished service as president of the Church's mission in Baltimore. His
current Church service was as a home teacher. "I should have listened to
you, Will." Price said, "Tell me about Blythe going to heaven. It's a
good story to tell. A cleansing story." Though Will already knew most of
the story, Lester Horner obliged. He told the whole saga of their
friendship. He started with the day he met Blythe at BYU. Then the day
he met Will. He wasn't quite done with his story when the two men pulled
up to the Ute Mountain Ute Cultural Research and Education Center in
Towaoc, on the eastern face of Sleeping Ute Mountain. The men checked in
with their old acquaintances and exchanged pleasantries before getting
back into the car, crossing the highway, and entering the tribal park.

Will Price waited patiently until Lester resumed his tale, which he
finished just as the men arrived at Lion Canyon. Lester finished his
story with the day Blythe died in a riverside park in Virginia. Will
hooked a hand around his friend in the front seat of the car and
squeezed the taut muscles of his neck. Then he got out of the car and
began to unload their supplies in the usual place. Lester Horner hadn't
moved to help. He sat in the passenger seat, immobilized. Will Price
tapped on the glass until Horner opened the window. Will said, "It's as
it should be, Lester. As it was written. Now she's a step closer to God,
just waiting for Paul to join her. But we have work to do. God's work.

It's time for you to get unstuck." Lester gazed vacantly at his friend.

The red tints in Will's huge eyebrows were of the same hue as the
exposed stones in the striated canyon. Lester smelled the slow decay. He
smelled the rebirth. He got out of the car and looked around for his
hatchet. Will Price slapped him on the back and drove down to the edge
of the canyon to unload the supplies he would be carrying up the ladder
to the kiva. In prayer he said, "He's not strong enough for all this. If
there's more that I can do, please show me how to help." T he morning
after Blythe Oaks's funeral, Lauren met with Pratt Toomey in Robin
Torr's conference room in Salt Lake City. They sat across from one
another, each attempting to present a demeanor as flat as the big cherry
table between them. Toomey viewed the meeting as an accommodation to
good will and team spirit. He figured that the likelihood of his
learning anything from Lauren's one-day visit to Provo was somewhere in
the neighborhood of Salt Lake's likelihood of being flattened by a
hurricane. He listened to her recitation while feigning attention, but
in reality he was absolutely unimpressed by what Lauren had discovered
at BYU. Twenty minutes on the phone would have earned him more
information than she'd gotten in a day. He hoped at least she had
enjoyed the scenery. Lauren showed him the copies she had made from the
BYU yearbooks and the photocopied program sheet from Biythe's memorial
service in Provo. By crosschecking she had discovered that the first two
people to speak at Oaks's funeral were classmates of Horner and Oaks at
Brigham Young. "I've circled their pictures. Lester Homer's, too. Oaks
was Blythe Truste back then. And I've circled her husband, Paul's,
picture. He was part of the class as well. This group of people go way
back--all the way to their freshman year. Do you know anything about any
of them?" Toomey was wondering if he had dressed too warmly. That
morning he had pondered whether to wear worsted wool or cotton and had
opted for the wool, mostly because his one clean shirt went better with
the gray slacks. But now his crotch felt sticky, and it wasn't even
midmorning. "Excuse me?" Lauren sighed. "I asked if you knew anything
about any of this group from BYU. Oaks's old friends?"

"Let me see." He flipped through the photocopied pages and looked at the
circled pictures. He recognized names, not faces. With a mechanical
pencil he lightly circled a few more pictures. As he circled he said,
"These names came up in some of the interviews I did here in Salt Lake
yesterday.

This one"--he stabbed at one of them with the tip of his pencil--"this
one came up almost every time somebody actually agreed to speak with me,
which wasn't that often. They were roommates at BYU and apparently
remained good friends." Lauren leaned over and read the name below that
picture. Audrey Hayes. Pratt continued, "Don't bother with her. I called
her already and got nowhere. She just kept crying, saying she had told
Blythe she shouldn't go to Washington. And a couple of these other
people are prominent Church leaders." When Toomey was twenty, just after
his two years of missionary service, which he had spent in Australia, he
had applied to BYU but hadn't been accepted. Instead, he'd gone to Utah
State. The resentment from his failure to get into BYU hadn't faded over
the years and still caused him discomfort when he was forced to deal
with the school or its alumni. Pratt looked uncomfortable to Lauren, who
wasn't aware of the problems posed by his trousers or his history with
BYU. She stood, frustrated that Toomey was not more forthcoming. She
forced herself to be civil. "Can I get you something to drink, Pratt?

I'm going to find myself something." Pratt was taken aback by the
unexpected offer. "Well, thank you for asking. Please ask Elsie to find
me something cold. She knows what I like." As Pratt began to jot down
the names that accompanied the circled pictures onto the page in his
notebook Mimfck AUTHUKH Y y/ where he'd begun to compile a list of
follow-ups he needed to make, Lauren left to get the drinks. The list
was developing uncomfortable dimensions. In Pratt's dozen years as an
investigator, he had never, not once, had compelling reason to interview
a general authority of the LDS Church. His roster of follow-ups now
included at least three, and he had a suspicion the number was going to
grow. Pratt had seriously considered giving the case back to Robin Torr.

She would have no choice but to accept his resignation, and he knew that
if he caught her in the right mood she would be gracious about it. But
he also knew that if he dropped the ball on this one, he would never see
another controversial investigation involving the Church from this law
firm. And word would certainly spread to other firms. The fallout could
be devastating to his business. Although Toomey was an inveterate flirt
and affected a constant swagger, he wasn't naive about his business. He
had argued to himself that the Church--his church, the Lord's
church--would be best served by having a saint involved in the
investigation into the allegations against Blythe Oaks. Who else but a
member was going to be able to keep this stupid creature from feeding on
slime and becoming a monster? The Crowder sisters certainly wouldn't
know when to stop. Robin Torr was as tenacious an attorney as he knew,
but at least, he reassured himself, she could be trusted to follow a
trail judiciously. She wasn't reckless and until now had never shown an
inclination to forget that she was in Utah. Toomey's bishop was as
ambivalent about Toomey's role as he himself was. Toomey had explained
to Bishop Fortin that if he quit, Robin Torr would get a gentile to
replace him, probably someone like Gil Holmes, whom Toomey considered a
closet Mormon-basher. Holmes would relish this case. He would leak to
the media after it was over--maybe even before it was over. Bishop
Fortin said he wanted to speak with some other leaders about it, but in
the meantime, he suggested praying to the Lord for guidance. Without any
sense of peace, Pratt prayed about his choices and decided to stay with
the case. As he had discussed with his bishop, he planned to make some
discreet inquiries from his ever-growing list of follow-ups. And maybe
he would learn just enough from one of these people to convince Robin
Torr to put this baby to rest. Pratt consoled himself that at least he
wasn't learning anything that was giving the case new life. At least
there was that. Lauren relayed Toemey's message to Robin's secretary,
and Elsie Smith hustled off to fetch him a cold drink. The strength and
coordination in Lauren's right arm and hand had returned after a night's
sleep, but the muscles in her shoulder ached, as if she'd spent the
previous day digging a ditch. On the short walk from the conference room
to Elsie's desk, Lauren had noted an unfamiliar tingling in her right
leg. Her MS hadn't flared up with a new symptom since she'd left Boulder
for New York to begin the experimental drug treatment. Now her remission
seemed to be ending. Elsie chugged back by Lauren with a can of Sprite
in one hand and a cup of ice in the other, making a beeline toward the
conference room and Pratt Toomey and, if Robin Torr's suppositions about
Elsie's intentions were correct, dreams of a temple marriage. Robin
Torr's office door was open. She was on the phone but waved Lauren in
with her free hand. A yellow number-two pencil held her hair back over
her ear. To Lauren, Torr's call sounded contentious and unprofitable.

Lauren assumed, based on personal experience, that Robin was talking
with another attorney about a case. Robin hung up and looked out the
window at the rooftops of Salt Lake City and the blunt face of the
Wasatch Front. The angle from her window prevented her from seeing
Temple Square. Sometimes she was grateful for that. She said, "That was
Wiley. My husband. Sorry I had to make you sit through all that mushy,
romantic stuff. He called to tell me that Oaks's estate has retained one
of the partners of his firm, James and Bartell, to represent them
against our planned action."

"I take it things aren't going well at home." Robin stuffed a pencil
over her other ear. "You could say that." She scratched her upper lip
with her teeth before continuing. "Wiley and I haven't been doing well
for a while. This case hasn't helped. James and Bartell is one of the
bigger local firms. They're old and established and mostly LDS. They do
a lot of Church business with a lot of Church businesses, and a lot of
personal stuff for the authorities.

Now it turns out that one of the partners will be defending the
symposium and Blythe Oaks if and when we file a lawsuit. Wiley is one of
the firm's token gentiles. It's been a good marriage for both of them."
"Why? What makes it work?" Lauren asked. "Wiley's family is old-line
Utah Irish-Catholic. They made lots of money from mining and banking at
the turn of the century. The old-guard Utah Catholics and the Mormons
came to a profitable accommodation a long, long time ago. So Wiley's
family has been working hand in hand with the saints for generations.

It's in his blood now. He knows which side his bread is buttered on and
is almost as conservative politically as the senior partners of James
and Bartell. He fits in okay. Better than okay. And to top it all off,
he's a pretty damn good attorney." She yawned, suddenly extremely tired.

"My suspicion had been that this new tension between him and me is
because his superiors have asked him to keep an eye on me and on your
sister's case. And that was even before they were retained as counsel.

I've asked him about it. He denies it. But the more he pushes, the more
I get an idea of how worried the Church is about this. "I'm using it
sort of like a divining rod. When he increases the pressure on me, I
figure I must be getting close to something. Now the pressure is going
to be worse. What's so disconcerting is that I still don't know what
we're close to. I'm really counting on you and Pratt being able to tell
me something soon. We can't go with what we have. We'll look like
opportunists." Reflecting on what she had just said, Robin shook her
head. "God, this must sound terribly calculating to you. I haven't seen
you for years. This man I'm accusing of spying on me is my husband."
Lauren didn't know what to say. Robin's story sounded too familiar. She
remembered how estranged she'd been from her husband, Jacob, in the last
year before their divorce. Robin's long face broke into a smile. "And,
oh shit, I almost forgot, there's good news. Before I got in this
morning, we finally heard from your sister. I was in court so I didn't
actually speak to her, but she told Elsie that she was in Reno and that
she'd be back tomorrow. Elsie got a number where I can reach her later
today. Does she have friends in Reno?" Robin paused a second at her own
question, and a dart of dread struck at her bowels. "She doesn't gamble,
does she?" Reno? thought Lauren with relief. At least, thank God, it's a
long way from D.C. "Gamble?" she replied. "No, no, not usually. Not
Teresa." Robin said, "Good. Finally, I can call the FBI and tell them
we'll be happy to drop by for an interview." Pratt Toomey's old Audi was
pushing 130,000 miles, but he didn't question its reliability for even a
minute. Barring a new motor for the cooling fan and a new compressor for
the air conditioner, Toomey hadn't invested a cent in the car except for
maintenance, tires, and brakes. Once he'd checked the oil and the tire
pressure, Pratt would trust his little car on a midsummer trip across
any of Utah's deserts or a midwinter trip over any of Utah's mountains.

The current road trip would lead him across two high deserts and over
two higher mountain passes. The Audi would do just fine. The driver's
side of the Yakima roof rack held a tray for his mountain bike, and the
passenger side held a slot for his downhill skis. Although he had once
made a concerted effort to do so, he couldn't remember a single journey
of greater than a day's duration out of Salt Lake City when one side or
the other of the rack hadn't been filled with his toys. He fondly
recalled a couple of brief trips where both sides had been filled. This
trip was no exception. Pratt didn't need to consult a map to know that
the route to his destination would have him shooting east down 1-70 just
thirty miles north of Moab's famed slickrock trails. Being that close to
Moab and not riding was as unimaginable to Pratt Toomey as spending a
winter day in Snowbird and not skiing. Mountain hiking was not typical
recreation for a Mormon of Toomey's generation; it was both too solitary
and too time-consuming. He rationalized his indulgence by the fact that
his passion for fat-tire riding had been spawned by a series of Church
youth-group trips he had chaperoned for his ward a few years back. Twice
Pratt checked the straps that secured his mountain bike to the rack, and
twice he checked the tension on the clips that secured the rack to the
car. Though he hadn't consulted a Kelly Blue Book lately, he knew there
was a good possibility that his bicycle was worth considerably more than
his car. He would hate to discover, upon glancing in his rear-view
mirror, that his beautiful mountain bike was bouncing riderless down the
highway.. Preparing for road trips was routine for Toomey. He threw a
small single bag of clothes into the back seat and a larger duffel bag
with his bicycling gear into the trunk, gently placed a cooler packed
with sandwiches and lemonade on the floor of the front seat, stuffed a
bag of pumpkin seeds into the glove compartment, and cruised south out
of Salt Lake City. He would be in Moab by early evening. Emmylou Harris
and Tanya Tucker were his only companions. Thursday evening, forty-eight
hours later, two days of invigorating mountain hiking under his belt,
Pratt Toomey headed south out of Moab. He had an investigation to
complete. Early-autumn-evening traffic on Utah State Highway 191 on the
high desert plains east of Canyonlands is typically as devoid of cars as
the wondrous landscape that surrounds it is devoid of people. Pratt
wasn't particularly familiar with the terrain in the southeast part of
Utah, but from a quick glance at his road atlas he guessed he was
approaching the tiny black dot his map' labeled Hole in the Rock. In his
rear-view mirror, he watched with some interest as a distant pair of
headlights rapidly covered the long stretch of highway behind him. A few
seconds later a big green sedan blew past Toomey's Audi. The driver was
wearing a cowboy hat, and Pratt guessed the guy was doing at least
ninety. Each night the setting sun created a magical quilt of shadows
and stone in the high desert. Toomey was captivated by the panorama and
paid no further attention to the sedan as it accelerated off into the
encompassing dusk. Fewer than ten minutes later, in the inky darkness of
the La Sal Mountains, Toomey came across the green car. This time the
sedan wasn't moving. Instead, it hung like an apparition hundreds of
yards ahead of him. The driver's door was open. The front of the car had
come to a stop a few feet from the edge of the southbound lane, the
headlights pointed back across the highway, obliquely toward Toomey's
approaching Audi. A hundred and fifty feet of skid marks in the shape of
a long comma marked off what seemed to Toomey to be a world-record
fishtail. Toomey slowed, mesmerized by the rush of light in front of
him. At dusk's end, in this lonesome terrain, the big car with its door
open looked as alien to Toomey as a spaceship that had alighted in the
desert. He brought the Audi to a gentle stop about fifty or sixty feet
from the green car. He switched his headlights to bright, their brash
glare effectively washing out the eeriness of the scene in front of him.

Toomey was alert and attentive. His typical vigilance was heightened by
the apparent absence of the other driver from the scene. Pratt
immediately considered and then rejected as inane the possibility that
the driver had taken off down the highway toward La Sal Junction, the
next town, on foot. What then? Maybe the driver had banged his head, was
disoriented, and had wandered off into the wild night of these
mountains. Pratt glared into the blackness off each side of the highway.

He saw nothing but desert silhouettes. He rummaged around his glove
compartment for his flashlight, palmed it, then stretched his neck
muscles by rotating his head from side to side. With the reluctance of a
man facing a prostate exam, he pulled himself from the Audi and prodded
his resistant feet to carry him the twenty yards to the green sedan.

Behind him, Emmylou Harris wailed mournfully from the open door of his
car. At a distance of ten feet or so, Toomey stopped and peered inside
the car, an old Cadillac in great shape. He half expected to see the
driver slumped on the floor. He didn't. Pratt moved closer. A folded
copy of the Deseret News was visible on the floor of the passenger side
of the spacious car. A copy of D & C--the Doctrines and Covenants of the
LDS Church--had slid, spine up, to the crack between the front seats.

Pratt relaxed a little. The D & C was almost as good a clue to Mormondom
as was the wearing of garments. The driver of the Cadillac was most
certainly LDS, and given that the person had been reading the Deseret
News, the Mormon-owned newspaper from Salt Lake City, he was probably
from Salt Lake as well. Pratt searched the rest of the car carefully,
looking for something with the driver's name on it, wondering if he
might know the guy. Hadn't the man been wearing a cowboy hat? If he'd
been hurt in this little incident, it's unlikely it would've stayed on
his head. Where was the cowboy hat? Where was the driver? "Where's
Pratt?" Lauren had asked Robin earlier that same day. "Oh, I guess I
forgot to tell you. He called Elsie and said he'd be gone a few days
checking on some leads. Apparently he found some old friends of Blythe
Oaks who he thinks may know something that can help us. Or, knowing
Pratt, might know something that will convince us to desist." Robin
misread the consternation on Lauren's face. "Don't worry too much about
the cost, Lauren. Pratt travels cheap, and he'll bill us on a per diem
while he's gone, not hourly. Trust me on this. I've done a lot of cases
with him. He's not wasteful, and he usually knows what he's doing."

"It's not the cost, Robin. I'm  ...  he's not  ..." Lauren l-IH-.Mtk AU
1 MUKI I Y 1 US Crowder pursed her lips to underscore her annoyance.
"It's just that he should've filled me in before he left. We're supposed
to be cooperating, aren't we? Now, what am I supposed to do while I
wait? I mean, without knowing what he's learned or what he's looking
for? What I'm likely to do is just spin my wheels. Look silly. That's
probably exactly what he wants." She murmured a profanity. "He didn't
tell Elsie anything else? Where he was going? Whom he was hoping to talk
with?" Robin Torr shook her head. "Sorry. You can ask Elsie yourself,
but I don't think so. I didn't look at it from your perspective. But
you've got a good point. What can I say? I should've insisted he fill
you in." Robin sighed a volume before she continued. "Pratt's LDS. He is
not accustomed to answering to women. When I'm his paycheck, I get some
courtesy. But on some level, I'm sure he's expecting you to act toward
him like a Mormon woman would."

"Which is how?"

"Like he's a priest.

Like he's a little god. But this is my fault, too. I'm not used to
having so many investigators. Listen, why don't you lay off until he
gets back from this trip and just help me figure out how to approach the
people at the Women's Symposium? Then we can all regroup. When he checks
in, which he's good about, I'll talk to him, tell him from now on he
needs to keep both of us up-to-date. I promise."

"All right. What do you want me to do?"

"I'll need an hour or so to divide up the work and decide what order I
want to do this. I'll let you know by ten. Is that okay?" Lauren nodded.
"Good. By the way, have you heard from your sister? She's still due back
today, isn't she? We're set for four this afternoon with the feds. I
don't think I can put them off again."

"No, I haven't heard from her since yesterday, but I expect her around
noon. I can't tell you how relieved I am that she's been working in
Reno. You know, I hate to say this about my own sister, but things may
turn out to be easier for us if Teresa is on the road a lot. At least I
won't worry about her as much. She's too controversial here. She's bound
to get in trouble if she stays in town doing comedy." Robin Torr
remembered her evening at One Hand Laughing and agreed absolutely. But
she didn't say a word. Teresa's plane arrived late, and her subsequent
reunion with Lauren was abrupt and unsatisfying for both of them. Robin
had set aside much of the afternoon for a meeting to prepare Teresa for
the FBI interview. Given her prosecutorial experience, Lauren had argued
that she should sit in and help. Robin had been adamant in refusing. She
wanted Teresa to get accustomed to answering questions without her
sister's support. At the scheduled time, Robin Torr accompanied Teresa
Crowder to her interview at the federal offices downtown. Together, they
were prepared to provide Teresa with an unassailable alibi for the time
that Blythe Oaks was murdered. Teresa carried a file with the receipt
for her airline tickets to Reno, her boarding passes, and the housing
and meal vouchers from the hotel where she had performed. She had the
name and phone number of the club manager, who would verify her show
times. The special agent who conducted the interview didn't seem
particularly interested in Teresa's paper trail. He acted as if he
already knew everything about her being in Reno; in fact, he acted as if
he might have known exactly where Teresa Crowder had been every minute
since she had last sung "Under the Sea" for Disney's World on Ice. But
he did have a lot of questions about the allegations she was making
about being sexually harassed by Blythe Oaks. And he was particularly
intent on assembling a complete set of Teresa's fingerprints and
acquiring a sample of her handwriting. He could produce a warrant for
those, he said, if it was necessary. j auren waited in Robin's office
for Teresa and Robin to return from their meeting with the FBI. Shortly
after 5:30, Robin called her office and asked Lauren to join them at a
nearby restaurant. Elsie Smith provided Lauren with directions to the
Judge Cafe, a Salt Lake lawyers hangout, and she walked the few blocks
across downtown to the restaurant. From the narrow entryway Lauren
spotted their table across the dining room, near the windows by the
street. She thought Teresa looked as though she had just survived an
interrogation by the KGB. Her face was pale, her eyes puffy and dull.

She was sitting far back on her chair, almost reclining, both hands
wrapped around a tall glass of water. In contrast to Teresa's catatonia,
Robin seemed energized and animated. She sat leaning forward, her elbows
on the table. As Lauren walked up she could hear Robin saying, "Think.

Come on. There has to be something." "Hi," Lauren said, sitting down.

"Why do I have the feeling this was a rather grueling interview?" Teresa
tried to smile. She said, "It actually wasn't so bad. I think they
believe I was in Reno." She paused. "I hope you don't mind coming down
here. I needed to eat something."

"It's no problem," Lauren said, shifting her focus to Robin, whose face
was stern. "Were you able to figure out why the FBI is involved in this?
Did they tell you?"

"It's a 'police cooperation matter." The FBI says its involvement--'at
this time'--is a courtesy to the Virginia police." Lauren then asked the
question that had been needling Robin and her for days. "Why have they
been so patient in waiting for Teresa to show up for the interview?"
Robin glanced at Teresa before she responded. "Because I think they've
known all along that Teresa wasn't in D.C. when Oaks was killed, and--"

"Then what was this all about? What did they want?"

"They wanted her fingerprints," Robin pronounced. Lauren exhaled.
Routine, she thought.

"That's not surprising," she said. "They probably have some prints from
the crime scene. They'll use them to rule out Teresa as a suspect."

"And," Robin said after a pregnant pause, "they wanted a sample of her
handwriting." Her handwriting? Shit, that is surprising. "Why?"

"The special agent wasn't saying."

"Did you provide it?"

"Yes, we volunteered the sample. They would have gotten it anyway."
Robin looked over at Teresa, who opened her eyes wide with what seemed
like monumental effort, and shook her head. "Teresa can't think of
anything she has written that would be of any interest to the police."

"Nothing at all," confirmed Teresa, looking at her sister, appearing
very young. Lauren's mind jumped at possibilities. "No personal notes to
Blythe? Nothing suggestive? God, nothing threatening, I hope?"

"I've already asked," said Robin, finally settling back on her chair.
The waitress delivered Teresa a plate with a grilled cheese sandwich and
a small bowl of soup.

She dug right into it. "I've got to eat," she said. N o matter how late
in September the heat of summer lingers into the days in the high
desert, the nights always bear the unmistakable chill of autumn. And
higher still, in the narrow stone passes that snake into the La Sal
Mountains above Utah's Canyonlands, the night air of September can be as
cold as a flatland winter. Pratt Toomey shivered from the chill. He
returned to his car, climbed onto the driver's seat, and flicked off the
tape deck. Emmylou Harris seemed to protest plaintively as she was
silenced. Pratt grabbed the lined nylon shell he wore when he rode his
bike on particularly cold days, pulled it on, and stuffed his hands into
the pockets of his chinos. He trudged reluctantly back toward the
Cadillac. His nose was running from the cold air. He sniffed hard.

Halfway to the green Cadillac he paused, hopeful that the sound he heard
in the distance was the murmur of a car approaching, then decided the
hum he detected was merely a trick of the supple wind. He continued
toward the Cadillac. He was getting annoyed at the puzzle of the empty
car. At the darkness. And at his anxiety, which was itching at him like
a lash in the corner of his eye. He briefly considered the probability
that if the driver of the Cadillac weren't LDS, he would simply crawl
back behind the wheel of his Audi, crank up the heater, point due south,
and try and make up the time he had already lost to this conundrum. He
tried to tell himself that this situation, as unfortunate as it appeared
to be, wasn't his problem. But this guy--by then he'd revisualized the
image of the green sedan speeding past him and had decided that the
silhouette of the driver had definitely been that of a man--was a fellow
saint. And Pratt Toomey felt an absolute, unquestionable obligation to
assist a fellow saint. Toomey clicked his attention to a new hypothesis.

He examined the front of the Caddy for evidence that the driver might
have hit a deer. But there was no damage. Frustrated, he shined the beam
of his flashlight onto a long stretch of the asphalt along the path of
the fishtail and found no dark puddled stains--no blood. He did identify
some animal tracks that ran in the dirt behind the car. But he couldn't
decipher what kind of animal had left the tracks, and he couldn't
determine their age. He scratched beside his nose and sniffed hard
again. He called out, "Hello. Need any help?" and considered the
possibility that the guy was merely relieving himself in the woods. But
no answer came. The only sound was the pulsating drone of the
intermittent breeze cutting through the stone canyons. And, it felt to
him, through his bones. As much from cold as from curiosity, he climbed
behind the wheel of the Cadillac and saw a fistful of keys hanging in
the ignition. He cranked the starter. The engine popped immediately to
life. The fuel gauge read more than half a tank. He backed the car up a
few feet so that it was clear of the highway. He turned off the ignition
and shoved in the button that turned off the headlights. "Well, heck,"
he said out loud. "This makes no sense. No sense at all." He climbed out
of the car. Then Pratt heard a moan. Short. Desperate. To the west. In
the darkness. He rotated his torch that way and slowly started walking.

Maybe, he thought, the utterance was just another piece of magic from
the wind. "Hello. Anyone there?" Pratt called out. "Do you need some
help?" The answer came ten seconds later. Another moan. That's all. This
one more drawn-out, lower in tone, but just as desperate. This one
wasn't the wind. "Shoot," Pratt hissed. "Where are you?" He stroked and
prodded the night with the beam, methodically covering a
one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc in the direction of the mournful
sound. Nothing. The light reflected off a wall fifty feet from the road,
where ancient strata of rock rose up from the landscape ten or fifteen
feet from grade. A shiver shot the length of Pratt's spine. He yanked
the zipper of his shell up under his chin. Why would somebody who is
injured climb up there? Toomey wondered, gazing at the silhouette of the
rock formation. He remembered his mother's brother, his Uncle Joseph,
and the stroke that had paralyzed him. Maybe the driver had had a
stroke, gotten disoriented, couldn't talk. And there was Orrin Hatch.

Senator Hatch had ended up in a deserted men's room after his stroke,
hadn't he? With some alarm, Toomey considered the possibility that he
might have stumbled upon a bishop or a stake president, maybe even an
authority, one of the Seventy. "I'm coming, brother. Where are you?"
Toomey called into the night, duty, desperation, and fear mingled in his
voice. The moan again. And something else. Was that a gurgle? A whimper?

What? "Hang on. I'm coming," Toomey cried out as he searched the face of
the rocks for a path up. He found a series of small horizontal shelves
and began to climb. At the top he straightened himself, leaning into the
wind, paused, and listened. The wind was blowing from the south, and he
saw a distant beam of headlights before he heard the crooning of a
downshifting engine. Toomey tracked the approaching car, which turned
out to be a small pickup, until it arrived on the scene a minute or two
later. He watched gratefully as it slowed next to his Audi. But it never
fully stopped before zooming off, the echo of his, "Hey! Wait a minute,
don't go" in its wake. Toomey was momentarily distracted admiring the
silhouette his mountain bike made perched on his Yakima rack, when he
heard words spoken to him as intimately as a lover's. "Just be still,
brother, just be still." The voice Pratt Toomey registered behind him
seemed to rustle kindly, like the breeze, but the timbre was dense and
rich. The words froze Pratt Toomey as solidly as the stone on which he
stood. "Yes, what you feel in your back is a gun. It's a big gun. It's
loaded. And I'm prepared to use it. I'm sorry to make you climb all the
way up here, but I didn't want us to be disturbed while we talked. Let's
you and me just let that truck get a little farther out of here, and
then we can have a chat about your salvation. I want you to consider
this meeting to be as serious to your eternal life as you would a
request from your bishop for an interview about the Lord." Pratt looked
down toward his feet and spotted the snout of a dog. "How well do I know
Pratt Toomey?" Harley laughed. The chuckle sounded sardonic to Lauren
Crowder. "How well do I know him? Everybody in Salt Lake City knows
somebody like Pratt. At least, everybody in the Church does. He's the
Deseret equivalent of a good old boy. Pratt's everybody's friend. He's
everybody's neighbor. As long as you're LDS, Pratt's your right hand.

When the heavy spring runoff threatened the city a few years back and
the authorities mobilized the stake presidents to mobilize the bishops
to mobilize the brethren to protect our city from floodwaters, Pratt
must have worked for seventy-two hours without sleep, organizing for the
whole stake, planning for our ward, filling sandbags. When the New
Year's blizzard buried Salt Lake in '93, Pratt was probably heading a
brigade of snow throwers before the last flake fell. He does everything,
anything. That's Pratt. He's the kind of saint who would have been
fighting right next to Joseph Smith in Missouri He is always striving
for perfection in his faith. Pratt's dream in life would be to be a
bishop. But he'll never be called."

"If he's so enthusiastic, so committed, why not?"

"Because urban Mormons are snobs. We promote success. Particularly
righteous plumbers don't become stake presidents.

Successful insurance brokers do."

"You're in the same ward, you and Toomey?"

"Yeah. Me and Pratt, we're brothers in God." Lauren squelched a
different question and asked, "Why the sarcasm?" Harley smiled and
looked down at his plate. His face was more somber and composed when he
turned back to Lauren. "Just the thought of Pratt and me being brothers.

You know him, at least a little. Let's face it. If we're brothers, I'm
the one who must be adopted." Harley eyed Lauren quizzically. "You know,
this kind of hurts my feelings. I'm beginning to suspect you asked me to
lunch just so you could quiz me about Pratt. My charm and wit are
irrelevant."

"No, Harley. Yes. Well, no, not really."

"Good answer. I like that. I thrive on confusion, myself. It's territory
I know so well, I could write a book about it. See, take a good look at
me. John Jefferson Harley. I'm a thirty-six-year-old, maritally
separated, drunken associate professor at a second-rate state
university, hanging out with a slick Colorado lawyer--that's you, my
dear--who some would argue is out to soil my sacred church. These facts
don't exactly add up and make me what you would call the most
trustworthy and faithful of Latter-day Saints, now do they?" He didn't
pause for an answer. "When I converted, I thought joining the LDS Church
would bring me two things. I thought it would bring me Jules, and it
did. She's a better wife than I deserve, I might add. My Jules is great.
You want to see a picture?" Before Lauren had stammered, "Sure," he had
fished out his wallet and flipped it open to a picture of a tall, plain
woman walking down a mountain trail hand in hand with two small girls.
"She's lovely, Harley.

Very pretty. And your daughters are, too." He glanced at the picture a
second time before snapping the wallet shut. "And the second thing I
thought the Church would bring me was salvation. Not necessarily
salvation in a heavenly sense, although that would have been, and
remains, absolutely fine with me. But I think what I was looking for was
salvation from myself, from the devil within. The Church calls him
Satan. I liked that he had a name. "By then I was already a drunk.

Jules, bless her, was so naive, she only saw my potential. She thought
drunks were people who slept in doorways cradling Mad Dog. At the time,
though I was far from admitting to myself that I was a drunk, I was
smart enough to know I could use a serious dose of higher authority. And
if LDS are big on anything, it's higher authority." Harley read
confusion on Lauren's face and was distracted by the shimmering in her
sparkling hair. He conjured up an image of Jules and fought to keep his
focus. He said, "Don't worry, I'm not as lost with this story as I seem
to be. Here comes the segue to Pratt. Pratt believes, soul and heart, in
authority. He believes in Zion. In Utah. He believes in all that the
Church is, and all that the Church teaches. When he gives his testimony
to the truth of the Book of Mormon, he means it, literally. To him the
book is true. He believes that his spirit is as old as God. He believes
that Jackson County, Missouri was actually the site of the biblical
Garden of Eden, and that sometime in the seventh millennium all God's
chosen people will return there for the final reign of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He believes that God lives on a planet that circles a star
called Kolob, and he believes that God is sexually active with the
heavenly mother. He believes that the native American Indians are
descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel, called the Lamanites.

He believes in these things because he has faith. He believes in the
pre-eminence of the prophet, of the authorities, of his bishop. He
believes in his authority in his own household, as man and as priest.

He--"

"You don't believe those things? As a Mormon?" John Harley held up a
glass of water as though to offer a toast. "Boy. Believing is one thing,
having faith is another. The reality is that I just don't care about the
details. Being a drunk is humbling. Have you ever been loved by someone
you don't deserve? Let me tell you, that's humbling, too. I don't feel
particularly righteous very often. Mormon males need to be righteous to
be priesthood holders. We need to strive for perfection. I wake up in
the morning and look in the mirror, and most days, given what I see, the
thought of me being the spiritual leader of anyone is ludicrous. The
Church considers me a priest, solely because of my gender. Jules, bless
her pure, righteous soul, is supposed to follow my lead as I converse
with God. Is that ironic, or what?"

"So where's your faith, John?"

"I don't know. Maybe I don't have enough. I certainly don't have enough
faith in Thomas Jefferson to make me believe that the U.S. Constitution
is a document inspired by God. My bishop says I have a deficit of faith.
And bishops, you know, are almost always right." Lauren noted the return
of Harley's sarcasm. She asked, "Mormons believe that stuff? About the
Constitution? About Missouri? About the Indians?"

"Mormons like Pratt do. I don't know that he actually believes it as
much as he's not troubled by it and doesn't question it. And if you want
to hold on to your temple recommend, you do the same. It's part of the
testimony."

"You sound cynical, Harley. I don't get it. Why are you a Mormon?" He
said, "You know, I don't even like to remember why I converted. Going
back to then is like visiting a hole I've managed to crawl out of. But I
guess it's important to go back sometimes. The truth of how I became a
Mormon is actually quite trite. I was lost--in booze, in drugs, in
women. I hadn't spoken to my family in years. I didn't know who the hell
I was. Where I came from. Where I was going. The LDS Church had all the
answers for me. They baked me this great three-layer cake. They told me
where I came from. Told me who I was. And told me my future forever and
ever. "It's terribly ironic. The LDS Church in Utah may be as
authoritarian an institution as exists anywhere in this country, but
Mormon doctrine is sublimely egalitarian. If Joseph Smith wasn't really
a prophet, he was most certainly a genius, because he invented one heck
of an attractive religion." He checked Lauren's face to see if she
objected to his preaching. Her eyes were soft and gray, like clouds
after a summer rain. "Saints aren't just God's children, Lauren. We are
like God. Mormons don't believe that God created man. We believe that
our spirits are as old as His. Because of that, our doctrine is full of
hope. There is no hell to fear. After our births, we can progress to
become gods ourselves by improving and achieving in our lives. Think of
that empowerment, Lauren. Not just going to heaven, but becoming God."
His eyes were bright, his cheeks flush. "See," he said, "the promise can
still move me." Harley reached 6ut and picked up the salt shaker, then
returned it to its spot. "After the Church baked me that cake, they
frosted it with Jules. I tasted it. For a while, I ate it up. "Before I
converted I was an outlaw. And the Mormon Church is, above all else, a
great sheriff. We Mor- mons have rules for everything, from whether or
not it's okay to play cards to what kinds of sex you can have with your
wife. I was an out-of-control kid. Joining the LDS Church was like
joining a spiritual version of military school. They straightened me
out. Who knows, maybe they saved my life. "If any of that makes any
sense, then I guess that's why I'm a Mormon." Harley's usually consuming
gaze was suddenly elusive. Lauren tried to net it. Couldn't. "And
now--why the doubts?"

"Maybe my bishop's right. Maybe I lack faith.

There are days that I envy Jules' faith, Pratt's faith." He shrugged his
shoulders. "I haven't had one of those days for a while, though." He
finally looked up. "I thought we were talking about Pratt. He's not like
me; he has no doubts. Pratt's a spirit-baby Mormon. He believes it all.

Every drop of his blood is Mormon. His faith erases all doubt. He sees
no questions. He looks at the Church and he just sees answers. His
temple recommend will never be in jeopardy. Like I said, I envy it
sometimes. The simplicity of it."

"And other times?" He leaned forward until his face was a foot from
hers. "Other times, the blind obedience that's required to be a good
Mormon scares the hell out of me." Lauren made a mental note, for the
tenth time, to find out what a "temple recommend" was. She prodded him.
"I thought Pratt was supposed to be a philanderer."

"Pratt? What? Has he hit on you?"

"No, not really. But I thought it was only because I'm not LDS."

"Pratt's a flirt, Lauren. Not a philanderer."

"You seem pretty sure, Harley. How do you know?"

"Because I am a flirt and I've been a philanderer. That's how I know. I
can assure you that I can recognize a member of my own species without
having to sniff his crotch." Harley's sudden candor stunned Lauren. She
sat back on her chair, not quite sure what to say. "You're a
philanderer? And I thought you told me that first night you weren't
trying to hit on me." Lauren knew her words sounded coy. She didn't
really care. "I wasn't."

"Please."

"Seriously. I like bars. So these days I go into bars, shoot some pool,
throw some darts, and I don't drink. I like women. I meet women. I talk,
I flirt. I don't sleep with them. Now, anyway. I'm both proud and
remorseful to say to you that I've been faithful a whole hell of a lot
longer than I've been sober." When he raised his gaze to meet hers,
Lauren caught his eyes and said in a low voice, "Why, John Harley, were
you just looking at my breasts?" Harley blushed and affected a lyrical
version of his ancestral southern drawl. "Indeed, miss, I think perhaps
I was. But nothing shameful was intended. I merely wanted to be certain
they were okay."

"And are they?"

"It seems that they are more than just fine." Lauren struggled through a
thick mist of fatigue that had begun to engulf her. His eyes gripped
hers with an allure that she had always in the past identified as
romantic and erotic. She felt herself being drawn in deeply. She didn't
know what to make of it. But to have any hope of ordering her thoughts
about Harley, first she needed to sleep. "Am I boring you, Lauren?"

"Oh, Harley, no, I'm sorry. I didn't sleep well last night. I'm tired.
That's all. I'm sorry." A hundred times she had scolded herself, told
herself not to apologize for being ill. She winced at how easily she did
it again. "Do you need to rest? May I drive you home?"

"Gosh, Harley, I don't think that would be a very good idea." Harley
leaned across the table and, for the first time, touched her. His
fingers on her cheeks felt like fire. "Lauren, don't be misled by me. I
am a man with much too much to lose. I have Jules. I have a couple of
great girls. Right now, those three females are my bridge to God.
Despite all my doubts about the Church, I'm safe on that bridge. When
I'm with you I feel wonderfully alive, but I feel some danger. I feel my
bridge sway. The danger, I think, comes from you. You either don't have
very much to lose, or you're intent on losing what you have. "I'm a good
man. And I'm a drunk. My experience tells me that you know about drunks.
And I think you know about good men, too. Don't you?" She pulled her
face away from his touch and looked at her lap. Despite a nicker of
shame she couldn't resist the desire to sink into the crack in the earth
where Harley lived. I n his years as a private investigator, Pratt
Toomey had never carried a gun or been in a single fight. He had been
threatened a few times, had been arrested once for trespassing, and had
been chased by some dogs. But this was absolutely the first time he'd
ever had a gun shoved in his back. "Where are you going. Brother
Toomey?" How do you know me? Do I know you? "Colorado. A little town
called Ouray." Pratt's voice was as shallow as his breath. He clipped
his words more than he intended. "Ah. A pretty place, a very pretty
place. And who are you going to see?" The man's voice filled all the
gaps between the puffs of wind. "A woman named Rachel Misker. I'm a
private investigator. I need to interview her for a case I'm working
on."

"This wouldn't be about Blythe Oaks, would it, Brother Toomey?" The
man's voice sounded sad. How does he know that? "Yes. It is."

"Who else knows about your visit to Colorado?"

"No one else knows." Pratt guessed that his answer was the one the man
desired. "Not even your client knows?"

"No. I haven't reported to her yet. She only knows I'm following some
leads. I'm hoping to find a reason to convince them to stop from
pressing their complaint.

You know about the complaint?" The man ignored Pratt's question. "But
you have been helping them? I'm afraid that's Satan's work, brother."
Pratt's voice cracked. "I've prayed about it. It's the Lord's wish that
I keep an eye on them. That I protect the Church. Otherwise, a gentile
would do it. I'm acting as the Church's eyes and ears. My bishop knows
I'm here. He's counseling me." The man seemed to huff at the
rationalization. "Your bishop knows about Colorado. But he doesn't know
about Rachel?"

"No. Nobody knows her name yet. Not Bishop Fortin, not my clients.
Nobody."

"That's good. Because the truth is that the Lord doesn't wish them to."
Discovering what he wanted to know had come much more quickly than the
man had anticipated. He was grateful to Toomey for his forthrightness.
The echo of the explosion from the revolver filled the canyons and
valleys of the La Sal Mountains and lingered there long enough for Pratt
to think he was still hearing the reverberations when he died. The
impact of the slug caused Pratt Toomey to stumble forward before falling
on his face. The blood that drained from Pratt Toomey's ripped heart
seeped slowly enough that he was able to reflect with some comfort on
the joy of passing to the next level of salvation. The man who had
pulled the trigger of the .38 that was stuck in Pratt Toomey's back
waited patiently for him to die. He waited patiently for the blood to
pour from the exit wound in Pratt Toomey's chest and waited patiently
for that blood to spill onto Utah's red earth. But the blood didn't
pour. Instead, the blood that oozed from the wound in Pratt Toomey's
chest pooled thickly in the confines of his waterproof shell, soaking
the fabric of his polo shirt and his sacred garments. The man knelt next
to the body and looked perplexedly at Pratt, as though he were a puzzle.

He finally realized what was happening, why the blood wasn't flowing. He
gave a crisp command to his dog, who was lying on the ground ten feet
behind him, her snout raised into the breeze to catch the scent of the
blood. He repeated a command he had given her earlier. "Stay," he said.

The dog, again, obeyed. The man knelt over Pratt Toomey, lifted his left
shoulder, and rolled him onto his side. With a large pocket knife he cut
a long slash in the purple ripstop over Pratt Toomey's heart, then
rolled him back onto his abdomen. He waited, kneeling, until Toomey's
rich, red blood seeped from beneath his body and then flowed properly
onto the rocks. The man stood, stepped back, and followed the narrow red
trail as it ran in a rivulet, finally draining off the edge of the rock
and dripping down a hundred feet to mingle with the sand and clay of the
already red-toned earth. part Two I.YING FOR THE LORD t In the judgments
of President Reagan and of President Bush, of the FBI and CIA (both
replete with Mor- mons), of our armed forces (with many Mormon high
officers], there are no more patriotic Americans than the people called
Mormons ...  Yet the Mormons, if they are at all faithful to the most
crucial teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, no more believe in
American democracy than they do in historical Christianity or in Western
monogamy. Smith, Young, and their followers believed in theocracy, or
the inspired rule of the Saints, and looked forward to each prophet in
turn ruling over the Kingdom of God, as king, first here and then
everywhere. harold bloom, the american religion (1992) Robing Torr had
expected a progress report from the usually reliable Toomey on Thursday.

It never came. Elsie insisted she hadn't heard from him since late
Wednesday, when he had phoned with the news that he was in Moab. When no
further word came from Pratt by lunchtime on Friday, Robin started
making calls on her own. The helicopter that eventually spotted Pratt's
Audi later that evening wasn't part of an organized search. The chopper
had been returning to its base after completing an aerial survey on a
contract for the Bureau of Land Management. The wreckage of the Audi was
such a blight on the Utah landscape that it couldn't be missed from the
air. Shortly after sunrise the next morning, Pratt's sun- bloated body
was discovered close by. The body lay on top of the rock ridge where
Toomey had been shot. It had been disturbed only by birds, small
animals, and the cruel, fluctuating temperatures of the high desert. A
representative of the Utah Department of Public Safety phoned Robin
Torr's home on Saturday morning with the news of Pratt Toomey's death.

Wiley answered and called Robin to the phone. She took the call in the
living room. Her conversation lasted just a few minutes. She replaced
the phone on the cradle, and softly, as though she were a balloon being
slowly drained of helium, she dropped cross-legged to the floor next to
the sofa. A sorrow as thick as lake fog covered her. In the same
instant, she felt the tightening in her gut that she knew from
experience was her body's first response to fear. From across the room,
Wiley stared at her, at a loss as to what was going on, or what he was
supposed to do. "Pratt's been murdered," she said, her voice hollow. Her
anguish cried out for comfort. But her sudden fear, she realized as she
watched Wiley come toward her with his arms extended, included a whisper
of fear of her husband. She didn't know what that meant. Instantly, she
found the energy to stand while she cried. While he held her. It felt
safer that way. The fear helped her to mobilize quickly. After a few
minutes of tears, she relayed what she knew to Wiley, then called Teresa
Crowder's home. Robin asked if she could come over. Teresa was puzzled
by the request for a Saturday visit. "Now?" she asked. Robin replied,
"Yes, right away." When her client followed with "What's up?" Robin
replied simply, "It's important, Teresa. We'll go over it when I get
there." Robin's drive across town took fewer than ten minutes. The
doorbell of her client's brick bungalow was covered with masking tape,
so Torr knocked on the small glass panes high in the door and waited
impatiently. When Lauren answered, both concern and curiosity were clear
in her eyes. Her dark hair was wet from the shower. It had the deep
sheen of coal after a rain. She said, "Hi, come on in, Robin."

"Hi, Lauren. Where's Teresa?" Robin stepped inside. Her demeanor was
formal, difficult. "She's on the phone trying to book some work. I'll
tell her you're here." Lauren glanced over her shoulder as she stepped
to the back of the house in search of her sister. Robin paced the front
room while she waited. The red oak floors were scratched but clean, the
furniture spartan but tasteful. A huge framed picture of the Crowder
clan, probably taken around the time Lauren graduated from high school,
was on the wall near the hallway to the bedroom. A handsome group,
thought Robin. Though she was the visitor, when the sisters returned
Robin asked them to sit. Lauren finally recognized the awkward demeanor
that Robin Torr was affecting. Lauren herself had worn it, or tried to
wear it, each of the dozens of times she had been asked to tell the
victim of an awful crime some terrible new information. I'm afraid your
daughter was raped before she was murdered. Yes, the driver of the other
car was drunk. Yes, he's been arrested for DUI at least three times
before. It appears your son is lying. His fingerprints are on the gun.

"Pratt Toomey is dead," Robin Torr said, sadness shaking her voice. She
sat on the center cushion of a dirty gray sofa that was draped with a
fake Navajo rug. Teresa stilled the bentwood rocking chair on which she
sat. As her lips silently formed the question

"What?" she turned to her older sister for guidance. Lauren was
stone-faced. She had plastered on the nothing-will-surprise-me face she
used to disarm detainees during interrogations. Instinctively, she knew
that Pratt's death had implications she hadn't even considered. Without
preamble, she asked, "Was Pratt murdered, Robin?" Robin nodded, her eyes
shining with tears, her hands in her lap. "I'm afraid so," she said. She
twisted the wedding ring on her left hand. The wide expanses on the
sofa, on each side of her, seemed as vast as prairies. Teresa stared at
her sister. Her tongue traced her upper lip. Her heart erupted a little
bit with each beat.

"Wait a second. What's going on? What do you mean he was murdered?

Lauren, what's this about? Does this have to do with me?" With the last
question, a frantic edge appeared in Teresa's voice. Before either
Lauren or Robin could respond, Teresa whispered, "This is because of me,
isn't it? Oh, God." Lauren rushed to her sister. Teresa shook her off.

Robin began talking. Not to Teresa. Not to Lauren. She just needed to
hear herself say some things out loud. "I got a call a short while ago.

Somebody in a helicopter spotted Pratt's car last evening on a state
highway south of Moab. The car was wrecked. Apparently deliberately.

Pratt's body was found a quarter of a mile away from the car. He'd been
shot. In the back. They think he's been dead a while, at least a couple
of days. They'll know more after the autopsy, of course."

"Does it have to do with the case?" The clarifying question came from
Lauren. "I think we have to consider that it does." Robin hadn't been
aware of consciously reaching that conclusion.

Teresa turned to her sister. "It's time to stop all this, Lauren.

Everything. They win. I've gotten someone killed now. I was wrong. This
wasn't a good idea. It's time to stop." Neither attorney tried to
dissuade Teresa. Each knew that the decision to continue the fight or to
desist wouldn't be made right then. Too much was unknown. But both
understood Teresa's reaction. Both understood that with Pratt
dead--murdered--the reasons to quit the investigation were stronger than
ever. Lauren remembered her commitment to her sister-- not to let her
run if things got tough. Robin knew how pleased Wiley would be if they
stopped. But neither knew what to do next. Teresa did. eresa split. She
had a reservation to fly to Las Vegas on Monday for an engagement that
was due to start Tues- day night. Before she left, she asked Lauren
whether, given Pratt's death, she thought she should cancel her gig and
stay in Salt Lake City to be available to Robin. Lauren couldn't think
of a reason for Teresa to stick around, and told her that. If Teresa
wanted to drop the investigation, she didn't need to be in Utah to do
it. If she chose to press forward, being in Salt Lake City for a few
extra days wouldn't change anything. To no one's surprise, Teresa was on
her way out of town by dusk Saturday. She left the phone number of the
hotel in Vegas where she would be working. As Lauren dropped her off at
the departure curb of Salt Lake City's airport, Teresa's parting words
were "Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between being prudent
and being a wimp, isn't it?" Lauren didn't have a response. Her plans
for Saturday night were simple. She wanted to do some laundry and get to
bed early. She phoned Robin and asked where she could find a decent
laundromat. Robin suggested that Lauren come by her place to do her
laundry. She'd fix them both some dinner. She said she needed to talk
about Pratt's death with somebody besides her husband, who was up in
Logan on business, anyway. An hour later, Lauren was sorting dirty
clothes in the small utility room off the hallway that led to the bedl
3\J Jicpr/vn vv okc rooms of the Torrs' town house. Robin asked, "You
mind talking about Pratt, Lauren?" Lauren was momentarily distracted by
the unfamiliar controls on the washing machine. When she turned back to
Robin, she said, "Were you close, Robin? You and Pratt?" Robin exhaled
and tried to hook her hair behind her ears. The thin strands immediately
escaped and shadowed her freckled cheeks. She hoisted herself up on the
dryer. "You know, I've been pretty surprised by my feelings about him
since he turned up missing. The truth, I guess, is that I liked Pratt
more than I ever acknowledged. Not that I'd thought about it much. He
was just this guy who worked for me sometimes. I never socialized with
him. But when I think about it now, I realize that as far as Mormons go,
he wasn't, I don't know, exclusionary, like some of them are. "I mean,
in addition to doing his job competently, he would actually even give me
the time of day. He didn't treat me as if I were unpure. Don't get me
wrong--I'm sure Pratt thought I was unpure. But he wasn't condescending
about it. Some LDS are. Spiritually speaking. As soon as some Mormons
discover that you're not conversion material, you just disappear to
them. Just"--she snapped her fingers--"gone. In Utah, especially outside
Salt Lake, when I'm around LDS, I sometimes end up feeling like I'm
spiritually homeless. But, looking back, I realize Pratt never left me
feeling that way. He treated me like people." Robin smiled privately,
then laughed at her next thought. "Actually, Pratt didn't exactly treat
me like people. He treated me like a woman. Which coming from a Mormon
male in Utah isn't quite the same as being treated like people." She
sipped from one of the two glasses of wine that she'd brought with her
into the utility room, then stared hard at the pale liquid. "And, you
know, he could be irritating as hell sometimes, too, Pratt could. His
ego required that every women he met had to take note of him. I can tell
you, that took some time for him and me to sort out. And if I were as
pretty as you, Lauren, I guarantee you it would have taken even longer.

That's for sure." Lauren sorted more clothing, wondering where Robin was
heading. Robin touched the glass to her lips and with the other hand
pointed at some lingerie. She said, "I can't wear underwear like that. I
wonder why? I guess it's because I don't feel attractive enough." She
covered her mouth with her hand. "I can't believe I said that out loud."
She turned her head and drank some more wine. Lauren looked at her
undergarments and felt self- conscious. Wondered how to respond. The
washing machine cycled on noisily. "You are attractive, Robin."

"Not like you. Or your sister. Look at me." She ran her fingers through
her hair, then reached out and touched Lauren's. "I've never been the
one guys want. I've always been the one they settle for. I've never felt
desired. In my whole life. There are times in my life when I think I've
actually hated women like you and Teresa. You're one of the women that
Wiley interrupts a conversation with me to watch walk across a room. You
don't know what that's like. To feel disposable." Lauren felt like
apologizing. Robin didn't want a response. "To answer your original
question, no, Pratt and I weren't close. But, in a way, he was my only
bridge into the biggest part of Utah--the part that's LDS. And I suspect
I was one of his only bridges into the part of Salt Lake City that
isn't. I'm going to miss him. That surprises me. But it's true." Lauren
got lost for an instant thinking about being pretty and wearing lingerie
and about bridges and Mor- mons and about John Harley and what jerks men
could be. Robin wanted to go on. She sighed deeply, bracing herself with
a mouthful of wine and a chestful of oxygen before continuing. "This has
been real hard on my secretary, Elsie. I kidded around a lot about her
predatory interest in Pratt. But she must have truly cared about him;
she's devastated about his death." She stopped herself, yielding to a
need to retreat from her feelings about Pratt. "We can look at the
bright side of this, too, you know, Lauren." l3Z Jicpncn it am "This has
a bright side?"

"Sure it does. At least the FBI should be leaving Teresa alone now. I
doubt that they're going to accuse her of killing her own investigator.
Which reminds me--in regard to his murder, I've found out some things
since this morning. From the police. As you've probably guessed, Pratt
wasn't robbed. His wallet was in his pocket. And his gazillion-dollar
mountain bike was still on top of his car when whoever shot him sent it
over the cliff. Hell, if he hadn't died from being shot, that alone
would have killed him. "The Salt Lake police are assisting the local
cops on this. They apparently have plenty of evidence from the scene:
tire tracks, footprints, the slug that killed him. And they're going
over Pratt's car looking for fingerprints and trace evidence. They've
put out a public appeal for witnesses. They want to talk with anybody
who might have passed by and seen Pratt's car. Or any other car around
there. They want to know if anybody heard the shot.

"What they don't have, unfortunately, is a motive. Pratt's a guy who
didn't make enemies. Well, certainly not LDS enemies. And like I said,
he related as well to gentiles as just about any Mormon I know. So the
cops have drawn a blank so far. At least that's what they're telling
me." Robin paused and handed Lauren a bottle of fabric softener and
showed her how the dispenser worked. She drained her glass of wine.

"Unless the lawsuit is the motive. Which I must admit is a thought that
doesn't add up in Utah." Lauren closed the lid of the washer. "You've
said that before. But why? Why doesn't it make sense in Utah? I mean, to
try to stop the lawsuit with violence. It's not a pretty thought, but
it's not exactly unheard of, either."

"It's not modern Mormon style, Lauren. It's just not how things are done
here. First, you have to understand that the Church's historical lust
for power in Utah comes not just from some spiritual megalomania but
mostly from the Mormons' sense of themselves, since their inception, as
a threatened and persecuted people. And there's plenty of justification
for that point of view. For the Church, having reliable political power
and social clout is the Deseret version of the Israeli Air Force. It's
the way they protect themselves. But as an institution, the Church
prefers to appear tolerant, not monolithic-- at least to outsiders. "If
you fight a public battle with the Mormon Church, they tend to win,
mostly just by claiming that they are being persecuted for their
beliefs, as they've been claiming for a hundred and fifty years. If you
recall, that's the way they got Horner onto the Court, by claiming
intolerance when he was criticized for his beliefs during his
confirmation hearings. "The Church leaders might want us to stop our
investigation. Hell, I'm sure they want us to stop. But if they thought
this lawsuit was going to really hurt Lester Horner , they'd call a
private meeting with us and settle the damn thing. With money. Plenty of
it. And we would all go home. If they wanted to pressure me to stop,
they would do it through the law firm, through our big clients, or
through Wiley. They wouldn't send somebody out to shoot Pratt. Maybe a
hundred years ago. Not today; they don't need to. Their power in Utah is
too entrenched." Robin asked Lauren if she was ready to eat. They made
their way to the small kitchen. Robin removed a salad from the
refrigerator, then refilled her wineglass and added half an inch to
Lauren's. "And given the astonishing sympathy that's been created
recently for the Oaks family, the police aren't especially eager to
consider the possibility that anyone associated with her might have had
a motive to deter Pratt from whatever it is he was up to in southeast
Utah. And the fact that I'm not even able to tell the police what Pratt
was up to down there doesn't add much to my credibility, either. I mean,
the Oakses are such top-drawer LDS that Blythe really goes into this
with the benefit of the doubt. The true and proper meaning of 'presumed
innocent."

" Robin dressed the salad, then shoveled some lettuce and vegetables
onto a couple of plates and carried them to the small table in the
dining room. The two women sat silently for a few moments. Lauren ate,
Robin drank. Lauren finally fractured the silence. "And we still don't
know what Pratt was up to on this last trip he took?"

"Not really, no. The police found his notebook in his car--you know, his
address book-appointment book thing. It was a beat-up old leather book.
I've seen it a dozen times. Anyway, I'm hoping there will be something
in there that tells us where he was going, what he was looking for. I'm
going to go down to the State Crime Lab and take a look at it tomorrow."

"I'd like to go with you."

"Sure, of course. I'd like that, too. It's funny, I've never tried a
case before where I've actually needed a prosecutor on my side. This
time, with the bodies that keep piling up, I think I do." She smiled
warmly at Lauren. "And look who just happened to show up on my
doorstep." Lauren returned Robin's smile. "Well, this could be the
prosecutor side of me speaking, Robin, but I think we need to consider
the possibility that maybe Pratt had already been wherever he was going.
Maybe he was on his way back from somewhere when he was killed. He may
have learned something already, and scared somebody in the process."
Lauren had finished her salad. It had barely dented her appetite. She
eyed Robin's untouched plate longingly and prayed for prompt movement to
the next course. "You know, you're right, it's possible. But I'm not
sure. There are a lot of somebodys and somewheres in there. The
crime-scene people can probably determine which direction he was
traveling by examining his tire tracks. I do know that Pratt was quite a
mountain bike fanatic. Since we found out where his body was discovered,
I've been guessing that he had spent some time, a day or two, mountain
hiking in Moab on the way to someplace else, someplace south of there,
on or close to 191. You know about Moab?"

"Yeah. Alan--the guy I'm seeing in Boulder--he's a bicycle nut, too. He
goes to Moab sometimes."

"But your question does raise an interesting possibility. I've been
thinking since that call came this morning that Pratt was killed because
somebody didn't want him helping us with Teresa's case in general. But
maybe, just maybe, he was killed because he'd already stumbled onto
something specific. Maybe he was on his way to see somebody who someone
else just couldn't afford to allow him to see." Lauren took a reading of
her own fatigue level and considered the judiciousness of more wine. She
reached for the bottle and poured, refilling Robin's glass, too. "But
who, Robin? Is Lester Horner going to go out and have somebody killed?
Or is Paul Oaks? Given their reputations, they just don't strike me as
the type."

"I agree with you.

Absolutely. But who else is going to have a motive? I mean, if we sue,
we'll be suing her estate, and that leaves Paul at some risk
financially. And if we win, this whole affair is not going to look real
good for Lester Horner. And there's the Women's Symposium. Lots of
motive every place you look, but nothing compelling." Lauren cupped her
glass with both hands. The rim hung just below her chin. "Homer's
exposure is small, Robin. He'll just hide behind the bench. The worst
that happens to him is he'll be soiled a little bit by the association,
but he'll survive it just fine. If anybody bothers to ask her, Teresa
will tell them Horner was a perfect gentleman." She touched the glass to
her lips but withdrew it before drinking. "From a purely legal point of
view, Teresa's case isn't that great. We both know that. We've got a
chance, but proving this particular charge against somebody this
prominent is a true long shot. Still," she said, "somebody seems to be
acting as though we're hot on the trail of something terribly
important."

"I know. But if not Horner or Oaks, then who?"

"Despite your protests, I keep going back to my original thesis. I think
the other suspect to consider is the Church." Robin shivered once. She
said, "No, you just don't get Utah. That's not how it would work here."

"It isn't even a consideration?" Robin Torr placed her knife and fork
over her salad in a gesture of culinary resignation. "Of course it's a
consideration. Just not a realistic one. Listen. You haven't lived
behind the Zion Curtain. You don't understand. In a way, you can't
understand. If your home gets I JUJU.yuv.Tl VI fjllf destroyed by an
arsonist, you may end up wanting to inflict some kind of revenge on the
creep. But if it gets blown to bits by a tornado, you just feel
defeated; there's nothing you can do in the face of that immense power.

That's what it's like here. In Utah, the Church is that big and that
powerful. It's a true force of nature. If the leaders in the Church
Administration Building wanted this case stopped, they wouldn't kill
Pratt. They would simply pressure me or my firm, or, failing that, they
would buy Teresa off."

"What if she wouldn't be bought off?"

"Lauren, if you and I manage to assemble an airtight Title VII case
against Blythe Oaks--I mean, as tight as a beach ball--the judge we end
up in front of is maybe going to treat us with some respect before he
makes a series of rulings that make it impossible for us to prevail.
He'll accept defense motions for delay. He'll restrict access to records
or testimony of witnesses we don't think there is any reason to refuse
to us. It'll be one thing after another. Why? Because there isn't a
judge on the federal bench in Utah who wasn't hand-selected by On-in
Hatch, Jake Garn, or Lester Horner. Trust me, they will not let us win.
We won't prevail in court. Period. If we get a decent settlement
offer--shit, if we get any settlement offer--we'd be fools not to
settle." Lauren tried to understand what she was hearing. "Come on,
Robin. Is the system really that insidious here? That's hard to
believe." Robin stared off across the dining room. Across the living
room. Across Utah. "Yes and no. It doesn't feel insidious to me anymore.
It just feels like our system.

People in Chicago don't complain about Chicago politics as much as
outsiders do. The problem in Utah is that with the Mormon Church, you
just never really know what's going on. Most of what's controversial
about Mormonism is hidden. From all gentiles. From most Mormons, too.

Hidden in the temples or in the bombproof vaults in Little Cottonwood
Canyon. It's all hidden by doctrine and history and threats of
disfellowship and excommunication. In Utah, the Church controls history.

They own the past. Literally. They have control over most of the
original source material from the nineteenth century. If it's
controversial, they don't let outsiders see it. Hell, they don't even
let insiders see it. "In the beginning, prior to statehood and just
after, the Church used to have these enforcers--they were called
Danites--who supposedly did the Lord's dirty work. Some say Brigham
Young's own personal protector killed over a hundred people--you know,
eliminated the Church's enemies. And the Church had plenty of enemies
then. Actually, the Church still has plenty of enemies. I'm sure they
consider me one now, too. Some people--gentiles, obviously--maintain
that the Danites are still around doing the Church's murderous deeds. I
don't think there's any evidence to support any of it except in some
Mormon-basher's imagination. The Church scoffs at the idea; in fact, it
uses the allegations as further evidence that the Mormons continue to be
a persecuted people." Lauren pressed. "What about you? What do you
think?" "Me?" asked Robin. "What do I think? Let's see ..." She tried to
look wistful. "These days, / think that I want my husband to start
treating me like I'm wonderful and witty and sexy and wise. I think I
want to finally stop worrying about whether or not I'm attractive. I
think I want my secretary to start treating me like my days in this
universe aren't numbered. I think I want to find a diary written by
Blythe Oaks admitting her sexual harassment of your sister. And I think
I want the police to arrest a psychotic drifter, a Baptist or a Catholic
or a Jew or a Muslim or even a goddamn agnostic, for the murder of Pratt
Toomey. Yeah, I want the cops to tell me that his death was the random
act of a deranged mind. That's what I think. Oh, and I want the Jazz to
win the NBA championship once before I die. How's that?"

"Nice list. And nice diversion. But what about Blythe Oaks? Pratt's
murder is the second one on our list. Was Biythe's death the result of
the same deranged lightning striking twice? It makes no sense. First
kill the defendant; then kill the plaintiff's investigator?" Robin
opened her eyes wide and stared. "Gosh, Lauren, you sure are a lot of
fun tonight. I'm trying to I JO -lichen rr r-mc digest one murder, and
you're insisting that I swallow two and consider the possibility that my
adversary is the most powerful institution in this state. Maybe I'll
chew on that tomorrow. Or better yet, how about Monday? For tonight, can
we talk about something I actually want to think about? Maybe for just a
few minutes?" Lauren smiled back at her friend and said, "Sure. Want to
talk about your marriage? Or why you're always putting yourself down?"
Robin laughed, almost spitting out her wine. "I guess it's either that
or the World Series. Though given the injury situation this year, it's
never too early in Utah to start talking about the Jazz's prospects for
the lottery." She made a devious face across the table. "Unless  ...  we
could always talk about this fiance of yours in Colorado you hardly ever
say word one about."

"Alan."

"That's a nice name. Yeah, Alan. While I get us the rest of our
dinner--do you like spanakopita?--why don't you tell me about Alan, and
why you aren't in Boulder, Colorado, picking out a silver pattern."

"Are you a vegetarian, Robin?"

"Kind of. I don't eat anything that has a mother." B y the rime Lauren
arrived home with her clean laundry after dinner she was determined to
learn the purpose of Pratt Toomey's road trip. Pratt, she decided, had
apparently been on the trail of something so important to Teresa's
allegations that somebody figured it was worth murdering him over.
First, Lauren wanted to know if Robin and Elsie were right about Pratt
making a stopover in Moab. And given the bicycle Pratt took with him,
was the Moab stopover part of whatever lead he was pursuing on the
investigation or merely part of some impromptu vacation? And she also
wanted to know exactly where he was heading when he was ambushed and
murdered on Utah State Highway 191 in the La Sal Mountains. Lauren
shared Robin's slim hope that the answers to all these questions would
be spelled out in excruciatingly clear detail in the leather notebook
that Pratt kept with him most of the time. But even the possibility that
Pratt's itinerary was clearly etched in his log was discomfiting. If the
boundary line between church and state was as porous in Utah as it
seemed to be, Lauren feared that whatever the authorities discovered in
Pratt's notebook might soon make its way into the hands of whoever had
killed him. That, in turn, would complicate not only the investigation
of Pratt's murder but also, in all likelihood, the progression of
Teresa's harassment action. Lauren had already concluded that the fact
that Pratt had been tracked so effectively on his trip meant that
whoever had killed him might be close enough to Teresa's case to know
the comings and goings of the principals. As far as Lauren was
concerned, that supposition alone pretty much ruled out the option of
Robin Torr hiring another investigator from Salt Lake City to try and
ghost Toomey's trail. And, of course, it ruled out either Lauren or
Robin trying to do the shadowing themselves. And using Teresa was out of
the question. Lauren spent a few moments sifting through the few options
that presented themselves. Only one felt at all different from doing
nothing. It was the one she chose. What Lauren decided to do was to
enlist some out-of-town talent. Although she didn't know Robin Torr well,
she thought she knew her well enough to guess that her sister's attorney
wouldn't endorse the new plan. So she didn't ask. She took two steps
toward the telephone in the kitchen before she thought better of it and
instead grabbed her coat and headed out the door. Lauren's second phone
call to Colorado late that Sunday evening was to Alan. After some brief
small talk, mostly Boulder political gossip, and some prolonged sexual
innuendo, mostly generated by Alan, she asked him if he and Sam Purdy
would do her a little favor on their upcoming bike trip. Like, would
they consider changing the destination from Crested Butte, Colorado, to
Moab, Utah. "You're going to be in Moab?" Alan asked with excitement in
his voice. He was eager for an opportunity to do his usually
self-reliant lover just about any favor. "This is hard for me,
sweetheart. You know I'm not particularly adept at asking for things.

You've wanted me to lean on you a little more. Well, here it is. I need
a favor from you. What I need from you is for you to check something out
for me in Moab. Since you and Sam are going riding anyway, I thought you
could just as well go to Moab as Crested Butte. There's something I
absolutely can't do myself there right now or I wouldn't ask."

"Listen, it's no big deal, Lauren. I'm delighted to help. I can't speak
for Sam, but Moab's great for me. Does this have something to do with
Teresa's case?" Quietly she said, "Mmm-hmmm. It does." She stayed silent
for a moment. He did, too. She was hoping he wasn't contemplating going
into shrink mode on her. She plowed on. "Okay. To be fair, Alan, what
I'm asking might be a big deal. Let me tell you what's been happening
here with the case. See  ...  well, see  ...  the investigator Teresa's
attorney hired to help prepare the case was murdered last week, and--"

"Murdered?

That makes two, doesn't it?" Alan's voice escalated with alarm. "Yes."
Lauren's voice, on the other hand, was as modulated as she could make
it. "The investigator had been checking something out for us but had
been out of touch for a couple of days. We finally got worried and
started making some calls. The highway patrol found his body yesterday
morning. He'd been dead a while, apparently. A couple of days." The
alarm he felt temporarily back under control, Alan adopted Lauren's
terse tone. "Your investigator, he was killed because of the case?"

"Maybe. The cops aren't sure. But we think it's possible. Given the
coincidence quotient, maybe even probable." Alan knew that if she had
been next to him, he probably would have spun on her and said something
he would have instantly regretted. His impulse was to insist that she
drop whatever she was doing and come home to Boulder. He rejected the
impulse not because he rejected the thought but rather because Lauren
Crowder as a general rule didn't listen to people, especially him,
telling her what to do. He also didn't want to pass on the opportunity
to do something important for her. "What does Moab have to do with it?

What is it you want me to do in Utah?"

"Pratt--the investigator--he was a mountain biker. Apparently, he was
kind of a fanatic about it, like you. The police say he was in Moab
riding just prior to being killed.

But his body was found about twenty miles south of Moab on Highway 191.

His car had a fancy mountain bike on it." Alan had been to Moab twice
before, both times to ride. But he'd always come in to Utah on 1-70,
through Grand Junction. He had never had a reason to go that far south
of Moab on 191. Once, he had gone far enough to ride some of the
wondrous trails in the La Sal Mountains, but he didn't have a clue as to
what 191 did farther south than that. As he tried to puzzle out the
geography in his head, though, he did manage to begin to read more
clearly between the lines that Lauren was meticulously tracing in front
of him. "And what? You want me to go to Moab and snoop around for you
about this murder? How would I learn anything the police haven't found
out already?" She did, indeed, want him to go snoop around. "I don't
know how, but yes, I'm hoping you can find out things that the police
didn't discover when they were there. Or that they discovered and, for
some reason or another, haven't told us. And anyway, they don't know
you. They know me, and they know Teresa's attorney. No one will be
watching for you." Alan Gregory was sitting on his sofa in his living
room in his little house on a gentle western slope a few miles from the
eastern foothills of the Rockies. As Lauren said "they don't know you,"
he stood and began to pace his living room within the narrow range
permitted by the confines of his twisted telephone cord. He said. "Who
are 'they," Lauren?"

"See, we don't exactly know that yet. If we knew that, we would probably
know what Pratt had been up to. Pratt had a lead he was checking out.
But we don't know what it was. And we don't know whether he was killed
before he checked it out or after."

"You don't know what your own investigator was doing? That's not like
you." Lauren resisted displaying some of the defensiveness that was
mushrooming within her. "This isn't my case. You know that. And things
had gotten kind of competitive between me and Pratt. We had both been
talking to people, following leads, helping prepare Teresa's case. I
think it--me helping--made him uncomfortable, especially since I'm a
woman. I think he would have preferred to fly solo. Be the star. So he
didn't keep Robin and me filled in on his next move."

"Robin is Teresa's lawyer?"

"Yeah. Robin Torr. She's good, Alan."

"She doesn't know what you're up to, does she?" Alan's tone said, "I
know you." Lauren paused. Exhaled.

She gave up the effort necessary to resist sounding defensive. "No. Not
exactly." Alan sat back down and slung a leg over the arm of his big
leather chair. The Front Range was silhouetted before him against a
moonlit sky. Hundreds of miles across those mountains, the woman he
loved was sitting awake late at night making what for her was a
difficult request of him. During the year-and-a-half duration of their
rather turbulent relationship, Alan could count the number of times that
Lauren had leaned on him on the fingers of one hand. Her determined
independence had been an irritating point of late-night discussion
between them on more than one occasion. He said, "Well, I've asked you
to ask me for things. I'm getting exactly what I asked for, I guess."

"I try to oblige." "So, if I come--I said, if--what's my reward? Do I
get to see you when I'm done playing detective in Moab?"

"Not in Moab, I'm afraid. I think I'd better stay put in Salt Lake City.
But you'll still get your long weekend with your bicycle between your
legs. And from what everybody keeps telling me, riding in Moab can be
even better than sex."

"Close, maybe, but not better." And speaking of sex  ...  "I'll be
lonely there without you."

"You'll have Sam." "We haven't asked him about the itinerary change. And
he's not exactly what I had in mind."

"Listen  ... I'm not naive about this favor I'm asking. This situation
is obviously dangerous. So I've, urn"--the next words spilled out at
increased velocity--"already called Sam and asked him if he'd mind
helping out." "And he said?"

"Alan, this--what we're doing with Teresa's case--is apparently much
more risky than any of us thought. We're talking murder now, Alan. Pratt
Toomey was shot in the back. At close range. By somebody who set a trap
intended just for him. So even though I can't imagine anybody guessing
that you're involved, I still want somebody around who can look after
your cute little butt for me." "And Sam said yes?"

"Sam likes me. And yes, he said yes."

"Why didn't you just ask Sam to do this by himself? He's a cop. He'd
obviously be better at this sort of thing than I would."

"I don't know, your track record as a moonlighting detective is becoming
the stuff of Front Range legend. But the truth is, I didn't want either
of you doing it alone. I'd worry too much. I'll worry too much as it
is." The conversation moved gingerly to more stable terrain for the next
few minutes. Alan withheld comment about Lauren's judgment and instead
expressed his concern about her safety. She deflected his concern,
insisting she was fine. He pressed.

She maintained that she didn't feel that either she or her sister was in
danger. Alan pointed out that that contention seemed ludicrous, given
events. A strange voice interrupted the conversation. On Alan's end the
voice sounded muffled. Some banging followed immediately. Lauren winced
at the interruption, though she was able to muster some gratitude that
the intrusion was interfering with Alan's prosecution of her judgment.

"Who's that? Teresa?" asked Alan. "No, Teresa's in Vegas. I forgot to
tell you. It's great! She got a big-time gig opening for a headliner at
one of the casinos. She's real excited about it. You know, it's still so
hard for me think of her actually on stage as a comedian. My little
sister. But apparently this is all pretty real. I mean, Vegas, Alan,
we're talking major league." Joining Lauren in applauding her sister's
success was an option--one that Alan had no difficulty ignoring.

Instead, suspicious about why she might not be using her sister's phone
at eleven o'clock on a Saturday night, he countered, "You're not at your
sister's place, are you?" An ancient reflex almost caused Lauren to say,
"What business is it of yours?" But she didn't. She said simply,
matter-of-factly, "No, I'm not." Alan waited. Lauren felt the density of
the stillness on the line. In a reluctant voice, she admitted, "I'm at a
pay phone." While Alan was considering how serious the danger must be to
motivate Lauren to truck somewhere late at night to find a pay phone to
make the request she had just made of him, Lauren was reflecting on the
relief she was feeling that she hadn't followed her initial impulse and
gone over to John Harley's apartment to use his phone. For Lauren, it
was tough to acknowledge that she was using a public pay phone. She
didn't want to have to admit to Alan that the case was so out of hand
that she feared somebody might be monitoring her calls. Though, given
Pratt's murder, at least such paranoia required no further explanation.

But being at Harley's apartment late on Saturday night, no matter how
innocent her motive, would have been a miserable thing to have to
acknowledge to Alan. And thus far, Lauren hadn't figured out how to
explain John Harley, even to herself. Despite repeated assurances to
Robin, the Utah State Crime Lab didn't make Pratt Toomey's notebook
available on Monday morning. When she and Lauren arrived for their
appointment, they were told that they would have to wait until Wednesday
to see the material. "Forensics take time," explained a tall, gruff
functionary with a dense shadow of whiskers, who seemed to take
significant pleasure in being uncooperative. Lauren knew the delay was
strategic, not forensic, in nature. She said a silent prayer that the
guy's superiors forced him to shave twice a day. Robin telephoned on
Tuesday afternoon and she was told by the same curt, condescending man
that Friday was actually more likely than Wednesday. Lauren was
exasperated at all the time that was being wasted, frustrated by the
lack of progress, and furious at the asshole running interference at the
crime laboratory. The county sheriff from southeastern Utah, in whose
jurisdiction Pratt had been murdered, had asked the Salt Lake City
Police Department to assist on the case. Lauren urged Robin to phone the
detective investigating the case for the Salt Lake police and imply that
the press might be interested in knowing that it was taking the State
Crime Lab five days to dust an appointment book for prints in a
high-profile murder case. Robin made the call. The detective offered to
"clear a path through this bureaucratic jumble" for a meeting Wednesday
morning at 8:30. "Not much here, I'm afraid," explained the supervisor
from the crime lab. He had greeted Lauren Crowder and Robin Torr
pleasantly, shaking their hands firmly enough to cause Lauren to wince,
and then apologized profusely for the runaround they had been getting.

Crowder smiled her way through the whole routine. For five years she had
watched Boulder cops stonewall defense attorneys, and this performance
wasn't even close to award-winning. The crime lab supervisor had one of
those heads that looked incomplete without a hat. His collar was so
tight that it pinched the skin on his neck in excruciating-looking
little creases. As he completed his disingenuous apologies and prepared
to actually discuss evidence, his voice grew hushed and serious. His
collar seemed to grow tighter with the effort. "Prints on the book are
all the deceased's. Every last one. No appointments were written down in
his log for the day of his murder or the couple of days before or after.

There are a few phone numbers scrawled on the calendar for the previous
week. One of them is your home number. Miss." He nodded at Robin Torr.

"All of them check out but one. That one's a disconnected number. Phone
company said it's been disconnected a while. I forget exactly--six weeks
at least, anyway." Robin listened intently to the man's recitation of
the state's version of the contents of Pratt Toomey's appointment book.

Lauren waited impatiently for him to finish his little speech so she
could get her hands on the book. She fought to control her tongue while
Robin asked a couple of probing questions. The forensic supervisor, his
eyes as dismayed as a doe's in headlights, answered with seasoned
ignorance. Lauren's self-control waned and she finally interrupted the
man's drill. She said, "Thanks so much for all your time. I think we'll
go ahead and take a look at the book now." Robin glanced over quickly,
her face indicating that she thought Lauren's interruption had been
ill-timed. Lauren smiled at her friend. Her eyes said. We're being
treated as fools here. Robin glared back, made a quick judgment, turned
back to the supervisor, and said, "Yes, thanks. We do appreciate all
your help. May we see the book now?" The man appeared uncomfortable, as
though his bowels were full of gas. "Just a moment," he said, and stood
and left the small room where they had all been seated. As the door
closed, both women started to speak simultaneously. Lauren persisted
over Robin. "He didn't even bring it in here with him. There's obviously
something in there they don't want us to see."

"I know that. But you need to remember that we're not the prosecution,
we're not in Colorado, and we're not LDS. Okay? We'll get the book. They
don't want us to, but we will." The man returned a few minutes later. He
carried a large manila envelope. "What is it exactly you ladies are
looking for in here?" Lauren opened her mouth to speak. Robin jumped in.
"Work product," she said. "We can't be more specific. Mr. Toomey was
doing work for me in the context of a legal case when he was murdered.
We are looking for material related to that case." There was no smile on
Robin Torr's face. She had leaned forward slightly before speaking. Her
back was erect, her eyes unblinking. "Miss, I--"

"It's"Ms.," and this isn't negotiable. If you would like to call
Detective Jacobs for me, I'm sure we can work this out in no time."

"Ma'am, please. I'm just trying to be cooperative here. Save you from
having to cover the same ground that the folks here at the lab have
already covered. No need to reinvent the wheel, is there?" The women
stared at him, unconvinced. He held up the big envelope with one hand
and pointed at it with the other. "This is a difficult case for the
department, this here is important evidence." Torr spoke. "I'm sure it
is. It's difficult for me as well. I lost a friend and a valued
investigator last week. And one of my clients has lost valuable time,
which I would like to begin to recoup. May I have the envelope?" The man
stood as still as a statue. Torr said, "Please." He said, "I'll need to
stay here while you look at it, ma'am. The whole time. You may not
remove anything. You may not make any marks in the book." Before Robin
could protest, Lauren interjected, "That's fine. Why don't you just have
a seat over there?" She pointed to a chair by the door. "We'll work at
this table. Robin, will you help me for a minute?" At Lauren's
direction, Robin helped her push the large conference table to one
corner of the room and then set the blue plastic-and-chrome chairs so
their backs faced the supervisor. The man didn't offer to help. Robin
walked back over to him, snatched the envelope from his hand, and then
settled down at the table next to Lauren, edging her chair over so that
their shoulders almost touched. As if on cue, each reached down and
retrieved a legal pad from her briefcase. Robin fumbled around in the
bottom of her case and found a couple of pencils. She stuffed one over
each of her ears. Lauren looked over her shoulder and offered the
forensic supervisor an ironic smile. She held it until he appeared to be
what she considered sufficiently uncomfortable, then she turned back to
the table and poised herself to take notes. The man didn't seem to be
sure if he should sit where he'd been directed or go find someone higher
up to whom to complain. Reluctantly, he sat and watched the two women go
to work. Not much here! scrawled Lauren on her legal pad after she and
Robin had consumed about twenty minutes perusing the written record of
the last ten days of Pratt Toomey's life. Lauren had methodically copied
the details from each day onto a separate page of paper. Toomey seemed
to have used the calendar as a billing and expense record more than as
an appointment book. Locations and durations of appointments were
apparently filled in after the meetings occurred in order to provide
documentation for billing. Expenses were logged meticulously. The
billing code Pratt used seemed straightforward.

Meetings that were to be billed to Teresa Crowder's case had a circled
LFZ next to them, in the margin right after the time and duration of the
meeting. The initials stood for the firm name, Lewis, Frank and Zeiem.

Many of the recent appointments were going to be billed to Teresa. But
Pratt apparently had at least one other large project going. The
initials nexl1 to the meetings for that client were intensely troubling
to Robin Torr. JB. JB. In law school, in Berkeley, it had been Wiley
Torr's Scotch. Now JB was James and Bartell, Wiley's law firm. Robin
hoped that Lauren wouldn't make the connection. Tore- grew weary just
thinking about discussing this conflict with Wiley. Robin refocused and
scribbled a note to Lauren. Her handwriting was small and precise. He
was always taking notes. Where's his note pad? He kept it in here! And
these little pockets for credit cards? They're empty. Lauren remembered
the note pad. She'd seen Pratt jot down reminders a number of times
during meetings. She specifically remembered watching him write down
some of the names she had culled from the BYU yearbooks in Provo. She
shrugged her shoulders at Robin and felt as though she were playing
charades. Robin picked up the leather notebook from the table and ran
her thin fingers into the slim pockets inside the cover at the front and
back. She found the perforated edge of a postage stamp. That was it. No
credit cards. No business cards. No receipts. No note paper. No grocery
lists. Nothing but a piece of perforated scrap. She whispered, "These
were full of stuff. I'm sure of it." Lauren nodded. The slender slots
bulged as if they had once been stuffed full of something. Torr turned
to the man across the room and caught him in the middle of an anxious
yawn. She gawked at his collar, thinking that the thread on that top
button must be woven from titanium. She said, "Excuse me. Sir? Where are
the papers from these pockets?" He looked confused. It was a studied
look. Crowder raised the book and opened it. "The pockets in the front
and in the back of this book? Those papers." He squirmed for a moment,
rubbed his eyes, swallowed, and seemed to consider bolting out the door
instead of answering. Finally, after staring at Lauren and chewing his
bottom lip, he said, "We're not done with those items yet. And I'm not
authorized to let you have them or even see them." Being defiant
refueled him. "You can call Detective Jacobs if you want. But since my
orders came directly from him, I'm sure he'll tell you the exact same
thing. Miss." Being defiant also made him petty. Robin Torr snatched the
pencil from behind her right ear and scribbled "shit" on her legal pad
in precise small capital letters. In the parking lot, the blustery, dry
gusts that preceded an approaching cold front kicked up elm leaves and
powdery sand. Lauren turned her back to the wind and grabbed her hair to
keep it from blowing into her face. Robin held her red skirt in place
with her free hand. "What do you think it is that they're hiding?"

"I bet I know exactly what it is they're hiding. The last time I saw
Pratt write something down in that book it was some of the names I had
brought back from Provo with me. He was going to check them out, is what
he said. I bet that list is at least part of what they're hiding."

"You know this area of the law a lot better than I do. Can we get what
they have?" Lauren didn't like the cards she and Robin were being dealt.
She much preferred her usual hand--the prosecutor's cards. The
liabilities of being a civil attorney were becoming increasingly clear
to her. "No, not easily. Maybe not at all. If I were investigating or
prosecuting this case, I wouldn't give us anything, either. Especially
if it was politically sensitive. If we were defense attorneys and they
had already charged our client, maybe we could force the issue in front
of a judge.

But in legal reality, we don't have any standing that would compel them
to cooperate with us." A bitter stab of wind sliced through Tore". She
shivered. "I agree with you; I think it's political, too. The name of
somebody important must be in Pratt's book." She tried to blink some
blowing dust from her eyes. "Can we re-create that list? Cross-check?

See who Pratt might have talked with?" Lauren let go of her hair and
nodded. She thought it wouldn't be that hard to do. Her black hair
shrouded her face. She looked hard at her frozen friend. She realized
that Robin had just tacitly signed on to continue pursuing Teresa's
complaint. "Robin. What are we investigating here? Teresa's lawsuit or
Pratt's murder?" Robin Tore- hugged herself to ward off the invading
cold. Her pleated skirt billowed like a bright red cloud. She ignored
the immodesty. "Can you tell the difference anymore? I sure can't."
After leaving the State Crime Lab Lauren took a nap, grabbed a quick
dinner, and drove to the Side Pocket to shoot some pool and see John
Harley. Although he still refused to play a game with her, he had agreed
to take an oft-postponed lesson. She was on her second beer. He was
still on his first Diet Pepsi. He was lining up a tough shot involving
the six ball and an angle that looked impossible to him. She said it was
makable. "Go ahead with your list," he said. Lauren had found the
photocopies she had made from the BYU yearbooks and compiled a list of
the names of the people whose pictures Pratt Toomey had circled with his
mechanical pencil. She pulled the list from the hip pocket of her jeans
and started to read. "Leroy Thomas."

"Really? Thomas? I've heard of him.

Mmmhmmm."

"Rachel Misker."

"Don't know her. Go on."

"Bruce Starkle."

"Good one, yeah." Harley slid the cue stick back between his fingers and
tried to remember Lauren's instructions about precisely where to impact
the ball. Smack. "Too hard," Lauren said. Then, "But you got the angle,
see." Harley smiled at her as the six skidded off the corner of the
pocket and rolled down the table. "Any more?" I-'** Jwywri vv uw

"Kevin Lee. That's it. What have I got?" Harley planted his cue, bulb
down, on the ancient linoleum floor and looked hard at Lauren. He
quickly decided she was sincere. Naive, but sincere. "You've got, I
think, two relatively new general authorities. First Quorum of the
Seventy. And one member of the Quorum of the Twelve, I think. I'm not
exactly sure. And a woman I don't know. But mostly what you've got is a
darn good set of reasons to pack up and go back to Colorado, where the
bad guys don't write the rules."

"What do you mean?"

"These guys on your list aren't like you and me. These guys are chosen.
They take their orders from God." She was examining the table. She
spotted a tough combination she was tempted to try. "Seriously?" she
said. Harley picked up the chalk cube and caressed the end of his stick.
"Yes, seriously, Lauren. LDS males--priests, bishops, yes, even
me--receive direction from God. Not guidance, like through prayers. But
direction, revelation. Conversation.

What school their son should attend. Whether they should change jobs.

Whether to let their daughter marry the kid next door. The operative
word here is 'revelation." The authorities and the apostles, the guys on
your list, their revelations are not quite so mundane as mine and
Pratt's. The authorities consult with God about what is best for the
Church, for the faithful, for the dead, for the unborn." Lauren was
fascinated. "So if Pratt was going to interview one of these authorities
about my sister, and somebody didn't want him to do that and killed him,
and I follow that same trail, this game could turn out to be nasty for
me, too."

"Nasty? Hardly. It appears that the game you so playfully refer to is
already nasty. Two people are dead, if I'm not mistaken.

What I'm talking about here is different. Have you ever read the Old
Testament? Remember, we're talking plagues and pestilence and people
turned to salt. God plays for keeps. The saints do, too. The means they
use may be slightly more elegant than locusts and salt statues. But if
they think that the Church is threatened in any way, I guarantee you
they will be playing for keeps." Lauren bent over to line up a shot for
Harley and considered what she'd heard. Robin Torr kept telling her that
the Mormon Church didn't settle scores that way. She grabbed her beer
and drank deeply. "What do you mean, 'playing for keeps'?" Harley
pondered the question. "You ever heard of lying for the Lord?"

"No."

"It's sort of an unofficial doctrine used to excuse bending the rules.

If what you're doing--even if it's wrong--is in promotion of the faith,
well, there are Mor- mons who might not consider it a sin."

"Even murder? Would the Church murder people?" Harley considered the
question.

He said, "Honestly? No, I don't think so. Despite all the terrible
things some people like to think about Mormons. But something short of
murder? Sure. The Church wouldn't think twice about pressuring your
sister's attorney through her family or her partners. Or they might try
to influence the judge if the thing ever went to trial. They would
certainly discredit you or your sister without thinking twice. Failing
all that, they would just get a well-heeled member to write out a check
and settle the darn thing." Lauren wasn't dividing her focus between
Harley and the pool table any longer. Her attention was all on Harley.

"Harley, why are you helping me? If what I'm doing is so potentially
threatening to the faith?" He didn't hesitate. It was a question he'd
asked himself a dozen times since his separation from Jules, about
various activities he knew wouldn't be considered faith- promoting by
the Church hierarchy. "Don't misunderstand me," he said, "or Mormonism.

It's easy to do. All Mormons aren't zealots. I'm not. Many have strayed
even farther than I have. Some saints don't tithe anymore. They don't
receive home teachers. They ignore the Word of Wisdom. Don't wear
garments. They're on the fringe of the Church. The faithful say they're
'not active' and call them Jack Mormons. I can't speak for the origins
of their doubts, but for me, my doubts, I think, are a question of
imperfect faith. I still want to believe in the teachings; if you study
them, you actually may find some of them somewhat compelling. But
personally, I'm constantly having trouble with institutions and
authority. It's my nature. And if the LDS Church is anything, it's
certainly an institution and an authority. "And I don't believe that
justice is contrary to my faith or contrary to the Church's interests. I
believe that saints sometimes sin, even high-ranking saints. To the
academic in me, it's not different than what Ivan Boesky or Michael
Milken thought they could get away with on Wall Street, or what Ronald
Reagan and Oliver North did with the Contras. Sociologists call it
'elite deviance'--where people in power feel they should be immune from
the rules. The Church would have trouble with what I'm saying. And they
would have trouble with the fact that this whole affair you're
investigating is already terribly public. But I don't feel like I'm
betraying anything by speaking with you. Except maybe my sanity."

"What would your bishop say?"

"About my playing pool in a degenerate pool hall with a very pretty
gentile while she plies me for information about the dark side of the
Church?" She nodded. "I think he'd be pretty understanding." She
laughed. "You don't?" As she tilted her beer bottle back to drink,
Lauren caught a man at the next table staring at her chest. Annoyed, she
turned back to Harley. "You're as crazy as I am, Harley," she said. He
drained his pop and cracked a piece of ice between his teeth. "I don't
think so," he said whimsically," 'cause if I had that list"--he pointed
at her pants pocket--"I'd crumple it up and throw it away and forget it
ever existed. So what do you think, the thirteen in the corner?"

"No way," she said. "Buy me a pop?"

"You're on." In one smooth motion he lined it up and sank it. a small
town, hon. Of course we used j Pratt sometimes. Although we're a bigger
firm, we probably work the same way you people do. We have a couple of
regular guys who get most of our work. Pratt was one of two or three
other investigators we use from time to time. You want some hot cider?
I'm going to make some. Celebrate the first snow." Wiley's failure to
react with hostility to her question about Pratt Toomey's relationship
to James and Bartell momentarily disarmed Robin. "Yes, thanks. I'd love
some," she said in a suspicious response to Wiley's offer to fix her
something to drink, an event she couldn't remember occurring since the
night George Bush was elected to the White House. She planned to dump
some bourbon in her cider before she drank it. She didn't ask Wiley to
spike it for her. He might comply, but he most certainly would
disapprove. She walked from the kitchen down the narrow hall to the
bedroom. She reached under her red skirt and yanked down her pantyhose,
then sat on the bed and pulled them off. She undid the top button of her
blouse and then pressed firmly on her eyelids with her fingertips to
ward off an impending headache.

Wiley walked in with a mug of cider as she was massaging one of her
feet. Without looking at him, she said, "So it was nothing important?

What Pratt was doing for you guys?" He tensed. His breathing became
shallow. After swallowing, he shook his head dismissively at his wife.
warn "Here's your cider," he said, and walked back out of the room.

Robin went into the walk-in closet and finished undressing. She wrapped
herself in a heavy cotton robe before going into the adjoining bathroom.

She began running a bath, lowered the lights, and retrieved her cider
from the bedroom. She went to the kitchen and added a healthy dollop of
Wild Turkey before using the cocktail to swallow a couple of Tylenol.

Wiley was on the phone in the den. A minute later she dropped her robe,
dumped a capful of bath oil in the tub, and lowered herself into the
water. She sighed audibly. The hot water seared her skin. Within seconds
the bath had melted the iciness from her bones and the whiskey had
warmed her gut. Robin held her eyes closed and cradled the mug on her
navel. Bubbles and bath water lapped at the sides of the cup. Wiley
entered the room unannounced. She jumped. "You scared me, Wiley."

"I didn't like your tone before. What you were implying." He was huge
above her, silhouetted against the dim light. "What do you mean? The
case? I didn't mean anything." She felt like cowering from his glare.
There was nowhere to hide. "You know what I'm talking about." His voice
was sharp and bitter. Robin tried vainly to lower herself beneath the
water to hide her nakedness. Her pubic hair and the tips of her breasts
were visible through the suds. She looked up and hated him. "I'll be out
in a minute. We can talk about it then. Okay?" She tried to force some
pleasantness into a voice that was tinged with fear and loathing. He
towered above her. One of his hands held his mug of cider; the other was
clenched in a fist at his side. Please don't hurt me. "I'm sorry, Wiley.

I didn't mean anything. I didn't." You shit. "Like hell you didn't," he
replied coldly. Wiley's language stunned her. Slowly, he poured the
remainder of the cider from his mug onto her body. She curled away from
it, fearing she would be burned. "The hell you didn't."

"I'll be right out, Wiley. We can talk." Her voice cracked. She fought
tears. She smelled cider and whiskey in the air. He didn't move. What is
he going to do to me? She cried, "Please, Wiley, I'm scared."

"You should be," he said, and exited the bathroom, quietly closing the
door behind him.

Without bothering to finish bathing, Robin jumped out of the tub. By the
time she was out of her bathrobe and into jeans and a sweater she was
fresh out of tears, her fright had abated, and she was stoked with
undiluted rage. She whirled into the den, then the living room, and
finally the kitchen in search of her husband. He wasn't there. He'd
left. She slowly walked through every room of the town house. She
fingered his things. Touched the waistband of his clean boxers. Ran her
hands through his suits hanging in the closet. She smelled his pillow.

She was trying to discover how she had ever loved him. or a bicycler"
Detective Sam Purdy's resonant voice filled every corner of the bicycle
shop in downtown Boulder, Colorado. It was the third time he had said,
"For a bicycle?" Each time his voice had grown louder. Each time his
tone had become more incredulous. Alan Gregory was taking some sadistic
pleasure in watching the young salesclerk try to explain to Sam Purdy
why a decent mountain bicycle was going to cost him at least five
hundred dollars. Sam insisted on straddling each and every model she
talked about as though he could decipher something important by having
the thing stationary between his legs. With big pleading brown eyes, the
salesclerk kept imploring Alan to help her out. He gazed back at her
politely. Alan figured Sam would end up taking his advice and renting a
bike, anyway. Sam Purdy was big, maybe five-eleven, two fifteen. As he
climbed on one bicycle after another, Alan Gregory was reminded of bears
on unicycles. He smiled to himself. Sam Purdy would be his first
endomorphic bicycle buddy. The two men pulled south out of Boulder late
on Wednesday afternoon, Alan's new Ritchey and Sam's rented Rock Hopper
both securely mounted on the roof of Alan's Toyota Land Cruiser. Not far
out of town the two men grew silent as they passed the entrance to Coal
Creek Canyon, the ignominious sight of their last odd partnership.

Neither especially wanted to talk about what had gone wrong and what had
gone right that night eight months before. They had hashed that out
already over far too many beers one night a few months back at the
Walnut Brewery. Once was enough for both of them. South of Golden, just
before the entrance to the onramp to the freeway that would carry them
west through the Rockies, Sam Purdy turned down the fan control on the
heater and said, "I got the stuff Lauren faxed to us. It's pretty much
as she said last weekend. Utah state cops are baffled. Guy's death looks
like an execution. No motive. No witnesses."

"Any of it give you a better idea what we're supposed to be looking
for?"

"Nah. I'm sure it's just some of the less sensitive stuff from the file.
The cops in Utah wouldn't share much with a couple of attorneys working
on a civil case.

I imagine they gave them what little they did just to shut them up. No
reason to poison the well. But the Utah cops definitely think our guy
was in Moab. Lauren got us the name of the motel where he stayed. I
changed our reservation; we're going to stay there, too. She wants us to
find out whether this Toomey guy was in Moab just to bicycle or whether
he was working on something while he was there. If he was working, she
wants to know on what and with whom." Purdy lowered his voice from tenor
to bass. "That is our mission, should we decide to accept it." Alan had
talked with Lauren almost daily during the week. What Sam was telling
him so far wasn't news. He was hoping for something he didn't already
know. "Any clue in the police reports about what this guy might have
been doing heading south out of Moab? Especially at night?""Nope.""You
familiar with that part of Utah?" asked Alan. "Southeast?" "Yeah."

"Sherry and I camped in Canyonlands a couple of times before Simon was
born. The three of us did Lake Powell last summer. God, was it hot. Ever
been there? I swear, it was so hot the first couple of days that at
first I thought Lake Powell was this beautiful spot where God let the
privileged inhabitants of hell live on a lake. So anyway, yeah, I guess
I know that area a little." Alan Gregory was cold. He flicked the heater
fan back up to high. "Where do you think Lauren's investigator was
heading?" Sam was in the process of unfolding a road map. He prodded the
ceiling of the car looking for a light switch. "Well, assuming he..
wasn't going to Canyonlands, which is a fair assumption since the
reports indicate he didn't have camping stuff in his car, I think I can
narrow down the possibilities to something manageable."

"Go on." Alan switched on a map light from his side of the car. Sam
stabbed at the map and said, "If Lauren is correct that he was traveling
south on 191, I think he was either going to Navajo country, to northern
Arizona, to southwest Colorado, to New Mexico--like to Sante Fe or
Albuquerque--or to someplace absolutely obscure in Utah. Which,
unfortunately, is most of it." Alan smiled through a yawn in the dark
car. He wished he had doubled up on caffeine before departing Boulder.
"So that's just a few hundred thousand square miles for us to check,
huh, Sam?" Purdy rumbled for the fan control. Alan caught his hand in
midstrike. "If you're so hot, why don't you just take off your
sweatshirt?" Sam sighed and yanked and tugged and finally peeled off his
sweatshirt in the confines of the front seat. Underneath, he wore a
long-sleeved T-shirt with a caricature of Ross Perot on it. He leaned
forward and fumbled for the lever that would recline his seat into some
configuration that he hoped would permit him a nap on their. six-hour
drive across the mountains. He pulled his Colorado Rockies baseball cap
low over his eyes, unwrapped a Rolo and slid it into his mouth. "To
answer your sarcastic little query--give or take a million square miles,
yeah. But we pros do it all the time, hotshot. Don't worry; most of it's
rucking desert, easy to eliminate. Trust me." Alan was quiet for a
while. He popped a tape of The Phantom of the Opera into the deck and
tried to settle into a highway rhythm. He couldn't. "Sam," he said,
somewhere just east of Idaho Springs, "why'd you agree to do this? Go to
Moab and take a busman's holiday?" At first Sam didn't stir; and Alan
thought he had fallen asleep. Sam said, "Remember a ways back--what was
that, shit, one year, two?--we had that cult trouble up in Four Mile
Canyon? It was right about the same time as that bullshit in Waco,
Texas. You know; the Branch Davidians? I coordinated for the
department with a couple of sociologists from CU when it looked like we
might have us a confrontation with the Four Mile group. Anyway, Lauren
remembered what I did then, and she called me a week or so ago and asked
me would I check out some stuff she was hearing about the Mormons."

"As a culfi"

"Sure.

It's not quite as far-fetched as you might think. The definition of a
cult is pretty elastic. The difference between a cult and a church tends
to be pretty much in the eye of the beholder." Alan downshifted in
search of some more power. "So, then, what's a cult?" Sam sighed. "You
want a lecture? Okay. The Mor- mons, like all of America's home-brewed
religions--the Christian Scientists, the Seventh-day Adventists, the
Sci- entologists--definitely started off as a cult. Basically, cults
start off as small fringe groups united behind some obscure biblical
truth. For the Mormons it was something called restoration. There's
almost always a charismatic leader in these groups who separates his
flock from the mainstream with a clear us-versus-them message. For the
Mormons it was Joseph Smith. And there is usually a degree of control by
the leader and obedience by the membership that most of us would find
oppressive." Alan didn't get the relevance. "But, Sam, Mormons seem so
mainstream. There are Mormons all over Boulder and Denver." Sam said,
"Do you know any? Like, socially?"

"No."

"Do you treat any in your practice?"

"No."

"Do you know anybody who hangs out with any Mormons?"

"No."

"So how mainstream are they?" Sam didn't wait for an answer. "See, the
Mormons are unique among these religious movements in that they have
succeeded at becoming integrated into society without ever becoming part
of it. But like most of the splinter groups that everybody would call a
cult, the Mormons practice isolation and exclusion socially,
economically, and, of course, spiritually. The segregation is apparently
much more pronounced in Utah than in other places. "So what did I learn
for Lauren? Nothing earthshaking. The Mormons don't like to publicize
it, but they're the fastest-growing Christian church in the United
States--six-percent growth a year, which is phenomenal. They are among
the richest religions in the world, and they are among the largest
private landholders in this great country of ours. The Mormon Church
reportedly controls over a hundred major corporations, and the total
income from all its sources--business income and member tithing--would
place it solidly in the top quarter of the Fortune 500. Estimates of the
Church's wealth go as high as eight billion dollars."

"That sounds pretty mainstream to me, Sam."

"I think that's the point. It's a huge, wealthy, influential church, yet
one that manages to stay largely invisible outside of Utah and Idaho.
The Mormon Church owns big-city newspapers and TV and radio stations all
across the country--not Jerry Falwell cable crap, but network.
affiliates. Plus they make their own movies and TV shows and link Salt
Lake with the world through an incredible private satellite network."
Alan remained skeptical. "So what? They're successful. But how does it
add up? Are they dangerous?

Lauren is concerned the Church may be behind this guy's murder. Isn't
that the question?"

"Dangerous? At face value, the Church is conservative in all senses of
the word. Shit, it's the IBM of churches.

To the public, the Mormons are pudgy men in gray business suits, women
who are good housewives, and polite, well-behaved children. They keep
their more colorful rituals secret in their temples. They keep their,
shall we say, unusual doctrine to themselves. They live with a fraction
of the vices of the rest of us. Unless we threaten them with drugs or
abortion or pornography, they mind their own business and do more than
pay lip service to family values. "On the surface they seem to play by
the rules. Politically, Utah is like a right-wing theme park. Mormons
control ninety percent of the Utah legislature. The new governor just
told the populace in his inaugural address that he will seek divine
guidance on important issues. And I promise you he isn't talking about
praying to some generic God. Legislative leaders routinely consult the
Church hierarchy. "You know how nuts everybody got because a hundred
Branch Davidians were so ready to do whatever David Koresh told them to
do in Waco? And how crazy everybody is in Montana because there are five
thousand armed cultists living in bunkers? Well, there are almost a
million and a half Mormons in Utah alone. And a healthy third of them
are absolutely obedient to the Church's authority. If the Church
leadership wants two hundred thousand Mormons in the streets of Utah
with snow shovels, they apparently can mobilize them in thirty minutes
in the middle of the night." He snapped his fingers. "Like that, I
swear. They say so themselves. That's what kind of authority they
maintain they have."

"Snow shovels are one thing, Sam, automatic rifles something else. To
return to Lauren's question--is the Mormon Church dangerous?" Sam seemed
to be losing energy for continuing his lecture.

"Who the hell knows? On the surface it sure as hell doesn't seem to be.

The point, I think, is that a lot of Mormons are blindly obedient to
their leader. And when that's the case, then all you need is one crazy
leader to turn obedient into dangerous."

"You got something against the Mormons, Sam?"

"Personally? Nah. Well, maybe the Osmonds. I haven't actually forgiven
them for that." Alan laughed. "Be serious. You're asking me to believe
that you agreed to contaminate our little hiking vacation because you
think Lauren is right to be worried about the Mormon Church murdering
people?"

"No. I agreed because when I heard what she wanted, I knew you'd go
along with it whether I did or not. And so far you've dempnstrated an
uncanny ability to get yourself into terribly deep shit, and you don't
exactly have an illustrious record of getting yourself out of deep shit
without significant assistance." Alan chewed on that. "How'd you know
I'd agree?"

"Because your girlfriend's a good lady. Because you love her. And
because your sense of self-preservation is for shit. Gimme a break. This
feels like teaching. I hate teaching.

Good night. Doctor." A while later, climbing the steep grade out of
George- town toward the Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnel, Alan listened to the
deep, regular breathing coming from the other side of the car and said
quietly into the silence, "Thanks, Sam." A moment later, Alan jumped
when Sam said, "Don't mention it. But do you mind turning that crap
down? I can't believe I'm going to have to listen to show tunes all the
way to Utah. It's like going on a trip with my mother and her friggin'
bridge friends." Purdy hummed a few bars from Oklahoma!, pulled his
Rockies cap farther down over his eyes, and was quiet. M oabites have
never owned Moab for long. That night, even in the post-teno'clock-news
darkness, when blue-collar towns like Moab should already be sound
asleep, it was apparent to Sam and Alan that the moral title to Moab's
stony splendor had officially been signed over to a new group of
outsiders. And it didn't require an out-of-town detective to know that
the latest owners were fat-tire freaks. Like so many obscure Utah
outposts, Moab was founded by Mormon pioneers in the first score of
years after Brigham Young led the faithful from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the
Great Basin. Young sent the new settlers out into the deserts and
mountains of Ute country to set up missionary stakes that he felt would
provide anchors for the long lines of the great spiritual tent of the
Mormon state of Deseret. A hundred years later, by the middle of the
twentieth century, the forces of change that flooded the Mormon
community of Moab were forces, appropriately enough, carved from Utah
rock. In the 1950s, the nation's richest deposit of high-quality uranium
was discovered outside of Moab. Almost instantly an army of pickup
trucks pulling trailers invaded the pristine landscape, and uranium
miners took over the little town and began to cut into the local terrain
like crazed surgeons. Thirty years later, in the early eighties, as the
mining boom was suffering its final death throes, it just so happened
that bicycle tires were growing fatter, bicyclists were leaving highways
in search of off-road trails, and two-wheel enthusiasts were discovering
the joys of another rock that Moab happened to have in abundance: red
sandstone. Not only because of Slickrock, a legendary route south of
town, but also because of a thousand miles of more obscure sandstone
trails nearby, Moab became known as the place that offered the best
mountain-hiking experience on the entire planet. Moab, Utah, a place
where nobody wanted to be in 1980, became a place where over a million
people would visit annually. When the fat-tire craze began, almost a
quarter of the homes in Moab were empty and a decent house could be had
for under twenty thousand dollars. Now there were no vacancies in town,
and when a house became available, most residents couldn't afford to
buy. Moab, originally a Mormon enclave, once denied by miners, boasted
its own brewpub, and residents and tourists could pull their
thousand-dollar bikes up to espresso stands all over town. Joseph
Smith's Word of Wisdom was, once again, certainly not the local gospel.

Moab was a living, working monument to everything that Brigham Young
preached would happen when the gentiles finally crossed over the Sierra
Nevada and the Rockies and invaded their state. Sam Purdy had been awake
since Grand Junction, staring off into the brush and at the distant
buttes, transfixed by the silhouetted mountains. He started shaking his
head in dismay an hour later as Alan drove through the outskirts of
Moab, the rusty detritus of booms past fouling the desert landscape. The
consequences of the current boom stared him smack in the face. A sign
painted in huge letters on the asphalt highway implored visitors to use
toilets. A block into town, Sam broke his silence. "Bicyclists need to
be reminded to use toilets?"

"Moab has been invaded lately, Sam. And, unfortunately, not only by
considerate people."

"Using toilets isn't a question of considerate. Using toilets is just,
well, normal. I know lots of inconsiderate people who make it a habit to
use toilets regularly." Purdy looked out the window as Moab presented
its face. The face was one of transiency, of catering to outsiders. "You
know a town is lost when the folks who've lived there forever start
calling themselves locals. I bet that's the case here. I bet the ones
who are left call themselves locals." Alan nodded in the dark. Examining
the foot traffic on Moab's sidewalks, he was having trouble
comprehending the reality that people would actually still be wearing
Lycra at eleven o'clock at night. "The cultural pollution is worse every
time I come, Sam. I swear." Bikes were chained to any horizontal or
vertical fixture capable of securing them. Every other business seemed
to be a bike shop.

No single structure appeared to be more than a bad windstorm and a
couple of coats of paint away from being classified as seedy. "There's a
reason why we're here, right? I mean, like a fun reason?"

"You gotta see it to believe it, Sam. The trails. Wait until tomorrow."
Purdy harrumphed. Their motel loomed to the left. The new landscaping
and the recently added shingled facade hadn't succeeded in hiding the
lineage of the L-shaped building. This lodge had been built for the
rough-and-tumble uranium boom, not the genteel fat-tire one. Purdy
stretched as he climbed out of the car. "I hope the beds in this place
aren't as old I think they might be. I hate motel beds. Always feel like
there's a crater in the center of 'em trying to suck you in. I have
sinkhole dreams." Alan returned after checking them into the motel and
handed Purdy his key. "See you in the morning, Sam. Since I know how
long it takes you to eat breakfast, why don't we plan on starting around
eight?" Purdy looked at his key. "We've got separate rooms?"

"Separate but equal. My idea. This way, I don't have to discover if you
snore.

It'll be better for our relationship to maintain a little mystery."
Purely glared at him and then tripped over a bicycle clamped to a
signpost that said

"No Bikes in This Area." He cursed and said, "I'm going to bed."

"I'll lock the bikes inside the car. Then I think I'll take a walk. Good
night, Sam."

"Good night. Doctor." The first thing Sam Purdy said as he slid into the
booth at Honest Ozzie's the next morning was

"God, I'm glad I'm not a cop here. Nothing but entitled, rich tourists
and poor, pissed-off locals."

"And good morning to you, Sam." Alan glanced at his watch. Eight-twenty.
He smiled across the table.

"Oversleep?" Purdy glared at him through tired eyes. "I don't need you.

I need some coffee." The waitress came over. Purdy managed a smile for
her. She was so thin her face seemed to have been carved on insufficient
stock. Her approach to service was to appear distracted and annoyed,
giving her a general air of reluctance that left the impression that she
had been chosen for this job the way people are drafted for jury duty.

"What's good?" Purdy asked. "My day off. The sunsets. That's about it."
Purdy extended his smile, showing some teeth. "Pretty stimulating job,
huh?"

"You want coffee?" She elevated the pot she had in her right hand.

Purdy and Gregory both nodded. She splashed some into both their cups,
turning the saucers into little amber tide pools. Purdy eagerly took a
single long gulp and then poured the pond from his saucer into the cup.

He checked out an argument the cashier was having with a customer across
the room, then began talking. "He was here, all right. Our guy--Lauren's
guy--Pratt Toomey. Stayed two nights. Room next door to mine, as a
matter of fact. Acted like a biker. Rode during the day. Kept to
himself. No sign of anybody else using his room. Maid said he was a neat
freak. Asked for late checkout the day he left. Manager said no but
agreed to keep his stuff in the office and let him use a shower so he
could ride that day before he headed out. Couple of small bags, that's
it. Left the motel just about dusk, maybe a little before."

"You've been busy."

"Well, a job's a job. I just showed his picture round. Everybody
remembered him, knew he'd been murdered. Not too tough."

"Think he was just vacationing?"

"He was definitely here to ride. Don't know whether he was doing
anything else, though. It's a small town. I'll find out." Purdy heard
the awkward note of autonomy in his pronouncement. He said, ""Scuse me,
Watson. We'll find out." They rode an easy trail that morning so Sam
could take some lessons from Alan on the finer points of mountain
hiking. Alan was amazed at the ease with which Sam got the hang of
shifting his ample weight fore and aft on the bicycle, and at the innate
comfort he displayed at keeping his speed under control on the rougher
and steeper terrain. Purdy wore blue jeans, running shoes, and a neon-
green helmet that left him looking like a tourist. Alan was in
black-and-yellow Lycra and wore an expensive Gore-Tex jacket. His helmet
sat on his head as naturally as a shell sits on a turtle. Sometimes
other bicyclists stopped and watched them, apparently just for the
entertainment value. "This is great," said Purdy at the top of a
particularly sharp stone incline that he'd scampered up as if he were
riding a mountain goat. In sincere admiration, Alan said, "You pick this
up real quick, Sam." Purdy examined Alan's face for evidence of sarcasm,
didn't find any, and said, "I'm just a pretty athletic guy, I guess."

"Well, that may be true, but you don't see too many guys your size on
mountain bikes. At least, not on trails like these."

"You mean fat guys?"

"No--well, yeah. I guess I mean big guys."

"Fat."

"Whatever, Sam.

You're not fat." Purdy patted his belly. "I like to think I'm shaped
like Bill Clinton between diets." He looked at Alan. "You're more like
Ross Perot after a month on the rack." Alan laughed. Sam said, "When we
gonna eat?" On the way back into town, the burden of Sam Purdy's extra
pounds precipitated the failure of the quick-release that was supposed
to secure the post of his bicycle seat to the frame. They stopped on the
outskirts of town and Alan played with the faulty compression mechanism
for about fifteen seconds. Diagnosis completed, he said, "Metal fatigue.

We need to find a bike shop." Sam gazed around at the town and then
looked at Alan sardonically. "Gosh. That should be pretty hard around
here. Like finding a drink in Vegas." Alan made a face, straddled his
bike, and pulled off ahead of Purdy, leading him to a shop called Rim
Cy- clery. They locked their bikes together, and Alan yanked Purdy's
seat post from his bike frame and removed the quick-release. "Sam, why
don't you try to find some gloves while I'm taking care of this?" Alan
suggested before weaving through the narrow aisles to the back of the
store. The shop was crowded with bikes, mostly the mountain variety
suitable to Moab's wonders. Alan's destination was the service
department, to find a replacement for the stripped part. Purdy, who
after three exhilarating hours was getting into the sport of mountain
hiking with the fervor of a convert, waltzed over to check out a couple
of bikes that were adorned with big red sale tags. Within seconds he had
a salesperson on his tail. The guy in the service department glanced
over and saw the broken part in Alan's hands, made a quick calculation,
and proceeded to ignore Alan while he contin- lied to push a Campagnola
crank on the other person at the counter. She was an attractive woman
with ruby pinky rings on each hand and a gold Rolex on her wrist. As
Alan eavesdropped on their conversation and watched what happened to the
curves of the woman's chest as she propped her elbows on the counter, he
thought he knew why Lycra had been invented. She tossed her long brown
hair and mounted a wonderfully flirtatious smile while explaining to the
service guy, "That's not what they told me in Santa Fe last week." Five
prurient minutes later, Alan tracked Purdy to a wall covered with at
least a dozen different styles of bicycle gloves and was greeted with
"Can you believe this? Forty-two bucks and these things don't even come
with any fucking fingers?" Alan raised a little plastic bag in his left
hand and said, "I got the new quick-release. We're set." He looked at
the two pairs of gloves in Purdy's hands. "Get the red ones, Sam. They
go better with your hair." Purdy poked the pair of blue gloves back on
their spindle and called to Alan. "Hey, take a look at this bike over
here. Whattya think, pretty good deal or what?" Alan looked at the
silver Cannondale, one of their lower-end models, and immediately
recognized that the frame was at least five centimeters too small for
Purdy. He tugged the big cop by his sweatshirt over toward the cash
register and said he'd explain over lunch why it wasn't the right bike
for him. The brunette with the pinky rings was in front of them, paying
for her Italian crank. One glance at her Lycra and Purdy forgot all
about the Cannondale. "Pratt was heading for Colorado when he left this
yuppie amusement park." Purdy had a grin as wide as a mesa as he offered
his pronouncement through a mouth full of bacon cheeseburger. Alan
pulled his sandwich away from his lips and gawked at his friend. "Now,
how the hell do you know that?" Purdy took another bite before he spoke.

"I'm a cop. You're a shrink. I think that about covers it. Alan
muttered, "Jesus." Purdy enjoyed a long drink from a bottle of three-two
beer. "I showed his picture around the shop while you were playing bike
mechanic. Everybody knew about him. He'd been in. He bought a new
helmet. They had a sale that just ended. Gloves were on sale, too. I'm
sorry I missed it. Could have saved ten bucks." Alan figured he was
supposed to wait patiently for Purdy to get to the good part. But Purdy
was seriously involved with his lunch, and Alan couldn't generate
sufficient restraint. "And? What? People who buy new helmets in Moab
are, as a general rule, heading for Colorado?" Purdy laughed and said,
"You know, I've forgotten how much fun it is to pimp you. What happened,
ass- bite, was that Pratt asked the clerk who was helping him how the
road south was at night. He was apparently trying to decide whether he
should stop riding early enough to make the drive in the daytime or not.

Clerk told him the road was fine, he should ride."

"And he was going where?" "He said he was going to catch 46." No map
image that included a road numbered 46 filtered into Alan's
consciousness. "Which goes where?"

"Eventually it goes up to Telluride."

"To Telluride? Really?" Purdy nodded. "But the clerk's actually pretty
sure he said 'near Telluride," not 'to Telluride."

"Did Pratt happen to tell this guy why he was going to Colorado?" Purdy
shook his head. "Oh, my sexist friend," he said. Alan noted that Purdy's
hair was still compressed from the pressure of his bicycle helmet. He
had an image of Friar Tuck. "The clerk was not a guy, and no, she just
remembered that he said 'near Telluride." But she did say that there's
some pretty good riding up there, too. Since I've come all the way to
Moab, I want to do this Slickrock thing, and then I'm ready to go see
for myself what Colorado's own San Juan Mountains have to offer. What
about you?" Alan took a moment to compose an answer. Finally, he said,
"Sam, it's great what you've found out so far. Really, it is. I'm
impressed. But to be honest, it leaves me feeling pretty useless. A bit
like your personal trainer." Purdy snickered. He was loving this
vacation so far. "There's more, too." Alan slouched back onto his chair
and waited. "She said the cops never asked her any questions. And she
didn't think what she knew was important. I'm the first snoop she's
told." Now, this was surprising.

Lauren would be thrilled. "So they might not know about this?"

"Let me put it this way. You shouldn't underestimate cops. Criminals do
it all the time. And it almost always costs them. But, then again, you
shouldn't overestimate cops. The public does it all the time. And it
almost always costs them."

"So we don't know what they know?"

"At this point, all we know is what we know. As far as what they know,
we don't know. And please try to keep in mind that most of the time, I'm
one of the 'they."

" I auren walked in the door to her sister's house, headed down the
hallway, and noticed the message light blinking on the answering
machine. She had left John Harley at the Side Pocket. Leaving hadn't
been easy. Harley had wanted to play a round of darts and then was
planning to go to Bill & Nada's for something to eat before going back
to his apartment. He had asked her to join him. She had declined, unsure
whether the offer included only the meal or also the final destination.
One of the calls on the machine was from Teresa, who reported that Vegas
was going great and wanted to know whether there was anything new on
Pratt's murder. Lauren suspected that she really wanted a pep talk about
continuing the lawsuit. At least, she told herself, Teresa is checking
in. Another call was from Robin Torr, who sounded vacant and defeated
and unsure as to why she had called. The first call on the tape had been
from Alan Gregory in Moab, who said that he loved her and reported that
he and Sam were on their way to Colorado to follow up on something.
Colorado? Alan said he would call again the next day.

Sleep came easily until the phone started ringing. The metallic trill
from her sister's bedroom seemed far away. Lauren awoke disoriented. Her
heart rate accelerated in an instant. It took her three rings to
identify the foreign sound as emanating from a telephone. Wearing only a
long T-shirt, she ran to Teresa's bedroom and grabbed the phone. The
house was cold, and her lean thighs were soon dotted with gooseflesh.

"Hello," she said, her voice full of sleep and barely caged alarm. "I
woke you. I'm sorry." Robin Torr's speech was clipped and pressured, but
also hopeful, energized. The hopefulness calmed Lauren's galloping
heart. "I need you to tell me I'm not crazy about something. Can you
come downtown? To my office?" Lauren gazed at the digital clock by her
sister's bed. It read 12:42. "Now?"

"Yes." Lauren ran a hand through her hair and said, "All right. Be there
as soon as I can." She rummaged for underwear, jeans, and a sweater.
After running her tongue over her teeth, she decided to brush them, then
she combed her hair. She grabbed Teresa's coat, which was heavier than
her own, found a pair of gloves in the pockets, pulled them on, and
plodded out the door. Because Brigham Young had dictated that downtown
Salt Lake City be laid out on a grid of streets that were wide enough
for a wagon pulled by a team of horses to turn around, the feel of the
city's downtown was spacious. But the width of the six-lane downtown
streets also robbed Salt Lake of much of its intimacy and urbanity,
leaving it feeling impersonal and vaguely suburban, even during the
hectic rush of a business day. By one o'clock on a weekday morning the
center of Salt Lake City was absolutely barren, the boulevard-wide roads
like asphalt moats between the sidewalks.

Lauren spotted only one other car moving in the city's core as she made
her way downtown past Brigham Young's house of many wives and past the
renovated splendor of what was once the Hotel Utah. She parked Teresa's
Rabbit by the curb in front of the new stone- and-glass tower where
Lewis, Frank and Zeiem had its offices. She was relieved and grateful to
see Robin standing in the lighted lobby of the building. A security
guard hovered in the background, just beyond the bank of elevators.

Robin pushed open the door. The gray granite entry seemed forbidding in
the harshness of the security lights. "Thanks for coming," Robin said,
holding the door. She moved in to hug Lauren. "Sure," Lauren said,
perplexed by the physical intimacy and surprised by how much she
welcomed the contact. The embrace temporarily stilled the fight that
exhaustion and adrenaline were waging for control of her mood. The guard
held qpen the elevator door with a key and smiled pleasantly at the
women as they entered. Lauren couldn't quite manage a smile in return
but did say

"Hi." Robin just nodded to him and punched the number eight on the brass
panel of buttons. The elevator ascended smoothly. No one spoke until the
doors glided open. Robin had left the glass entrance door to the law
firm unlocked. After she and Lauren entered, she carefully locked the
doors behind them. Robin hurried down the hall to the largest of the
conference rooms in the suite. Lauren followed on her heels, her
friend's intensity contagious. The overhead lights in the room were
blazing, and the one end of the big cherry table was carpeted with
files, photocopies, and legal pads. An opened box of Vanilla Wafers and
a can of root beer sat next to the chair where Robin had been sitting.
"Sit here." Robin pointed Lauren to the chair on the other side of the
cookies. As Lauren sat, Robin reached over and stuck her hand deep into
the box. "Want some?" she asked. "No. Thanks." Robin gestured toward a
thin file in front of Lauren. With a Vanilla Wafer between her teeth,
she said, "I think I've figured something out. Indulge me for a few
minutes and follow my logic. But do it blind, okay? I don't want to
contaminate your thinking with my theory yet. These are press reports
and clippings that I've had Elsie collect from around the country on the
murder of Blythe Oaks. Read. Please." As she immersed herself in the
impersonal words, Lauren momentarily forgot that the victim of the
brutal murder she was reading about was responsible for sexually
harassing her sister. As long as she could forget that, she could read
comfortably, like a prosecutor, the gruesome territory presented by
these stories strangely familiar. Blythe Oaks had been approached from
behind while sitting cross-legged in a forested area along the banks of
the Potomac in Virginia. She had a pair of binoculars around her neck.

Her throat had been slit in a single motion by a right-handed person
wielding a sharp knife. There were no signs of a struggle. No robbery.

No sexual assault. No witnesses. Lauren turned the pages. She liked what
she was feeling. She was feeling like a DA again. When she indicated to
Robin that she was done with the file of clippings, Robin shoved it
aside and replaced it with a pile of reports about Pratt Toomey's death.

"Now these. I know you've seen them once, but read them now in the
context of what you've just read about Biythe's murder."

"You think you found something to tie them together?"

"I guess that's obvious. But why don't you read them first; then I'll
tell you what I'm thinking." Lauren shuffled one more time through the
reports of Pratt's murder. She thought she saw the connection. She
picked through the newspaper clippings from Virginia and D.C. and slid
one across the table toward Robin. "The Virginia homicide people found a
paw print in the blood by her body, right? That's what this one says."
Robin grinned. "You can't really tell much from the picture. But the
caption below the photograph says that, yeah, it's a picture of somebody
making castings of a shoe print and an animal print."

"So you're thinking maybe a dog?"

"Right. I called the detective on Pratt's murder at home about it
tonight. It pissed him off. He said he knows about it. It was a dog
print. The Virginia cops wrote if off as belonging to a stray. Or as a
dog somebody was running in the woods."

"And the crime scene techs found paw prints all over the rock ridge
where Pratt was shot?"

"It had rained the afternoon Pratt died. Some of the prints were well
preserved in the mud, apparently. But the detective I talked to said the
prints they lifted weren't of the same feet as the Virginia paw prints.
Left front versus right rear, or something like that."

"You think this guy travels with his dog? And it was the same guy?"

"I know it doesn't prove it, exactly.

But it is provocative, don't you think?"

"A wild dog could have come by after he died, Robin. Or maybe a coyote."
Robin leaned back and dropped her shoulders. "Could have been Rin Tin
Tin, too." Her face reflected her frustration. "Why are you trying to
blow me out of the water on this? I think I've got something here."
Lauren sighed. "Habit, I guess.

I've spent too many hours in unpleasant meetings with cops who've
brought me bags of evidence I can't use. Prosecutors get pretty
cynical." Robin smiled coyly and touched the top of Lauren's hand. "Was
that an apology?" she asked. "Sure," Lauren countered with a smile of
her own, "if you'll apologize about waking me up in the middle of the
night. So--to state the obvious--you think it might have been the same
dog at both murders?"

"Who knows? It's something. At the very least, I think it's worth
checking out."

"How? Has the FBI linked these crimes at all? The Utah cops must at
least have considered the connection before they rejected it."

"I'm sure somebody considered it. Maybe they're still considering it.
Maybe somebody's done it. But, in truth, why would anybody link the
murders? Different states. Different MOS. Different weapons. Only thing
that links them is Teresa. And, if I'm not crazy, maybe a dog. Oh, and
the knife. Shit, I can't believe I almost forgot about the knife."

"What knife? Pratt was shot."

"Yeah, but somebody slashed him, apparently, either before or after they
shot him. Didn't cut him, but left a long gash in his jacket."

"Boy, if they could match the knives, that'd be a gold- plated link,
wouldn't it?" Robin shook her head. "I'm sure somebody thought of that.
All you and I have is press clippings. They have better information than
we do. They know why they wanted a sample of Teresa's handwriting. We
haven't even figured out that little detail yet. And despite what
they've got, it looks like they must have drawn a blank. There's just
not enough. Nothing but the dog."

"Okay. What if I buy what you're selling? What if it was the same dog?"

"That's the question. If it was the same dog, then it was the same
murderer. And if it was the same murderer, then maybe we have a
conspiracy. And we have somebody who sincerely doesn't want us to look
into this case any further."

"So how do we find out if it's the same dog?"

"You're the part of this team with criminal experience. Where do we find
a dog-print expert? Can they match dog prints? I mean, like they do
fingerprints? I'm a cat person; I couldn't even tell if it's the same
stupid paw."

"Who the hell knows? There's got to be somebody who does." Lauren
thought of Sam Purdy. "I have a friend in Boulder who will probably know
someone we can talk to." Lauren endured a stab of guilt at not having
told Robin about Purdy and Alan's trip to Moab. She quickly decided that
now wasn't the time. Robin reached into the cookie box and laid a
Vanilla Wafer on her tongue as though it were a communion host.

Lauren examined her while considering the merits of the new theory.

"We're all in more than a little danger here, you know. Teresa
especially."

"Yes. I know."

"Should we stop? Maybe just go for a settlement?" Robin scoffed. "Don't
kid yourself. They're not going to settle this now. Our choices are to
proceed at full steam or to give up."

"We must be on to something, Robin. You know that. They have to fear we
can prove these charges Teresa is making. Or why else would they kill
Blythe? Why would they kill Pratt?" Torr's hair was stringy, oily,
tired. She tried to hang it behind her ears. "Who are we talking about
here, Lauren? Who are 'they'?"

"Who has the most to lose?"

"The Women's Symposium. Lester Horner. Paul Oaks."

"The Church?" Robin Torr exhaled through pursed lips. "I've told you
before. This"--she waved her hand at the clippings spread on the
table--"this isn't Church style. If the authorities wanted this lawsuit
to stop, they would pressure us in other ways. If that failed, they
would just get somebody to write Teresa a check." Still, Lauren could
feel fear emanating from Robin. Jokingly she said, "Maybe it's all
coincidence." When Robin raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes, Lauren
turned away, laughing. Finally she looked askance, back at Robin.
"Robin," she wondered, "what the hell are you doing here in the middle
of the night?" Robin wiped the silly look from her face. "I'll tell you
if you tell me where you were at ten forty-five when I called you the
first time." The thought that raced through Lauren's head in response to
Robin's question startled her. Her heart downshifted and roared in her
chest. The words that never made it to her lips were / was with my
father. "He's somebody I met one night when I was playing pool. I do it
to relax. Shoot pool."

"And? What? You're still seeing him, then."

"What do you mean, seeing him? We're not having an affair, if that's
what you're wondering. He's married. Well, separated, and--"

"And you're planning to be married, I might add." Robin jerked her head
to one side. "Did you hear something in the hall?"

"Are you kidding?"

"No, I'm not kidding. Listen." The women sat as still as they could,
slowing their breathing. Nothing. Lauren continued. "I know it sounds
funny, but I'm kind of captivated by this guy. I don't exactly
understand it myself." / was with my father. "And you know what else is
odd? He's Mormon. He gives me Mormon lessons. Answers all my questions."

"Are you attracted to him?"

"I guess I am. But it's not really physical. He's okay- looking, but I
don't think he's gorgeous or anything. It's more magnetic than that. I
think I'm drawn to him. Alan, the guy in Colorado, is a pretty
predictable man. He's very kind to me.

But he's  ...  he's not exciting. Though he is pretty cute." Robin Torr
considered her last image of her imposing husband, Wiley. "Exciting can
be kind of overrated." Lauren skated right over the poignancy in Robin's
pronouncement. "Harley--that the guy's name, John Harley--I think he
reminds me of my father." There, I said it. "Is that good? Or bad? Your
sister doesn't sound too fond of your dad."

"I don't know. It's both good and bad, I suppose. My father, when he's
not drinking, is a good man. The finest man I've ever known. I know that
sounds very olderdaughterish. But it's true." She paused, then grabbed
the cookie box.

"But when he drinks. God, life goes on edge. Then, every simple act of
living is the equivalent of juggling a hand grenade with the pin
pulled."

"So this Harley, he drinks, too?"

"He's sober now, for a few months." Just like your dad. Just like my
dad. "And you're intrigued enough to want to be around when he hits a
steep bump and tumbles off the wagon?" Lauren shivered and popped
another round wafer into her mouth. "I can't imagine that I want that.
Why would I want that, Robin?" Robin was surprised when her eyes filled
with tears. "Think I know?" She blinked twice to clear her vision.
"Wiley, my husband, scared me to death earlier tonight. I was in the
bathtub, naked. I thought he was going to kill me. I think he's angry
about this case. I hate to admit it, even to myself, but after it was
over, after he'd left me alone and I knew I was going to be okay, I was
...  exhilarated. I mean, really pumped up. I'm here at the office
tonight because I'm afraid to be at home with him. And I'm here, too,
because I'm afraid of what I'll do to him if I see him while I'm this
mad. Maybe it's like that for you. With this Harley guy."

"Maybe," Lauren replied, her voice nearly a whisper.

What was it that Harley had said to her? My experience tells me that you
know about drunks. And I think you know about good men. Don't you? I do,
she thought. / do, indeed. You content, aren't you, Sam? You like what
you do? Your life?" Alan Gregory posed the question to Purdy just
minutes outside of Moab. Alan was driving the hulking gray Land Cruiser
south on a lonely stretch of Utah State Highway 191. Purdy sat
atypically vigilant on the passenger seat, his eyes peeled for the
cutoff to Highway 46, which, if all went according to plan, would return
them to Colorado within the hour. "Huh?" is what he said in response to
Alan's question. "The way you are, I don't see it very often. I think
it's the contentedness. The people I see in therapy are almost always
not just unhappy, but ...  I don't know. No matter what they come to see
me for, it turns out they're unhappy with their job, or their husband,
or their friends. Or all of the above. But there's always something. So
they end up spending most of their time doing what they don't want to
do, working at a job that they hate, screwing somebody they don't really
want to be with, generally doing shit they'd rather not be doing. "I
guess what I'm saying is that you don't seem that way.

The whole time I've been with you on this trip, I've been perplexed by
something about you. And I think that's what it is. You're happy. You
like being a cop. You like your wife. You like being with me, learning
to ride, helping Lauren out. Everything." Purdy begrudgingly returned
his attention to Alan. He noted the darkness settling inside the car,
the dashboard lights beginning to glow. Outside, the pink dusk was in
the glory of metamorphosis. He was reluctant to leave it. "You sound
like a goddamn shrink," he muttered, then laughed from deep in his
belly. "I do have to admit it's marvelous, though, isn't it?"

"What?" asked Alan, assuming Purdy was again transfixed by the sunset.
"My life.

It's marvelous. I like it almost all the time." Alan glanced over and
smiled. "So how do you do it? What's your secret?"

"Is the caller there?" Purdy belted out unexpectedly with an annoying
nasal twang.

"God, why do I get the feeling you're gonna make me believe I've been
magically transported to Donahue or Oprah." He searched his pocket for a
stick of gum, unwrapped it, and plopped it onto his tongue. "Want some?"
Alan declined. Purdy leaned over and checked the odometer. He tried to
visualize geographic landmarks in the darkness outside the car. Suddenly
his voice filled with pressure and got lower. "Slow down, Alan," he
said. Alan glanced in his mirrors and gently tapped his foot on the
brakes. "This is it. Right about here. Pratt Toomey was killed right
about here, right about now, this time of day." Purdy pressed high on
his cheekbones with one hand, the web of skin between his thumb and his
finger stretched taut across his nose. He pulled down hard toward his
chin against the grain of a day's worth of sandstone-colored stubble.

Alan exhaled deeply. He drew the car to a gradual stop on the shoulder.

"You're sure?"

"Pretty sure. Mileage is right. Time of day is right. See that rock face
up there?" He pointed to the south. "Remember the pictures we got from
Lauren? I bet you that's where he died. Up on top of there."

"Want to look around?"

"Nah. Won't find anything. Especially in the dark. Just want to be here
for a minute. Sometimes it helps." He opened the window. Felt the chill
in the air, the familiar mountain dryness. Breathed in deeply. Opened
the door. Got out. He walked carefully on the gravel, sand, and dust. He
took church steps. Spiritual steps. "What a gorgeous place this was to
die, Alan. Look at the light.

I bet something holy happened here once. Who knows, maybe twice." Alan
shut off the engine, walked around the car, and joined his friend in
staring at the rock bluff silhouetted against the last light. "Does that
make a difference, Sam? How pretty it is where you die?"

"Everything makes a difference, Alan. The time you die. Where you die.
That's the point. Everything makes a difference." Ten minutes later,
Alan turned the big Toyota onto Highway 46, the orange-and-pink glow of
the western sky behind them, the black-purple mass of the San Juan
Mountains dead ahead. High in the La Sal National Forest, Utah Highway
46 becomes Colorado Highway 90. The exact point of transition from Utah
territory to Colorado territory is not at all clear topographically. The
geography doesn't pause with a river or a mountain range to acknowledge
the political boundary. "The more I learn about Utah, the more I feel
like I should need to show my passport to get back into Colorado," Alan
offered quietly, unsure whether Purdy was asleep in the dark car. From
under the bill of his cap, Purdy said, "I sure as hell don't know what
that's supposed to mean."

"Utah. It's like a foreign country, Sam. I guess because of the Mormons
and all the morality laws. Lauren and I drove into Canada a couple of
months ago, when I was visiting her in New York.

Had to go through immigration and customs. On the other side of the
border, the Canadian side, it was almost exactly the same as the U.S.
side. Here, between Colorado and Utah, the border is wide open, yet the
culture couldn't be more different. Did you see any minorities in Moab?

Even one?" Sam scoffed. "How different is that from Boulder? I mean,
really, Alan. What have we got in Boulder, like eleven Asians, six
Hispanics, and two blacks?"

"Sam, it's not that bad."

"You know what I mean. Boulder isn't exactly the great melting pot."

"I suppose you're right. I guess that's not it. But there is something
foreign about Utah.

You know what I'm talking about." Purdy pulled his hat down lower on his
forehead and slumped farther down onto the seat. "It's not that
complicated. It's God. It's all about God."

"What do you think, Sam?

About God? About the Mormons?"

"I think this whole damn country is God's country. The whole damn world,
even. The Mormons are just one of those religions that like to feel
particularly precious about it. That's what I think. Enough said. Wake
me up if you want me to drive. Does this seat tilt back any farther?"

"Yeah, you got it back farther last night. The latch is on the side, by
the door," Alan replied. "Are you religious, Sam? Were you brought up
religious?" Purdy fumbled with the lever on the side of the seat. "Oh,
there, I got it. Good. Was I brought up religious? Nah. I was raised
Catholic. Buenas noches." Alan smiled, but he suspected there was more
to Sam's preoccupation with cults. "There's something else, isn't
there?"

"What? Let me sleep."

"Something about you and religion that's driving you on this trip.
Something Lauren knows that I don't." Purdy didn't look up. He waited
half a minute before responding. "It's not about religion for me. It's
about fanaticism. I feel good about religion. I go to church regularly,
I believe in God. I try to live a Christian life. This isn't about
religion. Okay?" Sam looked across the car, demanding an acknowledgment.

Alan nodded. "Remember Jonestown, the Kool-Aid? My aunt and uncle--my
father's younger brother and his wife--died there."

"Wow. Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Fanatical religions--I don't care whether you call them cults, whether
you call them evangelicals, whether you call them mainstream--sometimes
they hurt real people." Alan was quiet, hoping Sam would continue on his
own. He did. "Look just about anyplace in the world. Croatia, Ireland,
India, Iraq, the Middle East. Look at the abortion battle here in the
States, look at Amendment 2 in Colorado, look anywhere on the planet.
Most of the conflict in the world is justified on religious grounds. The
most noble and the most heinous things done on the face of this earth
are done in the name of God. How do you make sense of that? I haven't
figured it out yet. For every Mother Teresa there's a David Koresh. "I
get baffled. America thinks it's immune. We aren't. Our time will come.
And it won't come from some little sect in Waco, Texas, that has a few
bazookas. It'll come from some quote-unquote mainstream religion with
high-tech communication and a few hundred thousand obedient believers
and some crazy leader who decides that the time is right for a holy
war." Alan didn't know what to say. "You think it will be the Mormons?"

"Hell, I'm no prophet. I've never met a belligerent Mormon. Not one. But
I wouldn't be surprised if our trouble comes from one of the
millennarian religions. One of the sects, like the Mormons, that believe
in the literal truth of the Book of Revelation. Biblically, everything
is pointed toward the year 2000, the beginning of the seventh day, the
start of the seventh millennium. I think that's when this holy shit's
gonna hit the fan. First will come Armageddon. Then the Great New Day.
You can count on there being a few bullets fired along the way. You can
fucking count on it. Good night." Alan tried to see Sam's perspective, a
view through a lens ground with the ashes of the Reverend Jim Jones. He
floored the car to no avail.

Since he had bought the used Land Cruiser from his neighbor, he had
discovered that it was chronically underpowered. Nowhere was that more
evident than climbing the final leg of the San Miguel River Canyon from
Sawpit up into Telluride. Telluride, Colorado, is tucked into a
cul-de-sac canyon in the San Juan Mountains; the road into the narrow
pioneer mining town dead-ends at the base of Bridal Veil Falls. No one
comes to Telluride on the way to someplace else. These days, people come
for the beauty. In autumn, its gluttony of summer festivals digested,
Telluride was sedate. Asleep in the car, Purdy missed all the wonder
provided by the dark canyon. He missed the smell of ponderosa and the
aroma of woodsmoke. He missed the rhythm of the creeping San Miguel and
the echoing bark of a howling dog. He managed to stay asleep in the
front seat while Alan checked them into a bed-and-breakfast just a
couple of blocks from the center of town. By the time Alan had secured
their bikes inside the back of the car, Sam had already moved upstairs
and resumed his dreams in a charming little second-floor room. Robing
and Lauren stayed downtown until almost four in the morning, talking
about Harley and alcohol and Wiley and hot cider. Lauren had argued
vigorously with Robin to try to convince her not to go home. She had
offered Robin her sister's bed as a temporary refuge. Lauren thought
that Robin's dismissive reply was made too impulsively, but both woman
ended up going home alone. Midmorning the next day, Lauren arrived at
the office eager to report on the conversation she'd had with Harley the
evening before. Neither she nor Robin even pretended to feel refreshed.

"As I told you, my friend Harley"--Lauren elevated her eyebrows and
tried not to blush--"is LDS, and he knows a lot about the Church. He
told me that the men Pratt circled on the list from the BYU yearbooks
are all Mormon elders. He doesn't know who the woman is. I'll call the
alumni association at BYU today, see what they can tell me about her."

"Elders? What do you mean, elders? My paperboy is a Mormon elder." Robin
failed to disguise her irritability. Wiley had been asleep on the couch
in his study when she got back home. He had already dressed and headed
off to work by the time she crawled out of bed and stumbled into the
shower behind a carefully locked bathroom door far too few hours later.

"Oh, you know. What do the Mormons call them? Authorities? Yeah, Two of
them are authorities. Or apostles? I'm sorry, I'm exhausted from last
night and my brain's not working. And one of them is part of the
presidency, I think." Lauren tried to make some sense of her
recollection of her conversation with Harley at the Side Pocket the
night before. Robin shut her eyes tightly and pulled her hair back over
her ears. "Why don't you read me their names." Lauren unfolded her list.

"Leroy Thomas, Bruce Starkle, and Kevin Lee. And a woman, Rachel
Misker." Robin shook her head in dismay at the list. "Bruce Starkle is
the one I know. He's a big shot. First Presidency. There are two men in
the First Presidency besides the prophet. They're Just below the prophet
in rank. They're like his cabinet. Those other two men on the list must
be run-of-the-mill general authorities. I don't know all of the
authorities--there are too many of them. And I don't know the woman.

"Starkle is truly important, though. He was on the BYU Board of
Trustees. He's on the news all the time. For someone so powerful in the
Church, he's relatively young. He's handsome, eloquent." She smiled to
herself. "He's potent, too. I think I remember hearing that he has a
dozen kids or something. Although I shouldn't be surprised, I didn't
know he was particularly close to Lester Horner. That fact could be
crucial for us." As Lauren reached down to re-examine her list, she was
shaking her head. "I'm sorry, but I don't have a context for all of
this, Robin. It sounds like these guys are just Church bigwigs, like
bishops, but you talk about them like they're as powerful as commissars
in the Communist Party or something." Robin took off her glasses and
rubbed the bridge of her nose. "This is the Planet Utah. It's easy to
forget it, Lauren. When you look at the mountains it may remind you of
Colorado. Don't be fooled. These men run the LDS Church. They provide
direction and order for seventy or eighty percent of this state's
population. When they suggest how to vote, the population listens. When
they tell the legislature what the Church wants, the legislators listen.

When they suggest how to think, the faithful listen. If they tell the
faithful to stay home with then- family on Monday night and make
collages of the celestial kingdom or do origami impressions of the angel
Moroni, then there's no point having your restaurant open that
night--you won't get any LDS business. "Want to know how it works?

Here's how it works. The Church leaders see themselves as persecuted
pragmatists. When the U.S. Army was about to start confiscating Church
property and when they started arresting Church leaders over polygamy,
the prophet then, Wil- ford Woodruff, issued a manifesto forbidding the
practice of polygamy. When the civil rights movement targeted the Mormon
Church for not allowing blacks in the priesthood. God miraculously
provided a revelation that it was no longer His wish. If the old men who
run the Church were to decide that God has changed His mind and that He
really wants the faithful to wear Fruit of the Looms and not wear
garments anymore, no one would wear garments anymore. "These old men are
behind every bit of the Church's influence, good and bad. The
authorities are the force of God in Utah. Government is secondary there,
merely an expediency, a practicality. The LDS Church is not always
benign."

"You don't sound too fond of the Mormons."

"I'm sure at times I don't, but I can't think of one individual Mormon I
dislike. I have plenty of Mormon neighbors. People I work with.
Acquaintances. Mostly, in a funny way, I admire them, the way they live
their lives, the way they live their values. Living around Mor- mons in
Utah has made me a better person. I've stopped smoking; I drink less. I
appreciate the whole idea of family more. LDS I know personally are
healthy, respectful, spiritual people, though I personally think they
have blinders on about the Church and its doctrine. What I'm so
disdainful of is that the Mormons run this state and how they run this
state. Utah is a marvelous place to live. I wish it weren't a theocracy,
that's all." Lauren considered pursuing the Mormon question but didn't.
She waited until she had captured Robin's eyes. "How were things at
home? Did you see your husband this morning?" Robin shook her head and
shrugged her shoulders. "He left early. We didn't talk."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I'm already beginning to convince myself it didn't happen
the way I said. Maybe he spilled the cider by accident. I don't know.

Listen, I've got depositions on another case this morning. Why don't you
go to the conference room and make your calls to Provo? Then you can
fill me in this afternoon on what you find out."

"Okay." Lauren felt dismissed. She stood up. "If you want to talk--you
know, about Wiley--you'll let me know, right?" Robin nodded warmly.
"Lauren, have you heard from your sister?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Wanted to know what's new with the case. Asked if
she can do anything to help. Her gig in Vegas is just a fill-in for a
few nights. Who knows, she may prance in here any minute."

"Have her call me."

"Sure. She's at the same number as before, if you want to reach her."
Lauren paused one more time before leaving the office. "Please
reconsider about staying with me for a while." Robin didn't respond.
Lauren said, "I mean it."

"Okay, okay, I'll think about it. Get out of here." T. he view from the
tiny dining room of the inn was to the east. The sharp, juvenile peaks
of the Uncompahgre made the steep incline of Black Bear Pass look as
forbidding as a path up Everest. Sam Purdy said, "Yes, ma'am, I think
I'd love some of both." Sam was reclining on his chair in the sunlit
dining room of the bed-and-breakfast where he and Alan had slept in
Telluride. He was responding to an offer of seconds on huevos rancheros
and a refill on coffee. The owners of the inn were a female couple in
their late thirties. One, lanky and shy, stayed in the kitchen, while
her robust, talkative partner worked the dining room with generosity and
wit. Alan declined more eggs. He asked if he could borrow a local phone
book instead. Sam smiled at him. "My, my. You're getting right to work.

That's sure admirable. Except we don't have any names to look up quite
yet. What, you gonna check in the yellow pages under 'suspects'?" Alan
had slept well, and he had steeled himself for Purdy. With a smile, he
said, "For your information, Sam, I do have names. Or, at least, one
name. I talked to Lauren this morning woke her up, actually. You and I
are to see if there's a woman who lives around here named Rachel Misker.

If we find her, we call Lauren and get instructions. She doesn't want us
to talk with her. She's not even sure she's the one we're looking for."
iyo iteptwi WBITF Sam mimicked Alan's hushed tone. "Why are we
whispering all of a sudden?" Alan leaned forward and lowered his voice
as an alternative to whispering. "Sam, maybe Rachel Misker is why this
Toomey guy was killed."

"Ah-ha." Purdy leaned over his empty plate and looked left and right
before continuing. "So we'd better be real careful, right?"

"Sam, why aren't you taking this seriously?" Purdy sat back on his chair
and straightened his napkin in his lap. "I am. But my paranoia isn't
metastasizing. * The owner, who had introduced herself as Cilia,
delivered the thin phone book to Alan and asked, "Is there anything or
anybody I can help you fellas find around here? I know a lot of people."
Alan feared that Sam was about to ask Cilia if she knew Rachel Misker,
so he interjected, "No, we're fine. Just looking up an old friend." Sam
shook his head in amusement as Cilia moved on to the only other table
that was occupied in the little dining room. "I think Cilia here would
turn out to be a safe source for us, Alan. Trust my instincts on this."

"How can you say that, Sam? What makes you so sure?"

"Wouldn't you agree that she and the pretty lady with the ponytail and
great eyebrows in the kitchen are an item?"

"Sure." Alan glanced through the open door at the woman with the great
eyebrows. Cilia and her partner had been making absolutely no secret of
the extent of their affection for each other. "Well, just how many
lesbians do you know who moonlight as secret informers for the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?" Purdy raised his own ample eyebrows.
"Got you that time, didn't I?" Cilia delivered Sam his second breakfast
with a smile warm enough to make toast. Purdy ate. Alan plowed through
the phone book and didn't find Rachel Misker anywhere, finally
concluding that she must be listed under her married name. A few minutes
later Sam said, "So where we gonna ride today? How different is it
riding dirt trails instead of rock ones?"

"What about finding Rachel Misker, Sam?"

"First things first. And the first thing is, I'm on vacation. And unless
Ms.

Misker is hiding from us--and why should she be, since she doesn't know
us from the pope?--we'll find her without even interrupting our
holiday." He wiped his mouth with his napkin and smoothed his mustache
to the left and then to the right with his tongue. Then he exclaimed,
"My God, these women can cook, can't they?" Alan excused himself to go
take a shower. "She lives in Ouray. Over the hill. Her name is Rachel
Baumann now. She's another goddamn attorney." Purdy was sitting on
Alan's bed, talking to him through the closed door of the adjoining
bathroom. He had raised his voice enough to ensure that Alan could hear
that he was speaking but intentionally didn't speak loudly enough that
Alan would understand everything he said. Alan cracked open the bathroom
door. A cloud of steam puffed out near the top of the jamb. "What?"

"She lives in Ouray. She's married. She's a lawyer." Alan slammed the
door shut and finished shaving. He emerged five minutes later. "And how
do we know this? No, on second thought, don't tell me. I don't want to
know." Purdy made a face intended to demonstrate that he was trying not
to gloat. "Sure you do. You'll like this. I used your source." He held
up the local phone book. "These people Lauren is looking for all met at
BYU, right? A lot of them are lawyers now. I thought she might be, too.

Only one lawyer named Rachel in the phone book. Rachel Baumann. I
called, pretended I was a prospective client, asked for her credentials.

Bingo. Her secretary said she had started out at BYU and finished school
in Durango. Did law school later on, in Denver. At DU." Alan began to
get dressed. Purdy stared, perplexed, at Alan's shaved legs. A pair of
precise furry rings emerged a few inches above his knees. "You shave
your legs?" Purdy said. His tone implied, Are you nuts? Alan nodded and
prayed that this line of inquiry would just go away. "You do this for
Lauren? She likes your legs like that?" Purdy wondered momentarily if
his wife would go for it and instantly decided it didn't matter. "No.

It's a bicycling thing. Okay?"

"What? Wind cesistance? Like swimmers shaving their heads?"

"No. Road burn. When you fall, you lose less skin and heal quicker if
you don't have hair."

"When you fall?" Purdy had taken a hard spill on one of the trails the
previous afternoon. "So you think I should shave, too?" Alan laughed at
the mental image but couldn't quite decide if Purdy was being sarcastic.
He decided to answer seriously. "Not if you stay off-road, Sam. Then you
can stay as hairy as God made you. But if you get serious and start road
racing, you need to think about shaving." Sam shook his head and stared
down at Alan's slender calves. "I don't know. I think I'd rather lose a
lot of extra skin than have my legs look like aspen trees after the
blight." As quickly as he could, Alan pulled on a pair of jeans. He sat
down next to the phone. "I need to call Lauren, tell her we found this
woman. You found this woman. I've got a feeling she could use some good
news." Sam said, "Uh-uh. Not yet. I want to do some riding here today.
Then we gotta go over to Ouray ourselves and check things out, make sure
we're right about Rachel Anyway, Cilia says there are some great places
to ride near Ouray. And she told me which B & B to stay at. Said she'd
call ahead and recommend me to the owners. Excuse me--recommend us to
the owners."

"That's not what Lauren wants us to do, Sam." Sam snorted. "One thing
you learn when you're a cop is that if you listen only to what DAS want
you to do, you're hardly ever gonna get anything done. DAS are like
football coaches. They like to draw plays on the chalkboard and tell
everybody on the team exactly what they're supposed to do to lead the
team to victory. But sometimes you have to improvise. When the team wins
anyway, then the coach looks good, and they end up as happy as an Iron
Ranger on a frozen lake." Alan knew neither what an Iron Ranger was nor
what one would be doing on a frozen lake. "And if the team loses?" he
said. "Ahhh shit. They get over it." our floor. Special Collections,
please." The operator said, "Just a moment," in a cheery, singsong voice
that made her sound around fifteen years old. "Special Collections. May
I help you?"

"I hope so. Could you please check a listing on a student in an old
yearbook for me?"

"I'd be happy to. Do you know the year?"

"She entered in nineteen fifty-nine. Would have graduated with the class
of sixty-three, I think."

"Let me pull it. It'll be just a moment." Lauren Crowder waited
impatiently while the librarian went off to retrieve the book. The harsh
late-morning glare highlighted a trail of Vanilla Wafer crumbs across
the long conference table down the hall from Robin Torr's office. Lauren
examined the trail with guilt, as though she were a drunk counting the
previous night's empties. There was a click on the phone line. Lauren
thought she was being rescued from being on hold.

Muffled noises--possibly voices--followed. Then the librarian said, "I'm
very sorry, but those volumes are currently unavailable." Lauren was
immediately suspicious. "I didn't think yearbooks circulated."

"Well, you're so right, they don't. But these are currently unavailable
for some reason. I'm terribly sorry. Is there anything else I could help
you with?"

"Perhaps if I called later?"

"I don't think that would really help."

"Would someone else have one? The alumni association, maybe?"

"You might just want to check. I don't know what they keep over there.

But if you'll stop by with some HICMTR AU I M<JKI I Y M I student
identification and your temple recommend, I'll be happy to see what I
can do to track one down for you. Miss.  ...  ?"

"I might do that if I can't find one. Thank you very much."

"You're so welcome." Lauren's conversation with a man at the BYU alumni
association was more terse but no more successful. He didn't have any
information on Rachel Misker and couldn't seem to find the association's
copy of the pertinent yearbooks.

He'd be sure to call if he did. Would she care to leave a name and
number? Lauren said that wouldn't be necessary and hung up, wondering
what the hell was going on. Lauren called Harley for an explanation. In
response to his answer, she said, "What do you mean, you would guess
that the BYU yearbook for nineteen sixty-three is no longer considered
faith- promoting?" Harley suppressed a laugh at Lauren's continued
ignorance of Mormonism. He adopted a tone as professional as he was
capable of mustering. "Certain inquiries, especially ones that might
lead to contradictions about the faith, or that, if pursued, may
instigate derision amongst non-Mormons, are considered to be not
faith-promoting. As you probably know, members of the Church are
instructed not to pursue them. What you may not know is that LDS
institutions--bookstores and libraries alike--don't make
non-faith-promoting materials readily available." Lauren made no attempt
to suppress her incredulity. "Harley, BYU is a major university. And
major universities do not ban books. I don't believe that."

"These books don't exactly get banned, Lauren, they merely become
unavailable. Don't forget, this is Utah we're talking about. Brigham
Young University's own statement of mission allows, quote, 'reasonable'
limitations on faculty and student freedom of intellectual exploration
and expression if that freedom is likely to interfere with the Mormon
Church's spiritual purposes or religious goals."

"No. Really? So what does a controversial faculty member do at BYU,
publish under a pseudonym?"

"Faculty members uncomfortable with the BYU Honor Code are invited to
relocate to a lay institution that permits academic pursuits consistent
with more heathen interest. My campus gets a few of the self-banished or
tenure-rejected every year."

"Are you one of them?"

"I suppose in a way I am. I never taught at BYU, but the match would not
have been a heavenly marriage.

The very fact that I am sitting, at this moment, in this messy room I
call an office drinking a can of Diet Pepsi would be enough to get me
bounced all the way from Provo to Orem." He laughed to himself. "And I
can guarantee you that the saints in Orem wouldn't be too happy to see
me, either." Through an exasperated exhale, Lauren said, "The more I
know, the more I'm amazed. I've got to run, Harley. Thanks for the
continuing sociological tutorial. Will you shoot pool with me tonight?"

"No. But I'd love to watch you play," he said. "What time works for
you?"

"Doesn't matter to me. You know I'll be there. I'm not hard to find."
The same, of course, could not be said for Teresa Crowder. For the rest
of the day, Lauren fretted about her sister's failure to show up in Salt
Lake City at the conclusion of her gig in Vegas. Or at least to call
again. Lauren pushed away intrusive, anxious memories of her mother's
hand-wringing anguish during Teresa's disappearances as a child. She
remembered being enlisted to corral her siblings and form posses to go
out into the orchards and look for her sister. All day long, she fought
the temptation to do it all over again. Lauren reminded herself that
every last time her sister had disappeared she had ended up being all
right. Every last time. Simultaneously, she tried to deny the awareness
that Pratt Toomey's family might have said the same thing about him.
Early in the afternoon, worry triumphed over reason, and she called the
hotel in Nevada where Teresa had been working. The clerk said that
Teresa Crowder had checked out that morning. Did they know where she had
gone? They didn't. A half-dozen phone calls later, Lauren had tracked
down the woman who had booked Teresa into one of the casino's lounges.
The woman said that she had heard that Teresa had gotten another booking
and thought she had left Las Vegas. "But you don't know where?"

"Sorry. She may have told me, but if she did, I forgot. There are a lot
of comedians out there. I don't keep track of them. She doesn't have an
agent, does she?"

"No. She's new at this. I mean, at being successful at this. She's been
doing her own booking."

"Don't know what to tell you. Your sister's a funny girl. And she's got
looks. Her material has some promise. A little more polish, a little
more confidence, and, who knows? I'll have her back here for another
gig, maybe even before the end of the year. She can count on that."
Lauren thanked her, hung up, and resolved to give up trying to track
down her sister. She also resolved to do her best not to worry about
Teresa's safety. But that night, after a funny, flirtatious, diverting
time with John Harley at the Side Pocket, she had a long, fretful dream
about her father, drunk, about her sister, absent, and about their
family dog. She woke screaming from the dream when the dog's face turned
crimson, awash with blood. In the morning when she woke, she surprised
herself by missing Alan. She encouraged the feeling, and before long she
ached for him for the first time since she had wt siepaen warn arrived
in Utah.

She was glad for the longing, was distracted by it. Showering, she
recalled without wanting to the day she had had her first MRI, lying on
the narrow tray, being slid smoothly into the long, dark tube, the
hollow rhythmic pounding of the machine, the tinny amplified voice of
the technician, the little mirror that helped her see her toes. And, an
hour later, the word from her neurologist, the diagnosis: multiple
sclerosis. She was as frightened now as she had been then. She had never
thought she would be that frightened again. She had been wrong once
before. In Aspen. She was wrong again. In Utah, of all places. The
shower cleared her head. It was time to drop any hope of filing a
lawsuit and instead go back to Boulder and get married to Alan Gregory
and think about having babies. A few minutes later, waiting for toast to
pop out of her sister's antique Toastmaster, she found herself wondering
what John Harley was doing for lunch. Within seconds, she was blinking
away tears. W ill Price had thought and prayed about it each day for a
week and had concluded that he had accomplished a lot of healing with
Lester Horner during the two days they had spent, mostly on their hands
and knees, searching for evidence of the ancestors of the enigmatic
Anasazi. He had spoken with Horner twice since the justice had returned
to Washington, D.C. Lester, he concluded, was now mentally prepared for
the new Court term. Will Price felt that his mission had been
accomplished. One mission, anyway. Despite an admirable dedication to
the task at hand, the two men had departed the Ute Mountain Tribal Park
thinking that once again they had failed to discover anything that would
buttress Price's hypotheses about the Lamanites and the cliff- dwelling
Anasazi. They had, however, found evidence of a collapsed wall inside
the kiva they were working and had begun to uncover some exciting
partial petroglyphs. Will Price was a proponent of a controversial
theory that significantly stretched existing Mormon hypotheses about the
extent to which Lamanite migration had proceeded into the Land Northward
from their theorized landing site in Mesoamerica. He considered the new
finds from the kiva to be promising. He had carefully photographed the
new images so they could be examined by scientists he knew in Provo. The
lack of concrete scientific progress at the dig was almost immaterial to
the two men. The path they walked was a long one. They were both
patient. On their last day in the Ute park, a week earlier, as they were
packing the car to return to the Farmington airport, Horner had turned
to his old friend, and in a voice that begged reminiscence said, "So,
how long have we been doing this. Will?"

"I don't know, Lester. What?

Twenty-five years? Thirty-five?"

"It's been twenty-seven years. You and I first came to Four Corners
twenty-seven years ago. We made that first trip in your dad's rusty old
pickup, remember? What color was that thing, anyway?" Will Price
shrugged. "Rust-colored, I guess."

"And now, for the first time in all those years, for some reason I feel
like we're finally getting close. I know that there are a lot of people
who say we should be digging in Central America or Mexico. Well, I think
they're wrong. It's taken us a long time; we've scraped a lot of dirt.
But I can feel it now." He shivered involuntarily. "I can." Price
slapped the Supreme Court justice on the back and said, "There's no
doubt in my mind but that you might be right, Lester. I've not said
anything, but I've received some revelations about this place myself.
This is exactly where it is going to happen. Right here. Ute Mountain.
Didn't you believe all along that it was going to be Utah? I know I
did."

"I did, too."

"You disappointed?"

"No, it's close enough for me. Colorado's fine," offered Lester. "It
just means that some cartographer drew the lines a little bit off when
the maps were made. When we find what we're after, it will make this
place a spiritual part of Zion. Mapmakers make mistakes; the Lord
doesn't." Horner hefted a heavy box of tools into the air and then slid
it into the trunk of the car. He paused and looked around at the cliff
dwellings high in the canyon. "A thousand Indians--Lamanites, might as
well start calling them that--lived in these canyons once.

Will. Maybe more. Who knows, right? They were early saints, but their
souls were never saved. Well, their wait is almost over. Soon we'll
discover the identity of those souls so they can be welcomed into the
celestial kingdom." Lester Horner knew his eyes were teary, but he
wasn't sure why. He turned away from Price, into the chill breeze. Price
was moved by his friend's introspection. "Don't doubt yourself, Lester.

It's taken me some sweet time to get used to it, but there's no doubt
you've been chosen for some special things." He belly-laughed, and the
cheerful sound came back bruised as it echoed off the sandstone.

"Seriously, who in their right mind would even begin to think that God's
wishes could actually be handled by a lawyer?" Horner smiled and
tightened the bungees he was using to wrap the bulky tent. "Joseph was
chosen by Moroni to translate the gold plates. Brigham was chosen by
Joseph Smith and by God to lead the saints to Deseret. Apparently you,
too, have been chosen. We both know that the president doesn't usually
volunteer for the type of scrutiny the Church received during your dam
confirmation hearings, Lester. The prophet must have told you that you
were called to the Supreme Court, didn't he? The Lord must have chosen
you Himself, right?" Horner nodded, noticed he had missed a tent spike,
and reached over for it. He didn't like to think about the Senate
hearings. He considered it to have been the most arduous week of his
life. "So the way I look at it, it was the Lord, not the president of
the United States, who appointed you to protect the Constitution from
the ravages of this society. From homosexuality, from drugs, from women
acting like priests. From all the attacks on the family--abortion,
pornography, violence. That protection is the work God wants from you.

The saints have waited over one hundred years for that shield. You know,
Brigham Young wasn't wrong about much, but he thought these mountains
would stop the nonbelievers from reaching Utah. Thought that geography
would protect the saints. Brigham was wrong about that. President Benson
has said that the Church would one day assume leadership in Washington.

Well, because of you, that time is now. And it appears that it's up to
us. Mostly you, I think, Lester. It's in your hands. They are good
hands. Not perfect hands. But they are the hands that the Lord has
chosen." Price checked Lester's reaction. Horner seemed trapped in a
reverie framed by sandstone and sky. "This, too," Price continued, aware
of a need to reel his friend back in, spreading his meaty arms wide to
take in the barren majesty of this corner of the Southwest. "You and I
are ot here living in tents being spiritual fools, looking for proof of
the Lamanites. We are like Joseph Smith out here. He had the gold plates
and the Urim and the Thununim. He had his wilderness. We have the search
for the Lamanites. We have our wilderness. We do, Lester. We persevere
to bring the truth. As saints we are often mocked, but constantly we are
feared. It is because of our truth. We must always suffer the
consequences of that truth gladly." Horner mused at the beauty around
him. "This isn't exactly suffering, Will."

"You know what I mean, Lester."

"Yes, I do. Though if what you and I suspect about my role is correct, I
admit to being seriously humbled by what the Lord is asking of me. I
know it's only human to doubt one's worthiness, but the enonnousness is
only starting to become clear to me. You are more righteous than me,
Will. You always have been. Why have I been chosen and not you?" Price
shrugged and smiled, and then his deep laugh again filled the canyon.
"The Lord, for some good reason He has not yet shared with me, has
chosen me to build self-storage lots, Lester. Big ones.

With lime-green doors and excellent security. Given my success at it,
it's apparently been pretty important to Him that I do it well. I feel
good about that, about doing it well. It was an honor to have been
called to run the mission in Mary- land for a while. But now that's
over. I'm happy to be doing the home teaching I'm doing now, but I hope
to be called for a mission again soon. Or if God wills it, another
bishopric. I've raised a fine family. I am fortu- HIGHKR AUTHUKI IY J.W
nate to be able to tithe the way a rich man tithes. In my spare time I
read everything I can to help track down the route of the Lamanites to
the Land Northward. It's a good life. It makes me proud." W hen Lauren
showed up at Lewis, Frank and Zeiem the next day, Elsie Smith ushered
her directly into Robin Torr's office. Robin didn't bother with a
greeting. "Where's your sister?"

"I don't know."

"You haven't heard from her? You don't know where she is? I thought you
expected her back."

"I did expect her back. And, no, she hasn't called in. I don't have any
idea where she is." Robin's eyes were flat and cold. Lauren said,
"What's wrong, Robin? You should be getting used to this by now. She'll
phone one of us today. What's so urgent that you need to talk to her
right away?" , Lauren sat on one of the armchairs across from the desk.

She was distracted by an irritating burning on her hand. Her right palm
felt as though she had scraped it hard on asphalt. It burned as if from
embedded gravel and from fifty little flaps of palm flesh. Absently, she
gazed down to examine her wounds and allowed herself the luxury of being
surprised at what she saw. The hand looked fine. Then it must be someone
else's hand; mine is on fire. Lauren swallowed. This was multiple
sclerosis shooting a round across the bow. Just a sensory ambush so far.

Soon, what? Maybe a frontal assault on one of her vulnerable flanks: her
vision, her muscles, her balance. Just an ambush so far, she told
herself again, a lone sniper, a flesh wound, just a little pain. "I
said, something's come up," Robin repeated, derision seeping into her
tone. "Lauren, are you listening to me? You asked me a question. There's
a little something we need to discuss with your sister."

"I'm sorry.

What is it, Robin?" She slid the tips of her fingers across her burning
palm for evidence of imaginary wounds. "Read this." Robin handed over a
letter on the stark white twenty-five-pound bond that was so ubiquitous
in legal communications. An accompanying sheet was on lighter,
photocopier bond. Lauren's spirits sank as she read the stilted
politeness of the letter from the lawyer representing Blythe Oaks's
estate. The letterhead clearly identified him as a full partner at James
and Bartell. Lauren flipped to the second page and saw the word
"AFFIDAVIT," noting the capital letters and bold typeface. The notarized
signature at the bottom of the sheet was that of a young woman Lauren
vaguely remembered. She thought she had met her over the Christmas
holiday one year on the family apple farm in Washing- ton, a friend
Teresa had brought home for Christmas. Daphne Darrow. Lauren smiled as
she read the name. Daphne had been thin and tall and winsome, with dark,
shiny hair and a huge, generous smile. "She has Crowder hair," Jersey
Crowder had pronounced from the head of the table, where he had presided
over a joyous Christmas dinner at which Daphne had been treated as
family. Lauren remembered that particular holiday well, mostly, she
thought, because of how magical it had been. It had been especially
magical, she knew, because Santa hadn't brought Jersey Crowder any
Schlitz that year. From the accompanying too-polite letter, which
actually came close to feigning an apologetic tone at having to bring
this "difficult" new information to Robin Torr's attention, Lauren
guessed correctly what the affidavit would say. Daphne's own words were
sweet, and despite signs of obvious coaching at the beginning and the
end of the statement by some legal or paralegal type, her brief story
managed to convey some true nostalgia and sadness. Her prose was rich
with adjectives as she described a brief affair that had ultimately, she
felt with apparent regret, ended her friendship with Teresa Crowder. The
opening sentence and the closing sentence of the affidavit both included
the word "lesbian" and the phrase "homosexual contact." The three
paragraphs in between spoke only of a halting, exploratory love between
two young women. And, yes, sex. Briefly. Awkwardly. Between two young
women. Lauren read the statement again. She had almost forgotten that
Robin Torr was in the room. When she looked up and saw Robin, Lauren
felt embarrassed that her sister's secrets were so starkly stated in
black and white. She said, "I remember her. Daphne. She was a sweet kid.

She came home from school one holiday break with Teresa." Lauren's voice
was wistful at the memory. "It was a great Christmas."

"Especially for your sister, apparently. Not too bad for Daphne,
either." When Lauren spoke again, her eyes were burning almost as much
as her hand. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"I mean, we have ourselves a new problem we don't need."

"I know exactly how damaging this is, Robin. But what I need to know is,
what the hell did you mean by your comment?"

"Damn it, Lauren, she should have told me this." She flicked a pencil in
the direction of the affidavit. "What? That she was a kid once? That she
didn't always play according to the rules? That she wondered once if she
might like girls more than boys? Jesus, Robin, I'm hoping what I'm
hearing isn't true." Robin stared at Lauren for two or three seconds,
then past her, out the windows, at the Wasatch. She noticed the
white-tipped peaks. Couldn't remember when it had snowed. How could I
miss a goddamn snowstorm? She tried to still her breathing. "I didn't
mean to sound judgmental. I'm sorry."

"Are you?"

"What, sorry? Yes, I am. Very much so. What I said wasn't  ...  right.
I'm sorry."

"No, judgmental. Are you judgmental? About lesbians? I need to know."
Robin was silent. She flashed on Wiley, with his mug of cider. Her eyes
were clear, sharp, penetrating. Lauren pressed. "This case isn't about
lesbian harassment, Robin. It's about harassment. Period. End of
sentence. That Teresa had sex with another woman before Blythe Oaks
harassed her is not the point in this case, any more than it was
important whether Anita Hill was or was not a virgin when Clarence
Thomas asked her about Long Dong Silver." Lauren sat back, short of
breath. She thought she felt the sole of her foot starting to burn. She
fought an urge to kick off her shoe and look. When Robin spoke, her
voice was focused, her words cryptic, plated with anger. "I don't like
it when you're so righteous. I don't like it at all." Lauren opened her
mouth to speak. Robin cut her off. "No, it's my turn." She took a deep
breath and swallowed. She put both her hands on the edge of her desk,
her long, thin fingers curling up over the lip of the wood. "You tell me
that if the facts were a little different, if your sister were an
out-of-the-closet lesbian, and that if we were sitting in Phoenix,
Arizona, and not Salt Lake City, Utah, that the lawyer in you would have
been so quick to throw your money and your time at me to support a
lawsuit? I'm sorry, I don't think so. "So don't patronize me with your
condescension. And don't condemn me for my legal strategy. Our legal
strategy. You had your sister call me because we have a fighting chance
to win this lawsuit because we're in Utah. Because Utah is not only a
bastion of western frontier conservatism but also the home of the Mormon
Church, and it just so happens that we have as many homophobes per
capita as just about any place on the face of the earth. And you agreed
to press this because we just might be able to prove that Blythe Oaks
was part of a hated, despised minority. And you've known all along that
we were planning to exploit that very ugly fact to help Teresa win her
case." Lauren's jaw was set. Her eyes were hard on Robin. Robin
continued. "Yeah, that's right, we've been planning all along to play
dirty. So don't get righteous with me, damn it. This letter"--she
glanced down at the papers on her desktop--"hurts our chances simply
because it undermines the only leverage we can successfully exploit,
given the prevailing prejudice in this state. And that leverage, as you
damn well know, is that we were going to make sure that the defendant
would be despised more than the plaintiff. And given that our plaintiff
is an unmarried gentile woman in Utah who makes her living as a stand-up
comic, we both knew that wasn't going to be an easy sell. "Our defendant
was going to end up being despised not because she had sexually harassed
someone--which is a seasonal sport here--but because we were going to
allow innuendo to paint her with the brush of homosexual hate. Every
move we've made has had one intent. We've been gathering information
that will help us label Blythe Oaks as a lesbian. In Utah." Robin
uncurled her fingers from the edge of the desk and pointed out the
window. "Look at the sign outside of town, Lauren. It says, "Welcome to
Salem."

"Well, welcome to Salem. Make up your mind. You want to drown the witch,
or not?" I ver the course of the rest of the morning, Lauren and Robin
negotiated a rationalization about the case that would permit them to
press forward. That is, if Teresa ever called with her concurrence. The
conciliation process between the two lawyers was cumbersome, because the
rationalization needed to be one that they could both stomach.
Accomplishing gymnastic moral accommodations was not exactly virgin
territory for either of them, but given the tension and fear developing
about this case, the decision was not reached gracefully. Lauren needed
a summation. "So the bottom line is, absent finding a smoking gun, like
a witness who was in the next stall at the Mayflower, we need to find
evidence of prior harassment committed by Blythe." Robin nodded. "And, I
think we agree, given her orientation, any prior harassment would most
likely have happened with another woman, right?" Reluctantly, Lauren
said, "Right."

"And"--Robin paused, waiting for Lauren's gaze to find her own--"we also
need to do some damage control about the fact that the defense somehow
tracked down Daphne Darrow. And we damn well need to find your sister
and make sure that there aren't any more Daphne Darrows out there
waiting to be tracked down." Lauren scratched at her burning palm. "If
there are, Robin, then this case is a stillbirth. We may be skillful
enough to finesse one Daphne, we'll never get away with two." "Yeah, I
know," said Robin.

"Let's just pray that resa got her period of sexual exploration over
with quickly." Robin spoke in a way that permitted Lauren to laugh in
response. Robin moved quickly to take advantage of the change in mood.

"You know, there is one other thing that would' really help us out."
"What?" Lauren asked. "What would really help us out is if your sister
would find room in her heart to fall in love with a Mormon-- preferably
a Mormon male--convert, and then get married in Temple Square. That
would help us out a lot. I'm speaking prfrely from a litigation point of
view, of course." Lauren laughed at the image. "You know what's more
likely with Teresa? She'll hit the big time as a comic, go on The
Tonight Show, and spend her four minutes of national attention telling
Mormon jokes."

"Please don't even think it. That's my nightmare." Robin rolled her
eyes. "One of my nightmares, anyway. That airspace is pretty congested
these days." Elsie Smith knocked on Robin's door and poked her head into
the room. "Mr. and Mrs. Nafer are here, Mrs. Torr. And your husband
called again. Hello, Miss. Crowder." She closed the door silently as she
retreated. "You need to go. So which leg of this monster do you want me
to tug on? Should I see if I can find out what Pratt was after, or
should I go look around for Blythe Oaks's previous victims?" Robin
feared that Lauren's heart wouldn't be totally invested in finding proof
of previous harassment, so she offered her the option of finding out
what Toomey had been sniffing out. Lauren jumped at it. She also decided
it was time to begin preparing Robin for the reality of Sam and Alan's
assistance. "I've been thinking about it," she said, "and I may be able
to enlist some out-of-town help in finding out what happened to Pratt.

Some friends from Colorado. That should make things safer for us, at
least at first. But the only truly safe thing is quitting. We both know
that. And I look at you now, and I don't think it's too likely.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Robin Torr, think I may have finally met
my match in the stubbornness department." Robin said, "I prefer to think
of myself as tenacious, thank you." After a quick morning ride with Sam
alongside the San Miguel River near Telluride, Alan packed the car and
strapped the bikes onto the roof rack. When Purdy finally emerged from a
prolonged visit to the kitchen and good-byes to Cilia and Teri, Alan
pointed to Sam's bike chain and told him he had a problem. "Jammed
derailleur," he said. "Can you fix it?"

"Sure. After we find Rachel Baumann and confirm that she was indeed born
Rachel Misker." Purdy was suspicious that his bike's derailleur problem
had been caused by Alan's own brand of petty sabotage, and he was
briefly tempted to march into the town of Telluride carrying the bike on
his shoulder until he found a bicycle mechanic who would put the chain
back on for him. After a glance at his watch and some calculations, he
relented to Alan's demand. He realized that by the time they got settled
in Ouray it was going to be well after noon and he wouldn't have yet had
lunch. Finding an attorney named Rachel in a town the size of Ouray, he
quickly decided, shouldn't delay his midday meal by more than ten
minutes. Lauren walked down the hallway to the conference room that she
had co-opted as an office for the duration of the investigation. She
started to phone the bed-and-breakfast where Alan said he and Sam Purdy
would be staying in Telluride but stopped her finger midpoke. Some of
the lights on the panel of the phone in front of her were lit, some were
dark, and one was blinking.

She shook her head at her own paranoia as she placed the receiver gently
back in its cradle. She smiled as she walked back past Elsie Smith's
desk and told her that she was going for a walk. Lauren called the B & B
from a pay phone in an alcove just past the bank of elevators in the
lobby. Cilia answered after a half-dozen rings and told Lauren that"

"Sam and Alan" had checked out and were moving over the hill to Ouray.

When Lauren asked if Cilia knew why they were heading to Ouray, Cilia
said, "To ride, I guess. They really seem to be into mountain hiking."
Cilia offered the name and number of the inn in Ouray where she had sent
them. Lauren jotted down the information on a scrap of paper from her
purse. As she hung up, she muttered, "Come on, Alan, screw the bicycles,
you've got work to do." She assumed that her fiance was the one who was
causing Sam Purdy to be distracted by a search for the one perfect trail
in southwestern Colorado. She hadn't even considered Purdy to be the
culprit; she had never known Sam to do anything but work. Although only
a few miles of the Uncompahgre separate the stunning town of Telluride
from the breathtaking town of Ouray, the trip takes about an hour unless
it is being made by a bird. The fifty-mile highway trip from Telluride
to Ouray first descends the sharp red canyons carved by the San Miguel
River, then goes across and down the splendid Dallas Divide before it
traverses the steep sides of the many mountains of the Sneffels Range
that tumble down to the banks of the Uncompahgre River. The Uncompahgre
is fed by dozens of streams and creeks as it carries snow-melt down the
San Juans. At one high, scenic point, the river passes through an
impossibly narrow carved canyon into the tiny valley that holds Ouray,
the little town that many people consider to be the most exquisite gem
in the most perfect setting in Colorado's resplendent crown of mountain
jewels. HH-.Hbk AU I 1-1UK1 1 Y J\f

"I thought when we were in Telluride that we were in heaven. But Ouray
must be where the angels get to go on vacation." Purdy leaned forward to
look up and out the windshield at the harsh glacial cliffs that towered
above Ouray on the west. Their stratified faces were bathed in
late-morning early-autumn sunshine, the horizontal striations tinged with
purple and gray, the blue sky intensified by the altitude--and, Purdy
thought, by the proximity to God. Alan smiled at Sam but said nothing in
reply. He was entranced as he watched a cascade of water shoot through a
rock face on the east wall of the canyon, plummeting in a chill mist to
the valley below. He fought memories of his only previous trip to Ouray,
a late-spring visit in the company of his wife-- now ex-wife. He shook
off the thought; he wanted to experience this place for the first time
again. "It's all so steep.

Where do we ride?"

"Don't know, Sam. Old mining roads would be my guess.

Not to worry. I brought some trail books and maps. First we find Rachel,
though, then we ride. Right?" Purdy replied, "Not exactly. First Rachel.

Then lunch. Then you fix the derailleur that you broke. Then we ride."
Purdy looked out the passenger window at the scenery. Alan couldn't see
his face. "Sam--"

"Save it." The sign was painted on the glass across the bottom pane of a
double-hung window on the second story of a century-old stone building
on Seventh Avenue, near Fourth Street. "R.

Baumann, Attorney at Law," it read. Alan parked the Land Cruiser across
the gravel street. He got out of the car and touched his toes a few
times. His hamstrings felt like bungees. Purdy joined him on the cracked
sidewalk. Alan said, "Well?"

"Let's go say "Hey."

"Lauren would prefer--"

"District attorneys would prefer it if you would call 'em before you
wipe your ass. Let's just lay our eyes on this lady so we know she's the
one. We don't have to tell her why we're here."

"You going to tell her you're a cop?" Purdy didn't answer; he just
hopped over a big rock and started to cross the street. "What are you
going to tell her, Sam?" Purdy shrugged his shoulders and belatedly
looked both ways. They climbed the stairs to the second-floor landing of
the old building and spotted a polished wood door with a glass panel
painted with lettering identical to that on the window. The outer office
in the suite was set up as an 1890s parlor. At one end, a
secretary-receptionist sat at a small desk, her computer neatly screened
in an antique cherry armoire against the adjacent wall. The secretary
composed her round face into a pleasant "May help you?" configuration.

Sam Purdy said "Hi" in a cheerful tone. The receptionist, whose
nameplate read

"Mrs. Don- nelly," said, "May I help you gentlemen with something?"
Purdy was dressed in weary blue jeans and old Adidas and wore his
Colorado Rockies cap. Alan's jeans were newer than Sam's, and his
sweatshirt was nicer, but the flip-flops on his feet screamed "Tourist!"

"Hello. Hello. I'm Sam Grady. This is my brother, Alan." Sam walked over
to the reception desk and held out his hand for Mrs. Donnelly. Alan,
befuddled, followed him across the room and did the same. Her hand was
dry and icy. She smelled of floral bath soap. "We're from Denver," said
Purdy. "How nice. Is there something I can do for you?" Mrs. Donnelly
asked. "We wanted to see Ms. Baumann. We're looking for an attorney. For
our business."

"I'm afraid you will have to wait until Monday, gentlemen. Mrs. Baumann
is out for the rest of the day.

Would you like to come back, say, ten o'clock Monday morning? With an
appointment?" Purdy didn't bother to check with Alan about his plans.

"That will be fine, ma'am, thank you," he said. "And your name again?"
She had a pencil poised over an appointment calendar. "I'm Sam Grady.

This is my brother--"

"Yes, Alan. And this is about?"

"Business. Setting up a business."

"Then we'll see you Monday, Mr. Grady. We'll see you on Monday." am and
Alan were exhausted when Monday morning finally rolled around. The
weekend had provided the only uninterrupted recreation of their trip,
and they had overindulged, riding the steep trails above the Uncompahgre
for eight hours both Saturday and Sun- day. Alan and Lauren had played
phone tag over the course of the weekend but had never connected.
Because Purdy didn't make it out of bed Monday until nine-thirty, they
were fifteen minutes late for their ten o'clock appointment with Rachel
Baumann. Mrs. Don- nelly greeted them as they walked into the waiting
room. Rachel Baumann stood next to her secretary's desk. She was thin
and stately. Her thick hair, once blond, now steel, fell almost to her
shoulders. The years couldn't disguise her history as a beautiful woman.
She wore a simple dress in a floral print.

It hung on her as well as if it had been tailored for a queen. Sam Purdy
held out his hand in the waiting room and said, "Azaleas." Rachel looked
confused. "Your dress. Azaleas. Very pretty. My wife's a florist." She
looked down at her own dress and examined the print. She said, "Thank
you." She looked at Alan. He felt as though he were onstage. He didn't
know what to do with his hands. "Won't you come back to my office,
gentlemen?" Sam turned briefly toward Alan and said, "You know, I'm not
sure that will be necessary. We actually just i wanted to meet you, just
need a minute of your time, right now. We're thinking about doing some
business up here and wanted to meet a local lawyer, see if we could
handle all the legal stuff right here in Ouray. You know, locally." She
waited patiently for Purdy to go on. When he didn't, she asked, "What
kind of business are you in, Mr. Grady?"

"Bicycles," Sam said without skipping a beat. "Sales, rentals, repairs.
We even fabricate custom frames and wheels." Alan Gregory, who had been
enjoying Purdy's impromptu fantasy, suddenly found himself looking at
his friend with incredulity unwillingly plastered across his face. Sam
continued, "We have a successful shop in Den- ver. Think we can repeat
it up here.

Actually, we're sure we can. Absolutely. We think this part of the San
Juans can be the next hot mountain-biking spot. Get some of the overflow
from Moab." Baumann looked briefly at her unpainted fingernails and
perfectly trimmed cuticles, then gazed into Sam Purdy eyes. "And I
assume you have plans to carry you through the winter? A sideline of
some kind?" Purdy felt like kicking himself for not anticipating the
question. His smooth delivery faltered. Finally, he said, "Sare, in the
winter we'll rent cross-country skis. Do tours. Things like that. Maybe
snowmobiles. I like snowmobiles." "Oh. Things like that," Rachel said.

"This isn't Den- ver, you know, Mr. Grady. It's pretty quiet up here in
February, when most of the tourists in these parts are spending their
money skiing over in Telluride." Purdy just nodded. He was trying hard
to find his place again. "And I'm sure you know there are already a
couple of bicycle stores in town that are quite established."

"Sure, sure. We're never scared by competition. We can outservice and
outprice anybody. So, you do commercial work? Leases, incorporations,
etcetera, et cetera?"

"Of course. At least, the kind of commercial work one might expect to
run into in Ouray County. I handle some mine claims, but mostly I have a
general practice. I'm just an old country lawyer, gentlemen."

"Then we can call you when we need some help setting up shop? This trip
is just for scouting."

"Scouting, I see. Of course you may call again." Mrs. Donnelly reached
into her desk drawer and handed her boss's card across her desktop to
each of the visitors. Rachel Baumann nodded and said, "It's been very
nice to meet you." She looked at Alan Gregory quizzically. "Both of
you." As the two men exited the building, Baumann turned to her
secretary and said, "That was odd, Arna." She excused herself, walked
down a short hallway into her private office, closed the heavy door
behind her, and, hands limp at her sides, tried hard not to cry. Seconds
later, Baumann was surprised and perplexed when she looked out her
window. She watched the men climb into a big four-wheel-drive car. But
the car didn't have the license plates she expected it to have. It was
adorned instead with familiar green Colorado plates. Rachel had been
figuring, for sure, that the two men were from Utah. "Let's get back to
the B & B and hope they'll serve us a late breakfast. Then we can ride
some more before it gets too late. I need to think about what happened
in there." Purdy couldn't get enough mountain hiking. But the experience
in Rachel Baumann's office had precipitated a rapid change in Alan's
appetite, from robust to anemic.

He said, "That woman was suspicious, Sam. You shook her up somehow with
that lame story. I think she knew we weren't in the bike business. She
wasn't fooled. Snowmobiles? Shit."

"Yeah, she was suspicious, all right.

Contained it well, though. But it wasn't my lame story she was leery of.

It was more the idea of us, you know? I think she's been expecting
somebody to show up. But she wasn't sure we were who she was waiting
for. And she wasn't sure we weren't."

"I'd like to pretend I followed that, Sam, but, I didn't."

"That lady in there, she knows two things.

She knows we weren't who we said we were. And she knows who she's afraid
we really were."

"And who's that? Who is she afraid of?"

"See, we don't know that, do we? That's our disadvantage. We don't know
who she's afraid we are. But she's obviously off-balance, too, because
she doesn't know who we are. Maybe Lauren knows something new by now. I
sure as hell hope so." Alan reached down and started the engine. "I
don't know exactly what happened in there, but it doesn't feel good.
Maybe we should just go back and tell her who we are, what we're doing.
Put her mind at ease about us. Tell her she might be in danger." Purdy
couldn't disguise his disdain. "Civilians are such wusses. Alan, that
woman is well aware she's in danger. And you know what? I don't like
this new development, either. I'm not having anywhere near as much fun
on this trip now as I was fifteen minutes ago. But we don't know the
consequences of anything we're doing, so we need to be extra careful
about what we tell whom. Agreed? You go ahead and call Lauren if you
want. When you do, tell her if she wants me to read any more lines in
this play of hers, it's time for her to open the goddamn curtain." Alan
was silent for a couple of blocks. Finally, he turned his head and gazed
across the front seat and said, "Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Did I hear you right in there? You said, 'fabricate custom frames'?"

"That's right, ace, that's what I said."

"You're quite a bullshitter."

"I hang around with pros.

I've had some great tutorials." L auren was well rested after a weekend
of long novels and long naps. A call from Teresa on Sunday nignt had
tempered her anxiety about her sister's safety. And a call from Alan
Gregory minutes before she left her sister's house Monday morning had
provided the first encouragement she had felt in days. She drove
Teresa's car downtown. After dropping her things in the conference room,
she poked her head into Robin's office. Robin was stuffing her briefcase
full of files she needed for a late-morning court appearance. Lauren
said, "I found Teresa. Or she found me. She's on a cruise ship."

"She's on a cruise ship?" Robin asked, her tone dubious. "Well, not
exactly.

Not yet. She leaves tomorrow. She's on her way down to San Diego right
now. She apologized for being out of touch. She got offered a job doing
short cruises in Mexico for a couple of weeks. Apparently somebody who
saw her show in Vegas called her to fill in when another comedian got
sick."

"Where in Mexico?"

"Pacific coast. Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, maybe to
Manzanillo. How far do you think you could go in four days?"

"You give me four days and I promise you that I could get lost so far
into the Amazon that nobody would find me."

"Having escapist fantasies, Robin?"

"I'm afraid they've become routine at this point. By MIOMHK AU 1 MILK[ I
Y J.JLI any chance, did you ask your sister to call me? Perhaps even
convince her that it might be in her best interest to consult with her
attorney about this case occasionally?"

"I told her to call you. She said she would. I actually hoped you would
have already talked with her by now." Lauren was tempted to apologize
for her sister's awkward unreliability, but didn't. Robin Torr looked
exasperated as she shook her head twice in each direction. Lauren said
sheepishly, "I guess she didn't call."

"Good guess. Did you ask her about Daphne?"

"I didn't ask her. But I told her about the affidavit."

"What did she say?"

"She got a little huffy." Robin muttered, "Apparently runs in the
family." Lauren ignored the dig. "From the tone of her response, I got
the impression that Daphne's story is basically true and that the--um,
affair? liaison? whatever-- was a one-time thing for Teresa."

"So there are no more Daphnes in the woodwork?" Lauren shook her head.
What she said to herself was God, I hope not. "You have a number for
your sister where I can reach her?"

"No." Robin sighed.

"Did you by any chance ask her what her feelings were about continuing
this dubious crusade? In her absence, and in her stead, I might add."

"Not directly. I told her I thought all of us were in some danger. She
said she understood that, then she said she would consider dropping it
if you and I felt too threatened. I told her that we felt plenty
threatened and that she needed to think carefully about what she wanted
to do." "And she said?" "She said she would."

"When? Between routines?

On the promenade deck in the mornings? How the hell am I supposed to run
this case without access to my client?" Lauren looked down at her
burning hand, then back up at Robin. "I guess we'll just run it the same
way the defense is running their case without access to a defendant."
Robin removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "You said you had
something else. If it's good, tell me now. If it's going to upset me,
wait till after I get back from court." Lauren chose to be silent. Robin
placed her glasses carefully back on her nose, using the ear pieces to
try to corral her hair. "Oh, God. I can't wait. Tell me now."

"It's good and bad, actually. The good part is that I think I found out
what Pratt was after on his trip."

"Yeah? That's great. So far I like it."

"And the bad part is that what I said last week about maybe enlisting
some help from Colorado wasn't exactly true. The truth is that I found
out about Pratt by involving some other people without asking you
whether or not it was okay." The glasses came off again. Robin Torr sat
all the way back on her leather desk chair. "You did what?" Lauren
looked at the credenza behind Robin and said, "Those flowers sure are
pretty."

"The flowers are Wiley's way of saying he doesn't want me to be mad at
him.

You gonna send me some now, too?"

"Oh, go ahead and be mad, Robin. What I did was I asked some people from
Boulder, some friends, to check on a few things in Moab. Discreetly. I
did it because I was afraid that anybody we sent from Utah would be
followed, like Pratt was. My friends found out some useful things in
Moab that they don't think the police know. They followed Pratt's trail
and ended up in Ouray. In Colorado.

They found Rachel Misker. She's on that list we put together; she's part
of Lester Homer's old BYU crowd. It looks like maybe Pratt was on his
way to talk with her when he was killed."

"Ouray's in the mountains, right?"

"Yeah, near Telluride."

"Have your friends talked with her? Do we know where she fits in our
puzzle?"

"They didn't interview her, but they met with her this morning. They
introduced themselves to her as potential clients. She's an attorney.
Their impression is that she's scared of something. Real scared. They're
waiting for instructions from us--something, unfortunately, neither of
them is particularly good at."

"Waiting?"

"No. Taking instructions."

"Who are they?"

"One's a detective from Boulder. A policeman. His name is Sam Purdy.
He's good. We've worked together quite a bit. Right now he's officially
on vacation; he's doing this thing in Ouray as a favor to me. The other
half of this little team of mine is Alan Gregory. My very own."

"Why did you do this without asking me?"

"I figured you would say no."

"You figured right." She paused and looked out the window. "This doesn't
do a whole lot for the level of trust between us, does it?"

"I suppose not, Robin. But it may do a hell of a lot for Teresa's case."

"I don't play that way, Lauren."

"Well, this isn't a game anymore, Robin. As far as I can tell, the other
side has started to use live ammo."

"So you called out the cavalry? On your own authority?" Lauren laughed.
"Sam Purdy may be the cavalry, Robin. Alan is more like Dennis the
Menace. He's a magnet for trouble. Whatever Alan manages to attract in
the way of mayhem, I wanted Sam around to protect him."

"Well. Although I'm happy for the new information, I'm angry you didn't
trust me enough to allow me to be part of this decision."

"I'm sorry. I truly am. I did what I thought was best." Robin Torr
looked over her shoulder at the dozen yellow long stems. "For the
record, I'm not fond of roses. Wiley's never gotten it right. I have to
wonder how much of an apology he's actually making when he sends me a
big bouquet of flowers that he knows I don't particularly like. And you
know what else? I'm beginning to realize I'm a little envious of that
boyfriend of yours. Wiley wouldn't do something insane for me like Alan
is doing for you, even if I got down on my knees and begged him. Your
guy may be truly short on smarts, but it sounds to me like he sure loves
you." Lauren smiled, shrugged, nodded. Robin sculpted a mischievous
smile from her thin lips. "So, now that he's finished doing his job in
Ouray, are you going to invite Alan to Salt Lake and take him to the
Side Pocket to meet Harley? Maybe play some eight ball?" Lauren winced,
then blushed. She didn't smile. She said, "These days it's nine ball.
And why don't we just make it a five-some"? You come along and bring
Wiley. I'm sure he and Alan and Harley will get along famously." Robin
drummed her fingers on the desktop. "We're quite a pair, aren't we? I
mean, we are soooo together. Have our lives in such perfect order."

"Yeah. That's us. We're role models for our generation.

We are absolutely fit to be the moral judges of the cosmos." By
midafternoon Robin Torr was completing the last of a dozen phone calls
to people who she thought, perhaps, might have been in a position to,
maybe, hear if Blythe Oaks had ever before been accused of any sexual
impropriety. The time spent on the phone had been dispiriting. She had
been hung up on more times than she had been spoken to politely, and she
had received no information of any value to the case. She feared she had
burned more than a few bridges. For nothing. She was packing her
briefcase to make an early exit from the office when Elsie Smith buzzed
her with an incoming call. "Who is it, Elsie?"

"She says her name is Mary Brown."

"What does she want?"

"She wouldn't say." Irritated, Robin fingered the button blinking on her
phone and said, "Robin Torr."

"Hello, I'm, um, calling to offer you some information for your case."
Robin sat forward, reflexively grabbed a pencil, and dropped it into her
electric sharpener. The machine whirred. She stilled her voice. "And
what case might that be?"

"You know. The comedian one." Yes. "With whom am I speaking?"

"You can call me Mary. Mary Brown."

"But that's not your name?" Robin regretted the question the moment she
asked it. She squeezed her eyes tightly, wishing she could retrieve the
words. Silence from Mary Brown. Robin thought she'd blown it. She rushed
on, hopefully, lightly, "What would you like to tell me?"

"I've heard you're trying to find evidence about Blythe Oaks. About her
relationships with women.

You're calling people. I know some things from a long time ago. I think
you need to know them. It's not at all what you think." She paused.

Robin's heart leapt, then sank. From the woman's tone, Robin sensed that
she was waiting to be disbelieved.

Robin gave her time to resume on her own, then said, "I'm eager and
grateful for any information you can offer me." Torr wasn't yet sure of
the woman's motivation for calling. Was she interested in helping or in
diverting Teresa Crowder's efforts against Oaks? "Blythe believed--" The
woman started, then stopped. Robin analyzed the voice. Middle-aged.

Biythe's age. Confident. Educated. "Yes?" Please. "Blythe always had
special friends. Special friendships with girls--with women, I mean."

"I'm not sure I understand." Go on, please. Just keep talking. "We girls
relied on each other in those days, in ways that might not be easily
understood. Especially by outsiders." Another pause. Robin guessed that
her caller was waiting for some affirmation that she comprehended what
she was talking about. But she didn't understand. mjj.Jiciwm vr vtic
"The way we were with each other was important for us. It gave us, well,
sustenance. And affection. It was our only source of  ...  I don't know
what. We were away from home. We needed each other." Robin Torr waited,
counting silently to three, before she responded. "Those days?"

"When we were girls. At school. Before we married. Don't get me
wrong--we all married. But the times were chaste times. We were chaste
girls. We stuck together. In every way. We still do."

"You were at BYU with Blythe?"

"I'd rather not say." Robin wondered if she was talking with Rachel
Baumann. A break, finally. Finally. Don't screw this up, Robin. She
scratched notes with her yellow pencil, trying to catch up with the
conversation thus far. "So Blythe had special friendships. What made
them special?" The woman's voice fell into the soft cushion of
reminiscence. "We were so caring then, so close. And warm. We pampered
each other. We loved each other. Blythe used to say we were romantic
friends, not just girlfriends." Robin wanted to know if they were sexual
friends, but she knew she couldn't ask yet. She was trying to reel this
woman in slowly, gently. She pondered her next move, wishing she could
plan this conversation as though it were a deposition, the questions
penned out in advance, the answers anticipated. Before she spoke again,
the woman said, "A kiss didn't mean anything then. Doesn't. But it does,
of course. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? It was another
way of caressing each other, of caring. It was part of showing how
special we were to each other. Of avoiding the dangers that the devil
planted with  ...  boys." Robin thought: There are kisses and there are
kisses." Friendly pecks, even on the lips, don't usually occur in
bathroom stalls. Without thinking it through, Robin asked, "Where did
the boys fit in?"

"The boys came later, after their missions. But before we married, we
couldn't be familiar with boys. Decent girls didn't.

Decent girls don't." Some condescension infiltrated her voice. "It would
have been immoral. Christian men and women unite to form Christian
families. Not before. Never. We didn't dance with Satan."

"But you girls had each other?"

"Yes." The tone Robin Tore- heard softened again. "We had each other. It
was very special. A treasure. Truly, a treasure."

"I see," Robin said, though she didn't. She was at a loss as to what
else she might say. "And we still do have each other. Some of us are as
close as we ever were. And I'm relieved that you seem to understand. I
didn't expect you to. Whatever might have happened to Blythe in
Washington is absolutely not what the papers are saying it was. What
happened was nothing degrading or sinful at all." Robin heard background
noises in the receiver pressed against her ear. "You are just hurting
people, decent people, by pursuing this. Stop your calls. Please let her
rest in peace. I need to go now."

"Please. May I call you? If I have more questions? If I need to know
more?"

"I don't think that would be wise."

"Will you call me again? Please. Let's say, in a week. As you can
imagine, I need to speak with my client about this. I may have new
questions." The woman said, "I won't promise," and hung up. Robin slowly
replaced the receiver in its cradle. She was mildly surprised to
discover she'd been squeezing it in her hand. When she looked up she saw
Elsie Smith standing in the doorway to her office. Torr hadn't heard the
door open. "Yes."

"Anything else before I go, Mrs. Torr?"

"No, Elsie."

"Will Mrs. Brown be a new client?"

"No, Elsie, she won't. Go on home.

I'll be done here in a minute. I'll lock up." That's odd, Robin thought,
as her secretary closed the door behind her. Elsie is never curious
about clients. Robin resharpened a pencil that didn't need it and
returned to her legal pad to expound on the quick notes she had made
during the phone conversation with Mary Brown. The door to her office
opened again. Wiley Tore- stood in the doorway this time. The Mary Brown
notes sat conspicuously in the middle of the desk blotter. Robin looked
down at them furtively, as though they were letters from a lover she
wished to hide from her husband. Wiley's blue eyes followed Robin's to
the pad. She ripped the sheets along their perforation and slid them
into the filing tray on the credenza behind her desk. She tried to act
nonchalantly. "Want to get some dinner, Robin? We need to talk."

"I wish you had called."

"I had a meeting on the fourth floor. Just finished.

Hoped you might be happy to see me."

"I'm, uh, not quite done here." "Really? I saw Elsie at the elevator.
She said you were finished for the day."

"I just gave her that impression so she wouldn't feel bad about going
home." Wiley shifted his weight from his left foot to his right and
adjusted his grip on his briefcase. His nervous energy was spilling over
despite his attempts to control it. Lately, Robin had been giving him
the impression that his agitation was something she barely tolerated.
"So that means no? About dinner?" Robin hesitated. What could it hurt?
Be cautious. "I need a little time to finish up. I'll meet you somewhere
in, say, half an hour, forty-five minutes." Wiley smiled as though he
had just been awarded a prize in a raffle. He suggested a trendy
restaurant that would cost twice what he was usually willing to pay.
Robin said, "That's fine, Wiley." She glanced at her watch. "Six
o'clock?" W iley Torr waited impatiently, aware of the passage of each
minute, until their waiter was almost ready to deliver the entrees.

Satisfied with his restraint, he finally began pressing his wife for an
update on her strategy regarding Teresa Crowder's case. Robin, on the
other hand, passed much of the same interlude growing annoyed at Wiley,
who had been mindlessly scraping his salad fork from side to side next
to his plate. The dinner had been a bad idea. How could she think Wiley
would be any different now than he had been a few days before? She
consoled herself and passively expressed her irritation by not offering
to share her appetizer. And by reminding herself of the wince on Wiley's
face when she had ordered it. The shrimp fritters were the most
expensive appetizer on the menu. She knew; she had checked. "Wiley," she
said in response to his query about her client, "please stop sliding
your fork around for a second and listen to me." He looked at his left
hand, which held the offending fork, as though it were a renegade part
of his body. He dropped both hands to his lap, configured a
self-conscious smile, and looked at his wife. "In case you have
forgotten, our firms are representing opposing sides in this matter. I
don't want to talk about the Crowder case again until it's over. Let me
be clear. I will not talk with you about the Crowder case again until
it's over. And that includes the time it might take to exhaust any
appeals. Got it?" Robin raised her wineglass to her lips and considered
the merits of ordering a full bottle and really pissing her husband off.

"Appeals?" Wiley blurted, his voice as out of control as his hand had
been seconds before. Other diners quieted their conversations in the
expansive dining room. Heads turned toward the booth the Torrs occupied.

"You'll actually file this thing and carry it to trial? And after you
get slaughtered in court, an appeal? You can't do that. Think of your
client. Think of the expense for your firm. Think of the poor Oaks
family. Think about me. What you're doing is cruel. This can't go on,
Robin. Dam! Give (t up!" He sat back and straightened his tie, as though
that would punctuate a completion of his return to decorum. The outburst
neither surprised nor upset Robin. She felt as though she were watching
it on film. "Are you done making a fool of yourself yet, Wiley? If
you're not, I'm walking out of here right now. Don't push me tonight.

I'm not in the mood." He glared at her, and his face flushed in
exasperation. Almost under his breath, he said, "I'm sure you'll
reconsider when your hormones subside." The waiter approached with their
entrees. He slid an artfully presented platter in front of each of them.

When he asked if there would be anything else, Robin smiled pleasantly
and asked him to bring a certain bottle of vintage Burgundy. The waiter
eagerly returned with the bottle, opened it ceremoniously, and filled
her glass. Wiley covered his glass with his hand and said nothing. Robin
hesitated briefly, permitting the waiter to retreat from their table,
then raised her glass, took one sip of what turned out to be a truly
fine wine, and said, "To you, Wiley. A real jerk." Then Robin stood,
retrieved her coat and purse from next to her on the upholstered bench,
and headed toward the front door of the restaurant. Two steps from the
table, she turned back toward her husband and said over her shoulder,
"Don't have a coronary about the tab, honey. Give the bill to James and
Bartell. God knows, this was a business dinner if I've ever been to
one."

Robin drove straight from the restaurant to Teresa Crowder's bungalow,
which was lit up, inside and out, like Temple Square at Christmas.

Lauren yanked open the front door before Robin was halfway down the
cracked cement walk. "Oh, Robin, thank God you're here. I've left
messages for you all over town." Robin, sensing the urgency, broke into
a run the last few steps. "What's wrong? Is it Teresa? Is she okay?"

"No--yes--I don't know. Come here." She grabbed Robin's gloved hand and
pulled her down the hallway to the little house's main bedroom. Teresa's
bedroom. Lauren entered the brightly lit room first and then turned to
watch the expression on her friend's face. Robin Torr jumped back
involuntarily at what she saw. She bumped against the open door. It
crashed into the wall. Teresa's brass bed sat beside a window against
the long wall that faced the door. The sheetcase was turned down, as
though a maid had been in to prepare the room. The rest of the room was
Teresa's version of neat. Some clean laundry had been folded, waiting to
be put away, in a tall pile on top of a small desk strewn with papers. A
pair of cotton sweats that Teresa used as pajamas on cold nights was
thrown over the back of a chair. The door to the small closet was open.

Two pairs of shoes spilled into the opening. Robin's gloved hands
covered her mouth as she turned her attention back to the bed. A kitchen
knife, a big one, with an eight- or ten-inch blade and a wooden handle,
stood impaled, erect and mean, in the center of the sheets, a foot below
the pillows. Through her gloved fingers Robin managed to say, "That's
it, just the knife? No note? Nothing?"

"It's from the kitchen. They stuck it right where Teresa's heart would
be, Robin. They want to kill her. They want to kill my little sister."

"Have you called the police?" Lauren shook her head. "I didn't know if I
should." Torr looked at her, puzzled. "Why the hell not?"

"Are you sure that they're not part of this? Part of everything, Pratt's
death?"

"The police aren't corrupt here, Lauren. They may be too deferential at
times where the Church is concerned. But they sure as hell need to know
about this." A loud knock on the front door caused both women to jump.
Lauren ran to respond.

Robin followed right after. A man dressed in corduroys, a flannel shirt,
old moccasins, and a green down jacket stood at the door. "Harley,
thanks for coming." Lauren turned back toward the living room and
addressed Robin. "I called Harley when I couldn't reach you. I was
scared. I didn't know what else to do." John Harley took two long steps
across the room and extended his hand. "Hello, I'm John Harley. People
call me Harley. I'm a friend of Lauren's."

"Yes, I know, she's mentioned you. Robin Torr. Nice to meet you."

"Robin is Teresa's attorney, Harley.

Come on, let me show you what they did. This way." Harley followed
Lauren down the narrow hall. Robin trailed after them. Harley didn't
stop in the doorway. He strode directly over to the bed and stuffed his
hands in the pockets of his coat. He leaned over and looked at the
knife. He stared at it for half a minute and said, "Darn it. That's
something, isn't it?" When nobody responded, Harley asked, "How did they
get in?" Lauren answered, "I don't know. There are no broken windows or
anything. But, then, this place isn't exactly Fort Knox. I don't even
know when this happened. I haven't been in Teresa's bedroom in a couple
of days. At least I don't think so." Robin Torr interjected, "I'm going
to go call the police. Lauren. Where is there another phone? I don't
want to use the one by the bed. In case"--she paused--"he touched it."
Lauren shivered at the image of the person--the man--actually in the
house, wandering around, touching things. Fouling things. "There's one
in the kitchen. Back through the living room. It's on the wall next to
the refrigerator." Robin headed for the kitchen. Lauren edged over to
Harley and gratefully accepted a hug and an arm around her shoulder.

"This is out of my league. But I can tell you that I'm absolutely
terrified for you. You can't stay here. It looks to me like somebody is
seriously threatening you."

"Me?" The thought that she, not her sister, might be the addressee of
this terrorism was a novel one for Lauren.

"It's Teresa's lawsuit, Harley, not mine. I'm just a volunteer."

"It's always been her lawsuit. That hasn't kept other people from dying
so far, has it?"

"This is my sister's bedroom. I'm staying in the guest room across the
hall."

"And you want to assume this guy knew that?

Exactly where each of you sleeps?" She buried her face in Harley's chest
and said, "Don't, Harley, please." Robin Torr walked back into the room.

She felt awkward stumbling in on their embrace. "The police are on their
way," she said. "We probably shouldn't wait in this room. We might screw
something up. Let's go back out to the living room, okay?" At the very
least, get you two out of the bedroom. Lauren and Harley sat chastely at
opposite ends of the sofa. Robin took the room's only chair. The phone
rang immediately, startling all of them. They stared at each other and
listened to it ring a second time. "We should answer it. Maybe it's my
sister." Reluctantly, Robin accepted Lauren's suggestion. "I'll get it,"
she said, and walked into the kitchen. Seconds later she returned, some
playfulness in her eyes. She said, "Lauren, it's for you." As Lauren
walked past her, Robin raised her eyebrows and whispered, "It's Alan.

From Colorado. It looks like all hands are on deck, now."

"He wants me to fly to Telluride tomorrow and meet him. Sam Purdy--the
cop I told you about--needed to get back to Boulder early for some
reason. He took Alan's car so he could return his rented bike. I guess
it's about time I met Rachel Misker, anyway. But I won't go unless I
know that Teresa is safe." Robin Torr said, "And as is par for the
course, we don't even know where the hell your sister is. How on earth
are we going to ensure her safety?" Harley had grown
uncharacteristically quiet. He was examining his cuticles. Robin
continued,1 "Well, at least we know where she's supposed to be tomorrow,
right? She should be in San Diego getting on that cruise ship. We do
know which cruise ship, don't we?" Lauren didn't respond. Harley, too,
seemed lost in space. "We know which cruise ship, Lauren, don't we?"

"Yeah. Yes, we do. I do."

"Well, if you're going to Telluride, I guess that means I'm going off to
San Diego to find my client."

"Would you, Robin? That would make me feel a whole lot better. Thanks."
A loud conversation between two police officers intruded from outside. A
rap on the door followed instantly. Harley said, "The cops are here."
Close to midnight, the police gone, Lauren and Harley resumed their
seats in the living room. Robin joined them a minute later. "I got a
seat to San Diego first thing tomorrow morning.

It looks like I'm going on a cruise. My first." She did a little dance.

Lauren smiled gratefully at her friend. "Not exactly a vacation, though,
is it? Can't we just get the cops to watch her? I mean, the Salt Lake
police think this knife is indication of a serious threat."

"And which cops do we try to enlist? California? San Diego? Mexico? The
U.S. Coast Guard?" Lauren felt exhausted. She shrugged her shoulders at
Robin's question. With an edge in his voice that Lauren had never heard
before, Harley said, "What makes you two think you're immune from
whatever is happening here? Although I find it fascinating, the reality
is that the two of you are behaving as though Teresa is the only
possible victim of this madness." The attorneys both looked at Harley.
Each of them used a gaze that they employed with reluctant witnesses.
"She's the obvious choice, isn't she?"

"No, she isn't. I don't think so, anyway." Robin was intrigued. "Why do
you say that, Harley?"

"With what I've heard here tonight, Lauren, it sounds like your sister
is willing to fight this battle as long as she doesn't have to go too
close to the front lines.

If either of you weren't putting in the energy to continue her fight, I
think she would drop it. And I think whatever adversary you're fighting
wouldn't have too hard a time figuring that out. If I was against
you--if I was the one who wanted you to cut this stuff out--I wouldn't
go after Teresa. I would go after the one of you who is most likely to
press to continue this thing." Robin said, "That's you, Lauren." Harley
nodded. "That's right." Lauren looked back and forth between the two of
them as though she were watching a tennis match. "Lauren," Robin said,
"if this nut kills you, Teresa won't press this. She isn't strong enough
to do that. She'll tell me to drop the investigation. I'll have no
choice without a client. You know that's true. Harley's got a valid
point. If Teresa got hurt, you would push this until the day you died,
and you know it." Lauren didn't want to hear it. "But what about the
press? The media? These assholes can't just start killing us and avoid
scrutiny. What about all the Mormon-bashing press the Church is always
complaining about? They would feast on this." Robin persisted. "Really?

Have you read very much about Pratt's death lately? I haven't. Is Blythe
Oaks's murder still filling the front pages? The press has a short
memory. The Church absorbed ten times this much publicity about the
Salamander thing in the late eighties without even a blip in their
image. I don't think we can count on the free press as being a
significant deterrent where the Church is concerned. The LDS leadership
has been stonewalling the national press since before Rich- and Nixon
had even heard of Watergate." Harley nodded in agreement. "You're the
most likely target, Lauren. If they're smart, anyway. And this guy is
smart. Sure, it's prudent to protect your sister. But I think you're in
the most danger here, not her."

"I'm surprised at you, Harley. You think the Church is behind all this
too, don't you? Why? This is your church we're trashing here." Harley
fidgeted. "Let's just say tonight's events leave me with some new
concerns. I've also got to do some serious contemplating, and I've got
to read a few things. Then I'll know better exactly what I think."
Harley was growing unnaturally nervous. "Can I interest anybody in some
breakfast at Bill & Nada's?" Despite her fatigue, Lauren was tempted.
But Robin answered first. "Not me, thanks," she said. Lauren declined,
too. Harley made them repeat the promise they had made to the cops not
to stay in Teresa's house that night. After accepting Lauren's gratitude
for coming over, he made his exit to Bill & Nada's, alone. Given what he
had just seen in Teresa's bedroom, what he really wanted, desperately,
was a drink. Robin waited for Harley to leave before telling Lauren
about the phone call from Mary Brown. They discussed the ramifications
for a few minutes before the futility created by Mary Brown's pseudonym
caused the conversation to degenerate into silence. Lauren finally
cracked the quiet. "If you didn't get any of the frantic messages I left
earlier, Robin, why were you coming over here tonight?" Robin Torr
started to laugh--gently at first, but soon she was laughing so hard,
she had to bend over to catch her breath in order to speak. "I came over
here tonight because I didn't think it would be safe to go home to
Wiley. I was going to ask you if I could sleep here. I think that would
have left me to sleep in Teresa's bed." Lauren didn't join in the
laughter. Robin stopped, too. In seconds, her eyes started to tear. "You
know, for some reason I can't precisely pinpoint, I feel like a dolphin
that's being flushed into a drift net. I can see the danger coming, but
I'm afraid I can't escape it." Lauren stepped over to her friend and
embraced her. "You got a favorite hotel in town? Want to share a room?"
They shared not only a hotel room but also a taxi to Salt Lake City's
airport the next morning. Before leaving the Hilton, Robin had called
her office from the lobby and told Elsie that she would be out of town
attending to family matters for a few days. She said she couldn't give
Elsie a number but would call in for messages. On the way to the airport
they directed the cab driver to stop at Robin and Wiley Torr's town
house. Lauren questioned the judiciousness of stopping by so early in
the day. Robin assured her that Wiley would already have gone to work.
He either had gone to work or had never home come from the restaurant
the night before. Robin packed a bag as quickly as she could and left
Wiley a note saying that she needed some time to think and would be in
touch with him within a week.

Checking in at the airport, Robin changed her reservation to San Diego
so that she would have to switch planes in Phoenix to get to California.

Lauren chose a flight to Telluride that would involve a two-hour
stopover in Denver and two different airlines. Each of them made up
fictitious names for their reservations. Lauren felt overtly paranoid.

Although she jokingly complained about remorse at not being able to get
any frequent-flyer credit, Robin labeled the fake names and indirect
flights to their destinations "prudent." As she saw her friend off to
Phoenix, Lauren argued, "All paranoids consider their actions prudent.

We're no different." Sitting alone, waiting for her flight to Denver,
Lauren was troubled by the mood that had descended over John Harley the
night before. Unable to make sense of it, she finally wrote it off as a
reasonable response to the bizarre, difficult circumstances. She was
looking forward to being back in Colorado. And to seeing Alan. And she
was glad for that. reezmg ram and faulty de-icing equipment in Chicago
caused the plane that was to carry Robin Tore" from Phoenix to
California to arrive an hour and fifteen minutes behind schedule in
Arizona. Torr's connecting flight subsequently arrived two hours late in
San Diego. After a brief but maniacal taxi ride from the airport to the
port, Robin discovered that she had missed the sailing of Teresa
Crowder's cruise ship by about twenty minutes. Lauren Crowder's journey
to Telluride was less eventful. Although the sheer scale of Denver's
mammoth new airport made the task of changing concourses and finding her
gate slightly overwhelming to her, the connecting flight to Telluride
was on time, and the plane's descent into the mountain airport was
turbulence-free. Alan Gregory spotted Lauren while she stood on the
tarmac, fumbling in her carry-on trying to find her sunglasses. He was
two steps from the door to the terminal when she walked in and saw his
open arms. They embraced. They stared. They kissed. At the exact same
moment, both said, "It's so good to see you." He grabbed her bag and
slung it over his shoulder and led her to the rental car he had hired
after Sam Purdy left town with the Land Cruiser. On the long ride around
the mountain from Telluride to Ouray, relief seeped into Lauren's
spirit, offering -some freedom from the constant tension that had been
plaguing her in Utah. Within minutes of seeing Alan, she was animated
and affectionate, even playful. She watched herself, mistrustful. She
asked about friends in Boulder. Whether Alan had heard any news or
gossip from the DA's office. Why Sam had had to go back to Boulder so
suddenly. "He had to testify at a hearing this morning. Something he
hadn't anticipated." With a little prompting from Alan, Lauren began a
detail-laden exposition of the new chapters of her sister's story.

Intermittently, she also lapsed into lengthy periods of poignant
silence, her fingers stretched on his knee or twirling the hair that
hung over his collar, the whole time awestruck at the beauty of the San
Juans, which she was seeing for the first time. A rule that had
developed early in their relationship proscribed Alan from asking Lauren
about the state of her multiple sclerosis immediately upon seeing her or
speaking with her on the phone. Even if a limp was visible in her walk,
or if she never took one hand from a coat pocket, or if fatigue seemed
to be holding her hostage, he was to refrain from overt query or concern
for some variable amount of time that she had preset in her head.

Sometimes five minutes was sufficient, other times not. Alan hated the
guessing game. Just past the turn north toward Ridgway he finally asked,
in as matter-of-fact a tone as he could muster, "How's your health?"

"I'm all right. Fine."

"You know what I mean."

"I know what you mean.

I'm all right." She smiled, trying to be convincing. He didn't turn
toward her but said in a low, gentle tone, "Which, if my rusty
translation skills are functioning okay, means in English, "I've got
some symptoms but they're pretty invisible, and I'm managing them, and I
don't want to honor them with any discussion."

"Not bad. You been practicing on somebody else while I've been away?"
Her tone was light.

He forced a smile in relief. "Can I be permitted just a couple of"--he
took his right hand from the wheel and crushed his index finger and
thumb together tightly--"tiny, tiny clarifications?"

"Depends." He was surprised at the latitude she offered. He didn't
hesitate. "Your vision is okay?"

"Yes. It's stable." Translation: not the same as good, but not awful.
"Are you falling down much?"

"Not too bad." Translation: my balance isn't any better, but I don't
fall down very often. "One more?"

"You're pressing your luck."

"Anything new? Any new exacerbations?" Lauren was quiet. "You'll tell me
when you're ready?"

"Yes." She was looking away from him, out the window, at the endless
miles of split-rail fence that bordered Ralph Lauren's ranch on the
Dallas Divide. Minutes later, on her own, she resumed her narrative
about events in Salt Lake City. When she got to the point in her story
where she began talking about the previous night, where she described
the knife impaled in her sister's mattress--"It was obscene, that's all,
just obscene"--she abruptly stopped and looked out the side window. She
started to cry, quietly. Alan took one of his hands from the steering
wheel and touched her leg, fearful of stealing his eyes from the curvy
road for even a moment. She seemed oblivious to his touch. She was
rocking gently, her arms wrapped below her breasts, hugging herself. At
the first opportunity, he pulled the car to a stop on a small clearing
off a dusty shoulder, the front of the car facing the Uncompahgre range.

Swollen white clouds hung like ornaments above the jagged peaks. He
reached across the front seat to hold her. With his touch, her sobs grew
audible. She began shaking and leaned into him, her head buried in the
crook of his neck. He could feel her sharp fingernails pressing into his
skin through the thick yarn of his sweater. "You must be terrified," he
said a while later, after her crying had progressed from the stage of
dark weep248 ittpbct tvbitt ing to the stage where her primary interest
was successful completion of a frantic search for a tissue. She wiped
her nose and stole a glance at him, her antennae sensitive to his
judgment. None identified, she nodded a reply to his question, then blew
her nose. She turned the rear-view mirror toward herself and used a
fresh tissue to wipe away a torrent of mascara that had begun a trail
down her right cheek. She knew that he had assumed the tears were tears
of fear for her sister and herself. She didn't tell him she was crying
partly about the confusion she felt seeing him. Partly about the
attraction to John Harley she couldn't explain. Partly about the odd
repulsion she felt to the stability Alan offered. She faced him and
almost said, I'm really confused. Instead, she said, "I'm really
frightened for Teresa, Alan." Alan nodded. "Me too. Are the police
watching her? Is somebody with her?"

"She's on a damn cruise ship, if you can believe it. Her lawyer, the
woman I've told you about, Robin Tore-, left this morning to find her,
to make sure she's safe."

"She's on a cruise? Really?"

"Yes, she's on a ship, but, no, she's not vacationing. She's working.
She got a gig. She's been working every week now for a while. Anyway,
she's on one of those three- or four-day cruises they do off Mexico."

"Good for her, I guess."

"I would be happier for her if I knew that she was safe." Alan watched a
couple of bicyclists pause on the clearing where they were parked. The
riders were winded and exhilarated, their faces pink and triumphant.
Alan reached out and began to rub Lauren's neck, pressing hard on the
taut muscles across her shoulders, tracing her shoulder blades. She
dropped her head, stretched her neck, murmured, and occasionally
flinched at his touch. He rubbed and pressed until the murmurs
outnumbered the moans, and then, with a few fingers below her chin, he
gently raised her head, leaned in, and found her lips with his tongue.
She offered hers in response. He moved his fingers into her soft hair
and smelted her. She slid her hands below his sweater and tugged his
shirttail from his jeans. She wanted to feel flesh. He was so warm. Her
fingers were cool. He shivered. She probed. He fiddled with her buttons
and hoped she wasn't wearing a bra.

They made love in the car. The act felt as awkward as it did illicit.

For Lauren, the sex was liberating. She was so relieved, simply, that
she still wanted him. Alan struggled to respond to a question about
Rachel Baumann. "She's proper. That's the best word I can use to
describe her. She's composed and intelligent and formal. Proper."

"Like prissy?" Lauren asked. "No, not at all, she's like  ...  like a
female version of Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird."

"And you guys told her what?"

"Not me. I didn't tell her anything. Sam Purdy told her that we were
thinking of opening up a bike shop here and might need some legal help."
Lauren shook her head in dismay at the image. "And you don't think she
bought it?"

"I doubt it. Don't get me wrong; Sam was good. He has true talent as an
actor. But she was suspicious, I thought, even before we opened our
mouths." "You said that when we talked on the phone. But what exactly do
you mean? What kind of suspicious was she?"

"Given what you've told me, I think she's been expecting that somebody
she either doesn't know or doesn't want to see is going to come to talk
with her about something she doesn't want very much to talk about. Sam
and I went back and forth about it after we left her office. He agrees
with me. The lady's suspicious. Bordering on scared. But she's composed,
not about to panic. I think she's waiting for something to happen up
here that she wants nothing to do with." Lauren sighed. "Which is where
I come in, I guess."

"It looks like it's your role to play if you choose it. Can you tell me
what it is you think she knows? What might be frightening her?"

"I guess I can tell you what we know. It isn't much.

The problem is that we don't know exactly what she knows. We're
guessing. We think she knows something incriminating about Blythe
Oaks--either a history of harassment or evidence of her being a lesbian.

But we're not sure. We're working on the assumption that Pratt Toomey
was on his way up here to talk with her when somebody ambushed him. But
we're making barely educated guesses about exactly what he was following
up on." Alan and Lauren were walking down Third Street in Ouray. The
mountain light was brash and the air dry, the temperature cold enough to
caution about the coming winter yet warm enough for just sweaters. She
interrupted the progress of his aimless stroll by sliding her hand from
his loose grip and touching him on the shoulder. As they turned to face
each other, the sun, falling closer each day to its winter posture in
the southern sky, shone on her black hair and into both their eyes. He
pushed his sunglasses back up on his nose and brushed his sandy hair
from his forehead with the back of his hand. Lauren looked into his blue
eyes and felt warm. "I haven't thanked you properly--you and Sam--for
all you've done to help me and Teresa out. It was great, what you found
out in Moab. And then coming up here. Without you guys, I wouldn't even
know about Rachel Misker."

"Baumann."

"Baumann. I mean it, Alan. Don't joke. Given how dangerous this has
gotten, I feel foolish for dragging the two of you into it. But you did
great. Better than I had any right to hope. Thank you." She perched up
on her tiptoes and pecked him lightly on his dry lips. "I'm sure he'll
tell you, so I might as well.

Sam did almost all of it. I was Pancho; he was the Cisco Kid. I felt
more like his valet than I did his partner." Lauren smiled. "He's a pro,
honey. Anyway, I wouldn't even have been here if you hadn't come. And
I'm sure you're underestimating your contribution." They resumed their
walk. He broke the silence. "You going to talk to her today? Rachel?"

"I think so. Yes. No reason to put it off."

"What are you going to tell her?"

"That's a tough one. You guys used the bicycle-store bit that I was
planning on using, so that's out." She squeezed Alan's hand. He smiled.
"So I think I'm going to tell her the truth."

"And what, just hope she'll spill her guts and rat on a fellow Mormon?"

"I've got some things I can ask her about. Hopefully, get her talking.
We know her background. Some of it, anyway. When she was young, she was
at BYU with a group of kids that included Blythe Oaks and Lester Horner
and a bunch of other people, including a few guys who are now major
players in the LDS Church."

"LDS? That's the Mormons?"

"Yeah, that's the Mormons, the Latter-day Saints. God, a couple of weeks
in Salt Lake and I'm talking like a Utahan. It's scary. If I turn to you
suddenly and ask you if you want some ice cream, or if I have an
overwhelming need to know how the Jazz did, take me to see somebody,
okay?" She exhaled, then continued.

"Anyway, like at least half of this BYU group, Rachel ended up going to
law school. But she never moved back to Utah, which makes her unusual
among her peers. The other thing that makes me curious and suspicious
about this college group is the fact that nobody in Provo at BYU will
tell us anything about them. They seem to have misplaced everything
related to attendance there in those years."

"That's odd."

"I thought so, too. It would be odd in Colorado--very odd. But it's
apparently quite commonplace for documents to evaporate at LDS
institutions in Utah. Nobody I talked to in Salt Lake City was very
surprised that all these things turned out to be gone." Lauren thought
for a moment about trying to explain to Alan the Mormon concept of
faith-promoting and non-faith-promoting literature, but decided to save
it for another time.

"And we have some information--which, unfortunately, comes from an
anonymous phone call and therefore may be pretty unreliable--that leads
us to believe that this group of friends included a clique of girls who
were closer to each other than Mormon propriety might tolerate." Alan
looked askance at Lauren. "You think a group of them were lesbians?"
Hearing the question asked out loud jolted Lauren out of her assurance.

"You know, the truth is, I don't think that. One of them, maybe even two
of them, might have been lesbian, or maybe just believed they were." She
thought about Teresa and Daphne. "My guess is--I mean, if any of this is
true--that they were probably just experimenting, like kids do. But the
social environment may have been even more bizarre in Provo in the
sixties than it was everywhere else. The pressure on these Mormon kids
is incredible. The Church pressure on teenagers to abstain from sex is
pretty overwhelming."

"So your speculation leaves you where with Rachel?

You're going to waltz into her law office and ask her, lawyer to lawyer,
if her old buddy Blythe was a lesbian? Whether Blythe ever hit on her
daring the old schoolgirl days? Doesn't sound too promising a line of
inquiry. If I were you, I wouldn't totally rule out the bicycle-store
bit." He pointed down a side street. "Her office is just a couple of
blocks down that way."

"Show me."

"You're not going to call first?"

"No.

I think I want to surprise her. Take advantage of whatever suspicion or
fear you and Sam saw in her face." They walked to the east past an array
of century-old wood buildings. Alan said, "I don't envy you this, honey.

It sounds like what you're trying to do is to dig up dirt to discredit
the woman who harassed your sister. I can understand why it would help,
but it can't feel very good. In a perfect world, whether or not this
woman was a lesbian should be absolutely irrelevant to what she did in
Washington, D.C." Lauren walked half a block, counting sidewalk cracks,
before responding. "You're right, of course. It doesn't feel good. But
the truth is, for us to suggest that she would sexually harass another
woman presupposes that she would be interested in sexual contact with
one. I don't want to convict her of being lesbian. Clarence Thomas's
crime wasn't that he was heterosexual. It was that he harassed a
subordinate female using sexual coercion. But Anita Hill's charges would
have fallen on deaf ears if Thomas had announced he'd always been gay.

The rules aren't any different for Blythe Oaks. This isn't a perfect
world we're fighting in--far from it. It's Utah." Alan responded. "Don't
misunderstand me. I'm not arguing you shouldn't pursue this, but what
actually happened a few years ago is that when his confirmation was
completed, nobody looked down on Clarence Thomas for being heterosexual.

The same won't be true if Rachel Baumann confirms what you already
suspect. Blythe Oaks's memory will be gored because she was a lesbian
long before she gets crucified because she was guilty of harassing your
sister. I can see how that will help Teresa win her case. I can't see
how it will help you sleep at night." Lauren had spotted the stenciled
lettering on the second- story window of the gray stone building before
Alan pointed it out. "It's that one. The second floor," he said, giving
her hand a final squeeze. Lauren nodded. "Give me some time with her. I
have no idea how long this will take." She looked at her watch. "Why
don't we plan to meet for coffee. Same place we had lunch. Say, three
o'clock?"

"You don't want me to come up with you?"

"I don't want to have to explain you and Sam and the bicycle business.
Believe me, it was hard enough explaining the two of you to Teresa's
lawyer."

"Well, good luck up there. I'll wait around a few minutes. At least let
you make sure she's in."

"Thanks. I may need the luck." She reached up and kissed him, sliding
her hands behind his neck, pressing hard. "And you'll get extra credit
for tracking down a place to see an early movie. I think I'll be ready
for some escape when this is all over." She began walking toward the
entrance to the building. To her back, he asked, "If I find an early
movie, what form will the extra credit take?" Lauren stopped on the
second stone step, turned back to him with a mischievous smile, and
replied, "A form illegal in the state of Utah." She bounced up to the
door. A; rna Donnelly greeted Lauren with a pleasant -smile. Lauren
introduced herself and asked if she could speak briefly with Mrs.
Baumann about a personal matter. "I'm so sorry, Miss--is it
Miss?--Crowder, but Mrs. Baumann is with a client right now. Would you
like to make an appointment and come back another time?"

"Would you mind terribly if I waited? What I have won't take long, I
promise."

"Well, I don't like to encourage people to wait without an appointment,
but if you would like, when Mrs. Baumann is free, I'll be happy to ask
her if she has just a moment to have a word with you. How's that?"

"That sounds great."

"May I get you some tea or coffee? Or a soft drink? I have diet." Lauren
was flipping through a neat row of magazines that sat on a polished
table beside a Victorian love seat. She had three choices: Smithsonian,
Self or Field & Stream. Nothing topical or newsy. She smiled at Mrs.
Donnelly. "No, nothing for me, thanks. I just had lunch." She settled in
for a long read about Indian artifact robbing in the Southwest. About
fifteen minutes later, a short, muscular man with hair the color of
unpeeled carrots exited through an adjoining door into the waiting room.
Lauren listened as Mrs. Donnelly chatted with him about whether or not
he was ripening the green tomatoes from his garden in his basement again
this year, and whether he was having any luck. Hers, apparently, were
turning to mush for a reason she hadn't been able to discover. He
assured her his tomatoes were fine and offered to stop by and see if he
could be of any help. She declined. "Too late this year, I'm afraid,
Andrew." He said a cordial goodbye to her and went on his way. Mrs.
Donnelly scribbled something on a piece of paper, rose from her desk,
and walked through the door that Andrew had entered moments before.
Lauren supposed she was on her way to inform Mrs. Baumann about her
afternoon interloper. A minute later, with Mrs. Donnelly back at her
desk, Mrs. Baumann stood in the same doorway and said, "Ms. Crowder,
won't you please come in? Though I'm afraid I can give you only a few
minutes." Lauren entered Mrs. Baumann's office. The stenciled pane--R.

Baumann, Attorney at Law--she had seen from the street was on the bottom
of one of the double- hung windows that faced the stunning southern end
of the tiny valley. The big office was brightly lit, the sunlight
filtered only by thin cotton tab curtains the color of wheat awaiting
the thresher. Big overstuffed furniture--two chairs upholstered in a
rich plaid, and a deep sofa of subdued greens and grays--almost covered
a large Persian rug at one end of the room. Rachel Baumann guided Lauren
to one of the chairs. She took the other, carefully smoothing her skirt
as she sat. A primitive table of miter-cut knotty pine and quarter-sawn
oak separated the two women. A spray of freesia spilled from a brass urn
in the center of the table. "Your office is gorgeous. I'm surprised, I
expected, um--"

"Cowboy Victorian?" interjected Rachel Baumann with a tiny, satisfied
smile. "Yes."

"Mrs. Donnelly has been with me for years.

That's her office out there. I let her do what she wants with it. It
seems only fair. This office is mine. I like to feel like I'm working at
home."

"Well, you must have a beautiful home."

"Thank you." Rachel tightened her lips into a narrow line. Lauren
thought she noticed a new set to Rachel's jaw. "I apologize for having
to rush you. But I have very little time. I have an appointment away
from the office at two-thirty. What can I do for you, Ms. Crowder?
Briefly, please." Baumann's face was kind and warm, but her manner was
assertive and assured. Lauren read the lines of the face for suspicion
or fear. She saw none. She already liked this woman. "I'm an attorney,
Mrs. Baumann.

I'm currently on Jeave from my position as a deputy district attorney in
Boulder County. On the Front Range."

"I know where Boulder is, dear."

"Sorry. The reason I'm here is that I'm currently helping my sister, who
lives in Salt Lake City"--Lauren paused and examined Mrs. Baumann's
expression for any sign of distress at the mention of Utah but again saw
nothing--"who is contemplating a lawsuit against an old classmate and
onetime friend of yours at BYU."

"Blythe Truste." Lauren wondered if there was a new timbre in Baumann's
voice. She wasn't sure. "Yes. Blythe Truste. Blythe Oaks. I'm sure
you've heard. I mean, about her tragic death."

"The whole--for want of a better word--affair has been terribly
disconcerting to me. I need to warn you, Ms. Crowder, that although I'm
sure you are sincerely interested in helping your sister, and I'm sure
you have no reason to doubt the veracity of her accusations, my
sympathies, which are influenced by history and allegiance, and not by
reports in tawdry publications, rest firmly with the Oaks family. They
seem to be the most certain victims here, so far." Lauren had actually
expected a stronger first volley from Rachel Baumann. Her confidence
bolstered by the tepid defense, she pressed on. "I know this must be
awkward for you. It is for me. But may I ask you just a few more
questions?"

"I suppose you may. You have certainly come a long way for the
privilege."

"You were at BYU together?"

"Yes, for a while."

"Your group of friends from college has become quite prominent. An
amazing record of achievement, actually, -for an entire graduating
class, let alone a small group of close friends."

"There were some remarkable minds among us. That's true. Some more
pedestrian ones as well, I assure you.

But BYU is a Church school, and much of the advancement of my old
friends has taken place in the Church." Lauren found Baumann's
disclaimer odd, as if advancement within the Church were somehow less
valid or less valuable than other achievements. "Certainly not Lester
Horner," Lauren said. "He is definitely an exception." Lauren detected a
tightening in Rachel's expression, a twitch in the corner of her mouth.

"You knew Lester Horner?"

"Of course. He was remarkable even then, Ms.

Crowder. We all suspected he was destined for great things." The calm in
Rachel Baumann's countenance had returned. Lauren advanced without
pause. "We have statements that the women, the girls, in this BYU group
considered themselves special friends--'romantic friends' is the term
that's been used. Could you shed any light on that?"

"I could deny it, I suppose. It was a very long time ago. But you
obviously have talked with someone from those days already. "Romantic
friends' was Biythe's term--well, Biythe's and Audrey's, anyway. A few
of the other girls adopted it. I wasn't one of the ones that did. But,
yes, although I haven't thought of it in years, I certainly heard it."
Audrey? "Did these romantic friendships included sexual activity?"
Lauren expected offense to flash onto Rachel's smooth countenance. It
didn't. "I wouldn't know. I certainly never saw anything. But, then,
we're not talking about hugs and holding hands," are we?"

"No."

"Sorry. Keep in mind that the morality constraints on students at BYU
are severe. To my mind proper, but severe. And they were perhaps even
more severe in those days. What you are suggesting would be out of the
ordinary, to say the least." For the first time, Rachel Baumann
displayed some overt discomfort. She stared at her hands, then reached
across the table and picked a dry petal from a freesia bud. The bud was
the color of custard, the petal the color of dirt. Lauren held her
breath and waited. Rachel looked up at her. "Ms. Crowder, I don't know
who in that old group you have been talking with, but I've had no
contact with any of those women for years. I don't know how or why
you've found me. I was an outsider in those days at school. I was a
hanger-on, not part of Biythe's precious club. They may have considered
each other to be some kind of special friends. They never considered me
one, I can assure you. There was a time early on when I would have done
anything for admission to that clique. By my sophomore year, I had grown
uninterested in them. And they were never interested in me." Resentment?
Is this resentment? "And Audrey is  ...  ?" Lauren tried to make the
question sound less than important to her than it was. But Rachel
recognized immediately that she had inadvertently supplied some new fuel
for her visitor's stalling investigatory engine. "Oh, I don't remember
what might have happened to Audrey. I can't even remember her last name.
As I implied, it's not as though I've exactly been invited to reunions
with those girls."

"By any chance, do you have a BYU yearbook from those days?"

"Again, sorry, but no. I'm not sentimental about those years. I'm a
practical woman. It's not the sort of thing I would want to keep
around." She looked discreetly at her watch, then intently at her
visitor. "The past is always buried in a restless grave, Ms. Crowder.
Always." Lauren moved forward on her chair, trying to be sensitive to
the time. She pointed to a pair of photographs in a hinged
hammered-silver frame on the table.

"Your family?" Rachel smiled. "My daughter, Anita. My husband, Walter.

He died, um, a long time ago."

"I'm sorry." Rachel merely nodded. "Your daughter is very attractive.
She looks like you."

"Thank you. That's kind of you to say."

"Does she live with you?" Rachel Baumann was reluctant to answer, Lauren
thought. After a hesitation and a slight wavering in her commanding
presence, she said, "No, she lives in Denver.

On the Front Range." She smiled. Lauren returned her smile. "Anita
teaches third grade at a private school. I'm very proud of her. She
honors me every day just by being who she is.".. "What a wonderful thing
to say, Mrs. Baumann."

"She's a wonderful person, Ms. Crowder. I'm sure you would like her."

"I'm sure I would. Well, thank you so much for your time. You've been
very gracious."

"Mountain hospitality. But I'm afraid I haven't been of much
assistance."

"You never can tell with these things. You must know how it goes."

"Yes I do. Lawyering and fishing.

Same sport. Different hooks, different bait. I decided a long time ago
that fishing is more fun." Lauren stood and turned toward the door, then
stopped. She turned back toward Rachel, whose face was only eighteen
inches from her own. "Are you still a member of the Church, Mrs.
Baumann?" Rachel smiled, almost laughed. "My, I haven't been asked that
in a long time. The answer, I suppose, is that I'm a Jack Mormon. Which
means no. And which means yes. Good day, Ms. Crowder." Rachel stood
erect by the closed door until she heard Mrs. Donnelly's ever-polite
good-bye to Lauren Crowder and until she heard the door to the outer
office thud close. She permitted her shoulders to sag a centimeter and
felt her eyelids flutter shut. Out loud, to the mountains, she said, "I
can't believe that's all they wanted. They don't know. They don't know."
For the first time since Lester Homer's appointment to the Supreme
Court, she felt free. he bounce in her step that had been generated by
discovery an old name, a new lead: Audrey! deserted Lauren's walk two
blocks from Rachel's office, and fatigue started to grip her with a
tenacity that she knew from experience wouldn't be loosened by a jolt of
caffeine. A short way from the restaurant where she was to meet Alan she
succumbed to the exhaustion and weakness and lowered herself onto a
splintered bench in front of a small market. She rested, trying to still
her panic by getting lost in the view up toward Box Canyon Falls. The
effort failed. The skin of her right leg was tingling, and weakness was
robbing the muscles of their tone. Until she boarded the plane for Utah
to help her sister pursue her lawsuit, Lauren had been in New York, at
the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, participating in medication
trials for a new drug under development to treat MS. For six months she
had endured the injections into her thighs. And for those six months she
had been free of any new exacerbations of her illness and had been
troubled only minimally by her old, familiar symptoms. Now,
afterwhat?only a couple of weeks on her own, away from New York, her
hand was on fire, her leg felt as heavy as a wet log, and she feared
that soon she wouldn't be able to walk. Lauren felt tears spring up in
her eyes. She blinked them away. Not now. Not now. No. At least I can
control that. Minutes later she stood, and everything was worse. The leg
that had so easily followed her brain's instructions five minutes before
was now an absolutely reluctant soldier. She said march; it dragged. She
said straighten; it hung limply. She slunk back onto the bench, looked
at her watch, and waited. It was a quarter past three. Alan would come
looking for her soon. Her tears, she knew, wouldn't wait for him. Back
at the B & B* Alan supported Lauren up the stairs to their second-floor
room. He helped her settle onto the bed and then pulled off her shoes.

She insisted that he get her luggage from the car. Dutifully, he went
down to retrieve it. When he returned to the room with her black
shoulder bag, she was lying on her side, curled away from the door, her
breathing already in retreat into the shallow rhythm of sleep. All
along, he had assumed that she would sleep away a segment of that
afternoon. It was part of their leisure routine together--part of the
daily accommodation she made to multiple sclerosis. In all the days he
had ever spent with her, he could remember only a few times when she
hadn't rested during the day. He had planned to use the time she was in
bed to hike southwest out of Ouray and explore Box Canyon Falls and
maybe check out some of the nearby hot springs. From anywhere in the
room he could smell her fear, even as she slept. "Sometimes," she had
said once after recovering from a spell of temporary blindness in her
left eye, "I think I can actually feel the myelin dissolve in my brain.

It's hot; it's like dripping boiling water onto sugar. The myelin burns
at first, then flows away and leaves my nerves bare underneath. It feels
raw, red. As it cools, it takes a piece of my freedom with it." Alan
pulled a book he had been reading from the floor next to the bed, kicked
off his shoes, and angled himself onto a floral chintz chair in front of
the room's solitary window. He watched her chest heave gently, as
shadows inched across the bed until the darkness of the late afternoon
began to merge with the darkness of her hair. Discrete, narrow shadows
cast by the vertical posts from the frame of the stately bed etched her
in long, dark prison stripes. He read a sentence from his book. Watched
her. Read the same sentence. Watched her some more. Within ten minutes,
the book was back on the floor, and he was on the bed beside her,
asleep. Awake, he could do nothing. In his dreams, he could rescue her
from her jail. And feel triumphant. A gentle tapping sound stirred both
Alan and Lauren as their eyes opened to a dark room. Disoriented, Alan
reached for the phone, then stopped himself. The room didn't have one.

He then propped himself up on his elbows and tried to shake away his
sleep before leaning over Lauren, who still lay curled on her side. She
blinked. He pulled her hair back from her face and kissed her cheek.

"Hi," he said in a low voice. She didn't answer. Tap, tap, tap. A quiet
voice said, "Excuse me. Mr. Gregory? Mr. Gregory?" A louder, deeper,
critical voice said, "Helena, he's a doctor."

"Shhhhh!" Alan jumped up and made his way to the door. Opening it, he
noticed that he hadn't locked it when he had come up from the car. The
innkeeper, Helena Cocetti, stood at the door. Alan raised a hand to
shade his eyes from the relatively bright light in the hallway. Helena
surprised him by looking fetching. Her brown hair, pulled into a tight
bun each morning at breakfast, was swept back in a loose ponytail, which
framed her narrow face in an attractive way. Sometime during the day she
had traded her trademark pleated skirt and cotton blouse for faded jeans
and a new flannel shirt of rich browns and blues. All in all, Alan
quickly decided, a nice transformation. Her husband, Palmer, stood a few
steps behind her, his hands in his pockets. He, too, had traded his
morning clothes for denim and flannel. "We've been horseback riding,"
Helena whispered, at once respectful of the sleep lines etched in Alan's
face and apologetic for her casual garb. "I'm so sorry to have to wake
you. I hope I did the right thing." She rubbed her hands on the hips of
her jeans. "I didn't even take five minutes to change. And I bet I smell
like Jane." She sniffed the air. Alan didn't quite have his wits about
him. "Did you have a nice ride?"

"Lovely. Just lovely. Palmer and I love autumn rides the best."

"Maybe spring," piped in Palmer. "Maybe spring," agreed Helena, "but
it's so muddy."

"There is that," Palmer said. "Yes?" Alan interjected, hoping to
discover the purpose of their visit. "Oh. As I said, we've been riding.
Most all day, since we served you breakfast.

We've had the machine on, though."

"We stopped in town for groceries, too," offered Palmer in
clarification. "Needed some fresh fruit for tomorrow." The answering
machine? Alan's face was full of concern for Lauren and full of longing
for the warm nap he had barely left. Helena leaned forward. "You got
some calls from your friend Sam. Quite a few, actually. Three, Palmer?"

"At least three." She paused and crinkled her forehead. "Sam isn't
always as pleasant as he was when he was visiting here with us, is he?"
Helena was still whispering. "No, he's not," Alan agreed, quickly
ascertaining that Helena wasn't being sarcastic. What did Sam want so
urgently? God, I hope he didn't wreck my car. Or, worse, my bike. "And
your lady friend got a message, too." Helena nodded in the direction of
the bed. She couldn't actually see it from where she stood, but she was
an experienced innkeeper; she could sense that the bed was occupied.
"Helena, Palmer, thanks, let me throw some water on my face and I'll be
down to take a look at the messages in a minute or two." Palmer said,
"That'll be just fine. Doctor. But you don't have to read 'em. We'll
play 'em right back for you. They're still there on the machine." Helena
turned toward her husband, nodded eagerly, returned her gaze to Alan,
and said, "Of course we will, Palmer. That's a fine idea." She leaned
back in toward Alan. "You can hear it for yourself if you would like,
but take it from me, our Sam has not had a very nice day." He crawled
back into the dark bed and snuggled Lauren from behind. "You haven't
moved."

"I haven't tried."

"You going to park here till morning?"

"No. Gotta pee." He kissed the back of her neck. "You'll probably have
to move, then."

"I'm not being silly. There's logic here, Alan. If I don't try to move,
I don't have to find out what parts don't work."

"The leg?"

"That's an important part. Certainly one of the ones I'm worried about."

"We've got messages downstairs. Sam has apparently been calling me all
day. And you got a message from somebody. Do you want me to pick yours
up?" She felt a jolt. "Teresa?" Well, she thought ironically, at least
my adrenals still work. "Please. Go get the message. Let me know as soon
as you know. Go. Go." He got up. "Do you want some help getting to the
bathroom?"

"No. I'll manage somehow. But, Alan?"

"Yeah?" She crinkled her nose and looked around the small room.

"We do have our own bathroom, don't we?" Concern about her sister had
erased the thickness of sleep from her voice. "Yeah. That door there.

I'll be right downstairs. And I'll be back up as soon as I can." Purdy
had been calling the B & B to talk with Alan since shortly after ten
o'clock in the morning. He had called four times, not three, and his
patience had diminished drastically with each subsequent call. The last
call had been at lunchtime. Just before the end of the final message,
Helena said to Alan, "This is when he starts to curse," shook her head,
and walked out of the room. With his credit card in hand, Alan used the
parlor phone to try to track Purdy down at the Public Safety Building in
Boulder. Madeleine, the person in his office whom Sam relied on for
"investigatory support"-- "Don't ever call her a secretary; she can be
lethal"-- couldn't find him, thought he might have gone home or
off-duty. Alan tried his home number. No answer there. The message that
had been left for Lauren was from Robin Torr. Robin sounded almost as
irritated as Purdy at being forced to communicate with the answering
machine, but she, unlike Sam, never sacrificed her equanimity. She had
arrived too late in San Diego to catch up with Teresa before the cruise
ship sailed. She had tried to reach her ship-to-shore--"or
shore-to-ship, or whatever it's called"--but the operator on board the
ship couldn't find a listing for Teresa in the crew directory, so Robin
never spoke with her. She was going to fly down to Cabo San Lucas and
meet the ship there and try again. She didn't know where she could be
reached, so she suggested that Lauren call somebody named John Harley
with any messages. If for any reason she couldn't track Lauren down in
Colorado, Robin would communicate through Harley, too. Lauren was
sitting on the edge of the bed brushing her hair when Alan returned. Her
light makeup had been refreshed and she had pulled a sweater on over her
shirt. She looked up at him eagerly when he pushed open the door. "No
news on Teresa." She exhaled. "Who was it, then? Robin?"

"Yes, it was Robin. She called from San Diego." He relayed the gist of
Robin's message. Quietly, to herself, as she resumed brushing her hair,
Lauren said, "I hope Teresa made it onto that cruise." Alan sat beside
her. He placed an arm across her back, hooking his fingers at her waist,
and said, "You look beautiful. I'm sorry that everyone needs to be so
scared."

"Thanks. I feel better being here with you. What did Sam want?" Alan
shrugged. "Who knows? He called four times this morning. Never really
said what it was about. Just wanted to talk with me, then with us. He's
not happy. I called Boulder, but I couldn't find him. I left messages
all over the place. Helena and Palmer said that they would be here all
evening, and promised to find out what he wants if he calls." He touched
her hair and waited impatiently for her to turn to him. "How did it go?"
He tilted his head toward the bathroom door. She smiled. "My bladder
still works. That's something."

"Lauren." She widened her gray eyes in mild consternation. "Look, I made
it there and back, didn't I?" He stared. She stared back. "The leg's
really heavy, but I can move it--sort of." He hugged her and felt her
wince. "Did I hurt you?"

"No.

I've, um, got some pain in my hand. It's okay. Listen, I think I need a
cane. Will you please walk into town and get me one?"

"Of course."

"I have one in Boulder that I got at a mountaineering tore. I don't
think you've ever seen me use it. It's like an adjustable walking stick
type of thing. It works pretty well. I bet you can find one up here." He
nodded. "I'm sure I can." He stood to leave, patted his hip for his
wallet, then began to search for where in the room he may have misplaced
it. He saw it on the bureau, grabbed it, slithered into a jacket, gave
Lauren a kiss, and headed out. He stopped by the door and said, "I
almost forgot. Robin Torr said that since she doesn't know where she's
going to be, you should communicate with her through someone named John
Harley. If she can't find you, she'll leave a message there as well. I
hope you know who that is." He smiled at her and left her alone. The
hairbrush had stopped midstroke. Out loud, Lauren said, "I hope I know
who that is, too." Alan heard voices as he approached the second-floor
room with Lauren's new walking stick in his hand. He paused, perplexed,
then opened the door. Lauren had moved from the edge of the bed to the
chintz chair. Sam Purdy was stretched out on the bed, four pillows
shoved between his back and the pot-metal headboard. Alan laughed at the
sight of him. "Comfortable, Sam? Welcome back." As nonchalantly as
possible, he stuck the walking stick, its tag still on it, into a corner
by the door. Lauren's face was alive and determined. "Sam brought us
some news. Some troubling news." Purdy seemed to be attempting to look
modest. It struck Alan as similar to a viper trying to look cuddly. "You
tell him, Sam." Purdy reached over his shoulder and fluffed one of the
pillows. Alan moved across the room and sat on the arm of the chair,
next to Lauren. She mouthed, "Thanks," tilting her head at the corner of
the room. Purdy started. "You know how strange we felt after we talked
to Rachel Baumann? Shit, was that just yesterday? You know, that she
seemed so suspicious, even worried? Well, I stayed uncomfortable about
it on the absolutely interminable drive back to Boulder in your stupid
car. I swear I could have pedaled up to the tunnel faster than that
thing can climb up a mountain. Anyway, I went back over everything we
had--what I know about the lawsuit, the murder of the defendant in D.C.

Virginia, actually), the private investigator getting killed outside of
Moab--and I just felt funny about it all. "I had that stuff about
Toomey's murder from Lauren, the stuff she had faxed to me. I knew what
she told us later about the dog-print coincidence, but I didn't know
anything else about the murder back east. So I gave them a call--the
Virginia cops. Said I had a throat slashing in a mountain park outside
of Boulder, wondered if I could see some of their stuff, see if we might
have us a serial on our hands, kill a couple of birds with one stone,
yada yada. They were pretty nice about it, and they faxed me a bunch of
paperwork right away this morning. "Well, I'm, like, working. You know,
for the city. So I don't get a chance to look at this stuff right away.

When I do, I read it, it's pretty much the same story that Lauren has
already given me from news reports and what the lawyers have heard. Lady
sitting alone in a remote part of a park, no sign of struggle, throat
slashed with a sharp knife from somebody standing above her, bleeds to
death. No robbery, no sexual assault. Nothing new. "Except that in
addition to dog prints, it turns out the cops in Virginia have got dog
hair." Lauren looked up at Alan as if to say, This is important, pay
attention. "The crime-scene people in Virginia found two dog prints in
the blood by the body. We already knew that. Initially, they wrote it
off as prints from a stray, a loose dog that compromised the scene
before they arrived. Well, these reports say they also found some dog
hairs in the fabric of this lady's sleeve--the sweater sleeve on her
left arm. You know, the cuff. Not many--a couple, three hairs. Not like
she had grabbed the dog, like she was defending herself. So they decide,
reasonably, that she had petted some dog at some time with her left hand
while she was wearing that sweater. The bottom of her sleeve was facing
down when her body was discovered, so they conclude that there's no way
the hairs come from a stray that came by after she's dead. And dead
people usually don't pet dogs. All in all, the hairs just become a
typical investigatory artifact. We get them all the time. Just a loose
end, right? "Well, maybe, I say. Because we know that the state cops in
Utah say they found dog prints in the dirt and blood around Pratt
Toomey's body, too. I just wish there was some way to find out if the
Utah police found any hair--"

"To match with the hair from Virginia?"

"Right. But--"

"Tell him about the blood, Sam. And about the cut in Pratt's jacket."

"Yeah, okay. I've seen some dead bodies in my time, more than I would
like. And it may surprise you, but most people don't die too messy. Even
if they're shot or stabbed or beat up or whatever, most people only
bleed a certain arfiount before they die. Sometimes you get a bleeder,
but not usually. But both these deaths-- Oaks and Toomey--were bloody.
The neck slashing, absolutely, that's a bloody way to go. But Toomey is
more interesting because he was a gunshot of the chest, which isn't
always a bloody death. Can be, but isn't always.

Pratt was shot in the center of the back, through the heart, exit wound
through the center chest. And he bled plenty. Could have been
incidental, not intentional, but the damn shot almost drained him. And
according to Lauren's lawyer friend, the analysis of the crime scene by
the Utah forensic investigators is that the murderer then lifted his
body and cut his nylon shell with a sharp something, probably a knife,
so that the blood wouldn't pool close to his body. So that it would flow
out, away."

"After? His shell was cut after he was shot?"

"That's what they think."

"Why? Why would somebody do that?"

"Well, they apparently don't know, and I certainly don't have any idea.
But it's interesting.

The blood's important, somehow. It may well be linked to the dog. Maybe
the dog likes the blood. I don't know."

"Lauren? Do you know?" Alan asked. She shook her head. "Have you called
the Utah police, Sam?" Purdy shook his head. "Not a good idea. I'm sure
they have the same stuff I have from Virginia. And I'm in kind of a
vulnerable position here, since I really shouldn't have these reports at
all. Before I flew back up here, I called the guy I had talked with in
Virginia and told him thanks for his help, but I had been wrong, my
crime scene was much more chaotic than theirs, the neck cut on my victim
came from a left-hander, and there were signs of sexual assault." Alan
turned his attention from Sam to Lauren, who in his judgment wasn't
acting sufficiently frightened.

"What do you think, sweets?"

"I think this means it's possible that we're right about everything. I
can't wait to tell Robin."

"Anybody want to know what I think?" Alan asked. Sam smiled at Lauren
and shrugged, making sure that Alan knew he was humoring him. "Sure,
Watson, what do you think?" "I think," Alan said, "that it means that
you and your sister and Robin are in incredible danger. Somebody
absolutely doesn't want this lawsuit of yours to proceed. The fear that
Sam and I saw in Rachel Baumann's face must be part of all of it, too."
Sam sat forward on the bed and waited until Lauren looked at him. He
narrowed his eyes and lowered his thick voice. "That's really why I came
up here, Lauren.

I didn't come up here just to tell you that maybe you were right. I came
up here to try to convince you to back off until the cops in Virginia
and Utah and the people at the FBI figure out what the hell is going on.

You three--you, your sister, and your lawyer friend-- are in serious
jeopardy. And Rachel Baumann, too. She knows something that somebody
doesn't want you to find out. I'm afraid that they're going to kill
either you or her or both of you to keep that from happening." Both men
knew Lauren well enough to be able to assess how receptive she would be
to their advice, especially given the paternalistic tone. She might heed
it in the end, but she would reject it, or at least scoff at it, in the
beginning. Instead, she merely ignored it. "I spoke with her today, Sam,
at length. She didn't seem that frightened to me. I don't know exactly
what you guys saw the other day. Maybe it was that you're men and there
were two of you and you weren't lying as well as you thought you were,
but she just wasn't that frightened today. And she doesn't know that
much. I--" Purdy pulled himself up from the bed and interrupted. "I'm
not convinced. And I do want to hear all about your interview with
Rachel Baumann. But I want to hear all about it over dinner. I'm
starving. First, I need to go downstairs and make some apologies to
Helena and beg her to forgive me for being so rude on the phone today.

Otherwise, I'm afraid that she won't give me one of those omelettes of
hers in the morning. Lauren, you gotta try one. Swiss chard and, I
think, Asiago. Then, the three of us are gonna go out and find some
supper." Lauren said, "If we're going out to eat, will you two excuse me
for a minute?" The two men looked at each other. "You know, like leave,"
she explained. They stood and left the room. At the bottom of the
stairs, Alan confronted Sam. "Why did you really come back up here, Sam?

You didn't get in an airplane just to argue with Lauren about the danger
she's in. I'm sure that you know as well as I do that arguing with her
in person is no more effective than arguing with her on the phone."

"I know that. I'm here because I'm feeling creepy about Rachel Baumann.
I can't leave this thing so unfinished."

"What are you going to do?"

"Don't know. I'll listen to Lauren's story about her visit with Rachel
today. Then I'll decide what to do. But something. I came up here to do
something." Alan went back upstairs and found Lauren exiting the
bathroom. "He's right about the danger you're in. You need to listen to
him."

"It's not as bad as he says. He's exaggerating." She stood and hopped
toward the corner of the room. "Thanks for getting the walking stick.
And, Alan?" She softened her tone. "If Sam asks, please let's just tell
him that I twisted my leg today. Okay?"

"Whatever you want." She kissed him. "That's what I want." Helena and
Parker Cocetti argued politely for a few minutes before reaching a
consensus about sending their trio of guests down Main Street to a
restaurant called the Outlaw.

At the inn, Purdy perused a tattered copy of the menu offered to him by
Palmer, saw plenty of red meat listed, and declared the choice perfect.

Open only during the tourist season, the Outlaw was preparing for its
winter shutdown. A few tables near the bar were occupied by locals
saying their good-byes to the tavern until the spring thaw, but the
restaurant was mostly quiet and welcoming and western and warm. Sam and
Alan ate. Lauren, who wasn't hungry, picked at a salad and then asked
the bartender where she could find a pool table. He directed her to the
Silver Eagle Saloon, across Main Street. She hobbled across the street
and made her way to a battered coin-operated Brunswick in the back of
the bar. Given that she was playing with a house cue and on one leg, she
was relatively pleased with her game. Two elderly men twirled around on
their barstools to watch her play, cradling whiskeys in their laps.

Before long they started making side bets on the length of her runs.

After Sam and Alan finished dinner they crossed the street to the Silver
Eagle and carried chairs over to the pool table. Never once interrupting
her game, Lauren filled them in on her visit with Rachel Baumann. Sam
listened intently, distracted only by the quality of her play. When she
was through he said, "So that's all you got this afternoon? Just this
name--Audrey--and Rachel's protests that she wasn't in the in-group and
shouldn't be expected to know anything about Blythe Oaks or Lester
Horner?" "I guess that's it," Lauren said, feeling chastised. Purdy
synopsis made the meeting feel more inconsequential than it had been.

"But I also think I know who Audrey is. Pratt had mentioned her once. I
checked class records and some other documents I have, and it seems that
she is now Audrey Payne, married to a church big shot. And, what's most
important, Sam, is that I got confirmation from Rachel that a zillion
years ago these girls had special relationships that even they
themselves labeled as romantic." Sam sat back on his chair, wiped the
grain of his red mustache left and right with his fingers, and drained
the dregs of the beer on the table in front of him. "That may be good
news for your sister and her lawsuit, but I don't see how it adds up to
a motive for murder. An old story of a bunch of nineteen-year-old girls
checking out each other's bodies is not exactly the stuff that tends to
motivate a rash of murders."

"It could be, Sam," Lauren asserted, "if it establishes a foundation for
convincing a jury that Blythe Oaks was lesbian. Because that would stain
Oaks's family and add credibility to Teresa's accusations, which would
stain Justice Horner for having hired her. And if Horner is stained, it
obviously would stain the LDS Church.

Motive everywhere." In a soft voice, Sam argued gently, "Put on your
prosecutor's cap for a second, Lauren. Would you kill Pratt Toomey to
keep him from hearing what Rachel Baumann told you this afternoon? I
sure wouldn't take that risk. Especially since, by your own research,
and her own admission, there are, what--a half-dozen other girls?
more?--who know the same information. Maybe the other kids from BYU know
even more information, since Rachel professes to have been such a
blessed outsider. Is this murderer going to systematically start killing
off the entire coed half of the class of 'sixty-three in order to keep
some post- adolescent lesbian petting hidden?" Lauren lined up a shot
and fought to maintain her calm. She tried not to think about her leg
and her myelin. "What are you saying, Sam? That I spent the after noon
talking to the wrong person? That Pratt wasn't really coming up here to
talk to Rachel at all?"

"Sure, that's one possibility. It's possible that Pratt was coming up
here to talk with somebody else. Alan and I tracked down Rachel Baumann
without breaking a sweat. That sure doesn't mean we tracked down the
right person. Perhaps it even argues that we didn't." He paused. "But
it's also possible that we did find the right person and that she lied
to you through her teeth. Or" The bartender, an emaciated man with a
baseball cap on a head that looked as if it had been rendered bald by
chemotherapy, and with suspenders holding up his oversized Levi's,
interrupted the developing tension by asking if anybody wanted another
round. Sam said yes. No one else bit. Alan's eyes were on Lauren. He
read impatience and frustration in her face and tried to gauge whether
Sam was sufficiently sensitive to the impact of what he was saying to
her. "Or what, Sam?"

"Lauren, please don't take offense at what I'm telling you. I think I'm
here to help, okay? I lied to my boss to come up this mountain today. I
flew in an airplane the size of a condor into an airport the size of a
commemorative stamp to get here.

I've already been away from my family much longer than I like.

Regardless of your fantasies, I would not go to these lengths just to
annoy you. You know from experience that tact is not my long suit, but
I'm not doing all this just to get a chance to critique your work this
afternoon. My intent" he took a long draw on his fresh beer" my intent is
to try, for want of a better phrase, to keep you alive. But if I'm not
being helpful, just let me know. I'll be gone as soon I get that
omelette in my gut tomorrow morning." He smiled. "You could call out the
local militia, and you still couldn't get me out of town before that."
She pursed her lips and thought about Pratt and about Teresa. She
massaged the burning in her hand. "I'm sorry, Sam. I'm under a lot of
pressure. What's your other hypothesis? Please."

"My other hypothesis is, I think, an obvious one. That maybe we've been
right all along, that talking with Rachel Baumann was indeed the purpose
of Toomey's last trip. But a problem none of us has solved is that we're
only guessing what he planned to talk with her about. You and your
attorney friend think he wanted to discuss this little romantic girls'
club from thirty years ago. But we don't really know that, do we? And
Rachel's ease in dealing with you today is"--he lowered his voice here
for emphasis--"absolutely inconsistent with what Alan and I saw in her
office a couple of days ago. If she was lying to you today, I think you
would have smelled it. You're too close to all this, no doubt about it,
but I know your bullshit threshold, Lauren. You would have smelled it if
she was lying. That lady may have some sociopathic blood in her veins,
but it runs thin. She can't lie like a pro. You would have caught it.

"So I think what's happening is that maybe, just maybe, we don't know
the right questions. And that what you saw today on Rachel Baumann's
face wasn't the absence of fear; it was the presence of relief. If Alan
and I read her right the other day and she sees the three of us as the
second coming of the big bad wolf, maybe she realized today that
although we've found our way to the woods, we don't have a clue where
Grandmother's house really is."

"I don't like what you're suggesting, Sam, mostly because it makes me
feel lost. Back almost to square one.

But it makes some sense. I'd like to discount whatever fear you and Alan
saw in Rachel's face. It would make my job easier. But I shouldn't." She
sank the four ball off the far cushion. Purdy raised his eyebrows and
stared at the pool table. "How the hell do you do that? Shit."

"Practice. You were saying?"

"An hour ago, whatever, back at Helena and Palmer's, I told you why I
came back up here. It still holds. I absolutely think you should can
this thing until the cops sort it out.

We--you, me, and Alan--don't know enough to even begin to protect you
and your sister from whoever's killing these people."

"I'm not good at giving up. You both know that." She traded glances
first with Alan, then with Sam. "And I won't give up, even temporarily,
until my sister's safe. Sam, we don't even know where she is." Her eyes
filled with tears.

Alan explained to Sam about Teresa's unexpected gig and the cruise ship
and the late airplane and Robin Torr's trip to Mexico to find her to
ascertain that she was safe. "But when she's safe, when you know that
she's safe," Sam said after processing the details of the story, "you'll
take a break from all this?" Lauren widened her eyes. "Yeah. I'll think
seriously about it. How's that?"

"It's about all the cooperation I ever hope for from a prosecutor. Let's
pray we get some good news from your lawyer friend in the very near
future." When he finished his beer, Purdy thanked Lauren, who insisted
on paying for the drinks, and excused himself to take a walk around
town. While Lauren had made an excursion to the ladies' room, he had
told Alan that he was planning the stroll and made him promise to take
Lauren straight back to the B & B when she was done playing pool. Purdy
exited the Silver Eagle and headed down Main Street for a block before
circling around to the east past Rachel Baumann's office. The building
was, as he expected, dark. He kept walking. The night air in the
Uncompahgre was cold, and he was under-dressed in a sweatshirt and down
vest. Insulating clouds jostled the peaks above the valley but couldn't
quite surmount the sharp ridges to settle over the town like a blanket
and hold in the day's heat.

Around the corner, not far from where Baumann practiced law, Purdy
mounted the steps of the building that held the Ouray Police Department.

Purdy smiled to himself at the calm he found inside and the contrast in
atmosphere with the Boulder Public Safety Building. A solitary uniformed
officer sat at a worn but elegant oak desk in the front of a small room.

Purdy approached calmly and asked for the duty officer. "You're looking
at him. What can I do for you? Officer Miklowski." Miklowski didn't
offer his hand. "May I sit?"

"Suit yourself."

"Officer Miklowski, I'm Sam Purdy of the Boulder Police Department, and
I'm here unofficially." Purdy waited for the officer to react to his
introduction. He didn't.

Purdy checked out the man's name tag. "May I call you Bill? Please call
me Sam."

"Can I see some ID, sir? Badge would be nice." Purdy reached into his
vest pocket and flipped his badge wallet open on the desk in front of
him. Miklow- ski viewed it carefully, glanced up at Purdy, then back to
the shield. "You're not on the job right now, correct, Detective?"

"It's Sam. But that's correct I'm on vacation."

"But you didn't exactly drop in here tonight just to pay your respects
to a fellow officer?"

"That's correct, too. Bill." Purdy felt awkward, had hoped for more
camaraderie. "I'm kind of worried about something I'm afraid might be
happening here in town. Thought you guys might like to know about it."
About five minutes later, after Purdy had outlined the general nature of
his concerns about Rachel Baumann's welfare--"Rachel?

Really?"--and detailed the two distant deaths that had fomented his
concerns. Bill Miklow- ski interrupted him for only the second time and
said that he thought he should run this one by the chief. Sam and Bill
spent about ten minutes getting better acquainted. Purdy was trying to
explain in as non-self- incriminating a manner as possible what his
involvement was in this interstate mess when the chief arrived,
apparently through a back entrance, and buzzed Officer Miklowski's phone
extension. "Let the recorder answer the phone for a while. Bill. Call
Marian and tell her you're going to be away from the desk. Offer our
guest something to drink and bring me a Coke. Then both of you come on
back." From his chair opposite Chief Long's desk, Sam Purdy thought
things were going well. The police chief of Ouray was a slender man who
didn't stand when Miklowski ushered Purdy into his office. Chief Long's
posture was admirable. Even this late in the evening he sat as straight,
Sam surmised, as if he had a stick up his ass. Purdy was offering
himself side bets on how tall the guy was. Five seven, five nine max. By
the terms of his silent wager, if he was correct, Purdy won the right to
stop someplace for dessert on his way back to the inn. Miklowski, for
some reason Purdy couldn't discern, felt a compelling need to recount
Purdy's story himself, despite the fact that the originator of the tale
was sitting four feet away from him. Chief Long, for some reason Purdy
couldn't discern, listened as attentively as if his officer were a
primary source of impeccable credentials. Purdy half listened, having
long ago developed an immunity to personal irritation over police
department inefficiency. He found himself impressed at Miklowski's quick
grasp of the general thrust of his story. A couple of small errors
cropped up, but in the interest of good will, Sam chose not to correct
him. "Your officer has it pretty straight. Chief." Sam turned to his
left. "I'm impressed. Bill." Brian Long brushed his full but obviously
newly barbered hair back on the sides of his head with both hands. He
said, "I don't know why you don't think that maybe you and your buddy
didn't Spock Rachel with your little charade the other day, and that's
why she was frightened." Sam sat forward and put his elbows on his
knees. "I considered that. Chief--at least until I got back to Boulder
and learned about this dog thing that Bill just described so well. I
then came to the conclusion that it was no longer prudent to assume that
those two murders were random acts of violence. In fact, I have come to
believe that everyone with anything to do with this case has something
to worry about in relation to their continued existence on this planet.

And I think Rachel knows it, too, and that's why she was afraid. She
thought my friend and I were the bad guys. But I sure don't know her
well enough to know if she would share that fear with the local
authorities. So I thought I would do it myself. Clue you in." Staring at
something inconsequential on his desk, Brian Long said under his breath,
"And we're certainly grateful for that." He finally looked up, one hand
wrapped around his can of Coke. He spoke evenly. "What is it you would
like, exactly. Detective Purdy? You want me to put a patrol car outside
Rachel's house and hope she doesn't notice? Or you want me to do your
dirty work for you and go tell her the danger she just might be in to
try to scare her into divulging some information I'm not sure you and
your 'friends' have any right to know? Is that it? You looking for some
free help getting some dirt on a very fine lady who plays her cards as
carefully as anybody I've ever met?" Purdy took his elbows from his
knees and began to rub his eyes with his thick fingers. This, he
thought, is no longer going as well as I'd hoped. Before he was finished
massaging his tired eyes, he began his reply. "Personally? I don't give
a shit what you do. Chief. Me? I have this bias about my work. I like to
know what's going on in my town. I like to know if any of the local
citizens are in any unusual danger. I like to keep at least a part of my
attention on any strangers in town, on new faces. Like that. "So, no,
I'm not looking for you to offer a free assist on this case I keep being
called off the bench to help on. I personally don't give a fuck if you
tell Rachel that she needs protection 'cause she's on the hit list of a
drunken driver who just escaped from County with a grudge against her
for not getting him off. "I like my friends. I'm helping them out. I
liked Rachel when I met her. It would be nice if she were alive for a
while. That's why I'm here. And I think perhaps I've worn out my
welcome. Good evening, gentlemen." He twisted around, searching for his
vest, found it on the floor behind his chair, stooped down to get it,
and stood to leave. "Sit back down and cool your jets. Detective."

"Excuse me?" Purdy asked, not bothering to turn around. Without even the
slightest change in tone. Long acknowledged Purdy's protest. "Sit back
down and cool your jets, Detective. Please."

"Be happy to. Chief." Brian Long said, "You're from Boulder. You get
yourselves a few tourists. You city guys got any new and special ways
for determining the difference between a stranger and a tourist? I
always find that particular discrimination poses a bit of a dilemma
around here." Purdy smiled at Miklowski as he answered. "It's high- tech
stuff. We ourselves only recently learned it after getting funding on an
LEAA grant. Some of the brass even spent time at the FBI Academy.
Basically, in this case, stranger versus tourist identification would
involve increased suspicion of anybody traveling, probably alone, with a
long-haired dog in the golden-to-red color range, who is probably
driving his own car, that car most likely being adorned by Utah plates."
Brian Long had a smirk on his face. "And if I'm following this new
technique correctly, then if somebody fitting that profile seemed to be
hanging around Rachel's home or office, we should probably be more than
mildly concerned."

"Gosh," Purdy exclaimed. "And to think it took us a hundred and
sixty-five thousand dollars to figure out stuff like that." Brian Long
called Rachel Baumann's home to try to set up a meeting that Purdy said
he would be happy to attend. But nobody answered the phone at Rachel's
house. "I guess she's out," Purdy said as Chief Long replaced the
receiver in its cradle. "Not likely," Miklowski offered. Long nodded,
agreeing with his officer. "More likely not answering. Rachel doesn't go
out too often. Not since Walter died, anyway. Certainly not since Anita
moved away. She stays home, mostly. If she doesn't feel like talking,
she doesn't answer her phone."

"When did Walter die?"

"When was that, Bill? Sometime before I got the job."

"I was a kid, maybe ten or eleven, when Walter got killed. So, what's
that? Fifteen, sixteen years ago."

"Walter was killed?" Both men nodded. "Could be relevant," Purdy said,
succumbing to the laconism apparently endemic to the law-enforcement
community i. "Don't see how," said Bill. "Me neither," said Brian Long,
after a contemplative pause. "Well, then," concluded Purdy. They walked
ten minutes to Rachel's house. The stroll carried them six blocks closer
to the steep, striated faces of the western canyon walls, across the
trickling flow of the Uncompahgre in autumn, to a quiet dirt lane above
Oak Creek. Even only this far away from town, the change in light made a
million stars seem to leap from the sky. The high walls of the San Juans
loomed above the neighborhood like dark, vertical clouds. The locals
were prepared for the season and the short trek out of town. They wore
hats and gloves, and their coats came equipped with sleeves. In
contrast, Sam Purdy was nearly frozen when they arrived at Rachel's
house, a sprawling log cabin of indeterminate age on a woody promontory
that enjoyed an expansive view of the valley. Purdy was encouraged by
the quantity and vibrancy of interior and exterior lights adorning the
house, discouraged by its visual isolation from the neighbors. Why
couldn't Rachel live in town? Like across the street from the damn
police station. The path to the front door was a mix of packed dirt,
railroad ties, and stones that meandered through a grove of small aspen.

The entrance itself was partly obscured by a pair of large ponderosas
flanking a narrow porch. Brian Long led the procession to the planked
deck outside the door. He pounded heavily and yelled, "Rachel, it's
Brian Long, you home?" Purdy watched a light come on in a distant
structure through the trees. No one came to the door. Miklowski looked
bored. Long knocked and yelled again. Nothing. Purdy suggested they take
a quick look around. Long said nothing but seemed to concur. Miklowski
carried the only flashlight, so the other two men followed him as he
leapt a low railing on the porch and scrambled up a steep grade toward a
big bay window. MIOHTK AUIMUKIIY 2SS Miklowski shined his light inside,
then dropped its beam when it was apparent that the interior lighting
was rendering his torch redundant. He whistled through his gaped teeth
and said, "Shit, would you look at that." Lauren had phoned John Harley
as soon as she got back to the B & B after dinner. When he didn't answer
at his apartment, she tried Salt Lake City directory assistance and
asked for the number of the Side Pocket. Across the room, to Alan, she
explained, "I've been playing pool there." He was puzzled by her
explanation. Odelle answered at the Side Pocket. No, she hadn't seen
Harley. It was a little early for him, though, wasn't it? Any message?

Okay, I'll tell him you called. Lauren forced a smile at Alan, who was
reclining sideways on a small sofa in Helena and Palmer's parlor,
reading last week's Newsweek. "It's where I met him. The guy who Robin's
leaving messages with. At the Side Pocket." Alan waited for her to
elucidate on her own. When she didn't, he said, without looking over at
her, "He's just a friend, right?" As naturally as she could manage, she
said, "That's right. Just a friend. He's taught me a lot about the
Church. He's a Mormon. Maybe a Jack Mormon." Although Alan wouldn't have
known a Jack Mormon from an Easter Catholic, he nodded and returned to
his magazine. Given the day, the new symptoms, her fears about her
sister, and the conundrum about Rachel Baumann, he decided to forgo
exploring the opening Lauren had created. He followed Lauren and her
heavy leg and her new cane up the stairs to their room. No harm would
come from giving her the benefit of the doubt. Robin Torr's flight to
Cabo San Lucas was scheduled to depart at 9:10 the next morning. She
booked a room in a hotel near the airport and spent the evening shopping
for some clothes more suitable for the tropics than those she had
grabbed in her rush out of Utah. Robin never crossed paths with Teresa
Crowder, who was staying on a different floor at the same hotel.

Tere"sa's flight out of San Diego was scheduled to leave an hour earlier
than Robin Torr's. Although Teresa had been disappointed at how things
had turned out with the cruise ship, she was proud of the fact that she
had acceded to Lauren's wishes and called her bungalow in Salt Lake City
and left a message on the answering machine for her sister telling her
where she would be instead. It was, after all, the responsible thing to
do. "Whattya make of that. Chief?" Miklowski asked as he again raised
his ineffective flashlight and swept it in a wide arc from one side of
the spacious room to the other. The main room of Rachel Baumann's house
was deep, traversing the entire width of the structure. Matching bay
windows anchored each end. A dividing walkway framed by low cabinetry
was all that separated a livingroom area at the front of the house from
a smaller, dining-room area at the rear. The rooms were brightened by
the exposed polished wood of the log walls and by a high beamed ceiling,
and warmed by huge acrylic landscapes and stunning antique tapestries.

Purdy thought. All this place needs is some furniture and rugs to go
straight into Architectural Digest. "Where's her piano?" asked Long.

"Where's all her furniture?"

"Is Rachel moving out?" wondered Miklowski.

"She sell this place? I never heard anything."

"Where the hell is she?" asked Purdy, no longer feeling the night chill
at all. he three policemen accomplished little as they circled Rachel
Baumann's home, peeking through every accessible window. The perplexing
absence of furniture and rugs that they had discovered in her main rooms
was not repeated in any other part of the house. Purdy and Long argued
briefly over the meaning of the absence of disarray, over how neatly the
furniture and rugs seemed to have been removed from the living room and
dining room. Purdy kept to himself a troublesome image of Rachel's body
rolled up in a nice big Persian carpet. Miklowski noted the absence of
packing boxes. Chief Long noted the absence of any rumors in town about
Rachel moving. Purdy mentioned the absence of a body, either standing at
the door welcoming them in for cookies or crumpled in a pool of blood
anywhere in the house. "I thought she never went out," he said. "Not
never. Rarely."

"It's almost ten-thirty. Chief," Miklowski said. "That is a little late
for Rachel to be out."

"So where is she?" Purdy demanded. The chief tugged on the end of his
gloves and then stared up at Purdy. "Sam, is everybody in Boulder
exactly where they are supposed to be every night at ten-thirty?" Purdy
was growing cold again. He shoved his hands farther into the shallow
pockets of his vest. "Who might know where she is? Who are her friends?"

"I betcha Arna Donnelly would know, Chief," suggested Miklowski. "Then
let's go call Arna Donnelly," Purdy snapped. He remembered Mrs.
Donnelly's name from the plaque on the reception desk in Baumann's
office. Chief Long wasn't convinced. "Arna will be in bed. It's almost
ten-thirty. I don't want to worry her." Purdy responded, "Well, shit.
It's only ten-thirty. Arna will have plenty of chance to still get a
good night's sleep after she answers a couple of questions. We have a
suspicious situation here, Chief Long."

"So you seem to think." Long thought about it for fifteen seconds before
he said, "Okay, I'll call Arna." They walked back into town and used the
phone at the Coachlight Restaurant to make the call.

Arna had been up waiting for The Tonight Show to start. In reply to
Chief Long's question, she said, "Rachel had her floors refinished this
week, Brian. You know, her wood floors? I think they're pine. The wide
boards, those are pine, aren't they? Yes, I think they are. I imagine
the fumes were just too bad for Rachel to stay in the house. Ever had
your floor refinished, Brian? You and Beth have carpet, don't you? Well,
we did, just a couple of years ago. But our boards are the skinny ones.

Oak. Don't matter, I imagine. Ooooeeee, it stinks. We stayed next door
with the Lightharts."

"Where would Rachel go if she wasn't going to sleep at home, Arna? Any
idea? She mention anything to you?"

"Well, if tomorrow wasn't a work day, I'd expect that she would have
gone over the hill to see Anita. But since we're open tomorrow and she's
got some appointments, I bet Rachel would just go down and visit with
Donna at the Wiesbaden and take a room there." Of course, he thought. "I
should've thought of that myself, Arna. I'm real sorry to bother you so
late at night. You will forgive me?"

"Oh, Brian," she scolded. Chief Long hung up the phone and turned to
Purdy. He said, "I feel kind of stupid. She's getting her floors
refinished. Rachel's best friend here in town is a woman named Donna
Tarkett. She used to be Dr. Brown's nurse before he retired. Anyway,
when Doc Brown retired, Donna bought a small lodge here in town with
Rachel's help. It's called the Wiesbaden. I bet Rachel's there. If she's
not. Donna will know where she is." The Wiesbaden Hot Springs Spa and
Lodging was a few blocks away at the east side of town. Purdy, his toes
still numb, suggested a phone call to ascertain that Rachel was indeed
staying at her friend's lodge. Chief Long didn't see any reason to wake
Donna Tarkett with a phone call and felt that walking by and making sure
that Rachel's car was in the Wiesbaden lot would take care of all their
questions just fine. "Can we drive? Please?" asked Sam Purdy, meekly.
"It's only a few blocks, Sam.

No real need for that."

"I give up. I can't feel my toes. I'm frozen." Chief Long turned to
Miklowski. "In deference to our flatland guest, we'll all head back to
the station. Bill, you can go back on your shift.

I'll drive our visitor all the way over to the Wiesbaden." Purdy ignored
the sarcasm and cranked the heat up on the Ouray Police Department's
white Jeep Cherokee as soon as Brian Long started the engine. Purdy's
fingers and toes were so numb he couldn't even tell if the air blowing
out of the vents was warm or not. Within a minute they arrived at the
lodge. The Wiesbaden consisted of an L-shaped motel building and a
larger guest house surrounding some natural hot springs fed by Ouray's
abundant geothermal resources. A few exterior lights indicated to Purdy
that the lodge hadn't closed for the winter, but the absence of interior
lighting in more than a couple of rooms suggested that business wasn't
exactly booming, either. Only three cars lined the street in front of
the lodge. "That's Donna Tarkett's truck," Brian Long said as they
passed a full-size Dodge with the Wiesbaden logo painted on the side,
"and this one belongs to a tourist," he continued as he made the Jeep
crawl past a Buick with Arizona plates. "And this one here is Rachel's
old Wagoneer." The wood-paneled Wagoneer was indeed old. It was, in
addition, battered, rust-patched, and filthy. Mostly, though, it was
distinctive. "You're sure it's hers?" Purdy asked, assuming that Long
was. "Absolutely. Only one other one this old in town. And the other
one's pretty. Rachel's got an immaculate house and an immaculate office,
but her car is for shit." Purdy made Long drive around the block
surrounding the grounds of the lodge and the adjacent streets to check
for vehicles with Utah plates. They didn't find any. He turned to face
Chief Long. "You don't want to wake her, right?"

"These other two murders, they both took place in remote locations?"
Purdy considered the question, then nodded. "Well, Rachel's in a public
place right now. I'd be more worried if she were at home, up on the hill
by herself. But there are other people around here. Donna's pretty
alert. There's regular traffic passing by. Bill will be on patrol
tonight. I'll remind him to keep an eye out for strangers with dogs and
cars with Utah plates. She'll be fine, Sam." A gnawing in Purdy's gut
screamed that waiting was foolish. But his leverage with Chief Long was
almost nonexistent, so he didn't argue. "We'll talk to her in the
morning, right?"

"First thing, Sam. Promise." Purdy missed the condescension in Brian
Long's voice because his toes had defrosted to a stage where he could
tell that the air blowing on his running shoes was warm. He was liking
that. "Take you back to Palmer and Helena's place, Detective?"

"That would be great." A block from the Wiesbaden, Purdy said, "Brian?"

"Mmmhmmm?"

"Anyplace in town I could stop for something sweet this late at night?"
Without even a second's delay, Long said, "Nope."

"Damn, I was afraid of that," Purdy muttered into the dark car. J.W
Purdy was joined for an early breakfast the next morning by Alan and
Laureri. Sam had already decided that the fact that he had visited the
police department the night before would probably precipitate an
argument from Lauren, so he had no plans to mention it to her. Alan
asked him how his walk had been. "Great. A little cold."

"Where'd you go?"

"All over.

Walked around town some. Saw some hot springs. Even crossed the river
and went a little ways into the hills." Lauren, who was eagerly
accepting Helena's offer of breakfast, said, "That's admirable, Sam. You
usually a night walker?"

"I don't need much sleep." Alan offered, loud enough so Helena would be
sure to hear, "No, what Sam needs is much breakfast." Purdy smiled at
his hostess and said, "Amen." He had already stopped by the kitchen and
discussed the possibility of an omelette with her. "Palmer likes to call
them frittatas, Sam," she'd whispered. "Well, if he'll cook me a couple,
I'll call them anything Palmer would like," Purdy had said. To Sam, it
appeared that Lauren and Alan were being overly polite with each other,
and he was curious what had transpired the night before. He asked a
couple of questions, which Lauren answered, and learned only that they
hadn't heard anything about her sister's whereabouts from the
intermediary in Salt Lake City. The first of the two promised frittatas
arrived in front of Purdy just as Officer Bill Miklowski burst into the
sun-washed dining room of the inn. Helena was startled by how bedraggled
he looked. He was breathing hard, his eyes were jumpy, and his heavy
beard was well into the stage where anyone could tell it had been a long
time since he had shaved. "Well, Bill, hello. Are you all right?"
Immediately, Purdy guessed what was coming and was out of his chair,
ready to rush Miklowski to another, more private room, when the
policeman blurted out words that would soon echo in every corner of the
quiet little town of Ouray. "Rachel's dead, Sam.

The chief wants you. You gotta come with me. Now. Come on, hurry." His
voice was pressured and frightened. His face was pasty, his lips pale.

Purdy grimaced, mouthed the word "Fuck!" and turned to Miklowski. "I
need to grab my coat. The time for hurrying is a little past, I'm
afraid, Bill." He turned to Lauren and Alan. "You two stay here, and
stay together. If you see anybody you don't know who's paying attention
to this place, call Chief Long immediately. Alan, you got that?"
Somberly, he said, "Yes, Sam." Purdy turned to Helena. Helena stood
hugging herself, a solitary tear tracing a path down her left cheek.

"Helena, you and Palmer going to be home?" She nodded. "Does Palmer have
a gun, a rifle, anything?" She nodded. "Get Palmer, tell him to get the
gun, and everybody stay together, okay?" She nodded. Purdy walked
upstairs deliberately and descended a minute later with his coat and his
gloves. "Let's go, Bill," he said, and walked out the door. Lauren felt
her breathing grow so shallow, she wondered if her lungs had literally
filled with fear. With the arrival of Officer Miklowski's car at the
Wiesbaden, all three patrol vehicles from the Ouray Police Department
were on the scene. Cars from the county sheriff were just arriving from
their offices, a block away. The officers were overwhelmed in number by
a concerned, tearful gathering of local residents, who knew too few
facts and were already busy spreading too many rumors. Purdy raised the
collar of his leather jacket and hunched his shoulders high as he
meandered through a line of locals, politely saying, "Excuse me,
please." Officer Miklowski, looking lost, trailed in his wake. Purdy
read the scene quickly. The glass-enclosed lobby of the main lodge was
quiet, a solitary uniformed sentry guarding the door that faced to the
south. None of the motel-room doors was either open or guarded. A small
crowd, however, had gathered on Sixth Avenue, adjacent to a stone path
that led to a tall cedar fence that ran in a rough semicircle out toward
the back of the property, against a steep slope. Purdy followed the
sidewalk toward the gathering. Long's control of the scene pleased
Purdy. The townspeople weren't trampling evidence; instead, the group
was well contained behind a deep perimeter that had been established by
Long. Purdy stopped his approach on the periphery of the scene, looking
for clues as to what had happened, waiting for Long to invite him inside
the crime-scene perimeter. In the brief car ride through Ouray's sleepy
streets, Miklowski had told Purdy three times that Rachel was dead. Each
time he repeated his message, it was as though it were the first. "She's
dead. You were right. She's dead." Although his mood was agitated, his
tone was flat. Purdy had tried a few questions that Miklowski had
answered with

"Don't know." The only question that he had been able to answer was

"How did she die?" It had been answered with "She drowned.

Rachel drowned." Purdy had been silent the last couple of blocks to the
Wiesbaden. Brian Long finally stepped through the gate in the cedar
fence and spotted Purdy. Long's face was somber; his eyes were heavy
with responsibility and regret. He took Sam Purdy by the arm and tugged
him across the stone path to create some space between them and the
restless group on the sidewalk. "This is awful, Sam," he said. "I'm
terribly sorry, Brian."

"Eight years I've been here. This is my first murder. And I could've
stopped it." He looked to Purdy for forgiveness for his lack of
diligence. Purdy tried to do the best he could to provide a cushion for
Long's guilt. "You don't know that, Brian. Last night we may have been
in the murder-prevention business, or we may have just been kidding
ourselves and really only been in the murder-postponement business. I'm
afraid that you've got yourself a dedicated killer on your hands."

"You're homicide, aren't you?"

"Boulder's not a big enough department to have detectives just do
homicide. But, yeah, I do homicide sometimes."

"Give me a hand here?"

"You seem to know what you're doing, Brian." Purdy tilted his head
toward the crime scene. "Maybe I df>. I did a long time ago, Sam. I was
a division chief in Fort Collins before I came up here. But I'm rusty
and I don't want to screw this up. Help me?" Purdy turned his body to
face the gate. He wanted to shift Long's focus. "What have you got?"
Long took a deep breath. "Donna Tarkett, Rachel's best friend, found her
this morning at seven-thirty, face- down in the tub." He saw Purdy look
once more at the closed gate. "There's a private hot tub in there that
Donna rents by the hour. She calls it the Lorelei. It's got a little
stone waterfall that flows into the tub from one of the hot springs."
Involuntarily, Purdy began to imagine what a body would look like after
bobbing around all night in a hot tub. "Miklowski said she drowned," he
said. Brian Long shook his head once. "Bill's a good small- town cop,
Sam. Knows basically what to overlook. Knows what to press. But he
doesn't know shit about homicide. Rachel's in the water, I guess he
figures she drowned."

"So what do you think it is?" Purdy edged closer to the gate. He wanted
to see the scene. And despite his fears about the condition it would be
in, he wanted to see the body. Brian Long slid dark aviator glasses onto
his nose and hooked the rims behind his ears.

"Rachel looks like she's been boiled, Sam. The water from the hot
springs is one hundred six to one hundred ten degrees this time of year.

That's real hot. And I think she's been in there all night. If I had to
bet, I'll bet she didn't drown. Or if she did drown, I'll bet somebody
drowned her. It's unbelievable what she looks like. It's like a horror
movie. You ever seen a body after a night in hot water?" Purdy shivered.

He had only dealt with one floater in his career, in Duluth, in the late
fall, in water that was much closer to freezing than to steaming. He
didn't really want to know what Rachel Baumann looked like after bobbing
around for ten hours in water that was damn near scalding. The image in
his head was of swollen, lobster-red skin. Something told him the
reality would not even be that pleasant. "Is she still in the water?"

"No. Donna jumped in and tried to pull her out first thing. She got her
halfway out, then ..." His voice trailed off. "Then what? Brian, what?"

"Then  ...  when she pulled on Rachel's hand to pull her the rest of the
way out of the tub, the skin on Rachel's hand slid right off. Just like
a glove. But with the fingernails still attached." Purdy grimaced at the
image. "Oh, shit. Poor Donna."

"Yeah."

"Can I take a look?" Brian Long said, "Please," and waited for Purdy to
precede him to the gate. "Who assists on this stuff for you guys?
County? State?"

"Both. County's here already. Mobile crime lab is on its way. We're
still trying to find the coroner. CBI will do lab and forensics for us
if we need it. We'll need it. The coroner here's an M.D., and he's good,
but if I know him, once he sees Rachel's body he'll get a forensic
pathologist from Montrose to do the post." Purdy picked a spot a couple
of feet up from the handle and pushed on the gate with his gloved
fingertips. Rachel Baumann's body had been moved the rest of the way out
of the hot tub. The corpse was completely draped with a white motel
sheet. To Purdy, the sheet seemed to be covering a body at least twice
the size of the woman he had met a couple of days before. A big towel,
still folded, sat unused on an old Adirondack chair. The hot tub, which
Purdy had expected to be made of redwood, was actually of molded
fiberglass. A gentle flow of steaming water bubbled melodically down
adjacent rocks, spilling into the tub.

The setting was serene and beautiful. The irony could not have been more
complete. "Can you turn that thing off?"

"We're trying. It's a natural spring. There's a chute up the hill to
divert the water to the street so Donna can do maintenance. Her handyman
isn't around, and nobody can find the key to the lock on the access
door." Purdy said evenly, "The access door isn't evidence. This is. Pry
it open. Or blow the damn lock off if you need to. God only knows what
the hell's washing away down here." Like dog hairs, he thought. Long set
his solid jaw and pursed his lips.

He left, Purdy hoped, to give somebody an order. Purdy lowered himself
to a crouch on the cedar decking. He raised the sheet. Immediately he
dropped the shroud back onto the body and stood. He said, "Oh, my God,"
and warded off an impulse to flee the pool enclosure. Rachel's corpse
had been lain flat on its back on the worn wood deck. The body Purdy
examined the second time he raised the sheet had bulged to become the
size of a two-hundred-pound person's. Alive, Rachel had weighed in the
vicinity of one thirty-five. The face on the bloated corpse was rippled
from changes greatly accelerated by the moist heat of the hot spring.

The color of the skin was chalky white. The individual features of the
face--the lips, the tongue, the nose--were swollen to grotesque
proportions that made it impossible for Purdy to be certain that he was
even looking at Rachel Baumann's remains. Purdy guessed that the onset
of decomposition might be more pronounced in the face because hot water
had entered Rachel's throat and sinuses through her mouth and nose.

Rachel's once-clear eyes had receded to invisibility behind the
tumescent folds of ribbed cheek and forehead flesh. Purdy wondered about
rigor. What about lividity? He could have guessed what the heat had done
to accelerate those processes but didn't bother. If he stayed on this
case, he knew that soon he would be an unwilling expert on the acute
postmortem consequences of extreme sustained high body temperature.

Without touching the body, Purdy visually examined the swimsuit-clad
corpse for evidence of trauma. He couldn't identify any. The bloating of
the torso had been restrained by the tight fabric of the swimsuit. But
Rachel's hands and feet were swollen and ribbed deeply, like a
washerwoman's. Quietly, as he respread the sheet, he said to Rachel,
"God, I hope they have a good ME around here. Somebody's gonna have
their hands full trying to figure out what happened to you." Brian Long
said, "You talking to me?" Purdy looked over at the gate, away from the
corpse. "Brian, how do you even know it's Rachel? I can't recognize
her." Long shook his head, the whole time looking away from the body. "I
can't, either. Donna recognizes her swimsuit. And she says that Rachel
was the last one with the key to the Lorelei. You see what the water did
to her skin? I'm not even sure we can retrieve prints off of those
fingers. We might have to confirm identity with dental records. I'm just
working under the assumption it's Rachel."

"Don't worry. The techs will get prints." He looked back down at the
sheet. "The body is awful, Brian. Is Donna doing all right?"

"Donna's a basket case, Sam. An absolute wreck."

"Rachel have any family?"

"A daughter in Denver. Anita.

Sweet, sweet kid. It's gonna kill her. This is just gonna kill her."
part three SINNERS AND SAINTS t Better dead clean, than alive unclean.
mormon maxim OF the 1940s The child of a Mormon family undergoes what
must be one of the most powerful indoctrinations of any society, so that
in adult life, that child is incapable of admitting publicly, and
sometimes Mot even to himself, that he does not believe in some or even
in all of the basic teachings of the church. To do so is to drain
himself of one hundred and forty years of Mormon blood. rodello hunter,
A daughter OF zion Palmer Cocetti rocked gently in the front room of the
inn with his deer rifle across his lap. His eyes were focused on the
street. Alan prayed to himself that a minivan full of innocent Mormons
from Utah didn't choose that day to drive up to Helena and Palmer's door
looking for accommodations. Lauren had been on the phone since minutes
after Purdy left, frantically and unsuccessfully trying to reach Robin
Torr, John Harley, or her sister. The domestic office of the cruise line
provided no help in determining that Teresa was or wasn't actually on
their ship on the Mexican coast. After a half-dozen calls to airport
hotels near Lindbergh Field in San Diego, she finally succeeded in
tracking down the one where Robin Torr had spent the night. Lauren was
told that Ms. Torr had checked out about twenty minutes before. Lauren
begged to have Torr paged. She waited while the clerk checked with a
manager, who finally relented. Please, Robin. Be there. "I'm very sorry,
but she's not answering the page." A secretary in his department said
that John Harley was in class already. She would be happy to give him a
message. With her cane for support, Lauren walked from the parlor to the
front room and announced to Alan that she wanted to go to the scene of
the murder. "Sam wants us to stay here, Lauren." She fought despair. She
leaned the cane against a chair and slid her arms around his neck and
welcomed his reflexive embrace. "As though I'm safer here by myself than
I would be out there surrounded by every cop in the county. I doubt it.

Sam's just being controlling. I know him pretty well. It's in his
nature."

"What about the phone? What if Teresa or Robin calls? Or your friend
from Salt Lake?" Lauren examined Alan's face for evidence of accusation.
She couldn't tell. She turned away from him. "Palmer, will you take
messages for me?" He hefted his rifle somberly. "Anything to help. Miss.
I used to be Military Police. We got us a situation. That's what we used
to say. I'll do my part." The mobile crime-scene truck arrived in Ouray,
and its investigators immediately began to process the scene. The
coroner showed up minutes later. The coroner was a dour-looking man with
a large shiny forehead and an ill-fitting suitcoat with six-inch- wide
lapels. After hearing a shortened version of the facts from Chief Long
and taking a cursory look at Rachel Baumann's swollen remains, he
recognized that he was out of his league. He excused himself and
retreated to the lodge office to make some phone calls to try to track
down the forensic pathologist in Montrose to do an autopsy.

Whatever the coroner lacked in specialized skill as a medical examiner,
he apparently made up for in modesty and prudence. "Do you think that
water looks pink?" Purdy gestured to the spa water, which was finally
undisturbed now that the mineral spring feeding it had been diverted.

Brian Long had been watching the crime-scene techs go about their
jobs--sketching, measuring, photographing, videotaping, scouring for
trace evidence. He glanced over at the water distractedly. "Not
especially. I think it's just the tint of the tub. See the red streaks
there in the plastic?" Purdy shook his head. "Nah. I think it's pink. I
think Rachel may have been bleeding." He approached one of the forensic
technicians. "Do me a favor? Grab some water samples from that tub. Test
for blood." The investigator reached into a molded plastic case and
extracted two vials. "Got them already."

"Did you skim the surface for trace materials?"

"Done. Swabbed the sides at the water line, too. In a few minutes we'll
drain the water and check the filter and the trap." Purdy shook his head
a little, pleased at the professionalism and competence of this rural
crew, dismayed at his own urban chauvinism. He asked whether they were
done photographing and videotaping the scene.

"This part we are. We haven't done her room yet or the path in between."
Purdy went in search of the coroner. He chose an alternative from the
usual path that led from the Lorelei to the lodge office. He tapped the
coroner on the shoulder as the man spoke on the phone. The coroner
covered the mouthpiece with his palm, and Purdy asked the man to come
with him so that he and Chief Long could turn the corpse to examine the
back of the body for wounds. He reluctantly assented, said a quick
good-bye into the mouthpiece, and hung up the phone. The coroner and
Purdy found Chief Long at the gate to the enclosure, and together they
proceeded inside. The coroner warned the two policeman not to tug on
Rachel's limbs when turning her. "I'm afraid they might come right off
in your hands," he said. Gently, the three men rolled Rachel Baumann's
body onto its left side. Purdy suspected they would discover wounds. He
also knew that if wounds were there, it was going to be difficult to
find them in the engorged, rippled flesh. "Here," said the coroner,
pointing to a spot below the right shoulder blade. "There's a hole or
something right here. See? I wouldn't be surprised if there's a wound in
there somewhere." "Knife?" asked Chief Long. "Who the hell knows,"
replied the coroner, reluctant to probe the decaying flesh, even with
gloved fingers. "I'm not sure, either," said Purdy, who had lowered his
face to within a foot of the wound. "I think maybe it's a round hole."
The coroner was trying hard to be useful. He was palpating Rachel's head
through her damp hair. "Brian, I got something else. Rachel's got a
depression on her head. She was hit pretty hard. I'd say from above and
behind. Good-size skull depression. Yeah, definitely. Lacerated skin,
too. Given the location, so high up on her skull, I'd guess this isn't
from a fall. We'll know better after the autopsy." He pulled his hand
away from Rachel's head. His examination gloves were covered with her
hair. Lauren was just settling into the passenger seat of Alan's rental
car when Helena burst outside waving her arms. "Your call! Your call!

The man from Utah." John Harley was on the line, finally. Lauren hurried
back inside as quickly as her cane and her heavy leg would permit.

"Harley. Thank you. Have you heard from Robin Torr? Any news about
Teresa?"

"No. Why would she call me?" Lauren explained about the system that she
and Robin had arranged to use to stay in touch. "I hope you don't mind.
It was kind of impromptu."

"I don't mind. Are you with your man friend?"

"Yes, Harley, I am." Alan Gregory was sitting across the parlor,
listening, Lauren assumed, to every word. "Harley, there's been another
murder. The woman I came to Colorado to talk with. She was killed last
night. The rumor in town is that she was drowned. I was just-- Alan and
I were just heading over there to see what happened." John Harley's end
of the conversation was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Drowned?
That doesn't fit. Have the police check carefully for blood. See if she
bled before she died. The time of death--after she bled--is very
important. Then call me back. I'll stay in my office until I hear from
you."

"Harley, what do you mean, doesn't fit? Why should they look for blood?
Tell me what you're thinking."

"No. Go find out what you can. Call me back as soon as possible." Back
in the car a few minutes later, Alan said, "Your friend hasn't heard
anything?" Lauren shook her head. "No. But he seems to think it's
important whether Rachel actually drowned or died after something caused
her to bleed. He wants me to check with Sam and call him back." She
looked out the window at three women huddled together outside a small
market. She was reminded of the small town near the apple farm where she
grew up. Alan said, "I don't get it."

"I don't, either," Lauren said. "Alan, he reminds me of my dad. This guy
in Salt Lake City. It's pretty confusing to me." Alan swallowed and
permitted some mental connections to develop. "Your friend drinks?"

"He's sober now, for a while."

"You trying to rescue him?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"You attracted to him?" Her pause was a second too long. "To him? I
don't know. To something, I guess." She finally turned to him in the car
just as he was pulling to a stop outside the Wiesbaden. "I love you,
Alan." Alan felt his stomach flip. He tried to smile at her but failed.
L auren held Alan's hand as she walked. Her right hand gripped the cane.
A sheriff's deputy refused to let them past the parking area in front of
the Wiesba- den. Alan called out to Purdy when he noticed him emerging
from the cedar gate that seemed to be the center of everyone's
attention. Sam shoved his hands into his pockets and strode over. He was
acting as though he were in charge of the world and was growing
irritated at the help. He walked straight to Alan Gregory. Lauren felt
ignored and annoyed. "I thought I told you to--"

"Lauren talked to her friend, Sam. We may know something new." Purdy
looked at Lauren, who said, "I need to sit first." Her leg felt like
lumber. Purdy walked over to some patio furniture by the large
hot-springs pool in front of the main lodge and told the four people
seated at a table there to "beat it." He never asked Alan and Lauren to
follow; he just expected them to. "What's so damn important?" There was
no attempt to keep the skepticism from his voice. "Harley, my friend in
Salt Lake, is acting as an intermediary between Robin Torr and me. He
called a few minutes ago, said he hadn't heard anything from Robin. Then
I told Harley that Rachel was dead--that she had drowned--and the first
thing out of his mouth was something like "That doesn't fit." He
immediately asked me to ask you if there was any sign that she bled
before she died and to call him right away with the answer. That's why
we're here." The last sentence was a lie she was grateful to be able to
tell. She would have come anyway. Purdy's interest was piqued. He
furrowed his brow and played dumb. "Why is blood so important? Dead's
dead." "Harley wouldn't tell me. Just said that it was. That he'd tell
me more when I called him back."

"You know his number?"

"Yes."

"Let's go call him, then. Follow me." Sam led them into the office and
commandeered a phone. Lauren pulled out her credit card and punched in
Harley's number, said a brief hello, and told Harley she was going to
give the telephone to a detective from Boulder named Sam Purdy. Sam was
in an impolite frame of mind and didn't bother with any pleasantries.

"What's with your interest in the blood, Mr. Harley?" Harley was amused
by the detective's authoritarian tone. In some respects it reminded him
of his most recent interview with his bishop. Unfortunately,
impertinence had come easily to him then, too. "Is there any blood
spilled where she was murdered? Like on the ground?" Harley asked. Purdy
didn't answer. "There is, isn't there? I knew it. I knew there would be
blood. I knew she didn't drown." Purdy was silent while he strategized.

"Assume you're right, Mr. Harley. What's the significance? And how would
you know?" Purdy was skeptical but curious. Most murder scenes were at
least a little bloody. He wondered what Lauren's friend was getting at
by predicting bloodletting. "How much do you know about the LDS Church,
Sam?" Harley never asked Purdy what he wished to be called. Sam decided
on ignorance as being the strategy of choice. "About as much as I know
about professional soccer."

"Have you ever heard of blood atonement?"

"Doesn't ring any bells. Is that some Mormon ritual or something?"

"Hardly. But some of the most fervent faithful believe, based on some
old but rather specific preaching by Brigham Young, that certain sins
are so vile that the sinner can only be forgiven for them once his own
blood is spilled and mixed with the earth. It's absolutely the only way
the sinner can be reunited for eternity with his family in heaven."

"What kinds of sins are we talking about?"

"Murder, for one. But most often, the historical penalty of blood
atonement was sanctioned against those who defiled the Church or
belittled the prophet or his teachings."

"And what makes you think that this blood-atonement thing is
particularly pertinent today, Mr. Harley?" Harley loved the sardonic
tone of the question and immediately felt that Purdy and he would get
along famously if they ever had a chance to meet. "Everybody calls me
Harley, okay? I take it Lauren told you about the knife? In her sister's
bed? Right where her heart would be? Well, I saw it. And it got me
thinking about the other two murders. The woman in D.C.--her throat was
cut, right? And that investigator in Moab? Lauren said that somebody
went to some significant trouble to make sure this guy's blood spilled
out of his waterproof jacket after he was shot. Those two deaths, the
spilling- of-blood part specifically, are consistent with the practice
of blood atonement. Consistent, anyway, if you make the assumption that
the victims were guilty of sins against the prophet. And if you make the
assumption that the murders were committed by a member of the Church."

"Please excuse my ignorance. Who is the prophet?"

"The prophet is the current president of the Church. The prophet, seer,
and revelator of all Mormondom. It's always an old man. The Church is a
male gerontocracy."

"Okay. Let me see if I got all this. So, if we determine that the
victims were all in a position, in someone's eyes, to bring ridicule on
either the Church or the prophet, then some radical Mormon might take on
for himself the title of enforcer and spill their blood as dictated a
hundred years ago by Brigham Young."

"So far, so good."

"And if this latest death were to involve the spilling of blood onto the
earth, and if we assume that Rachel Baumann was a danger to the Church,
it would fit the pattern you're describing as well?"

"That's right. You get an A."

"How literal is all this, Harley? I mean, does the blood actually have
to spill into the dirt? Would flowing into water suffice? Like down a
sewer line?"

"I'm no specialist on these things. Brigham Young said ground. I know
that, because I recently looked it up. But, then again, he said it at a
time when there weren't a whole lot of sewer lines to be concerned with.
"In the early days of the Church, these enforcers of the faith were
called Danites, or sometimes Brigham's Avenging Angels.

Historians, both LDS and gentile, think that in the beginning they
reported directly to Joseph Smith, and later to Brigham Young. Those two
were the founding fathers of the Church. These days, though, the Church
denies the existence of Danites, and if they're around, we're not
talking mainstream Church members anymore; we're probably talking
zealots."

"Zealots?"

"Fundamentalist Mormons who still believe in the Principle--polygamy.
Other LDS sometimes call them polygs."

"Like those polygamists who got into that thing with the FBI? What are
their names?

It's like the car. The Lebarons, that's it. Zealots like them?"

"Yeah.

Most of the fringe Mormons that the press likes to sensationalize would
be considered zealots by mainstream Mormons. The Lebarons, Bruce Longo,
Paul Singer. Yeah, I would guess all of them would have endorsed blood
atonement. Heck, some of them even practiced it. But--may I indulge in
some irony here, Sam?"

"Be my guest, Harley. When I'm investigating a murder I always have a
few spare moments to indulge in a little irony." Harley loved that
response. "Well, the irony is that wu only condoned practice of blood
atonement these days is committed by the State of Utah itself."

"What?"

"Remember Gary Gilmore? He was a murderer executed by the State of Utah
a few years back. Norman Mailer wrote a book about him. His capital
punishment was not by lethal injection. Not by the electric chair. Not
by hanging. Not by the gas chamber. Gary Gilmore was killed, by his
choice, by firing squad. His blood was spilled upon the ground."

"And he had that option because of the state's Mormon heritage?"

"Yeah. That's Utah's heritage." Purdy took a deep breath and exhaled
slowly. "So if all your suppositions are true, Harley, the murderer
we're discussing might be a fringe Mormon who's protecting the prophet
from heretical Church members."

"Or from outsiders eager to damage the credibility of the Church through
ridicule. By outsiders I mean gentiles, or maybe even Jack Mormons."

"Okay, you got me again.

What's a Jack Mormon?"

"Someone who was born or converted into the Church but who has strayed.
Doesn't tithe, doesn't attend services, drinks a bit--or even a bit more
than that--wakes up to a cup of coffee, is full of doubts. A jackrabbit
isn't really a hare. To a devout member of the LDS Church, a Jack Mormon
isn't really a Mormon. So your murderer could be a zealot, a Jack
Mormon, or a gentile with a grudge." Purdy scratched his ear under the
phone. "That doesn't narrow down my suspect pool very much, Harley. I
take it you may be one of these Jack Mormons?"

"I may be on my way. My bishop and I discuss it quite frequently."

"So if you're still so ambivalent about the Mormon Church, why are you
telling me all this?"

"There are no state secrets here, Sam. You could learn all this stuff in
an hour in the library. A secular library, anyway."

"What you're suggesting smacks of the practices of the ayatollah, not of
a major American church, Harley."

"Well. I'm already having enough doubts about the faith that it's
probably best that I leave the judgment to others. Like I said, if it's
true, we're talking radical LDS, not mainstream LDS. But there's another
possibility to consider. This murderer could be somebody who wants
people to believe that he's acting like a Danite, so that the Church
would suffer even more ridicule."

"There's a nice comforting thought, Harley: an imposter fanatic. Great."
Purdy searched his usually reliable memory for a dangling fragment. "But
there's some precedent there, too, isn't there?

Like the bombing guy in Salt Lake City, what was his name?"

"Mark Hofmann. Yeah, Hermann's the guy you're thinking of. He forged
historical Church documents that would have undermined the foundations
of Church doctrine if made public, and then he tricked the Church into
buying the documents so they would never see the light of day."

"I'm getting the impression that, as a general rule, the Church isn't
terribly fond of criticism."

"The Church has been known to be a little sensitive at times, yes."
Lauren rested on a settee across the lobby while Purdy talked with
Harley. Alan sat next to her, sensed her struggling with her symptoms,
and offered whatever support he could.

Purdy hung up without asking Lauren whether she wanted to speak again
with Harley. He pulled an oak ladder-back chair to the settee and
straddled it, facing Lauren and Alan. "He may have something. I don't
want to talk about it right now; too many people around. It'll take me
just a few minutes to finish up here and check out with Chief Long. Stay
right where you are. I'll find you." He stood and left the building.

Lauren said, "Isn't he charming?" As was his preference for any
conversation of consequence, Purdy ended up sharing Harley's theory
about blood atonement over an ample meal. This one, because of the
early-morning sacrifice of his frittatas, encompassed both breakfast and
lunch, in both size and makeup. The last thing that Brian Long had told
him before Purdy had corralled Alan and Lauren and left the Wiesbaden
was that there didn't seem to be any other wounds on the body. Alan and
Lauren nursed iced teas while they watched Sam eat. At first he offered
them his theory between bites. To both his friends, the exposition of
the hypothesis seemed like the second most important thing he was doing.

Alan suggested that he finish eating; then they could talk. When Sam
finally pushed his plate away, he said, "Rachel's in the hot tub. He
watched her go in from the hill above the tub. He climbs the fence and
gets in behind her somehow. She's got the jets on in the tub, maybe, and
she doesn't hear a thing. He hits her on the head hard enough to crack
her skull open. She collapses into the tub. But maybe he doesn't hit her
in a way that makes her bleed. He's afraid she's going to drown without
spilling blood, so he stabs her with whatever he's got with him. Maybe
he hadn't really planned on it--on stabbing her. I don't know. He
watches her start to bleed. He's accomplished what he wants. Even more
than he wants. Because since Rachel's body is bobbing around in hot
running water, trace evidence likely goes down the drain. And God knows
what the fact that the body was poached all night is going to do to the
autopsy. "Anyway, our murderer splits. And he's got an eight- to
ten-hour head start before anybody even finds her. He could've been
having breakfast in Salt Lake City just as I was sitting down to
Palmer's frittata this morning."

"Any evidence of the dog?" The question was Lauren's. "Didn't see any
paw prints. They're still looking, mostly up the hill, assuming that was
his entrance. Of course, it'll take the lab a while to analyze for trace
evidence, like dog hair."

"Any witnesses?"

"They haven't come up with any yet."

"Anybody see any cars with Utah plates close by?"

"There's only a couple in town that anybody recalls. The police chief is
going to interview those people himself.

Our guy's gone, though. Long gone. Getaways are his specialty,
remember?" Alan asked, "But you're sure it's the same guy?"

"Yeah." Alan didn't see the logic. "But why? I mean, other than the
obvious link to Teresa's case. The weapons and cause of death have been
different each time, haven't they?"

"The weapons are different. But a lot about the MO is the same.
Isolated, rural killings providing great escape access.

Focus on blood and bleeding. Smart, well- planned crimes. Guy is not at
all interested in being caught. This is not a killer with an impulse.

This is a killer with a mission. He doesn't enjoy it, isn't getting off
on it. No revelry. He's gotta get it done and get away." Lauren leaned
forward. "Sam, who is going to get the feds in on this? We both know
this isn't a small-town murder."

"And what, the big-city cops in D.C. and Salt Lake City have done so
well with their murder investigations?

The local chief isn't an idiot. He knows he's got a complicated crime.

He's got a call into the bureau's Denver office. He's waiting to hear
back from them. He's at a bit of a disadvantage, though, because he only
has hearsay evidence that Rachel was even part of the same set of
circumstances that may or may not have something to do with the other
two deaths. My own opinion is that the bureau's interest is going to be
lukewarm until your lawyer friend provides some confirmation that they
can actually hold in their hands that Rachel was really part of this
mess--and I mean that in an interstate sense-- or until the CBI lab
finds evidence that a dog was around for the third time. My word on this
ain't worth shit, Lauren. And your word, unfortunately, ain't worth much
more than mine." Purdy looked at his watch and decided it really wasn't
too early for dessert. He motioned the waitress over and asked how the
cherry pie was. Alan waited until the waitress had responded and
departed. "How much danger is Lauren in, Sam?" Lauren shot a warning
glance at Alan. Purdy spent a moment trying to clean his teeth with his
tongue. "Depends," he said, as the waitress returned and slid an
oversized plate in front of him. The wedge of pie seeped plump sour
cherries. "On?" To Alan's surprise, Lauren forced the question. He
grabbed her hand and held it loosely. "Our underlying assumption--"
Purdy cut and shoveled in an initial mouthful of pie. "You sure you
don't want some of this? What's wrong with you people? Our assumption is
that these people are dying because they know something, or, in Pratt
Toomey's case, because he was on the verge of knowing something. So if
our assumptions are correct--and I'm beginning to believe they are--how
much danger Lauren or her sister or her attorney friend are in is
directly related to how much they know. Which at this point, I think,
fortunately or unfortunately, is not very much."

"Or to how close we are to discovering something," Lauren pointed out.
Purdy nodded almost imperceptibly. "The reality, ladies and gentlemen,"
Alan said, pausing until both of his friends were looking at him, "is
that the danger is related to how much somebody thinks these women know.
How much they actually know doesn't mean shit." B y the end of the
afternoon Lauren had completed a nap precipitated at least in part by a
grueling interrogation conducted by Chief Brian Long. Long had wanted to
know why she was in town to see Rachel Baumann and what Rachel had told
her.

While she was answering the chief's questions, and later, while she
slept, Alan and Sam rented bikes and pounded up a steep dirt road near
the Bachelor Mine. When they met in the late afternoon in Helena and
Palmer's parlor, all three of them agreed that there was not much to be
gained by remaining in Ouray. Sam booked a seat on the last flight of
the day from Telluride to Denver. Lauren was adamant about staying
available until she heard from Robin Torr. Although Alan was due back at
work in Boulder the next day, he decided to catch the early flight out
the next morning, hoping he could use the extra time to talk Lauren into
coming home with him. They checked out of the B & B after saying goodbye
to Helena and Palmer. Alan and Lauren drove Sam over the Dallas Divide
and up the canyons above the San Miguel to Telluride's airport. Before
boarding his plane, Sam admonished Lauren, "Find your little sister and
get your butts to Boulder, where I can keep an eye on you." Alan drove
slowly from the airport into the town of Telluride. During the quiet,
blustery days of fall the old mining town managed to be quaint without
even an echo of cuteness. He rolled the car to a crackling stop on loose
gravel in front of a modest Victorian inn near the Oak Street chair
lift. A minute later he introduced Lauren to Cilia and Ten and their
fine little B & B. The women raised Lauren's reluctant, deflated spirit
with the exuberance of their welcome. They asked after Sam. Cilia
offered her guests a thin brown bottle of sweet white wine on a silver
tray that looked as if it had once been somebody's wedding present. Teri
appeared moments later with a platter of quesadillas and pico de gallo.

After the wine was gone and had been replaced by another bottle, and
that was gone, Alan asked his hostesses for a room with a bath. Cilia
left to prepare it. Telluride's corner of the San Juans was small and
cozy, the air was thin, and bad news tended to travel the canyons with
the speed of a spooked buck. Given Lauren's fears and the tenuousness of
her mood, Alan was grateful that neither Cilia nor Teri had asked about
the day's events in Ouray. When Lauren and Alan finally went upstairs,
they discovered that the bathroom was candlelit, the tub was full and
steaming and bubbly, and a huge spray of fresh flowers adorned the top
of the commode. Of one mind, they undressed each other in the dim light
and sank slowly into the water. She watched the water and seemed to find
despair. He watched her, her flesh, and tried not to think about Rachel
Baumann's last bath at the Wiesbaden. He held her from behind with both
arms, supporting her, and traced the sides of her face with his
fingertips. She pressed her back tightly to his chest, and within a few
quiet moments she began to cry gently and privately, until the water
lost its fire. Her fear, too. She held his arms with her own, across her
abdomen, as though she would never let him go. The single candle, on the
sink across the room, flickered and then extinguished itself, and a pale
glow from the moon tumbled through the lace curtains. With the toes of
her good foot she twisted the hot-water tap until a torrent of steam and
water began spilling into the tub. She took one of his hands and placed
it between her legs, and took the other and placed it on her breast, and
she turned her head and kissed him. The bedroom had a cove ceiling and a
burgundy velvet chaise and a four-poster pine bed and a dwindling fire
and a southern view of treetops and vaulting mountain faces covered with
the black-green of ponderosa. And when Lauren rocked the four-poster and
met his thrust and pulled him as far into her as she could and came at
the exact stroke of nine o'clock, her good leg locked around Alan's ass,
they discovered that somewhere in the inn there was a cuckoo clock. The
bird began chirping seconds into Lauren's climax. By the third cuckoo
she was crying, and by the fifth, laughing. And by the time the bird
stopped clucking and retreated to its den, she was absolutely spent. She
wiped her eyes and inhaled deeply to try to find some oxygen, then asked
in a quiet, breathy voice, "I couldn't even tell. Did you come?" He
rolled off her onto his side, lay his head on her chest, and touched her
gently on the soft skin beneath her ear. I auren bolted straight up in
bed shortly after the distant cuckoo clock announced 2:00 a.m. She
leaped to the floor, where she promptly crumpled into a ball onto a
threadbare kilim with a loud thud and a muffled

"Damn." Alan barely stirred as Lauren fumbled around in the dark for
something to cover herself. She found her jeans and slithered into them,
tugging them awkwardly over her hips while still seated on the floor.
The next clothing she found was his sweatshirt, and she pulled it over
her head and flipped her hair out from under the collar. She smelled
him. Where is that stupid cane? The sky was clear and freckled with
stars, and the moon hung lazily, a little fuller than a crescent. There
was not enough celestial light, however, for Lauren to see her cane. She
finally spotted it leaning against the wall between the closet and the
bathroom door. She struggled over toward it, raised herself on her good
leg, and, as quietly as she could, let herself out into the stillness of
the second-floor hallway. She remembered a phone on a side table
downstairs in the big room with the fireplace where they had chatted
with Cilia and Ten. The combination of the stairs and the cane presented
a challenge in the dark, but she adjusted with silent determination and
patience she didn't feel. "Harley, please be home," she whispered into
the receiver as she punched the long chain of numbers. Three rings,
four. A voice gorged with sleep. "Yeah? Jules? What's wrong? Are the
girls okay?"

"Harley, it's not Jules. It's me, Lauren."

"Lauren, hi." The phone call was beginning to win the battle for his
attention. Barely. "I should've called earlier. I'm at a new number. I'm
sorry. Have you heard from Robin, Harley?"

"Yeah. Gimme a second. I did." He dropped the receiver to the sheets. It
promptly bounced to the carpeted floor next to his bed. Harley was
oblivious. He looked around the room and felt thick, smooth muck in his
head and welcomed the sensation of waking up drunk.

The experience was similar to awakening beside an old lover with whom he
had never really wanted to break up. He stumbled across the room and
lifted a bottle of cheap vodka off the top of the TV, raising it to his
dry lips just to be sure it was empty. In the bathroom, he peeled off
his corduroys, stepped clumsily out of them, freed his penis from his
garments, and peed loudly. Neither hand guided the flow of urine; both
were propped flat on the wall behind the toilet in an absolutely
essential effort to help ensure a continued vertical orientation while
he relieved himself. When he walked back into the bedroom he was wearing
only gray socks, his garments, and an old cotton turtieneck. He tripped
over the phone on the floor by the bed, stubbed the big toe of his left
foot, screeched

"Ouch," and remembered. Sort of. "Yeah?" he said after picking up the
receiver. "Are you feeling all right, Harley?"

"Sure, who's this?"

"Lauren. Lauren Crowder. Harley, are you awake?"

"Yeah.

Your friend called, Lauren. Said she couldn't find you. Said she didn't
find your sister. Said to tell you she wasn't on the boat. I guess she
couldn't find anybody. "Cept me." Harley found that pretty funny. "What
do you mean she wasn't on the boat? Harley! What do you mean?"

"She--wasn't--on--the--boat." Lauren was frantic. Her intent to keep the
volume of her voice under control was forgotten. "Where is she, Harley?

Where's my sister?" He shrugged his shoulders. He was trying to remember
whether he had any more vodka in the kitchen. "Harley! Answer me."
Lauren wondered if Harley might be drunk. She tried to dismiss it but
involuntarily pictured a vintage can of Schlitz. "Harley, wake up!"

"Okay."

"Where's Teresa?"

"She doesn't know. She's coming back here. The lawyer." "When?" In a
lilting, childlike voice, Harley said, "Soon?" He couldn't actually
remember. But the goal of his memory was fluid. Maybe the kitchen? He
wanted to check the kitchen. Maybe he left a bottle in there. He hung up
the phone. Alan sat on the stairs, listening to Lauren's end of the
conversation, feeling like an eavesdropper. He was trying to weigh the
relative merits of retreating to their bedroom and awaiting her return
or joining her downstairs during the remainder of her conversation with
her friend. Since she was wearing his sweatshirt, he'd left the bedroom
barechested and was soon chilled. The cold helped him reach a decision;
he walked down the rest of the stairs when he heard her place the
receiver back in its cradle. She sat sideways on the sofa, her good leg
drawn up to her chest, her dead leg beached on the cushions. She rocked
and stared. Alan perched on the couch next to her and hugged her gently.
"What is it?"

"Teresa wasn't on the ship, Alan.

Robin couldn't find her anywhere."

"Maybe she's back in Salt Lake wondering where the hell you are."

"No. I left a note at the house, just in case she got home before I
reached her. I told her not to sleep at the house under any
circumstances. Told her where I would be. I listed all the numbers you
had left for me up here."

"Well, who knows, maybe Teresa is developing a responsible streak in her
old age, and she left you a message at the house, too." Lauren pounded
the back of the sofa with her hand. "God! Why didn't I think of that?
Maybe she left me a message on her machine. Or at Robin's office." Alan
was relieved at the animation Lauren displayed. "Can you retrieve
messages remotely from her machine? Do you know the code?"

"No. It's an old machine, with one of those beeping things to pick up
messages. She keeps it with her." She looked up at him. "Alan, I've got
to get back to Salt Lake." Alan rubbed her back and nodded, resigned. In
a minute of mutual silence, her tense muscles did not even pretend to
slacken under his touch. His voice as devoid of confrontation as he
could make it, he asked, "How's your friend? Harley?" For what to her
felt like the tenth time that day, Lauren cried. They parted in the
underground train station at Denver's new airport the next morning
before Lauren caught her connection to Salt Lake City. She had awakened
him early with a kiss on the back of his neck that was more tongue than
lips. She'd swung an arm across his chest. He'd shivered once and
moaned, and in seconds his breathing had changed. Slowly, with her
fingers and her mouth and her long, silky hair, she made sure this time
that he came. Over coffee and flaky rolls, Lauren had insisted that Alan
go back to Boulder. She did it in the voice he knew precluded argument.
She promised to stay in a hotel with Robin Torr until everything with
the case started to settle out. She promised to call him that night.
"Every night," he insisted. "Every night," she said, meaning it,
grateful for his concern. Lauren's connection into Salt Lake beat Robin
Torr's connection from L.A. to Utah by only an hour. If she had known,
she would have waited. Instead, she took a cab across town to her
sister's bungalow, paid the driver, accepted her small suitcase, and
stood at the foot of the path that led to the front door. The
combination of her ambivalence and her fear was causing her to feel that
her shoes were merged with the cracked cement.

The house was locked. She knocked on the door. The wishful logic in her
head stipulated that any self-respecting intruder would voluntarily
retreat out the back door at the sound of an insistent knock. She waited
ten or fifteen seconds to give him time to leave. Then, one hand on the
key, the other on a can of pepper gas from her purse, she let herself
into the living room and smelled the stale air. What she smelled, she
decided, was stale air. I've only been gone a couple of days, she
reminded herself, too short a time for decomposition to begin, anyway.

The thought didn't reassure her. She dropped her shoulder bag and hey
purse and hobbled with her cane across the room. The air in the kitchen
was much more redolent than stale. The room seemed to be in the same
state in which she had left it. A coffee mug and a spoon sat upright in
the sink. A water glass and a single plate had long since dried in the
dish rack. Lauren knew Teresa had not been home. Housekeeping was not
one of Teresa's strengths. Teresa could not be home more than an hour
without a spoon crusted with yogurt or a knife slathered with peanut
butter making its way to the kitchen counter. Lauren took a deep breath
and opened the cupboard beneath the sink. Her nostrils were blasted with
the sour stink of fermenting trash. She slammed the door shut and
glanced to her left; the knife drawer was closed. Gingerly, she slid it
open. The knives, save the big French knife that the police had
confiscated, were all in their usual places. The note she had left for
Teresa sat on the small metal kitchen table. The single sheet of pink
paper was oriented so that the script angled away from someone standing
next to the table. Is that the way I left it? She couldn't remember. She
tried to assure herself it didn't matter. She pulled her coat tightly
around her neck with one hand, grabbed the cane firmly with the other,
and made her way to the end of the narrow hallway that led to the back
of the house. She listened. The refrigerator seemed to be purring more
loudly than usual. The furnace igniter clicked in the basement and a
muffled whooosh from the gas burners tainted the hollow silence, sifting
up through the tarnished brass grate in the floor in front of her.

Teresa's bedroom door was closed. Had she left it that way? Come on,
Lauren, think. Think. She couldn't remember. The blower fan from the
furnace kicked on. To her, that day, the air seemed to blow with the
volume of a gale. With her index finger on the button of the pepper gas,
she threw the bedroom door open all the way. Fast, hard. The bedroom was
devoid of corpses. Or any evidence of recent blood atonement. The
mattress was gone-- the police had taken that--but except for that
glaring omission, the room looked undisturbed. The message light on the
answering machine on the painted trunk by the bed was blinking, "3  ...
3 3." Her lips turned up in a hopeful smile, Lauren sat on the box
spring and pushed the playback button. The first message, the earliest
call on the tape, was from Teresa. Lauren's spirit soared at the sound
of her sister's voice. "Hello, Lauren, it's me. The stupid cruise line
screwed me. The person I was replacing had a miraculous recovery. How
the hell does someone get better in twenty-four hours from an ovarian
cyst? I think maybe I'd better change gynecologists. I got bumped only
an hour before boarding and I'd already spent eighty bucks for a new
swimsuit. It's a great suit, even makes me look like I have boobs. Can
you believe it? I pouted and cried and the booking person for the line
took pity on me and found me a few days' work in New Mexico. So I'm off
to Taos. Have joke, will travel. Pretty neat that I called, huh? You
tell Robin Torr for me, All swpnm wane okay? Bye. I'll be in touch when
I know where I'll be staying. I hope there's good news on the case." The
next message consisted of a long pause and a hangup. Then there was a
call from their mother. Her voice sounded older to Lauren, who felt a
stab of guilt for not having called recently. "Either of you girls
there? I got that stupid machine. Jersey, you got a message or should I
just tell them we called? What? I can't hear you. Yes, I got the
machine. Okay." Louder, "Teresa, Lauren, it's your mother. Give us a
call when you get a chance." The last message on the recorder, the most
recent call, was from a guy Teresa had been dating on and off. He wanted
to know if she wanted to go gambling in Wendover. Lauren glared at the
machine, replayed the message once, and punched the reset button. She
muttered, "New Mexico? You're in New Mexico, Teresa? Shit." Lauren
called Robin Torr's law firm and got Elsie Smith on the line. Elsie told
Lauren that she hadn't heard from either Robin or Teresa. Lauren began
thinking clearly enough to realize that the puzzle in front of her
wasn't that severe. The number of comedy venues in Taos, New Mexico, was
probably pretty finite. It shouldn't be too hard to find Teresa. She
picked up the Salt Lake City phone book and checked the listing for the
number of One Hand Laughing. She dialed, and a few seconds later was
talking with Harold O'Shay, who answered his own phone by saying,
"O'Shay, tell me something funny." Lauren introduced herself. "You're
her sister? Well, well. Your sister's one hot little comic. Let me tell
you. I knew she had it. I did. I mean, I gave her the minutes 'cause I
knew she had the material. I mean, I'm getting calls about her all the
time now. All the time. Even from the East. People in Balti- more can't
even find Salt Lake City on a map, and they calling me 'bout your
sister."

"That's very nice of you, Mr. O'Shay. I'm proud of what Teresa is doing,
too. I've, um, been out of town, and--you haven't heard from her, have
you?"

"No, no. But I been thinking. I can headline her if she stays this hot.
I'd love to be the first club to headline her. Shoot, I will be the
first club to headline her. Maybe December. Is she booked in December?
She got an agent yet? She needs an agent."

"I'll be sure to tell her that, Mr. O'Shay. I'm sure she'll be terribly
excited. The reason I'm calling today, though, is that she left me a
message that she got some work in New Mexico, in Taos. She didn't tell
me what club or where she would be staying. I really need to talk with
her, and I'm hoping you might be able to tell me the names of the clubs
that operate down there." Harold O'Shay knew about a comedy club in
Albuquerque, and he thought there was a hotel in Santa Fe that hired
national acts into its lounge during the tourist season. But that was
the totality of what O'Shay knew about comedy in New Mexico. Nothing in
Taos. Lauren called the club in Albuquerque and the hotel in Santa Fe
but still wasn't successful at tracking down the name of any place in
Taos that hired stand-up comedians. Baffled as to what to do next,
Lauren returned down the hallway to the kitchen to wrap the offensive
garbage and get it outside to a trash can in the alley. She found a
twist tie and held her breath as she secured the plastic bag. After
grabbing her cane and the bag, she began walking deliberately into the
yard. Lauren was most of the way down a narrow cement path that led to a
solitary gate from the tiny fenced yard into the adjacent alley when she
glanced down and dropped the bag of trash. She dropped the cane, too,
and covered her mouth with both hands. Her gray eyes widened and she
stopped breathing.

Yanking her head left, then right, she scrutinized the yard, even looked
up into the trees, then back at the house, up to the roof. Seeing
nothing, she turned and ran. Or tried to run. Her leg failed her, and
she collapsed to the ground. Like a blind woman, she groped for the
fallen cane, her eyes of little help because they were locked
involuntarily onto the small, brown mound of dog shit that rested three
feet from her nose. She stared at the turd as though it were a grenade
with the pin pulled. When Robin Torr's taxi arrived at Teresa's house,
she found Lauren sitting on the front stoop with her overnight bag
beside her. Surprised, Robin paid her driver and called up to Lauren,
"You lock yourself out?" Not quite loudly enough for Robin to hear,
Lauren said, "Thank God you're here." She didn't stand; didn't trust her
leg. Robin was halfway down the walk. Lauren said, with some urgency,
"We can't stay here, Robin. Do you know where Teresa is?" Robin lugged
her suitcase off the sidewalk and shook her head. "Just not on that
ship. You got my message?" Lauren nodded and chewed on her upper lip.

She turned her head to the house, then back at Robin. She pointed in the
general direction of the backyard. "He's been back. The guy with the
knife. With his dog. He's gonna kill us. He's gonna kill Teresa. He
knows where she is. He read my note. He knew I went to Ouray. He
followed me and killed Rachel. I led him to her, Robin. I led him right
to her, and he killed her." Robin was at the bottom of the three cement
steps. "Rachel Baumann is dead?"

"Murdered. Yesterday. Right after I talked to her." Lauren was gazing
away from Robin, down the block, transfixed watching two small girls
play in a pile of newly raked leaves. She and Teresa used to do that.
"After you talked with her? So you found out what Rachel knows?" Then
you're going to be next. Fear for Lauren rocketed through Robin. "Rachel
didn't know anything. She either fooled me during the interview or she
doesn't know anything. Didn't. She died simply for talking with me,
that's all. That's all she did. She just talked to me. She was so nice."
Lauren yanked her attention away from the reverie of the little girls
and the leaves and locked her eyes onto Robin Torr's. With horror in her
tone, she said, "He boiled her, Robin." Robin moved up the concrete
steps and settled close to her friend. "We need to find your sister. And
then we need to stop this madness. Once and for all," Robing accompanied
Lauren back inside so she could grab a suitcase and some fresh clothing.
On the way down the hall Lauren tugged Robin into Teresa's bedroom and
replayed her sister's taped message about the canceled cruise-ship
engagement and the replacement gig in New Mexico. "So that's why I
couldn't find her. Do you have any idea where she might be staying in
Taos?" Lauren briefly recounted her conversation with Har- old O'Shay at
One Hand Laughing and her subsequent calls to Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
She hadn't yet called the cruise line to see if the person who had found
Teresa the booking in Taos knew where she was staying. Robin gestured
toward the answering machine and said, "We should take that tape with
us." Lauren wasn't thinking clearly. She said, "Why? We know what's on
it."

"Yes, but we don't want anyone else to know what's on it, do we? If
somebody keeps coming into this house, we don't want them to be able to
find out where your sister is just by playing her answering machine."
Lauren remembered the blinking red beacon: "3  ... 3  ...  3." How many
calls had there been?

"I hadn't thought of that. Why not just erase it?"

"What if she calls back and leaves a new message that tells exactly
where she is? We have to turn the machine off. We can't afford to have
her leave directions to where she's gone, can we?"

"Then how is she going to reach us? I have to leave her a way to reach
me."

"If she can't get through here, she'll call my office." Lauren didn't
like the plan. "Do you trust Elsie?"

"I can handle Elsie."

"Robin?"

"Yeah."

"What if whoever was here has already heard the message and is on his
way to New Mexico?" When the cab that Lauren had ordered finally
arrived, the women told the driver they wanted to go to the downtown
Marriott. Robin got around to asking Lauren about the cane. "I'm having
a little trouble with my MS. It'll pass." She forced herself to mount a
smile. "Have you had this symptom before, or is this an exacerbation?"
Lauren was puzzled at the intelligence of the question. She was
accustomed to confronting ignorance about her disease. "How do you know
to ask that?"

"My aunt, remember?"

"Yes, now I do. I'd forgotten." The cab was heading straight down South
Temple to downtown. Lauren knew that if the taxi continued on to the
north, they would soon cross the street that led to the Side Pocket. She
was tempted to talk with Robin about Harley and the middle-of-the-night
phone call.

And about Alan and how nice he had been in Colorado. "It's a new
symptom, I guess. I've had weakness before. Never this bad, though.

It'll pass," she repeated, forcing another weak grin. "You don't want to
talk about it?" Lauren tightened her jaw and willed her tears to dry.

"No, I don't. I need to ignore it right now. There's so much else. I
just don't have any time to be sick." Her voice trailed off. Outside,
the air in Salt Lake City was cool. High clouds feathered the western
sky. A slight breeze blew off the distant lake. Checking in at the big
hotel was banal. In their tenth floor room, Robin said, "You can stay
here, you know, Lauren, and rest. I can take care of things at the
office myself."

"Teresa might call. If she does, I want to be there. And I want to look
at the case file again. Maybe we keep missing something."

"All right. We'll get a cab." Lauren knew the office was only five or
six blocks away and that the taxi was an accommodation on Robin's part,
but she didn't argue about it. She was exhausted. At the law office,
Lauren left messages with three different people at the cruise line who
she hoped might know where her sister had gone in New Mexico. Over the
next couple of hours, between phone calls and other interruptions, she
and Robin caught each other up with the events of their recent travels.

Lauren went into elaborate detail about her meeting with Rachel Baumann.

"And I think I know who Audrey is. There was an Audrey Hayes in Biythe's
class at BYU, and a woman named Audrey Payne spoke at her memorial
service in Provo. There's a chance, I guess, that it's one and the same
person." "You said Payne?"

"Yeah."

"Did you cross-check that name with the rest of the class, looking for a
husband?"

"Yes. Husband might be Neal Payne."

"Shit. He's a general authority. If she was part of this romantic girls'
club at BYU, that gives the Paynes a motive in this mess, too."

"Why don't we call her? I'll speak to her. You listen on an extension,
see if you recognize her voice. See if she's your Mary Brown.

If she is, if we ever need one again, we have us a witness." Robin
argued the ethics of what they were doing while spending most of five
minutes tracking down a home phone number for the Paynes. Lauren dialed.

She pretended she was raising funds for the Nature Conservancy and had a
pleasant two-minute conversation with Audrey Payne. She hung up. Robin
said, "She's the one. Too late to do us any damn good. But she's the
one." Lauren had been reluctant to divulge Harley's theory about blood
atonement to Robin. But she'd now come to believe it. As Lauren
described the apparent credibility that Sam Purdy gave the hypothesis,
Robin Torr felt her general uneasiness balloon into something more
palpable. Although Robin retained some skepticism about the lengths to
which the LDS Church would go to quiet its enemies, she had no such
illusions about a small fraction of the Church's most ardent believers.

She had lived through a turbulent decade in Salt Lake City. She had seen
the Church mount a successful campaign against the Equal Rights
Amendment. She had seen the Church leadership make fools of themselves
buying up "historic" LDS documents from the counterfeiter Mark Hofmann
for the sole purpose of hiding them from the faithful. And she had seen
half a dozen instances of fundamentalist Church members killing each
other, and killing others, over the words of nineteenth-century
preachers and prophets. If some modern-day freelance Danite was behind
all this, Robin Torr wanted nothing to do with it. She made her position
clear to Lauren, who needed surprisingly little convincing. Although
Lauren wasn't eager to quit the investigation, she was growing more and
more fearful her sister would be its next victim. They agreed that when
they found Teresa, they would lock themselves in a room with her until
she agreed to drop the harassment action. In addition, they knew they
needed to get quick word to the opposing attorneys about the change of
heart. Robin pointed out that, ethically, she couldn't notify the
defendant's counsel of their intent to drop the investigation without
Teresa's explicit directive. Lauren suggested a middle ground. Robin
Torr called the attorney at James and Bartell who was counsel for the
Oaks family and stated that, given some "new information" she had
recently uncovered, she thought there was a strong likelihood that the
investigation would soon be stopped. Torr explained that her client was
traveling but that she expected to be able to reach her shortly and
anticipated a rapid determination to cease all action against Blythe
Oaks and the Women's Symposium. The lawyer at James and Bartell was
polite and did Robin the courtesy of not overtly relishing the surrender
over the phone. Robin assumed, however, that the partners at James and
Bartell would be cheering and high- fiving each other within minutes
after her adversary got off the line, and that moments later phones
would be ringing in the executive offices of the LDS World Headquarters
to pass along the good news. "I hate it when the bullies win," Robin
said to Lauren after hanging up the phone. In an attempt at comfort,
Lauren said, "We probably could have won if we were willing to kill
anybody who got in our way, too." Elsie Smith buzzed. "It's Mr. Torr,
Mrs. Torr."

"Speaking of bullies."

"You want me to go?"

"No. It's not necessary. I'm sure Sterling immediately called Wiley and
told him the good news. He'll be nice to me now. Watch." She punched the
button that was blinking on her phone. She was right. Wiley was
pleasant; he even came perilously close to apologizing for being
difficult lately. Then he asked if she would be home for dinner. She
said no, not until they had a chance to talk, and she wouldn't be free
to do that until this case wrapped up, hopefully in the next couple of
days. Wiley didn't bother to feign surprise about the termination of the
case, but he did have trouble masking his irritation that Robin wasn't
coming right home.

"Don't push me, Wiley. This case is still consuming my attention. I'll
be done as soon as I can, and then I can focus on us." He began to
argue. "Wiley, stop. You're not helping things." She listened. "If you
need something and you can't find me, just leave a message with Elsie.

I'll check in." He said he loved her. She thought it sounded ironic. She
said, "Bye." Lauren watched as Robin laid the phone back in its cradle.

"See, Robin, the bullies don't always win, do they? You hungry? I
haven't eaten, and I'm not thinking straight, and we still need to
figure out some way to find my sister." W ill Price phoned the Supreme
Court to tell Lester Horner the news. Lester Homer's secretary told him
that the justice was in a meeting with his clerks and couldn't be
disturbed. Will dictated a carefully worded message to his friend. It
was intentionally cryptic, and he had the secretary read it back to be
certain she had transcribed it correctly. The message was

"Heard back from BYU. It looks like we finally found what we've been
after. I'm going down this weekend to confirm. Can you get away?" After
his meeting with his clerks had concluded, Horner read the message from
Will Price.

Immediately, he knew what Will was alluding to. Price and Horner had
made a careful photographic record of some petroglyphs that they had
begun to uncover at the dig site they were working in the Ute Mountain
Tribal Park. As was his habit. Price had taken the proofs to BYU so they
could be examined by some of his anthropologist and archaeologist
friends. Something important must have shown up. Will Price was a
cautious man. He didn't jump at shadows. Horner slapped the top of his
desk. We've found evidence of the Lamanites! He sat back in the big
chair at his desk and blessed the day. A phone message two hours earlier
had been from an old friend at James and Bartell in Salt Lake City.

Easily as cryptic as Will Price's, the message had suggested that the
Oaks matter "should be favorably resolved by week's end." Given his
position of prominence within the Church, Lester Horner knew that his
involvement in any discovery about the Lamanites would add a measure of
credibility to what would certainly be contentious findings. If he
permitted himself the luxury, he could fantasize that the discoveries
would be dramatic enough that they might bring secular attention as
well. But in his heart he knew better than to believe that gentiles
would view Mormon archaeology with anything but disdain. Regardless,
Horner felt he had to get back to the Rockies to be with Will Price for
this momentous weekend. He would fly out Friday night, then back into
D.C. Sunday night on the red-eye. He hoped it would be enough time. It
had to be. Horner called his secretary and asked her to make the travel
arrangements and to confirm details on hooking up with Will Price. He
realized, suddenly, that he was happy. I n the LDS hierarchy, stake
presidents are higher in rank than bishops. Bishops preside over wards,
the basic congregational unit. Wards are combined into stakes, where
presidents preside. Neither bishops nor stake presidents are actually
clergy in the traditional, ecumenical sense of the word. All males who
are members in good standing of the LDS Church are Aaronic priests.

Aaronic priests hold the keys to baptize and the keys to other powers,
including the power to heal and to receive revelations from God. Higher
priests, holders of the Melchizedek priesthood, have greater powers
still. Bishops hold more keys than Melchizedek priests, stake presidents
more than bishops. The progression continues until it reaches the
prophet. John Harley hadn't been to his stake house in a few months.

Maybe six, he thought, but he couldn't actually remember. To his
surprise, he had been summoned there this morning by an early phone call
from the stake president himself. Although Harley knew who his stake
president was, he had never before had occasion to meet with him
individually. He was tempted to call Jules to see if she knew what this
was all about. He wondered why this interview wasn't going to be with
Bishop Fortin, from his ward, the same cretin credit-union manager with
whom Harley had already endured a dozen interviews. He considered the
possibility that he was about to be excommunicated. Or was this merely
another intrusive attempt to determine if he was worthy enough to have
his temple recommend returned? He couldn't imagine that they were
considering letting him back into the temple. Just two weeks before he
had admitted to Bishop Fortin that he was still drinking "hot drinks,"
that he still craved alcohol, and that he still doubted that he was
righteous enough to be the priesthood holder in his household. And, no,
he wasn't praying as much as he should. And, no, he apparently wasn't
very receptive to the Lord currently, because revelations were passing
him by. The stake president was a prominent real estate agent who sold
homes almost exclusively in the No-Pill Hill section of the Upper
Avenues of Salt Lake City. The man's face was plastered across busstop
benches all over the city. He was a husky man in his late forties whose
wide head wasn't marred by a single gray hair. Incredibly large pores
lined the sides of his nose. He introduced himself to Harley as
"President Randall Johnson" and asked him to have a seat in a small,
windowless room decorated with two different framed romantic images of
Jesus, one above each of two chairs. Harley sat, as instructed. The
president departed and didn't come back for almost ten minutes. "We have
grave matters to discuss. Brother Harley," President Johnson intoned
upon his return. Harley thought the stake president's manner would be
more appropriate to a discussion of the insufficiency of a proposed
counteroffer in a real estate negotiation than to some supposed
spiritual inadequacy. Harley waited. The residue of alcohol from the
previous night had left enough of a deficit in his attention that he
considered silence to be his best strategy. President Johnson looked at
Harley with a stern, paternal glare. "I'm speaking with you today at the
specific request of the First Quorum of the Seventy, Brother Harley ."
Harley had trouble believing that the general authorities knew him from
the angel Moroni. But by invoking the power of the upper tier of the
church leadership, the stake president had simultaneously captured
Harley's attention and frightened him a little bit as well. Although his
bishop might be a bit of a buffoon, Harley knew this stake president was
a powerful spiritual leader on his way up the Mormon leadership ladder.

And Harley was well aware that any member of the First Quorum of the
Seventy possessed the ability to make him miserable in this world and a
second-class citizen in the next. The interview immediately tumbled from
the dramatic precipice of President Johnson's introduction to a familiar
banality that reminded Harley of a visit from his assigned home teacher,
or of the more recent insult of his invited interviews with Bishop
Fortin. It began with a request that Harley renew his testimony to the
veracity of the Book of Mormon, that Harley restate his belief that
Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God and that the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints is the one and only true and living church
on the face of the earth. Harley testified that he believed that all
these were true. Harley was then asked if he would sustain the authority
of Bishop Fortin. Yes. Of President Johnson? Yes. And so on up the
hierarchy, until Harley sustained his belief in the authority of the
prophet. Then, "Are you tithing. Brother Harley?" As though they didn't
know. "Are you following the Word of Wisdom, Brother Harley?"

"Do you contribute to the well-being of your ward?"

"Do you regularly have family home evenings?"

"Do you engage in adulterous practices. Brother Harley?"

"Are you honoring your marital vows?"

"Are you wearing your garments?"

"Are you keeping your tokens and honoring the secrets of the temple?"
Harley's answers were honest and forthright and, although they were not
everything the president wished to hear, there was nothing in the
questions that indicated to Harley why he had been requested to attend
this meeting. Soon the pace picked up. "Are you honoring the teachings
of the general authorities?"

"Are you reading only faith-promoting materials?"

"Are you contributing to any disrespect of the Church?" To the last
question Harley answered, "No," after a slight pause. The hesitance had
been generated by the novelty of the query.

He'd never been asked that one before. His favorites from previous
interviews with Bishop Fortin had been

"Have you murdered anyone since our last interview?" and

"Do you and your wife engage in oral copulation?" Harley's reply to
Bishop Fortin--"I didn't think you guys asked that one anymore"--had
caused the bishop to move immediately on to the next question in his
spiritual deposition. President Johnson's subsequent question covered
virgin territory, too. "Brother Harley, when you socialize with
nonmembers, especially those who might be antagonistic to the Church, do
you always represent the Church in a manner that will generate the
maximum respect and honor for the prophet and for Jesus Christ the
Lord?" A sudden awareness hit Harley like a punch in the kidney. They
know about Lauren. How the hell did they find out about Lauren? Somebody
probably saw us together at Bill & Nada's. Or maybe the Side Pocket.
That doesn't make any sense, though. How many LDS are there who hang out
at the Side Pocket and Bill & Nada's? Harley remembered: Pratt Toomey
had seen Lauren and him together at Bill & Nada's. Maybe Pratt thought
that Harley was helping Lauren mount the case against Blythe Oaks and
informed Bishop Fortin of his suspicion.

Brother Pratt Toomey would have done that in a Deseret second. Harley
said, "Yes, President Johnson, I do." President Johnson removed his
glasses and held them in one hand at the side of his head. "Do you wish
to think more about that answer. Brother Harley?"

"No, President Johnson, I'm comfortable with my answer. And with my
conduct." Randall Johnson frowned before placing the glasses mi-imbk AU
I MUKI I T 33/ back in front of his eyes. He maintained his grip on
them, however, and never placed the earpieces back on his head. "But you
are currently socializing at an establishment that is certainly not
consistent with the proper values of the Church or of Jesus Christ the
Lord." That one wasn't a question, so Harley fought a sense of
obligation to provide an answer. He failed. "I play pool. President
Johnson."

"In a bar."

"That's where the pool tables are."

"Are you being impertinent. Brother Harley?

What we are discussing here is your salvation, your ultimate place in
the celestial kingdom. I hope and pray that you will not leave this
interview satisfied to be facing an eternity in the terrestrial
kingdom." Harley realized that he had just been addressed as though he
were on a downhill slide to Jack Mormondom. Mormons who died clutching
temple recommends attained the highest level of the three planes of
heaven, the celestial kingdom. Mormons who had strayed but who had
already enjoyed the blessings and endowments of church ritual were
relegated to the terrestrial kingdom. Unsaved gentiles spent eternity in
the lowest plane of heaven, the telestial kingdom. Once elevated to the
celestial plane after death, the holiest of the male faithful could hope
to progress to become gods themselves and attain the power to reign over
other planets as God rules over this one from a planet circling the star
Kolob. Harley didn't respond right away. His mouth felt pasty. He
desperately wanted a drink. He thought of Jules and her unquestioned
faith and her love for him. He remembered why he endured these
inquisitions. Jules and the girls. His family. Harley knew that the
irony of the intense Mormon focus on family values was that, when
spiritual push came to spiritual shove, the values would always be
judged to be more important than the family. And Harley knew that any
prayer he had of being able to return home to his wife and children
required that he appease the bureaucratic real estate agent/religious
leader sitting across him. Harley swallowed hard and framed his reply
carefully. "I remain eager, President Johnson, to once again demonstrate
to Bishop Fortin and to you and to the members of the First Quorum that
I am worthy to live the gospel of the Lord, to hold a temple recommend,
and to ascend to the celestial kingdom. I also remain eager"--he paused
and blinked twice, hoping to keep his head clear enough to continue--"to
regain my rightful priesthood position in my home, to strive always for
perfection, and, once again, to demonstrate spiritual leadership for my
wife and daughters on this earth. I am grateful to the Church and to the
Relief Society and to Bishop Fortin and to you for all your patience
with me and all your assistance to my family during this difficult
period when I have been spiritually adrift and under the influence of
the devil." President Johnson replaced the glasses on his head and sat
back on his chair. He eyed Harley skeptically. "On behalf of the general
authorities. Brother Harley, I would like to accept your testimony as
sincere and honest. But a matter still clouds the issue of the
genuineness of your, um, faith. The authorities have asked me to have
you prepare a letter detailing all aspects of your relationship to a
woman named  ..." President Johnson looked down at the palm of his left
hand. Harley couldn't tell if he had a tiny piece of paper there or if
he had written something directly onto his skin. "Lauren Crowder."
Harley opened his eyes wide. "A letter?" His head ached with the effort.

"What kind of letter?"

"You know Miss. Crowder, then, Brother Harley?"

"Yes." Level voice, Harley, level voice. "Then you know she isn't a
member?" Harley nodded. "And that she is paying a large sum of money to
bring legal action against a revered dead member of our Church alleging
that the member practiced homosexuality?" President Johnson spoke the
last word with abject disgust, as though he had been required to curse
in the presence of his grandmother. Harley searched his memory. Did
Lauren ever tell him that she was paying her sister's legal fees? No,
she hadn't. So he didn't know that. Relieved, he affected a perplexed
face and responded, "No, President Johnson, I didn't know that she was
paying to bring legal action against a member of the Church." President
Johnson huffed at Harley's answer. He stood and took a step toward the
door. He said, "In writing. By the end of the week. All aspects of your
relationship with this woman. Brother Harley. Goodbye."

After lunch, Lauren napped in the hotel room for almost two hours. When
she woke, she bathed in tepid water in the cramped confines of the
shallow tub, not trusting her leg to behave in the shower. Wrapped in a
hotel robe, she sat on the bed and gazed down at Temple Square. She
phoned John Harley at the university. "Harley, it's Lauren." Harley
heard echoes in her voice. He didn't know exactly what they meant. He
looked up to be certain his office door was closed. "Hi, you're back in
town," he said. The echoes? Oh, no. He thought he knew. Did we talk last
night? Yup. We talked last night. He knew. Lauren thought Harley's voice
sounded flat, cautious. "You free for dinner, Harley? I mean, a normal
dinner, early. Not a Bill & Nada's dinner. I'm too tired for that
today."

"I don't think that's possible tonight, Lauren. Um, where are you now?"

"I'm at--"

"No, no, don't tell me. What I meant was, are you at your sister's
house?" She puzzled at his interruption. "No, I'm at--"

"Good, good. Are you at your lawyer friend's office?" She was growing
annoyed. "No, Harley, I'm  ..." and then before he could interrupt her
again, as though a flash had gone off in her face, she got it. "I'm, ah,
I'm at a pay phone." "Well," he said, exhaling, and then adding some
artificial levity to his voice, "that's good. Because I'm not." She was
certain what was going on now. Harley was warning her that he thought
that the phone lines were being bugged. By whom? What had he learned?

She wanted to ask a thousand questions and she knew she couldn't. "If
you're not free for dinner, Harley, is there someplace else we can meet,
you know, just for a soft drink or something? Maybe someplace we've met
before?" Harley thought about it. It was a good idea, not a great one.

Either of them could be followed to a rendezvous. He needed to choose
someplace public and noisy, and hope they wouldn't be overheard. "That
place where we had drinks outside the bookstore, remember that?" She
did. Harley had taken her on a sociological tour of the downtown ZCMI
Mall. ZCMI--the Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution--was a
department-store chain, partly owned by the LDS Church, that sold
brandname merchandise to the masses and also faith-promoting items to
holders of temple recommends. Harley had told Lauren that ZCMI was where
he and Jules bought their garments, their sacred underwear. In the same
mall was an outlet of Deseret Books, part of a Church-owned bookstore
chain that sold only faith-promoting literature. Lauren had been
fascinated at the selection of books. Later, nearby, she and Harley had
stopped briefly and had drinks at Orange Julius. "Five o'clock?" she
suggested.

The downtown offices would just be letting out. The streets would be
busy. "Perfect," he said, not believing it. As soon as she hung up, the
phone rang again. She lifted the receiver and said, "Hello."

"Lauren, it's Robin. Somebody at the cruise line returned one of your
calls.

We've got the name of the club Teresa is playing in Taos." Lauren's
paranoia erupted again. "Robin, did you talk with this person yourself?"
The line grew quiet for a few moments. In a heavy voice, Robin replied,
"No. Elsie took the message. Shit." Lauren's spirit felt as heavy as her
leg. She thought, it doesn't matter. If the phones are really tapped, it
doesn't matter.

Harley stood with his arms folded over his chest while he examined a
long wall of books that all appeared to have been written by general
authorities of the LDS Church. From a corner of his eye he caught sight
of Lauren hobbling up to the Orange Julius stand in the middle of the
ZCMI Mall. She wore a long plaid skirt of blues and browns and a pale
yellow sweater and, he noted immediately, was leaning heavily on a black
walking stick topped with a round purple knob. She perched herself
against an unused end of the store counter and began to scan the crowd
for Harley. He had arrived early at Deseret Books, hoping to find a
volume or two to give to Lauren so she could read up on blood atonement,
at least as a historical entity, but came away from the store
empty-handed and feeling slightly foolish. The fact that a subject was
historically Mormon, and even spiritually Mormon, was no indication that
it would be judged to be faith-promoting by the general authorities. A
few years before, Harley had been sitting next to his wife at a
Semiannual General Conference of the LDS Church and had listened in mild
horror and major consternation as Boyd Packer, a senior member of the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, warned the assembled Church members about
the dangers of participating in the study of Mormon history, doctrine,
and culture. He restated the long-held convictions of other Church
elders that critical examination of the origins and beliefs of the
Church should be avoided by members because such investigations would be
likely to erode faith. "If doctrines and behaviors are measured by the
intellect alone," Packer had warned his audience, "we will be misled."
Walking back out of the bookstore, Harley assumed that blood atonement
was probably one of the doctrines and behaviors the study of which Elder
Packer would consider particularly faith-eroding. As stealthily as he
could, he sneaked up behind Lauren outside Orange Julius and whispered
in a husky voice the first line he had ever said to her as he had
admired her playing pool in the Side Pocket. "Only drunks and Englishmen
drink them warm, you know." She turned to him and threw an arm around
his neck and embraced him. The walking stick clattered to the floor.

He'd been hoping not to draw any attention to them. Gesturing at the
stick, he pulled back from the embrace. "What's with the cane?"

"It's nothing. A little problem with my leg. It'll pass." Even to
Lauren, the "It'll pass" was beginning to sound suspiciously like a
mantra. Harley paused, giving her a moment to expound on her own. She
didn't. Puzzled, he prodded. "I was going to suggest we walk."

"Not my best thing right now, Harley, I'm afraid. I'm currently much
more proficient at sitting." They moved to an empty table ten feet away.
A slime of spilled Julius varnished half the table. Harley wondered how
the bubbles could crust without popping. Intermittent white noise
generated by the blenders provided some auditory cover. Harley looked at
his watch. Lauren noticed Harley's unease. "You're worried, Harley.
That's not like you. And that worries me. A lot." He leaned closer,
carefully placing his elbow just outside the tidal flow of the pale
citrus muck on the table. "My stake president--a church leader I
absolutely can't ignore--called me in for an interview this morning. The
authorities--the general authorities--want to know about you. What I
know about you. About us.

Whether I'm helping you. Everything." Indications of alarm began to
assemble in Lauren's eyes. He was encouraged and recognized that he
wanted her to be afraid with him. "So in case we had any doubt whether
you and your sister had captured the attention of the old men in the
Church Administration Building, well, now we know you have, big-time.

I'm supposed to write a report about you--about us--for somebody on the
First Quorum."

"They can make you do that?"

"They can make the consequences intolerable if I don't."

"How?"

"If they excommunicate me, I'll be shunned by members of the Church. I'm
lucky I don't own a store or sell insurance. Members would just stop
doing business with me. But if I'm excommunicated, Jules won't take me
back. No way. And I'd lose the girls for sure. That's their leverage.
And they'll use it in a second."

"Wow. They can do that? That sounds like blackmail."

"It's their club, their clubhouse. They know the secret handshakes. If
they don't like me, I don't get in anymore." Lauren wasn't at all
surprised to learn that the Church was interested in the lawsuit. She
and Robin Torr had been working under that assumption all along. But she
was shocked that the Church had managed to link her and Harley, and that
they would use his family as pawns to try to force Teresa to stop
pursuing the lawsuit. Homosexual harassment by a prominent Church member
would certainly be a blemish on the LDS Church, but this response seemed
way out of proportion. Why were the Church leaders treating this wart as
though it were a melanoma? "How? How do they know about us? Isn't this
risky? Should you be meeting with me like this?"

"I'm not sure exactly what's going on. Either somebody saw us together,
like Pratt did that time at Bill & Nada's, and the authorities are
fishing. Or they're listening to us, and they know. Today, I'm just
hoping that the two of us weren't followed." Lauren looked around for
the followers, realized she wouldn't even know what she was looking for,
and turned back to Harley. "Listening to us how?" Harley fell back on
the chair and scanned the thin crowd in the mall. Meeting here, he
thought, was a mistake. How could he identify a Mormon tail in this
place? Everybody in here looks like they could be working for the
Church. He should have told Lauren to meet him at the Side Pocket.
Odelle and Jerry would have known in a second if a stranger had come in
after them. Irritated at himself for his misjudgment, he barked, "How
the hell do I know? By tapping my phone? Bugging your sister's liouse?
Microwave listening devices?" He recognized the recoil in Lauren's face
as she reacted to his tone. He softened his voice. "LDS Church security
is a huge operation, Lauren, and it's mostly headed by ex-FBI and CIA
types, real professionals. The LDS presence in U.S. security and
intelligence operations is truly significant, way out of proportion to
the population. Mormons raise the type of kids that intelligence and
police agencies like--polite, patriotic, respectful. And the boys who
have been on missions are usually fluent in at least one foreign
language, as well. I'm digressing--my point is that if they wanted to
listen to us, they wouldn't have any trouble figuring out how to do it.
They've got the experts and they've got the money."

"That's illegal," Lauren pointed out, and immediately felt foolish. "You
find your sister?"

"Not exactly, but I think I know where she is."

"She's okay?" Lauren fought tears. "I hope so, Harley." She had promised
herself she wouldn't ask about the phone call, but she did. "Were you
drunk last night?"

"Yes," he said without nuance or delay. "Am I supposed to apologize
now?" She tightened her jaw and raised her eyebrows, then looked away
from him. "Why?" she said. She waited, then continued, her voice taking
on a supple, unfamiliar form. "Oh, don't answer that, Harley. That's
stupid. I know why. No, I don't. It doesn't matter why. Oh, shit, I hate
it that you drink, Harley. I hate it." He shook his head. "I don't think
so, Lauren.

I don't think you hate it. I think you get some perverted need met by
watching me battle with it. For some reason I don't understand, you
don't seem to feel safe unless you can face danger and then watch it
slip away. The routine seems to bore you. You were crazy to go into the
Side Pocket that first night with your cute little pool cue and your
cute little ass and act like nothing was out of the ordinary, the whole
time you're surrounded by grunting low-lifes and drunk Tongans. But you
thrive on surviving it. You struck me then and you strike me now as
someone who would feel better having a tiger on a leash than you would
being in a room without a tiger. I don't pretend to get it. But I think
it's true." She thought of Alan. To her, she knew, he'd become a room
without a tiger. She turned her gaze toward the Deseret Bookstore. She
recalled the John Harley she had met at the Side Pocket, so impertinent
and impish and seductive and fun. She mused about the transformation
that had occurred. Harley now looked frightened and acted defeated. The
culprit, she concluded, was his church. She felt sadness for him, and
she shivered at the irony. She said, "Your tiger's not leashed now, is
it, Harley?"

"Not mine. Uh-uh. Not yours, either." He tilted his head toward the
bookshop. "Not theirs. Nope. There are fangs and claws everywhere."

"Well, maybe there's some hope. We're planning on dropping our
investigation as soon as we find Teresa. I'm sure the Church knows of
our intentions by now. Robin Torr told the plaintiff's law firm this
afternoon to be sure the Church finds out immediately. So they can call
off their dogs. And maybe they'll leave you and your family alone."
Harley ran his fingers through the hair on the side of his head. "Well,
if all of us have just one lucky day, then maybe dropping your
investigation will bring an end to this mess."

"That's my hope, too, Harley. But I still need to find my sister. Robin
Torr is on the phone right now trying to track her down. I'm going to
try to leave tonight to be with her. If I can't get out tonight, then
I'll go first thing tomorrow."

"Where is she?" She knew she paused long enough to hear her heart beat
once. She said, "New Mexico. Taos." He'd noticed the pause, too. "I hope
she's okay." He looked down, then back up. "Believe me when I say this.
I won't betray you, Lauren." He made sure she was looking right at him.
"My family will come first in every decision I make. But I won't betray
you." She reached out and touched the top of his hand. With warm eyes
she said to him, "I know. I hope you're able to lasso your tiger again,
Harley."

"I don't have much hope for me today." He grinned at her in the devilish
way she had found irresistible from the first day she had met him. "My
problem all along has been that I enjoy it too much when my tiger's on
the loose." The vagaries of airline scheduling prohibited Lauren from
getting a flight into Albuquerque that night, and the first flight out
of Salt Lake City the next morning was booked solid. There were no
non-stops into Santa Fe from Utah at all. Her choices were either to fly
standby and hope to get lucky, to try to get a connection into
Albuquerque or Santa Fe through Denver or Phoenix, or to take an early
commuter flight into Durango, Colorado, or Farmington, New Mexico, and
drive across northern New Mexico to Taos. Despite the extra driving
time, Lauren calculated that the Farmington choice should get her into
Taos at least ninety minutes earlier than any of the other options. She
made reservations for Farmington and told Robin the plan.

Robin was reading the room-service menu in their hotel room. Late that
afternoon, Robin had tracked down the owner of the small club in Taos
where Teresa was scheduled to perform. The owner had confirmed the
booking but didn't know where Teresa was staying. Her first performance
wasn't until the next evening, Friday. Robin looked up from the menu and
asked, "Can you drive? With your leg so weak, I mean."

"I think I can drive. I can't support much weight, but I can move my
foot enough to control the pedals. I've driven with my left foot before,
anyway."

"Well, I don't like the idea of you driving that far across New Mexico
by yourself. I'm coming with you." Lauren protested meekly. She said,
"You don't have to do that, Robin." But she was relieved. She didn't
want to go to New Mexico alone. She had already thought of calling Alan
in Colorado and seeing if he would meet her in Farmington. "Your leg's
not getting any better. Without wanting to be crass, hon, the truth is
that you could be half paralyzed and half blind before you're halfway
across New Mexico. So I'm coming. I'm worried about my client, anyway.

Please call the airline back and get me a seat." Torr stood, crossed her
arms, and started to tug her sweater over her head. "I can't tell you
how badly I need a bath." As she closed the bathroom door behind her she
began to hum a happy tune that Lauren recognized but couldn't quite
place. Lauren tried to consider a world where people were happy and
hummed happy tunes. For a moment she thought she did. She tried to make
the image last. She couldn't. She used the private time while Robin was
in the bathroom to phone Alan in Boulder. He was eager to know how she
was and how her leg was and was eager for news about Teresa. He spoke in
hushed tones about his longing for her. He told her he loved her long
before the conversation was over. Then he told her again. She knew he
meant it. Sam Purdy had called Alan with news from the police chief in
Ouray. The FBI was interested in Rachel Baumann's murder--not committed,
but interested. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation hadn't completed
its analysis of the material from the crime scene. But something in the
preliminary findings had jostled the FBI's interest. Chief Long didn't
volunteer what the preliminary findings were. She told Alan about Robin
Torr's phone call of surrender to the opposing attorney that afternoon.

Alan's voice grew soft, full of hollow places where she could hide if
she chose. "I know how disappointed you must be at backing down, but I'm
very relieved that it's over."

"To be honest, I'm relieved, too, Alan.

I'm used to seeing my adversaries across a room. But since I got to
Utah, I feel like I've been boxing with ghosts. I just hope this
decision hasn't come too late for Teresa. I'll deal with my anger at
being intimidated once I know that she's safe."

"You're sure you don't want me to come with you? I think I can get to
Farmington from Denver pretty easily." Small, intimate sounds emanated
from behind the closed bathroom door. Faint overtones of an argument
invaded from the room next door. Alan's quiet breathing sang in her ear.
"No, it's okay, but thanks. Robin's coming with me. She'll drive. We'll
just find Teresa and bring her home. Nobody has any reason to fear any
of us now that the case is over."

"And then?"

"Then I'll come home. And I'll marry you and do wicked things to your
body. But not necessarily in that order." The bathroom door opened and
Robin entered in a cloud of steam. Her hair was wet and shiny. A towel
was wrapped around her torso. She sang in a whisper and smiled warmly at
Lauren. Robin fumbled for something in an overnight bag and then nestled
against the headboard of the other bed and began to push back her
cuticles with a wooden stick. Lauren was sprawled on the bed. She told
Alan she loved him and would call from Taos. She hung up. A minute
later, without looking up, Robin asked Lauren if she could guess why she
was feeling so happy. Lauren shook her head. "One, because this Morrison
looks like the real thing for the Jazz, and two, because I know I can
live just fine without Wiley. When we get back from our little road
trip, I'll talk with him, see if things can change in our marriage the
way I need them to. If they can't, I'll move on. I'm smiling at the
freedom I feel. I want a baby." Lauren thought about her ex-husband,
Jacob. "Can Wiley change?" Robin gripped a cuticle scissors in her hand
and clipped at the edge of her thumbnail.

"I doubt he wants to. But if he does, I'll listen to what he has in
mind. I don't need to decide any of that right now." Lauren looked at
her own shabby nails but felt too tired to repair them. "It's ironic,
Robin. You're feeling free, and I'm worried that I'm about to give my
freedom up--to Alan. I love him--I do--and yet I agonize about being
married to him. Maybe to anybody. It didn't work the first time." She
sighed and looked over at the next bed. Robin twisted open a tiny bottle
of red nail polish before looking up. "But you love him?" Lauren nodded.

"Yeah, but that's nothing new for me. What's odd is that I feel loved by
him, too. And that's very different from last time. I loved Jake. Jake
loved Jake. My being loved was never part of our marital equation."

"Do you need Alan?" She considered it. "No, not in any way that worries
me." She pondered her useless leg, and thought, Unless I get sick. "Then
you're free, too." Not of MS. Not of men like Harley, of tigers without
leashes, thought Lauren. I'm not free of those things. Robin was having
trouble staying modest in her wrapped towel. "There's another robe in
the closet, Robin. I'll get it for you." Despite Robin's protest, Lauren
hopped over to the closet on her good leg and then hopped back over to
Robin's bed with the robe. Robin stood, turned her back to Lauren, and
permitted the towel to drop to the carpet. Large, pale freckles trailed
from her thin shoulders down her back. Lauren helped slide the bulky
terry cloth over Robin's arms so she wouldn't ruin her newly painted
nails, then tied the belt. Robin said, "Thanks." She slid her arms under
Lauren's and reached up and embraced her, her hands spread on the wide
bones of Lauren's shoulder blades. "Teresa will be okay. We'll be okay.

You watch." Lauren returned the embrace, then fell back on her own bed,
exhausted but momentarily not feeling so scared. She held the remote
control aloft and said, "You want to watch the news?" Robin fumbled in
her purse and held up two small rectangular pieces of stiff paper
adorned with the logo and colors of the Utah Jazz. "No, not really. You
up for a basketball game? You'll get to see Karl Malone and Shaquille
O'Neal. An amazing opportunity. Preseason, I know, and he may not get
many minutes, but still, it's Shaquille O'Neal."

"Who?" asked Lauren. he regional airport at Farmmgton, New Mexico, was a
time warp away from Salt Lake City. Salt Lake tried hard not to be a
high desert; Farmington didn't bother. It was one of those wondrous
southwestern places that didn't have to stretch to remind visitors whose
land this used to be.

The faces that greeted Lauren and Robin as they made their way down the
shaky stairs from the plane and across the narrow tarmac were mostly red
and brown. The people were stocky, their faces round, their noses wide.

Their hair was Crowder hair, the color of the night. The compact Hertz
counter wasn't far from the gate. A young man with a worn Stetson and a
cocked hip was finishing up a seemingly unsuccessful flirtation with the
solitary female clerk behind the counter. The man stepped aside and
waited as though his day had no duties while Robin and Lauren exchanged
their driver's licenses and credit cards for a set of car keys. When
they departed he resumed his seduction, as though they had never been
there. The clerk seemed to welcome the return of his advances. The
rental car, a new Toyota, was parked in a lot across the street from the
brown stucco terminal. Both women were dressed in blue jeans and
sweaters. Robin wore old aerobics shoes that were mostly pink. She had
bought them during a period of exaggerated guilt over her lack of
exercise. She had worn them to three step-aerobics classes. Lauren wore
cowboy boots that had been polished and repolished to a deep
black-brown, with a pattern of fanciful stitching of lazy interlocking
hearts running up the sides. The boots had been a gift from her
ex-husband, Jacob, on some ancient Valentine's Day. Lauren remembered
receiving the gift with glee. Each boot had concealed a vase holding an
abundant bouquet of gerbera daisies. Jake had been one of her tigers.

Robin stalled her walk to match the meager progress Lauren made with her
cane. They carried jackets and shoulder bags and made jokes about Thelma
and Louise. It was Robin who noticed the big burgundy Ford Bronco parked
in front of the terminal. She had been folding and unfolding the
accordion creases of a road map and then glancing around at the terrain,
trying to get oriented to the east, toward Taos. She noticed the big
Bronco because of the Utah plates. And because the man climbing into the
passenger seat bore a striking resemblance to Supreme Court Justice
Lester Horner. She poked Lauren, who was fumbling for the buckle to her
shoulder harness. "Lauren! Look, over there. That big car." She pointed
toward the Bronco. "Isn't that Lester Horner? On the passenger side?"
The big 4x4 was in the shadows, and the glare of the light off the
windshield interfered with Lauren's getting a clear look at the man
inside. "Maybe." She peered intently. "I can't tell. Why would he be
here? The Supreme Court just started its new term, didn't it?"

"I know the damn Court's in session. But I also know Lester Horner. That
was him, I'm sure of it."

"Could you see who he's with?"

"Some guy, about his age. I didn't pay much attention. I was just too
shocked at seeing that it was Lester Horner." Lauren shrugged her
shoulders, weary of new pieces showing up to complicate this puzzle.
Robin looked away from the car and back at Lauren. They each raised
their eyebrows. Robin defended her appraisal. "That's weird. I swear
that's Horner." Lauren said, "It doesn't make any sense. Why would he be
here?" The truck pulled away from the curb of the loading zone. Both
women watched, speechless, as the frisky head of a terribly happy dog
plunged out the open window of the passenger door. As the truck turned
left onto the access road that led down from the mesa toward Farmington,
it crawled past the Toyota at a measured pace. The dog seemed to look
right at them, his golden- red snout pointing into an imaginary wind.
Lauren felt an agony she had not even imagined possible. She felt it
surge through her blood with tremendous velocity, as though sharp
crystals were ripping at her veins.

She blurted, "Teresa." Robin Torr said, "Damn." Robin punched the
accelerator before sliding the gearshift lever out of park. The engine
howled and then slowly quieted. She waited, then pulled the stick toward
her and eased the car out of the lot. "You see him?" she asked. "Yeah,
about a block up on the right. Thank God he's big." Talking struck
Lauren as mundane. She was mildly surprised that she was able to do it
at all but appreciated the feeling of normalcy the act provided. "Is
this the way to Taos? Are we heading east?" Lauren looked up for the sun
but saw nothing but thin interlocking sheets of high gray clouds. She
alternately scrambled to find a section of the Hertz map that might
correspond to their location and scanned the roadside for highway
markers. "I can't tell where we are. I'm not oriented yet." Robin
murmured, "Tell me about it." The access road to the airport veered down
a mesa toward Farmington. Not far from the terminal the big Ford slowed
and turned right, and then quickly right again. A highway marker near
the intersection indicated that the road was New Mexico Highway 64.

Robin barked, "Where does it go? Where does that road go? Is this the
way to Taos?" Lauren puzzled at the highway marker, then at the map.

After Robin had copied the Bronco's turn onto Highway 64, Lauren blurted
out, "No. I don't think so, anyway. This road does go east and west, but
I think we're going west, away from Taos. If we stay on it, we'll be
heading right toward Four Corners." Four Corners? In addition to New
Mexico, that means Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. Arizona or Colorado or
Utah. But Teresa is in New Mexico. In Taos. Safe. Teresa is safe.

"You're sure? There's no way to get to Taos on this road?" She examined
the map. Definitively, she said, "No, it's absolutely the wrong
direction." The pressure in Robin's tone subsided. "Well, then maybe
these guys aren't after your sister. Maybe it's just a coincidence that
they're here at all."

"And it's a coincidence that they have a dog?"

"There are lots of dogs, Lauren." The windows of the Bronco up ahead
were darkly tinted. Lauren pressed her hypothesis. "Robin, what if they
already have her in that car?" Robin checked the location of the Ford,
then peered across the front seat at Lauren. She forced a softness into
her voice. "Jesus, Lauren. That's a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court up
there, not a kidnapper. Not a murderer. Anyway, who would bring along a
hostage and then park curbside at an airport?"

"Somebody who's real certain that their hostage isn't going to cause any
trouble." Teresa is safe. Lauren laid out her case. "So why is Horner
here? Why is he in Farmington? Why today, with my sister only a few
hours away? Why with that dog?"

"Do you really think your sister's in the back of that car, Lauren? Do
you want me to ram it or something?" Robin's forced calm was deserting
her. Before Lauren could answer, the Bronco's brake lights flashed on,
the right-turn signal started flashing, and the truck began an abrupt
turn into a wide gap in a chain- link construction fence.

"Keep going, Robin. There's a gas station across the street. Go in
there. I'm going to find out whose car that is." With a pen from her
purse, Lauren jotted the license plate number of the Bronco onto the
soft pad of skin at the base of her thumb. She grabbed her cane and her
coin purse and hobbled to a pay phone. She punched in what seemed like a
thousand numbers and thought she'd faint with relief when Sam Purdy
answered his phone. "Sam, it's Lauren." Purdy heard the desperation in
her tone. He said, "What's wrong?"

"Maybe nothing. I'm not sure. Can you run a Utah vehicle check for me
ASAP?" Sam wanted to quiz her. His instincts told him to say instead,
"Okay, give me what you've got."

"Late-model Ford* four-wheel drive. A big one. Burgundy and tan."

"What?

An Explorer?"

"No, bigger."

"Bronco?"

"Whatever. I don't know." She read him the license plate number. "I'll
call you right back."

"I'm at a pay phone. The number has been vandalized to oblivion. I don't
know what it is. I'll just wait here on the line." Calmly, he said,
"This could take a while."

"It's really urgent, Sam. I'll wait. No! Before you go, listen. I think
somebody needs to know what's going on here. Robin Torr and I are in
Farmington, New Mexico, heading, um, west on Highway 64.

We're driving a red Hertz Toyota something or other with New Mexico
tags, number ..." She squinted and read the license plate number to
Purdy. "We're following that Ford I told you about, and they've just
pulled into a construction site outside of Farmington. The construction
project is apparently for a self-storage lot they're building here. Wait
a second, the sign is already up. The place is called "Your Garage--Self
Storage." It's huge. Cinder-block, bright ugly green, you can't miss it.

On 64, real close to Farmington." Purdy recognized a couple of gaps in
Lauren's story that were large enough to drive an earthmover through.

"Why are you in New Mexico?"

"We finally tracked down Teresa. She got a weekend gig in Taos. We're
here to talk her into withdrawing her complaint and coming home."

"But you're in Farmington, not Taos."

"It's a long story. We couldn't get a flight into Albuquerque. When we
were getting ready to leave the airport in Farmington to drive to Taos,
we saw Lester Horner climbing into the big Ford I just told you about,
and we followed it here."

"Justice Lester Horner?"

"Yeah." Sam generally considered Lauren to be cautious, even as
prosecutors go. He wondered about her judgment in this affair. "So you
followed him? Why? I don't get it." Lauren recognized the omission she
had made in her narrative.

"Because of the dog, Sam. The guy who picked Horner up at the Farmington
airport had a big red dog with him." Sam paused and felt an adrenaline
surge. "Shit."

"That assessment doesn't begin to cover it, Sam."

"What are you gonna do, Lauren? I mean, besides wait for me to get a
make on that Ford? What are your plans?"

"I guess we'll stick with them and hope they're just going fishing or
something. Mostly I'm hoping that they don't turn around and head for
Taos."

"What else can I do from this end?" She looked across the highway and
answered, "Not much I can think of. We certainly don't have anything to
take to the New Mexico police that would make them eager to detain a
justice of the United States Supreme Court, do we? Wait! I know what you
can do. You can help me find Teresa in Taos. I haven't talked with her
yet. But I have the number of the club where she's working." She dug in
her change purse and dictated the phone number to Purdy. "See if you can
find out if she's checked in with them, where in town she's staying, and
make sure she's safe. I'll call you back in a while. I think that's a
better idea than staying on the line while you wait for the check on the
Ford to come through." Sam said, "I can do even better than that. How
about I phone down to the Taos police and tell them we got an anonymous
threat against your sister, ask them to keep an eye on her while we
verify it up here?"

"That would be great. I'll call you soon to get the results of that
vehicle check. Bye, Sam. And thanks." Purdy said, "Don't do anything
stupid, Lauren." But she had already hung up. He knew it didn't make any
difference at all that she hadn't heard his warning. She hobbled back to
the car. "I haven't seen athing. They're still in back someplace. Did
you find out whose car it is?"

"My friend in Boulder, Sam Purdy, the detective, is checking for me.
I'll call him back in a little while to see what he's found out. He's
going to try to find Teresa in Taos, too.

Make sure she's all right." Robin touched Lauren's shoulder. "I'm sorry
if I'm on edge. I know you must want some support for what we're doing,
but this seems crazy to me. Lester Horner is a justice of the United
States Supreme Court. What we're doing is this: We're following a
Supreme Court justice around northern New Mexico, basically because he's
traveling with a dog." Lauren didn't respond. Horner being here, now, in
Farmington, New Mexico, had to be important. It had to. Though how would
Horner or his friend know where to find Teresa? Maybe, she thought, the
booking in Taos was a ruse to lure Teresa here. Or maybe the nightclub
is owned by a Mormon. No, not likely. Lauren flashed on the image of the
red dog and then on the turd in her sister's backyard. She had
discovered that Teresa was in Taos by listening to the answering machine
in the house. What if the guy with the dog had done the same thing? What
if he had broken in and played the tape and reset the machine? It was
possible. She tried to recall the number of calls that had been flashing
on the machine's readout and the number that were on the tape. Did they
match? And Lauren's note to Teresa had been in plain view on the kitchen
table, with her itinerary in Ouray and Telluride spelled out in great
detail. Did I lead these murderers to Rachel Baumann? Did Teresa leave
directions to herself? Lauren felt a deep chill and turned away from
Robin Torr. "What are we going to do, Lauren? Just sit here and wait?"
Before Lauren answered, she recognized the change in status between the
two of them. With sudden deference, Robin was assigning her the power of
"boss." Lauren said, "I guess. We'll sit here and wait to see what they
do next."

"You know, I thought we came to New Mexico to put an end to this
craziness, not to take it to an absurd new level. Why don't we just go
to Taos and get your sister and go home?" Lauren turned across the front
seat and touched her friend on the side of her chin. "We've been kidding
ourselves, Robin. We can plan this any of ten ways that we would like.
But the truth is that we don't have any control. None, not really.

And we haven't had any in a long time. We should have stopped this after
Pratt was killed. Who knows? Maybe it was already too late, even then.

"I'll call Sam Purdy back in a little while. See if he's found Teresa in
Taos and whether she's okay. If she is, we'll go there and get her. In
the meantime, I need to play out this hunch. I don't want to lose track
of that guy and his dog until my sister is sitting safely right next to
me."

"And Lester Horner? I need to remind you that you're keeping track of
him, too." Robin's tone had grown hopelessly sardonic. Lauren hardly
noticed. She said, "Yeah. And Lester Horner, too." To Lester Horner, the
supplies that Will Price had set aside for their short drive back to the
Ute Mountain Tribal Park seemed double what he had ever packed for their
previous visits to the reservation. Horner enjoyed the break from
traveling and walked the perimeter of the huge construction project.

Will Price corraled a couple of laborers to help him move the boxes and
crates from a completed storage unit to his Bronco. On the short ride
from the airport to Price's newest self-storage facility, Horner had
pressed his old friend for details of the nature of their discovery.

Price had been effusive. A few of the tiny petroglyphs that they had
begun uncovering on their last couple of digs contained some symbols
that Price thought were consistent with images described in the Book of
Mormon. Will had brought some high-resolution photographic and video
equipment and lights to record the dig site and to chronicle their
efforts as they checked a section of the dwelling they were excavating
for some further petroglyphs. The anthropologists and archaeologists at
BYU had made some recommendations on where to dig next based on the
sketches that Price had completed of the site thus far. Horner was
excited. He couldn't wait to get back to Lion Canyon and the tribal
lands and get the brushes and tools back in his hands. He couldn't wait
to see the enhanced photographs that Will had brought back from BYU.

Looking down the road, he couldn't wait to announce their discovery to
the Church. The president would be thrilled. The president of the LDS
Church, anyway. The other president--of the U.S.--what he thought about
one of the Supreme Court justices digging in God's dirt in southwestern
Colorado didn't much matter to Horner. In uncharacteristic style, Horner
permitted his revelry to turn to fantasy. In an open-minded world, this
discovery, he imagined, would have every Mormon-basher and every
Utah-basher eating their words, and every scavenging journalist would
forget about the Mark Hof- manns and the Ervil Lebarons and the Bruce
Longos and the Paul Singers and would be writing treatises about the
rightful restoration of the true Church of Jesus Christ. In an
open-minded world, people would begin talking about the biblical
prediction of the restitution of all things and the necessity of
preparing for the coming millennium. And the conversion of millions to
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would complete the
transfer of religious power on this earth away from Tell- ran and
Jerusalem and the Vatican right to Temple Square in Salt Lake City,
Utah, where it belonged. Will Price would get a deserved seat on the
First Quorum of the Seventy, maybe someday even on the Twelve. If God
wishes, mused Horner, I will return there as well--wherever I belong,
wherever I am called by the Lord or by the prophet. The images
reverberating in Lester Homer's mind seemed to float from the clouds as
if on the wings of angels. Horner would not have been surprised to see
the angel Moroni himself alight on a mesa and speak to him. He had never
felt closer to the Lord and more blessed with God's grace than he did
that day as he stood on the periphery of Your Garage, staring north
toward Ute country through the galvanized diamonds of a portable cyclone
construction fence. He stuffed his hands far into the pockets of his
down vest. If he raised them up, he felt, he could float away. Horner
was experiencing a peace and a fullness that he had always thought would
elude him until he entered the celestial kingdom. Price's booming voice
intruded into Homer's reverie and blanketed the high plateau. "All set
over here, Lester. You ready to hit the road and make some history?"
Horner nodded to the clouds and to God and jogged eagerly over to join
his friend in the bulging Bronco. A single phone call from Boulder to
Utah revealed that the Ford Bronco was registered to a development
company, Your Garage, Inc., of Orem, Utah. Purdy assessed the
information to be slightly less than revelatory, since the vehicle had
last been seen pulling into a construction site where the world's latest
Your Garage was being built. But, then, Purdy didn't know that Your
Garage was entirely owned by Will Price and his brothers. And Purdy
didn't know that Will Price was currently driving the truck. In fact,
Purdy didn't know Will Price from Brigham Young. A dead end is what it
felt like, so Sam scrambled to find Teresa Crowder in Taos before Lauren
called back. He wanted to be able to tell her something useful. He
phoned the club owners, who told him that Teresa had called late the
previous evening from a motel where she was saying in old Taos, but that
they hadn't actually seen her. She was due to show up for her first set
by eight o'clock or so. She had asked if she could run through part of
her act on stage prior to opening, so they figured she would be in
sometime that afternoon for her rehearsal. That's all Sam Purely had
been able to discover when Lauren phoned him back from the same pay
phone in Farmington about twenty minutes after her first call. "I was
just about to call the motel. Call me back in five minutes. I should
know something."

"Okay, Sam. Five minutes." Robin stopped by the filthy phone kiosk just
as Lauren was hanging up. She told Lauren she was on her way to the
bathroom and asked her if she wanted a can of pop or a snack. Lauren
declined, unaware that she had any appetite or any needs unrelated to
her sister. Lauren's leg was beginning to feel like less of a weight as
she trundled back to the car. She tried a step without the stick. Maybe
this exacerbation is remitting, she hoped, and I can ditch the cane. I
could use some good news. She stopped in her tracks and stared directly
across the street. As she watched in dismay, the burgundy Bronco bobbed
slowly over a deeply rutted unpaved section of the storage-yard lot,
squeezing between parallel sets of scaffolding that fronted opposing
lines of garish green garage doors. Lauren observed the tedious
progression of the truck's big chrome grill and felt crippled by fate.
She pirouetted on her good leg, praying to see Robin Torr's return from
the ladies' room. She didn't. She thought, / hope she only had to pee. I
hope it's so filthy in there, she can't bear the thought of staying one
second too long. She turned back to the construction site. The Bronco
pulled to a stop at the entrance to the highway. Two silhouettes could
be clearly discerned through the windshield. A dog's head protruded out
the passenger-side window. No blinker flashed. Left or right? Taos or
Four Corners? Please, not Taos.

Not Taos. The truck waited for a long break in the traffic and then
pulled out to the right. To the west. Four Corners. Where the hell are
they going? Lauren whipped around. Robin! As the truck accelerated, she
tried to run and get Robin, but her leg wasn't ready for that kind of
action and she tumbled instantly to the dirty asphalt. She scraped her
hands and tore her jeans and, lying on her side, watched the Bronco
disappear in the distance. Robin arrived seconds later and lifted her up
and dusted her off. She saw blood through the hole in Lauren's jeans.

"They left. That way. To the west." Lauren was breathing the way a miser
spends money. Her eyes said Please. Robin helped Lauren into the car
and, against her better judgment, tore off into traffic after the big
burgundy Ford Bronco. Purdy waited fifteen minutes for his return call
from Lauren. He had spent ten of the minutes chewing out a Boulder
patrolman who had dropped the ball on canvassing a block on University
Hill where a rape had taken place. Patience wasn't Sam Purdy's long
suit. To fill some time, he called Alan Gregory and alerted him of the
new developments, promising to stay in touch. Purdy's calls to Taos had
been fruitful but disconcerting. Teresa Crowder had come into the motel
office in Taos shortly after seven o'clock that morning inquiring about
a good place for breakfast. The manager had sent her to Domingo's, a
little Mexican bakery about a block away. They hadn't seen her since.

Her rented car was still in the lot, right in front of her motel room. A
soft-spoken woman whose excellent English was presented with a thick
Oaxacan accent answered the phone at Domingo's. Her name was Rosa. She
remembered the girl. Coffee, two churros. She had been joined by a man.

No coffee. Chocolate milk, two churros. They had talked for a while.

They had left together. Was the young woman distressed? Didn't seem to
be. Did she remember a car? Did she notice what kind of car the man was
driving? Sorry, no. Anything? A description? "There was the dog," she
had said. A thin stream of blood snaked down the soft skin of Lauren's
calf and soaked the sock inside her cowboy boot. She didn't really
notice. Her attention was focused on the road ahead; she shifted her
eyes left and right to check down every intersecting street for signs of
the burgundy Bronco. Robin scanned her mirrors for cops while she
restrained herself from pressing the car from going any faster than
sixty-five. Without even looking, Lauren picked gravel from beneath
loose flaps of skin on her palm. She had no sensation of her fingernails
digging into the wounds. Dejectedly, after a half-mile, she said, "I
don't see them, Robin."

"You know we're following them away from Taos, hon?" Robin's pulse was
quieting. She was battling the undertow caused by the wake of Lauren's
adrenaline surge while simultaneously pushing to keep some objectivity
in their planning. "I know. But if we know where they are, where they're
going, then Teresa will be safe. Sam Purdy is going to find her in Taos.
He'll look after her."

"You're sure, you're absolutely sure, that it's these two guys we should
be after?"

"Yes."

"What are we going to do if we catch them?"

"I don't have a clue, Robin.

Not a damn clue."

"This is Detective Sam Purdy of the Boulder Police Department. Just find
him, please. Patch me through. I'll wait. Hurry, it's a police
emergency." Less than a minute later, Chief Brian Long of the Ouray
Police Department came on the line. The connection was questionable and
both voices crackled. "Sam, nice to hear from you.

What's up?"

"We may have a break, Brian. I know you know stuff that I don't know.
That's fine. But you need to tell me if any of what I've got here is
important. Okay?"

"Tell me what you have."

"We have a middle-aged white male--sorry, I don't have a better
description than that--traveling with a medium-size long-haired
brown-red dog, possibly a setter or a retriever, driving a
burgundy-and-tan 'ninety- one Ford Bronco with Utah plates, last seen in
northern New Mexico in the company of one of the principals in this Utah
sexual-harassment lawsuit that you heard so much about a few days ago."
A long pause was filled with static and a prolonged, fractured hum.
"Well, whattya know? That is interesting. It may be-- let me repeat, may
be--somebody I've already talked to, Sam. Can't say for sure. After the
murder, we canvassed the whole valley for sightings of unfamiliar dogs
and cars with Utah plates.

Came up with a few of each. This guy had both. His dog is a retriever, a
red one. The guy's in his early to mid-fifties--is that still considered
middle- aged? His name is--wait a second, let me think--um, William
Price, I think. Lives in Lehi, a small town in Utah. But he wasn't
driving a Bronco; he was in a Cadillac Like I said, we talked to him. He
checked out. No priors. Owns his own business. Long family ties in Utah.

His alibi was fair to good. Other than that he had a dog and was from
Utah, there was nothing particularly suspicious about him. I'm sure I
can find him if I need him." Purdy was encouraged by the thoroughness of
the work that had already been done in Ouray. "I've run a check on that
Bronco already, Brian. It's registered to a self-storage company that's
located in Orem, Utah. Is that anywhere close to Lehi? You know your way
around Utah? You got a map where you are?"

"Yeah, hold on a second." Long leaned across the front seat and pulled a
compact road atlas from the glove box of his department Cherokee.
Purdy's anxiety leapt into an even higher gear the second Long said,
"Whattya know? Orem's right next door to Lehi, Sam. Right next door."
Sam told Long that he was feeling suspicious about all the coincidences
and that he was going to go to New Mexico to find Lauren. He promised to
stay in touch. He clicked off the call and then phoned the motel and the
comedy club in Taos and left instructions with their owners to call
Detective Lucy Tanner at the Boulder Police Department the second Teresa
Crowder showed up. He phoned Lucy Tanner about his plans and told her
he'd check in with her the second he got to New Mexico. Sam again called
Alan Gregory, who was waiting by the phone. When Sam said he was heading
to New Mexico, Alan said he would be ready to go in five minutes. On his
way out of town, Sam picked Alan up at his house in east Boulder. They
took turns cursing the immense distance to Denver's new airport. The
airport's tent roof was intended to evoke the jutting peaks of the
Rockies but loomed instead like an amusement park in the distant plains,
so far away from the metropolitan area that it seemed fanciful to
associate it with Denver, let alone the distant mountains. Purdy drove
them right to the top-level departure curb, flashed his badge at one of
the Denver cops working airport security, placed a hand on his shoulder,
spoke into his ear for half a minute, and then gave him the keys to the
car. He pushed Alan through the glass doors into the terminal. They
descended a long escalator to the main floor. Sam cut into line, flashed
his badge at a ticket agent, checked his small bag, and got tickets. The
two men ran downstairs, where they boarded an underground train to a
distant concourse. They jogged straight to the remote commuter gate and
boarded their flight to Farmington, New Mexico, with a good two or three
minutes to spare. "Slow down, Robin! There he is. Don't hit him! Jesus."

"Sorry.

I was checking my mirror for cops."

"We've got him again now. Don't get too close." Steep hogbacks and high
mesas dominated the barren plateau of the Navajo reservation. At
Shiprock, the Ford turned off New Mexico Highway 64 and headed almost
due north up U.S. Highway 666. Robin Torr was trying to keep the Toyota
a half-mile back on the sparsely traveled road. She had moved in closer
to her prey as they approached Shiprock and then copied the truck's turn
to the north onto Highway 666. She fell back again while the minicaravan
moved toward the Colorado border.

"Where the hell are they going?" Lauren mused, barely audibly, to
herself. "What the hell are we doing?" Robin responded. Lauren looked
over at her, and they both started laughing. When Robin pulled her
attention back to the road she realized she had swerved halfway across
the center stripe. An oncoming cattle truck began blaring an air horn at
her. She pulled abruptly back into her own lane. The wake of the passing
truck shook the little car. The sign on the right side of the road said,
"Welcome to Colorado."

"And what do you suggest I tell the New Mexico police? That is, if we're
still talking fucking New Mexico at all." Clear-air turbulence above the
Palmer Divide jolted the narrow commuter plane. Sam Purdy paused. He
gripped the arms of his seat, peeked outside, and wondered how the
plane's wings were managing to stay on.

"Farmington is right next to Four Corners, you know. In less than an
hour these people could all go from New Mexico to Arizona or Utah or
Colorado--and back again. So let's say we get lucky and we even discover
what state they're in. We call the state cops and we tell them that
there's this guy who has been questioned-- and, basically, cleared--in a
Colorado murder and who is driving around in their state in his own car,
while visiting his own legal business. And, by the way, Trooper, his
traveling companion happens to be a justice of the United States Supreme
Court. "And I'm gonna suggest that the police do what? Pull them over?

Search their car? For what? On what grounds? Sorry, Alan, we ain't got
shit that'll interest the police in New Mexico or any other state,
especially with Lester Horner riding shotgun in that car. If they were
in Boulder, even I wouldn't dare to stop them based on what we have."
Alan wasn't surprised by either Purdy's answer or his sarcasm. But he
had been hoping for some police magic, for Sam to do one of those
special things that cops can do that ordinary citizens don't know
anything about. Turbulence yanked the plane in an abrupt astral
direction and shushed the cabin. Purdy checked the wings again. Alan
said, "Do you think this guy has already kidnapped Teresa?" Purdy looked
out the window at the Front Range of the Rockies. He thought he could
see the Air Force Academy chapel. "The truth?" He turned back to Alan,
who was crammed into a knee-crushing seat across the aisle. Alan nodded.

"I think what you think. I think Lauren's sister is already dead.

Although everything we've got is circumstantial, it sounds to me like
William Price is our guy. And if you take a close look at his record, up
until now he hasn't shown any particular inclination to age his victims
before he kills them." In a somber, disbelieving voice, Alan said, "This
is going to devastate Lauren, Sam."

"I know. I hope we're wrong, but if we're not, we'd better be there with
her when she finds out." By noon the sun glowed high in the southern
sky, cutting sandstone-colored ribbons through the breaking clouds above
the southwest corner of Colorado. Robin Torr shifted her sun visor from
the windshield to the side window and squinted through her sunglasses to
locate the dot on the horizon that she hoped was the big burgundy
Bronco. Lauren sat mute beside her, entranced by her fears and by the
stunning buttes and imposing rock towers of the southernmost edge of the
Ute Mountain Tribal Park. Soon they approached a road that headed west
to the town of Towaoc, a place neither of them knew existed, and, not
knowing what else to do, Robin followed Price and Homer's car as it
headed up the slope of Sleeping Ute Mountain. The truck stopped in front
of a nondescript building thai housed the Cultural Research and
Education Center of the Ute Mountain Tribal Park. "Act like you're
looking for something. Don't let them see your face." Each of the women
twisted away and bowed her head, allowing her long hair to shroud her
face. They listened to a door slam in the Bronco. Seconds later,
another. Then voices, they couldn't tell whose. Lauren chanced a glance
out the window. The men were disappearing into the building. The dog was
tied to a post near the door. She released her seat belt and said, "I
want to see inside that truck. I'm going for a walk."

"Bullshit, Lauren. If they see you, they'll never forget you with that
stupid cane. I'll go take a look." She struggled into her jacket.
"Shit," she muttered. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

"All you're doing is going for a walk." She shot a caustic look at
Lauren. "Yeah, right, Polly anna." The air was cold, and the dry winds
pierced her jeans. Robin hurried to close her jacket. She stuffed her
hair into the neck of her jacket, pulled the collar high around her
ears, and wished she had packed a hat. The Bronco was dusty and creaked
quietly. The breeze gusted and whistled as it snaked through a solitary
pifion. Robin looked over at the dog. In response to her glance, it
wagged its tail, clearing an arc in the red dust. The Bronco's windows
were darkly tinted and filmed with grit, but even from five feet away
Robin could see that the vehicle was packed full of something. She saw
square shadows and flat planes through each of the windows as she walked
past. On the back bumper she recognized the simple emblem of the Ute
Mountain Tribal Park on a decal that read

"Friends of the Park." She knew that she would have to walk directly in
front of the car in order to see through the windshield into the front
seat. That meant she had to pass within a few feet of the dog. Has this
happy dog, she wondered, watched people die? She stooped and held out
the back of her hand for the dog's perusal, then began to pet the animal
while she strained to see inside the building. She couldn't tell where
the men had gone. She pulled the dog's collar around and read the tag.
"Hi, my name is Satchel. I belong to W Price." Below the names of the
dog and its owner were a phone number and an address in Lehi, Utah. She
shivered and reflexively glanced back at the door. As she stood, the dog
stood with her. Robin turned to the truck. The tint on the windshield
was much lighter than the tint on the rest of the glass. From her
vantage point it appeared that almost half the cargo area behind the
front seats was filled with a single large black trunk. The rest of what
she could see seemed to consist of camping supplies and unmarked boxes.
She exhaled.

Not much to go on. Lauren had cracked open a window of the car. She
heard the door of the building creak before she saw the shadowy light
change behind Robin. She gasped, and immediately covered her mouth with
her hand. The two men were approaching Robin. Instinctively, Robin
lowered herself back down to the dog and rubbed a spot on her neck below
her collar. Satchel strained her head around to try to locate her master
without having to give up the kind touch of this stranger. Robin's heart
drummed. What do I do? Do I turn? Do I pretend they're not there? What
would I do if this happened outside the grocery store in Salt Lake City?

Robin turned her head but didn't actually look up. She smiled. "Is this
your dog? She's real sweet."

"Yeah. She's a good dog." The man's voice was like muted thunder; it
bellowed deep and twanged her bones. He stooped right beside Robin and
undipped the lead from Satchel's collar.

His jean-covered hips and hers touched momentarily. Robin fought panic.

She stood to remove herself from proximity to him and said "Bye," more
to Satchel than to the men, and without making eye contact she retreated
through the door into the tribal education center. Lauren took her hand
from the horn of the Toyota and exhaled loudly. She thought, We're going
to lose them now. Damn. * The Bronco rumbled to life. It backed up, then
took off down the same road on which it had arrived. Despairing at the
departure of the Bronco, Lauren grabbed her stick and joined Robin Torr
inside the building. She found Robin in the middle of a conversation
with a weathered man who she assumed was a Ute. He was telling Robin
that years ago, in the early sixties, the men who had just left had
befriended his brother at BYU. With his brother's blessing the men had
been coming to the park for years, digging at a few minor sites in Lion
Canyon near the cliff dwellings. They were two of only a handful of
people who had permits for long-term research on the tribal lands.

Lauren piped in that she would love to see an actual dig, and began
negotiating to arrange a special tour in the park with a Ute Indian
guide. The man explained that visitors were not allowed in the park
without a guide and that special tours were usually reserved for a
minimum of five people. Lauren pulled out her wallet and told him she
would be happy to pay for five special tours. He gladly took her money,
told the women where they could buy some food and water in Towaoc, and
instructed them to meet their guide at the Ute Mountain Tribal Park
Visitors Center in a converted gas station on Highway 666 in about an
hour. "Please don't argue with me. I'm going to get us a car and I have
to call Boulder and see whether Lucy has heard from New Mexico since we
got on board this aerial roller coaster. Maybe Lauren has called. Or
maybe her sister has shown up in Taos. The guy behind me on the plane
told me that the best restaurant in all of Farmington is this little
Mexican place at the airport, Senor Whats-its. Your job is to go get us
some food--a lot of it--while I go do what I have to do."

"Sam, I'm not hungry." "Alan," Purdy said evenly, his eyebrows arched,
"I don't give a fuck. Later on, when you are hungry, it may just not be
convenient for us to stop at McDonald's. Just do it." He looked across
the small terminal. "That's it over there. Senor Pepe's. Remember, I
want a lot of food. At least a couple of meals' worth. The guy said to
try the crab enchiladas. And I like tamales and I like green chile."

"Crab enchiladas? In the middle of the desert?"

"The restaurant's in an airport. Maybe they fly the rucking crabs in
first-class." Purdy shook his head as though he were talking with an
idiot and made his way to the nearest bank of pay phones. Alan caught up
with Sam fifteen minutes later at the Hertz counter. The bag Alan
carried away from the restaurant was bigger than his carry-on from the
plane. Purdy saw him coming. "This is Trudy. She remembers them from
this morning. Lauren's still got that cane. What did she do to her leg,
anyway?" Alan dodged the question. He grinned at Trudy. Trudy seemed
pleased. "Do you remember anything else?" Purdy answered for her; "No,
she doesn't." Annoyed, Alan faced him. "What did you find out from
Boulder? Anything?"

"They're not in New Mexico. They're back in Colorado. They followed
these two guys to the Ute Mountain Ute Indian reservation. They called
my office from there. The guys they're following apparently have a
longstanding permit to do archaeological research on the cliff
dwellings, or near the cliff dwellings, or whatever, on the
reservation."

"You mean Mesa Verde?" "That's what I asked. No. Lauren told
Lucy--Detective Tanner--it was the Ute Mountain Park. It's on tribal
land, not federal land. Lucy got the impression Lauren was quoting from
something she was reading." Trudy looked up from her keyboard with a
trained smile. "Did you know we're quite close to the Ute Mountain Park?
Would you gentlemen like a brochure? And a map?" She looked down and
pecked a few more times at her keyboard. "And would a Ford Tempo be okay
today? I have a nice red one." Alan said, "Please, not a Tempo. I hate
Tempos." He'd momentarily forgotten that Purdy's police-issued vehicle
was a Tempo.

"We'll take the Tempo," Purdy said to Trudy, eyeing Alan critically. "I
like Tempos." Alan wondered why Purdy had bothered to ask him along on
this trip, but he kept the question to himself. Instead, he said, "Any
word from Taos, Sam?" Purdy shook his head gravely. In apparent
consonance with his character and in deference to a worn set of shock
absorbers on his pickup, the Ute guide drove with admirable patience as
he led Robin and Lauren past the dramatic vault of Chimney Rock and into
the spacious canyon of the Mancos River. The sun had already begun to
drop to the west by the time the Ute guide pulled his Chevy pickup to
the side of the two-lane dirt-and-gravel road that bisected the tribal
park. This section of the canyon of the Mancos River was wide and flat.

The mesa tops to the north and south were carved like fanciful castles.

The Ute Mountain Tribal Park attracts relatively few visitors. A million
tourists a year may visit Mesa Verde National Park, while only a few
thousand find the more remote Ute Mountain Park. But the same ancient
people who inhabited and inexplicably deserted Mesa Verde also developed
their enduring culture and built spectacular cliff dwellings in the land
of the modem Ute Mountain Utes. The Ute Mountain Tribal Park is less
accessible, more primitive, and less studied than its northern neighbor.

It is no less majestic. In late autumn there are days when the Ute
Mountain Tribal Park draws no tourists at all. The dirt-and-gravel road
that snakes off Highway 666 to the ruins is quiet, the potsherds and
dust undisturbed, the Anasazi petroglyphs and Ute pictographs
unexamined, and the cliff dwellings and ruins as lonesome as during the
centuries before their rediscovery. "It's so desolate," Robin said. "But
pretty spectacular," added Lauren. She was awed by the desert canyon
that was surrounded by rock- rimmed buttes and sprawling mesas and
spectacular stone towers that seemed to have been carved from mountains
of red sand. The mesa tops and the floors of the canyons that hugged the
listless Mancos River were the only areas that supported vegetation. The
sky above was the soft blue of a baby's eyes. Before climbing in his
truck to lead the women into the park, the young Ute had told them they
were going to stop and see some ruins in the Mancos River Canyon prior
to heading to the archaeological dig site, farther east in Lion Canyon.

Lauren had protested. She argued that they wanted to go directly to the
dig. The Ute told her simply that his boss had told him to give the men
time to get their camp set up without being disturbed. That was that. If
it wasn't too dark when they left the archaeological site, then perhaps
they would stop on the way back up the canyon and see some of the
petroglyphs and pictographs at the site of the torched hogan of the Ute
chief Jack House--"but probably not." The Ute guide said that he wanted
to be on the dirt road out of the park by dark. As the truck in front of
them proceeded farther into the park, Lauren turned to Robin and said,
"Why are they here, Robin? I mean, really, why are they here?"

"I don't know. They're amateur archaeologists. It's not an uncommon
pastime among Mormons. There are a lot of LDS who scour around old
Indian sites hoping to find evidence of the Lamanites and the Nephites."
She touched the brake pedal to try to escape a cloud of dust thrown up
by the pickup. "I think the real question continues to be: Why are we
here, Lauren?" Lauren knew the answer to that. "Because as long as we
know where they are, they can't hurt my sister." In a kind voice, Robin
said, "Their reason for being here, I think, is more compelling." She
fiddled unsuccessfully with the radio. A station from Cortez drifted in
and out, something country-and-western. "At least it's pretty here. You
know, I think at first, when we left Farmington, I was kind of
disappointed about not going to Taos. I was looking forward to seeing
Taos for some reason. I don't kftow why, I just really was. I've never
been to New Mexico before. After we found your sister, I was secretly
hoping I could talk you guys into going to Santa Fe before we went back
to Utah. But, you know, fate isn't always unkind. I've always wanted to
see these Anasazi ruins, too. I never really thought I would. Wiley's
restrictions on travel are pretty severe. He doesn't do luxury and he
doesn't do primitive. This is primitive. He would want a tram and a
Ramada Inn." She rubbed the back of her neck, sore and stiff from the
waxing and waning exhilaration of the day. Lauren longed to talk with
Alan. He would understand her need to save Teresa. He would hold her. He
would let her go again. She had insisted that Robin twice describe the
black trunk in the back of the Bronco. Each time she dug for new
details.

Robin wasn't cynical enough to share Lauren's fear about its contents.

Lauren didn't press the matter--couldn't. Maybe with Alan. She needed
room for her fear. But she couldn't stop thinking about it. She thought,
over and over. The case is big enough to hold Teresa. They have her.

She's dead. She's not dead. He loves me. He loves me not. As a child,
she had always tried to count the petals of the daisies before she
plucked them, one by one, and let them fall to the grass. She had always
needed to know how it would come out in the end. Now was no different.

In front of her, the Chevy stopped abruptly in a sliver of stark light.

The young Ute got out of the truck and walked toward the Toyota. R bin
Tore- and the Ute, who had introduced him- elf as Ransom Gray, made a
compelling pair as they began walking a worn path toward the ruins at
Train Rock. Robin stretched naturally to match the guide's easy stride
down the trail that sloped gently from the road toward the Mancos.

Lauren had declined to accompany them. She remained suspicious of her
leg and felt anchored to the car by her fatigue. "Please make it quick,
Robin. I want to catch up with that Ford as soon as possible. Okay?" she
had pleaded as her friend left the car. Robin had nodded before jogging
over to Ransom. From her roost in the front seat, Lauren watched them
descend the trail and minutes later climb to the base of a stunning rock
formation across the canyon. She could see their destination above their
heads--a set of ruins perched on top of a series of rocks across the
river. The rock formation bore the vague shape of a locomotive and
freight cars. About thirty minutes later, Ransom walked Robin back to
the Toyota, then climbed into his Chevy and drove east down the wide
dirt road that traversed the huge park. Lauren had fallen asleep while
Ransom and Robin were gone. One side of her face was red and creased.

She asked, "How was it up there?" Robin said, "The ruins are
spectacular. And there are artifacts--potsherds--everywhere, all over
the ground. I'm definitely coming back when we have more time. Ransom
said that if I'm willing to rappel he'll show me some ruins almost
nobody gets to see." She paused and turned her head toward Lauren.

"Rappel means ropes, doesn't it?" Lauren nodded. Robin squinted at
something on the road ahead and pursed her lips. "Oh, well, why not,
huh?" Some levity entered her voice. "What was fun is that he wanted
advice about his girlfriend. He's a nice kid. He lives in Cortez, north
of here, on that highway we were on. His girlfriend's an Anglo named
Cindy. He sees me as an expert on Anglo girls. It's all kind of cute."
As they drove east, the dirt road began a gradual climb out of the
canyon floor and up the side of a mesa that rimmed Johnson Canyon and
Lion Canyon. The shadows of the scrub and sagebrush that reached out to
the east were noticeably longer than before. The vehicles traversed a
series of switchbacks before they reached the top of the mesa southeast
of the river. The mesa top was thick with dense forests of juniper and
pinon. The sweet smells of evergreen saturated the dry air. An eastern
breeze rustled the trees. After driving a few more minutes. Ransom
pulled his truck to the edge of a promontory and stopped. The entire
southwestern landscape seemed to be visible. Sleeping Ute Mountain
dominated the bright western sky, the sharp, steep mountains of the La
Plata hovered above Mesa Verde to the north, and the carved volcanic
ruins near Shiprock, New Mexico, framed the south. Ransom watched the
faces of his guests for a few minutes, then drove to the juncture of
Lion and Johnson canyons. He leaned his head out the window, gestured
into the adjacent abyss, and called out, "Lion Canyon." The women pulled
themselves from the car and made their way to the edge of the cliff.

Ransom followed. Robin and Lauren gaped down at the steep stone walls,
at the stunning ruins Ransom called Eagle's Nest and Lion House. The
colors--the bleached blond rock of the cliff dwellings, the red
sandstone, the gray-greens of the pinons and junipers, the browns of the
soil--were muted and in transition, fighting to find the right blend of
day hues and night hues to meld into a balance for dusk. But Lauren
hardly noticed the beauty. In a small clearing she had spotted the last
direct rays of the day dancing off the burgundy top of a big 4x4. She
was transfixed. "Gotcha," she said under her breath. She searched the
surrounding ground with her eyes. The narrows at the entrance to Lion
Canyon were dense with sagebrush and grasses. A solitary cottonwood that
had already shed its leaves stood sentinel at one end. But she didn't
see Lester Horner. She didn't see the damn red dog. She didn't see Will
Price. And, despite scrutinizing a wide perimeter around the truck, she
couldn't see the big black case. Robin stood at her left shoulder and
faced the canyon. She, too, saw the Ford. She said into the wind, her
words blown back in her face, "Aren't you scared? Even a little bit?"
Lauren turned to her friend and hugged her with her free arm. Their
untied hair gusted out and wove together. She said, "Robin, I'm so
terrified that I'm afraid I'm going to pee on myself." Robin's shoulders
slackened. "You seem so determined. I was afraid you weren't scared."

"It's my DA face. And my MS face, I guess. You know, in my work I deal
with some real creeps. I tell myself before I go into an interrogation
room with some asshole who has just brutalized some kid or raped some
woman, I tell myself he's just scum. But sometimes, when I actually let
myself feel how monstrous he really is, I want to run for my life--just
run. And sometimes, instead, I have this impulse to go berserk and
scratch out his eyes with my fingernails, and I want to watch him die.

Those feelings--those crazy feelings--I think they're because I know I'm
already too late to save his last victim. But this time it's different.

"I'm so scared this time because I don't know whether my little sister
is his latest victim or is about to become his next one. I don't know
whether she's been kidnapped and stuffed into that trunk, or murdered
and stuffed into that trunk, or if she's sitting on the plaza in Taos
right now sipping a margarita. I'm just afraid I'm too late. There's a
big part of me that doesn't want to see what's in that black case. I
don't want to go down and talk with those men. I want to run. But I have
to make sure they don't have Teresa with them. Believe me, I'm praying
that I'm wrong about everything." Robin took Lauren's hand. "If you're
right, we're confronting one, maybe two murderers. If you're wrong,
we're merely going to have to admit to tracking a U.S. Supreme Court
justice across two states because we thought he was a madman. But for
whatever it's worth, I'm with you--all the way. This one's your call.

I'll go ask Ransom to lead us down there. At least we'll have us a
witness." On the drive west from Farmington onto Navajo lands, then
through Shiprock, and finally north into Colorado, Purdy ate all of his
lunch and, with his friend's consent, most of Alan's as well. Alan's
anxiety was accelerating while Sam's was diminishing. Sam was on the
hunt, in his element. Alan fought despair over Teresa's fate and
gut-ache fear for Lauren. "This tribal policeman is going to meet us
outside the reservation and take us in to find them, right, Sam?"

"Yeah.

That's what Lucy told me she arranged from Boulder."

"What did she tell them to get them to agree to help?"

"I don't know for sure. But she said Brian Long--the police chief from
Ouray--helped her out. Lucy's pretty imaginative. She might have even
tried telling them the truth. But knowing her, I doubt it. So please let
me do the talking. I can promise you, from personal experience with your
act, I'm a much more convincing liar than you are."

"And what do we do with these people when we catch up with them?"

"Depends. When we get to the visitors center, I'll call Boulder and see
if Lauren's sister has shown up in Taos. If she hasn't, then our first
job is to find her. Or her body. If we find either one, we have us a
delicate situation, given the presence of Justice Horner.

But I don't think that'll happen. I think her body's someplace in or
around Taos. So I think what we do is we get Lauren and her lawyer
friend from Utah, and we make sure that they're safe. We give this guy
from Lehi assurance that we're on him like white on rice until we know
for sure he's not holding Teresa. And we hope we can find something to
link him to all these murders."

"Lauren's and Teresa's safety comes first, Sam."

"Absolutely." The Ute Mountain Ute tribal policeman wasn't waiting alone
at the visitors center across the road from the unmarked entrance to the
tribal park. He was with Chief Brian Long of the Ouray Police
Department. Long leapt from the passenger seat of the tribal-police car
and ran to the rental car as soon as he recognized Purdy's face through
the windshield. Long said, "It's him. It's Price, Sam."

"What? Whattya got?" Alan's heart sank at the news. He wanted them to be
on a wild-goose chase. He didn't want Lauren to be on the tail of a
murderer. Long introduced the tribal policeman, who had ambled up to
join the rendezvous. Alan and Sam got out of their car. Long started to
explain: "The murder scene at the Wiesbaden showed no traces of dog
hair--none in the water in the hot springs, none in her room. And there
were no fresh dog prints close to the enclosure where Rachel was killed.

Nothing developed in any of the forensics to link Rachel's killing with
the other two murders. "But remember, I told you that we did track down
a few people in town who were traveling with dogs? One of whom, this
William Price, also was driving a car with Utah tags. Well, while I was
interviewing all these people last week, I played with their dogs and
kind of accidentally managed to pull hairs from each of them. At that
point, I was still hoping we would find dog hairs in the water from the
tub and maybe we could get a match. I even got casts of paw prints that
one of the dogs left in the flower beds outside the house where it was
staying. That wasn't Price's dog, though--I just got hair from his dog.

Anyway, although I didn't expect anything to come of it, mostly because
the evidence was gathered slightly, well, unconventionally, I sent all
this stuff to the FBI to see if they could get a match between these
hairs I pilfered and the hairs they took off the sleeve of that woman
who had her throat slashed in Virginia. A couple of hours ago I heard
back. The hairs match. It turns out that a dog of the same breed and
color as William Price's dog was in that park in Virginia when that
woman had her throat slit. And we know that Price's dog was in Ouray
when Rachel was killed. So the way I'm looking at it, William Price is
my prime suspect for both murders. It can't be confirmed until the FBI
gets final DNA confirmation of the dog-hair match. But it's him, I know
it's him. Lucy, that detective in your office, told me you were on your
way here, so I got a friend of mine to fly me down to Cortez in his
plane." He kicked his boot in the dust. "What about the FBI? Don't they
want in on this?" asked Sam. "I called them in Denver. They want the
final DNA analysis, and they're arguing about whether this should be
handled out of the Farmington field office. I don't much feel like
waiting for them to sort out their turf battles. Especially not with
your DA friend chasing Price. By the way, when I talked to Detective
Tanner in Boulder, she said to tell you the other sister hasn't shown
up. You wanna wait for the feds?" Purdy said, "Like hell." Alan had a
hard time keeping his mouth shut. Purdy headlined the obvious. "Brian,
you know there's a Supreme Court justice in there, apparently a friend
of William Price?" Purdy tilted his head toward the tribal park. Brian
Long shrugged. "I just hope he's not involved. I've never arrested even
a regular judge before." He turned his head away from the group. "But I
don't think the procedure's any different, is it?" Purdy directed his
attention to the Ute Mountain cop. "How far in are we going? How long
will it take us?" The Ute rubbed his left eye and tugged a Colorado
Rockies baseball cap down on his brow. "Thirty, maybe thirty-two miles.

Good gravel roads. A little wash- boarded. Take us maybe forty-five,
fifty minutes."

"How much light do we have left?" The Indian faced the western sky and
scrutinized the position of the sun behind Sleeping Ute Mountain. "Maybe
a little more than that, maybe a little less," he said.

"This is your land, your jurisdiction. You okay with what we're doing?"

"Because of the justice, you mean?"

"Yeah." Purdy was stone-faced. The Ute spit into the dust. "Don't bother
me none. Won't be the first time justice has been arrested around here."
W ill Price and Lester Horner had set up their samp in the usual spot, a
parched clearing a few dozen yards from the entrance to Lion Canyon. As
was their custom, Price had driven the Bronco all the way to the
southern-facing cliffs and unloaded the supplies--which this time
included the black trunk--that he would later lug up a ladder to the
dig. He had then driven the truck back to the spot where Horner would
pull out what he needed to set up camp. The campsite was flanked to the
east and south by a few scraggly junipers, which served to blunt the
force of the sharp breezes that they knew from experience could knife
down the stony canyon. The camp was only fifty yards from the partly
excavated kiva that Horner and Price had been working, on and off, for
almost six years. In the spring, during the runoff, flash floods could
make the crossing to the kiva tricky. Now, in the fall, the canyon floor
was dry. Dozens of ancient kivas--some excavated, most not-- dotted the
canyons and cliff dwellings of the Ute Mountain Tribal Park. As far as
Anasazi kivas went, the one to where Will Price lugged their supplies
was small and unspectacular. Only eleven feet in diameter, it sat on a
rock shelf twenty-five feet above the floor of Lion Canyon. It had been
built and abandoned long before the other, larger kivas in Lion Canyon.
Experts in Provo had told Price and Horner that the kiva's location, so
close to the canyon's entrance and only twenty-five feet above the
arroyo, probably rendered it too vulnerable to both enemies and flash
floods. Unlike the newer, more spectacular cliff dwellings built above
it nearer the canyon rim, the kiva wasn't in a protected rock alcove.
The archaeologists hypothesized that the ancient ones abandoned this
kiva when they constructed the sheltered dwellings farther into the
canyon at Eagle's Nest and Tree House. The age of the site and the fact
that it had never before been completely excavated accounted for the
scientific and spiritual interest of Price and Horner. The older Indian
sites, they theorized, were more likely to show evidence of the
migration of the followers of Lehi--the ancestors of the Lamanites and
the Nephites--to the New World hundreds of years before the birth of
Christ, as chronicled in the Book of Mormon. The rich panorama of
petroglyphs that had been discovered over the years in Mesa Verde and on
Ute Mountain Ute land had drawn Will Price's interest like a magnet.
He'd long maintained to his friend that the most likely source of
evidence of the substantiation of the migration of the lost tribes of
Israel to the New World would come from symbols pecked laboriously into
rock. "Our role is to close the distance between faith and fact, Lester.
We'll do that on our hands and knees so that others with less faith can
do it with their eyes." Now they believed that they had it. On their
most recent expedition, the one shortly after Blythe Oaks's death, the
men had begun to uncover and photograph a segment of collapsed wall that
had once formed the southernmost curve of a kiva, a small, round
ceremonial room dug below ground level. On a narrow band of rock behind
a crumbled section of a banquette were fragments of small petroglyphs.
The designs pecked into the rock were in various states of
disintegration, ranging from negligible to severe, but the images hadn't
been vandalized. Price's consultants at BYU had sharpened his
photographs with computer enhancement and had begun to reconstruct the
pictures that had been notched into the rock wall over a thousand years
before. Encouraging him, they had told him where to dig next. When the
men settled down into the kiva, each braced against a pilaster of stone
and brick, Will Price showed Lester Horner the sketch from BYU. Then
they got down to the tedious work of excavation. Satchel lifted her head
and cocked an ear.

Will Price noticed and listened himself. At first he heard nothing but
the wind. Then a distant vehicle. Some tourists leaving the park. He
worked slowly, waiting for darkness. He needed the daricness. He was
philosophical while he worked. "These kivas, this is where they kept
their legends, Lester. This is where they told the old stories, the
special stories. And this is where our story will be told." The men were
on the banquette that rimmed the kiva a few feet above the floor, Horner
sitting cross-legged, alternately using his fingertips and a soft brush
on the edges of the collapsed wall; Price was on his knees, working with
brushes at the border of an image pecked into rock. A pair of
batteryoperated lanterns intensified the dim light in the depths of the
cutout room. Horner struggled to keep his excitement from causing him to
be careless with his tools. Although the justice considered himself a
scholar of the Book of Mormon, he had never done the detailed research
necessary to be an expert on what modern archaeologists would need to
find to verify the ancient record. His understanding of what the Book of
Mormon predicted about artifacts left by the Lamanites and the Nephites
was perfunctory, even elementary. But his friend Will was a lifelong
scholar of Mormon archaeology and had, over the years, developed a clear
sense of what the petroglyphs would look like to reflect the story of
the followers of the prophet Lehi as they left Jerusalem and traversed
the wilderness of the Arabian Peninsula before sailing to the New World
in 600 B.C. The geographic area that included Colorado and Utah was far
north of what the Book of Mormon referred to as

"Desolation" or "the Land Northward." Price and Horner were looking for
evidence of northern migration by the Lamanites sometime after they
annihilated the Nephites in battle around the fourth century A.D. "At
the end of the weekend, we'll get those big lights up here and we'll get
us a video record and a photo record, and we'll have a meeting with the
authorities and show some movies in the Church Administration Building.
How's that sound, Lester?"

"Like a ticket to heaven," said Horner, smiling. Satchel ran to the rim
of the kiva and barked. That's when Ransom Gray's quiet voice skipped
eerily off the kiva's stepped stone walls. "Anybody up there?

I'm a Ute guide. And you got visitors." Will Price said, "Darn it to
heck," and sounded like he meant it. A primitive but sturdy wooden pole
ladder over twenty feet long separated Ransom, Lauren, and Robin from
the elevated kiva. "I can't get up that," Lauren said, pounding her cane
into the dirt at the foot of the ladder, frustration spilling out of
her. "I'll help. You'll get up," said Ransom evenly. He handed Lauren's
cane to Robin Torr and stood behind Lauren as she placed her good leg on
the thick wood of the first rung. "I'll support you from below each time
as you move your good leg up a rung. Then you pull yourself up with your
arms and your strong leg. Got it?" Lauren tried. It worked. "Okay."

"Howdy." Price's voice was booming but pleasant as he greeted the three
visitors who appeared above him on the rim of the round room. Satchel
approached the women eagerly but sniffed close to Ransom only after he
held out his hand for inspection. Ransom said, "Hello. These women
wanted to see a dig. We won't disturb you long." He sounded apologetic.

The lanterns washed the three newcomers with light from their feet to
their knees. Their upper bodies were silhouetted against a sky that was
retreating from day to night. Price adjusted one of the lanterns, and
the halogen light sprayed across their faces. Immediately, he recognized
one of the women from the brief encounter on the porch outside tribal
headquarters. She was the one who had been playing with Satchel. He
didn't like the fact that she was here. Had she followed him? He thought
he had seen the Ute kid in the park before; he really was a guide. The
woman with the cane he didn't know, though she did look vaguely
familiar. "It's a surprise seeing you again. Miss." Will Price directed
himself to Robin, his words and his tone almost insisting on an
explanation. Lester Horner, eager not to have his anonymity disturbed,
and hoping that these visitors would get bored and leave, kept his back
turned and continued to brush at the rocks with his tools. "We heard
that you were archaeologists. The man at tribal headquarters said we
could visit your dig, see how it works. It's a great opportunity for us.

Thanks." Twenty minutes on a stair machine and I can't get my heart
beating like this, Robin reflected in disgust at her incipient panic.

The dirt from the rungs of the ladder was turning to a dusty red paste
on her sweaty palms. "We're not bothering you, are we?"

"Well, we are quite busy. Maybe just a few minutes won't hurt." He
shifted his gaze from one woman to the other. He locked his hard brown
eyes on Lauren, wondering. Do 1 know you? Why are you staring at me?
Lauren stood on the rim of the kiva. The command in her voice surprised
everyone, including herself. She recognized the tone she was employing
even before she knew exactly what she as going to say. She was at the
podium now, speaking in her opening-argument voice. She said, "I, for
one, didn't come all the way here to see you two gentlemen playing
archaeologist." Even Lester Horner turned and faced the visitors when he
heard that. "Hello, Mr. Justice," she said, acknowledging him, before
rotating her gaze back to his companion. "It's Mr. Price, isn't it?
Hello to you, too, Mr. Price." The sound of his name being spoken caused
Price to tense even further.

How does this woman know my name? Did the Utes give that out, too? Who
is she? What on earth do they want with us? "And who are you. Miss?"
Price was glad his voice was more robust than everyone else's. With its
thick fabric and full body, his voice could manage to package an
astonishing amount of rebuke without sounding the least bit snide. "I'm
a deputy district attorney." She paused and let the words settle.

Price's face stiffened, she thought. Horner looked befuddled and glanced
momentarily at his friend. "My name is Lauren Crowder, and I'm looking
for my sister. Her name is Teresa. Teresa Crowder." Horner dropped the
tool he was holding. Trouble, Will Price reflected. It's time to
institute Plan B. I ester Horner stood before he spoke. His knees
Tcracked loudly. He brushed dirt and sand off his clothing with his
grimy hands, then let his arms hang at his side. "What the heck's going
on here, Will?" Price surveyed Lauren's three-legged silhouette above
him. He absolutely did not want her speaking alone with Lester Horner.

As quietly as his voice could manage, he whispered to Horner, "There may
actually be something I need to discuss with this woman, Lester. It may
be a little sticky--about Blythe. You know, the accusations against her.

All in all, it's probably better that you not be part of it, given your
position. I hope you can understand what I mean. Trust me on this."
Horner felt confusion and anger. He was grateful that his friend was
willing to shield him, furious that he had somehow managed to get him
into a position where it was necessary. The justice addressed Lauren,
noting for the first time the resemblance between her and Teresa. "Ms.

Crowder, although I have no idea why you are here, given that I may be a
witness in the legal action your sister is contemplating, I don't feel
it's proper for me to engage in any discussions with you that may
involve her or her contact with Blythe Oaks. I will need to excuse
myself." Robin took a step forward. "My name is Robin Torr, Mr. Justice.

I'm Teresa Crowder's attorney. The action you've just mentioned has not
been filed. As soon as I have a chance to consult with my client, I'm
certain the whole thing will be dropped. You have my assurance of that.

There isn't a conflict."

"In my mind, Miss, your admission means that the investigation is still
active, and I judge it only proper to excuse myself from this
conversation. I suggest you consider the propriety of your presence here
as well, based on the current state of affairs rather than on your
ability to predict the future." Tore" thought, Great. I'm being lectured
on the ethics of my behavior by a Supreme Court justice, and I'm
supposed to ignore him? She opened her mouth to reply. But Price
interrupted and directed a question at Lauren. "May we discuss your
concerns alone. Miss. Crowder? Just you and I? I think that's the most
efficient way that, uh, we can come to an understanding. Because I won't
speak in front of your attorney friend, either." Price had two agendas:
He needed to know what Lauren knew, and he needed to split up the group.

Price turned to the Ute guide and said, "Ransom, why don't you take your
other guest on a visit to the big lodge above us. Give the lady and me
fifteen minutes or so?" Ransom Gray was eager to leave the tension in
this kiva behind. "Robin, you want to go up and see a cliff house? It's
close." Robin looked at Lauren, who noted the skepticism in her friend's
eyes. "It's okay, Robin. Too many people know we're here. Just don't go
far. I'd actually love to have a private chat with Mr. Price. And I'm
certainly not in any shape to hike somewhere else to do it."

"I'll wait for you in camp, Will," Horner said with some derision in his
voice. He began to climb up from the bottom level of the kiva. Lauren
didn't want anybody going back down into the canyon alone. "I don't
think so, Mr. Justice. I think until Mr. Price and I talk about where my
sister is, we all need to keep some distance between ourselves and those
cars down there." If Teresa is down there, she thought, I sure as hell
don't want you hightailing it out of this park with her. I'm tired of
chasing you jerks across this desert. Horner was startled at Lauren's
words. Where her sister is? What on earth is she talking about? "Well,
where exactly do you want me to go. Miss? I'm certainly not going to go
on a hike with the lawyer of the woman who has accused my dear friend of
dreadful things. She may be planning to use me as a witness, for
heaven's sake." Will, what have you done to get yourself involved with
this case? How do you even know Teresa Crowder? What could you know
about the accusations against Blythe ? Will Price completed a quick read
of the situation and saw an opportunity developing. Modifications to his
plan took shape in his mind as he spoke. "Lester, why don't you go on up
to the broken tower." In explanation to the two women on the rim of the
kiva, he said, "It's a decrepit ruin right above us." He faced Horner
again. "Take some tools with you. It's the other place we needed to do
some work this weekend, anyway." The broken tower above the kiva could
be reached only by a nearby ladder. Horner gazed at the ladder and
nodded reluctantly. The kiva was filling with gray-brown light and cold
shadows. The dwindling daylight remained sharper on the path that led
from the kiva to the large cliff dwelling high up on the canyon wall.

Ransom took Robin's hand and they climbed to the trailhead above the
kiva. "Call if you need anything, Lauren. We'll be close by," Robin
said, her tone reflecting her reluctance to accept the plan. To herself,
she muttered, "I don't like this." She kept reminding herself that
Lester Horner was a justice of the United States Supreme Court. Ransom
led her up the trail. Lester Horner began to pack some tools. Lauren
couldn't tell whether he was merely being methodical or whether his
dawdling was some sort of delaying tactic. Will Price seemed unconcerned
as the minutes passed. Finally, Horner appeared to be finished. He
lifted a small pack and grabbed one of the lights. Price stood. "You
know, I hate to admit it, but my old bladder is not going to make it
through our discussion, Miss. Crowder. Lester, do you mind staying with
my things for two minutes while I relieve myself?" He didn't wait for a
reply; he knew Horner wouldn't leave the dig unprotected. To Satchel, he
said, "Stay." Price then hurdled himself adroitly up from the banquette
to the top of a pilaster and exited the kiva onto the trail where Ransom
and Robin had gone. Horner wanted to ask Lauren why she thought Will
Price would have any idea where her sister was. He knew that asking
would not be particularly prudent, though, because he didn't know in
what position her answer would leave him. So he didn't ask. He lowered
himself to the dirt floor of the kiva to sit and wait. Lauren sat on the
upper rim of shaped rock, her cane across her lap. Above them, out of
their sight, Price darted up the trail. In a minute he reached the base
of the long pole ladder that led up the steep canyon face to the next
rock shelf. Ransom and Robin were already up the ladder, exploring the
big cliff dwelling above them. With every bit of strength he had in his
thick arms, Price yanked on the rungs and frame of the heavy pole
ladder. He was just able to pull the base out far enough so that the top
rung slid down the rock face to a position that was unreachable from the
shelf above. Immediately, Price bolted back down the trail. He slowed to
a walk as he reached the open rim of the kiva. "Go on, Lester. We'll try
to be brief," he called down to his annoyed-looking friend. Lauren noted
that Price's breathing had changed. She wrote it off to anxiety. This
asshole should be worried. Lester Horner climbed out of the kiva with
surprising agility, walked down a short path, and then pulled himself up
a nearby wooden ladder to the ruins of the small tower. From the upper
rim of the kiva, Lauren and Price watched Horner clear the top rung and
then disappear into the ruin. Lauren turned to Price, eager to press him
about the black trunk and about Teresa, and then gaped openmouthed as he
darted past her down the short path to the nearby ladder that Horner had
just ascended. In a single smooth motion, Price yanked it from position.

At the same instant, above her, she heard Lester Horner scream, "Oh, no.

Oh, no. No! Will, Will! What have you done?" Homer's head emerged over
the lip of the stone ledge, and he screamed, "The ladder! Will! No. NO!

Miss. Crowder, run, run!" Another scream echoed in the canyon. Robin
shouted, "Lauren? What's wrong? Are you okay? Damn it! We're on our way!

Hold on." Then, seconds later, Robin screamed again, "They moved the
ladder, Lauren. Shit! We can't get down." Teresa! Will Price walked back
to the kiva and sat so close to Lauren that she could smell his sour
breath as he said, "Not likely you're going to run, is it?" He flung her
cane out of the kiva into the canyon and said, "Now, let's have that
talk. You had some questions?" He noticed Satchel laying forlornly where
he had put her on stay, her snout nestled between her front paws. He
released her. "Okay. Good girl." Satchel waddled, tail wagging, right
over to Lauren, who had wrapped her arms around her upper body to try to
contain her panic. She tried to think. From above them, a shrill male
voice filled the canyon. "Miss. Crowder, she's alive. Your sister, she's
alive!" Teresa. In a resonant voice so deep that it shook her bones,
Will Price said, "For now, anyway. You know, you really shouldn't have
come here. It would have all been okay if you had just left us alone."
How much farther? Can you tell anything from that map?" Purdy had a
photocopied map of the Ute Mountain Tribal Park sitting on his lap. He
leaned across the front seat and checked the odometer. He raised the map
closer to his face. "I'd say we're halfway in, maybe a little more. The
Ute cop thinks we'll find everybody at this dig that Price and Horner
are working." Alan glanced at the dashboard clock, then, for
confirmation, at his watch. "That's going to take at least another
twenty or twenty-five minutes at this pace." The dusty pickup was still
fifty yards ahead. "Can't that guy speed up? There's not much light
left." Purdy, too, surveyed the dust cloud being raised behind the truck
in front of them. With a wisp of irony in his voice, he said, "My guess
is that he is hurrying."

"What do you think the chances are that the FBI will show up? Like with
a helicopter?" Purdy smiled to himself. "It's possible. Shit, anything
is possible with the FBI. But the problem is that the FBI always seems
to show up with too much of something. Too many people. Too many guns.
Too many experts. Most consistently, though, they show up after too much
time. So don't hold your breath waiting for the cavalry." He fumbled
behind him and pulled his automatic pistol from its holster. "We're all
right. We got us a good posse--three good cops in case things get rough,
and one marvelous shrink in case anybody gets real upset and needs to
talk." Sam Purdy was too preoccupied with the functioning of his weapon
to notice the dirty look flung his way by Alan Gregory. "Do you have any
idea how stubborn your sister is? My, my  ..." Price's tremulous voice
trailed off. Lauren thought she heard echoes of admiration in his words.
He rubbed at the hard gray stubble on his left cheek with his
fingertips. She could hear the crackle. She ran her tongue slowly over
her scummy teeth. "What do you want, Mr. Price? I'm not stubborn. Give
me back my sister and you can have whatever you want.

The lawsuit's dead. It's history. What else do you want? Name it. My
sister will say she made up everything." She fought an impulse to impale
her fingernails into his eyes and scream

"Bastard" until her lungs burned. "It's not what I want that's
important. You need to understand that. It's what the Lord wants. And in
the Lord's name, I need to know what you've learned so far." What had
Barley called them? D unites?

Yeah. God's Avenging Angels. "You mean what we've discovered to help
with the lawsuit? We haven't had too much success, I'm afraid--"

"No, not the lawsuit. Not that." He flitted his large fingers in a
dismissive gesture. "Not anymore. What's important is what you leaned
from Rachel Misker. In Ouray. I know you talked to her. I wish you
hadn't done that.

But you did. Your sister said she didn't even know you'd had a chat with
Rachel. I had a little trouble believing that. But it's irrelevant now.

Though I do need to know what Rachel told you before--"

"Before you killed her." Lauren immediately wondered if she had
interrupted him before he could finish the sentence the way he had
intended: before I kill you. Is that what he was going to say? "Before
she died," Price said. "What do I get for telling you about my
conversation with Rachel Baumann?"

"I'm afraid you're in no position to bargain. Miss. Crowder." Price's
voice was cordial, matter-of-fact. His posture was slackened. He looked
tired--maybe relieved, she thought. "If that's the case, Mr. Price, if
you're going to kill me anyway, then I guess I prefer to die with what I
know." He shook his head slowly. "How valiant. I'm impressed. But I
can't really permit that. I'm sorry. I think I'll have to go get your
sister. Maybe her presence will motivate you to be more forthcoming.
Excuse me." She had to stop him. "Ransom and Robin are going to get
help, Mr. Price."

"You're right. Eventually, they will get out of that ruin. There's a
trail up over the top of the canyon. It's a tough climb up to the mesa
and a long way back down this canyon, though.

Even if the Ute kid knows his way around in the dark, they won't get
back here for an hour or so. No matter how this goes, I'll be done in an
hour. You have my word on that. And my word is gold."

"Stop, then. Okay.

What do you want to know?"

"Tell me about your chat with Rachel. Why did you want to talk with
her?" Lauren took a deep breath. She explained about the BYU yearbooks
and the interviews that Pratt Toomey had done with some of Blythe Oaks's
old classmates and how Rachel's name had come up. "When Pratt was
murdered on the way to see her, we figured she might have known
something important. That's why I went to Ouray. To see what she knew."
She looked down at her hands. "You killed Pratt, didn't you?" Her tone
carried a drop of accusation, a wave of confusion. Why? Price already
knew all that Lauren was telling him. He had heard this much of the
story from Pratt before he shot him. "And what did Rachel tell you?"

"Not much. I was surprised by how little she knew. All she told me about
was this romantic girls' club that Blythe Oaks was at the center of
during her first couple of years in Provo. We thought she could tell us
about some overt lesbian behavior by Blythe, something that would give
us leverage with my sister's case. But she said she didn't know about
any. Just this 'romantic friends' thing that a number of the girls were
part of. She tried to explain the culture at BYU in the sixties. I
didn't really get it." Will Price shook his head. Of course you didn't
get it. That's the whole point. Lauren's story confirmed Rachel's
version of what the two had talked about. Almost exactly. Price was
smiling slightly, his gaze drowning in the darkness of the bottom of the
kiva. Rachel had assured him twice that all the secrets were safe. She
had been relaxed, celebratory even, telling her little story. She
thought she was going to live. The circle couldn't be open, though. It
had to be closed. He had to do his part for God. Rachel knew that. She
knew. Lauren shrank from Price's silent reverie. She pondered all that
she didn't know. She didn't know what shape her sister was in, why she
wasn't calling out. Is she drugged? Gagged? Dying? She didn't know why
it had grown so quiet above her. Where were Horner and Robin and Ransom?

She didn't know if Lester Horner could escape from that tower and get
some help. She didn't know what to make of Will Price's calm. She did
know that she was sitting, crippled, without her cane, on a
twenty-five-foot-high ledge, next to a man who had probably already
murdered at least two people over some piece of information that she had
come close to discovering. But had never discovered. "Why?" she asked,
her question more perplexed than prosecutorial. "Why did you kill Pratt
and Rachel?" Blythe , too, for all she knew. "Why did you bring my
sister here?" Why the hell didn't you just kill her in Taos? Price
considered answering, then ignored her. He was pondering his next move,
relieved that the knowledge had never escaped its exile in Ouray. At the
beginning, he had hoped to spare Horner. The Lord knew he had tried. Now
that wasn't possible. Too many dominoes had toppled. The risk to the
Church was too great. The alter native would be awful. Intolerable to
the Seventies, to the prophet. He said, "I brought your sister here as a
pawn. I was going to frame her for a murder. That's all. I thought the
Lord wanted me to go on with my life. Now that can't happen. Now that
you've showed up I can't use her at all. I'm afraid it's time for me to
finish my job, Miss. Crowder. Please stay here. Believe me, being
courageous won't do you any good." "No," Lauren said defiantly. She
tried to stand. To stop him. She took a single step toward the ladder,
toward her sister, stumbled, and fell. Price walked past her without
looking back. She crawled after him. She screamed, "Noooooo! Teresa,
run! Oh God, oh God." She heard the loud crunching of rubber on gravel
before she noticed the tops of a stand of juniper brighten on the
opposing mesa top. A jiggling beam of light was coming up the dirt road
leading to the promontory where Ransom had stopped his truck and pointed
out the view of Lion Canyon. Will Price, too, heard the crisp sound of
the approaching vehicles penetrate the canyon. He had pushed the ladder
back into position and was halfway up the ten rungs to the ruins of the
old tower. He turned and spotted the headlights. He guessed the worst,
calculated how much time he had to finish his job, decided it would be
just enough, and reached up for the next rung. Lauren screamed, "Help!

Help!" and waved her arms. She despaired that no one would see her
against the dark background of the shadowed cliff. If the vehicle's
windows were closed and some music was playing inside, the occupants
might not even hear her. She let herself hope it was Sam Purdy in the
car. High in the canyon, Robin cried out, "Look! Some- one's here. Help
us! Help!" Lauren waited desperately to hear her sister's voice.

Nothing. She told herself to breathe. She needed a beacon to draw the
attention of whoever was in the vehicles across the canyon. Could it be
Sam? Or maybe someone he had sent to help? She scrambled over the edge
of the rock ledge back into the kiva to retrieve the other lantern.

Price cleared the top rung of the ladder and hoisted himself into the
debris of the tower. It was empty. He shook his head, looked around at
the mess, and hissed, "Darn!" L ester Horner thought that if life were a
rope, Teresa Crowder was holding on to the last few inches. And tney
were frayed. The Anasazi tower where he had found her bound and gagged,
and apparently drugged, filled the highest and most exposed end of a
rock shelf that ran parallel to the one that held the small kiva below.

The bulk of the man-made portion of the wall of the two-story tower had
collapsed centuries ago, and the roughly round ruin that remained was
now little more than a repository of ancient stonemasonry. A natural
twenty-foot-long alcove slashed out horizontally into the rock at the
back of the shelf. The long alcove had been walled in by the Anazasi as
a granary, a storage area for food. It extended out past the edge of the
rock ledge that once supported the back of the tower. The last eight
feet of the alcove were exposed, hanging out over the depths of Lion
Canyon. At its widest, the gash in the wall was five feet deep. At its
highest, it extended four feet. Almost immediately upon discovering
Teresa Crowder, Lester Horner had freed her and dragged her up the
incline of crumbled rocks into the opening of the alcove. To make room
for himself between her and the entrance to the tower, he had edged her,
half awake, down the slash in the sandstone face. Slowly, carefully, he
had extended her horizontally into the exposed end of the granary, out
over the arroyo. Praying first that she wasn't already dying and then
that she would stay immobile, he grabbed an assortment of fist-sized
rocks to use as weapons and parked himself as a sentry in front of her,
waiting for Will Price's inevitable return. Teresa grew vaguely aware of
being alive. She felt an instant of dread that was textured with
memories. Each shallow breath filled her with the scent of green apples
and wet black soil. Her open eyes were washed with the pink and orange
of the desert sky, and her parched throat was pebbleti with grains of
sand and the dust of dry clay. With each gulp of cool night air the
apprehension in her heart grew more fertile. Through her diminishing
mental fog and the developing ink of night she watched the jagged
progress of the pickup truck silhouetted across the canyon. Instantly,
she knew. It's coming down the lane. Run. Now. She squeezed her eyes
shut tightly, then opened them again. She squinted and tried to count
the cases in the back. Run. Now. She pushed out from her perch and saw
the sky. I'm in a tree. She relaxed, constrained from fleeing farther by
space and jeopardy. If she moved, she was certain she would fall. If she
remained still--up here, in the dark--he wouldn't find her. She was
safe. Up here, in the orchard, she was safe. Quiet, now, Teresa. Wait.

Sometime during the day she had urinated on herself. It confused her.

Why'd you pee on yourself? The denim of her black jeans was wet and
sticky. The uric acid and the damp cold chafed her thighs and buttocks.

Now the discomfort focused her, helped her fight the malaise encouraged
by the chemicals roaming her brain. Her wrists hurt badly from being
bound together behind her, arid her shoulders ached from having been
stuffed in the trunk. Why'd you pee on yourself girl? Teresa had no
memory of the trunk. Clearly, though, she remembered the pickup. Down
the lane. And the orchard. And the Schlitz. If her thinking had been
lucid enough to make the distinction, she would have wondered whether
the shivers that traveled in rolling bursts up and down her body were
from the desert cold or from her anguish. Suddenly, in an instant of
awareness as clear as fresh water, she recognized the man with her as
Lester Horner. This isn't the orchard. Is it? Will Price hopped deftly
from the top rung of the ladder into the ruins of the tower and soon
spotted Horner crouching ten feet above him at the peak of a steep
fifteen-foot incline of loose rock and rubble. The man's deep voice
carried a ton of frustration. "Come on. Where is she, Lester?"

"Will, what have you done?" Horner despaired at the answer he might
receive.

"What have I done? I've been protecting the Church from its enemies,
that's all. I'm doing the Lord's work. Joseph's work. Brigham's work."

"Why this woman? What did you want with her?"

"She's nothing, Lester.

But she wanted to expose Biythe's sins, and that, that was something I
couldn't allow. They would have used Biythe's abominations to ruin you
and destroy your calling. You know that. I asked Blythe to leave
Washington. As a priest. For your sake. She laughed at me. She laughed
at me, Lester. Then I tried to scare her into leaving Washington. But
she wouldn't budge. I had to stop her from defiling your position on the
Court with her abominations against the Lord." Horner gripped a rock and
squeezed it until the flesh on his hand hurt. "Blythe? You killed
Blythe, Will?" His voice carried the hollow tones of his incredulity.

"Why, Will? Why?" Price was weary. He didn't really have the stamina for
this role anymore. He felt grateful that Horner apparently had not even
heard about Rachel Misker's death. At least they wouldn't have to
discuss that. "Necessary, Lester. She was a homosexual. She danced with
Satan. I needed to protect you from that ever becoming public. I needed
to protect the Church from that becoming public. I warned you about her,
Lester. And I warned her."

"You're nuts. Will." Price looked at his feet, then back at Horner.
"Nuts? Not me. But it's ironic. That's what they said about Joseph
Smith, too, isn't it?" Horner scoffed, his tone flush with ridicule. "So
now you're elevating yourself to the same plane as the prophet?"

"You didn't have any trouble seeing yourself on that path, did you? But
this is no time to argue about the nature of our respective journeys to
the celestial kingdom, Lester. Not anymore. Come on down, please. It's
all over for us. Satan's tornado has cut too wide a swath."

"Leave her alone. Will. Don't sin anymore." Price's robust tone became
clipped and hostile. "Her? This isn't about her. Don't you get it? She
was just a tool of the enemies of the Church. And today I was going to
turn the tables. She was going to be my tool. That's all.

All along, I thought I could protect the Church by protecting you.

But--though it breaks my heart--now I know I need to protect the Church
from you and your sins as well." He kicked the sun-bleached dust at his
feet. His voice grew sharp, as though his words were stitched together
with razor wire. "So don't! Don't preach to me about sinning, Lester.

The sins that threaten our Church are yours. Your sins have threatened
the preparations for the coming of the Lord. Not mine. Come down here.

Now. I'm a tired man. Please don't make me come up there."

"My sins?" Horner was genuinely puzzled. Price shook his head in
exasperation and began to climb the incline of rubble toward Lester
Horner. Horner hurled a rock and missed his friend's head by inches. A
second struck Price a glancing blow to his upper back. He grunted and
raised a forearm to protect his face. "My sins. Will?" Horner stood and
raised another stone high above his head. "My sins?" He flung the stone.
The lemon-sized chunk pounded Price's shoulder and tore his flesh. Five
more feet, he told himself. That's all I need. He looked up from under
his raised arm and admonished his friend. "Lester, you killed a soul.
The spirit is coming back to haunt you. Now your soul must be redeemed
for eternity." It's that simple. Price lunged up at Lester Horner. Just
before he reached him, his body shook with the crushing power of another
sharp crack, this one to his face. Once, when he was eleven or twelve,
he had caught a hardball flush in his upper cheek. The pain hadn't come
for a few seconds. This was like that. This time the pain didn't start
until he had his hands wrapped around Homer's leg. Price dragged the
justice back down the incline with him, his grip firm, gravity doing
most of the work. Then the pain came. Blood rushed out of his torn eye.
Teresa began to scream. Lauren waved the lantern in the direction of the
approaching vehicles for half a minute. Finally she heard a long
bleating reply from a car horn. When the commotion started above her,
afraid the rescuers would arrive too late, she scooted over to the base
of the ladder and pulled herself to standing. She visualized Ransom
behind her, imagined his strong arms supporting her weight. She tensed
the muscles in her own arms to hold herself tight to the ladder as she
hopped one-footed--too slowly--from rung to rung. Two more. Near the
top. Just two more rungs.

She wasn't sure exactly what happened next. Maybe the perceptions she
had were simultaneous. From the corner of her eye, to her left, she saw
a flailing shadow darken a segment of the gray-brown sky. A winged bird,
a cameo of death, it was there, then it was gone. Ricocheting,
mocking--everywhere around her, everywhere at once--she heard a
horrified

"Noooooooooo." Half plea, half protest, the mournful sound trailed off
into the distant desert, bouncing softly off rock walls, entering
ancient dwellings and holy places to be still, and coming back again and
again until the refrain was only a whisper. She was certain the wail she
heard was her sister's. A dull thud punctuated the sequence. Footsteps
thundered behind her and she heard a frantic call--Alan's. "We're
coming, Lauren! Hang on." A spark of exhilaration ignited in Lauren's
gut. Then, in an instant, the relief melted as if consumed by fire. They
were just getting out of their car. They're too far away. They're too
late  ...  With a surge of power she had never before felt, she pulled
herself over the top of the ladder into the ruins of the tower. Her
muscles sizzled. She raised herself and stood gazing into the bloody
face of a monster. Will Price reached out for her. She fell to her right
to elude him. He stared down at her momentarily and then seemed to lose
interest. He stepped away from her, stopping at the edge of the old
tower. Blood poured generously from his eye socket and glistened black
on his face as he raised his head and spread his arms to the desert sky.
He inhaled deeply and leaned forward, as though he expected a current to
lift him, as though he expected to fly. He didn't fly. An instant later
his heavy body crashed with a sharp crack and a dull thud on the rocks
of Lion Canyon. Lauren shook her head in confusion and rage and felt
tears migrating through the filth on her face. The salt stung her lips.
Although the approaching rescuers made their share of noise, the only
sounds Lauren heard as she huddled in the rocks and dust of the tower
were old ranch sounds and desert sounds and sounds she was certain were
voices of the ancients, scolding her for her failure to protect her
sister. The wind hummed and paused, whistled and stilled through the
canyon and the pinon and the junipers. Her lover called her name. Again.
In the distance, still, but closer. Like a morning dream, on the cusp of
awareness. Too late. The night seemed to be catching its breath. A
voice, low and halting, said, "Lauren, is that you? Is he asleep?"
Lauren looked up into the shadows of the wall that loomed behind her.
The wall seemed to be talking, and she saw faces in the rocks. Feeling
only slightly crazy, she said, "Yes, it's me.

Everyone's asleep. But I'm too late to help. Again." Teresa replied,
"Not for me, you're not."

"Teresa?"

"I'm on a tiny ledge above you. I don't know what's going on. But I
can't get down without some help." Lauren, fighting disbelief, laughed
in relief at their predicament.

"Well, that makes two of us. Are you okay?"

"I think so. But I have a feeling I'm going to be late for my set." What
remained of the day's light was all to the west. The dark sky on the
horizon was stained with splintered streaks of raspberry. As the colors
dissipated to black, the sounds of the desert wind and the night insects
reigned, interrupted only by the percussion of heavy feet and the
frantic calls to Lauren from Alan and Sam below her in the arroyo and
from Robin above her on the mesa rim. "We're okay," she yelled in
response. "Teresa's here.

She's okay. She's okay." Lauren inhaled to call out again, but her voice
was drowned by the rhythmic pounding of helicopter blades cutting swaths
through the parched air. The machine littered the solemn landscape with
its profane roar and its probing searchlights. As the chopper hovered to
the west, Sam and Alan pulled themselves clear of the top of the ladder
and into the ruins of the tower. Below them, Brian Long and the Ute
tribal policeman gingerly approached the two bodies on the canyon floor.

The helicopter descended a few hundred feet and hung just above the mesa
rim, its irreverent profile winged with the last of the raspberry light.

An amplified, booming voice yelled, "FBI!" The searchlight flitted and
swooped over the cliffs and the arroyo and finally focused its beam on
the ruins of the tower. With the aid of the illumination, Alan and Sam
edged Teresa from her perch and carried her to Lauren. The sisters
embraced. Sam turned to Alan, leaned his face close to his friend's ear,
and yelled, "We may have been too late to be of much help, but at least
we didn't bring a helicopter along to use as a fucking flashlight."
Teresa was airlifted to Farmington, where a couple of local physicians
recommended a night of observation in the hospital. The rest of the
group drove on the dirt road out of Lion Canyon back to tribal
headquarters in Towaoc. By the time they arrived on the slopes of
Sleeping Ute Mountain, the Ute policeman seemed to have learned
everything he wanted to know about the events that had taken place on
Ute Mountain Ute land. The FBI agents from both Farmington and Denver,
however, insisted on knowing a lot more. They interviewed everyone until
exhaustion prevailed. The group was finally dismissed around midnight.

They drove south to Shiprock and then across to Farm- ington to find
Teresa, get some sleep, and arrange to fly Satchel back to Will Price's
family in Utah. Sometime after ten o'clock the next morning, with Lauren
and Alan and Teresa in one rented car, Sam and Robin in the other, they
cara vaned to Taos. They had agreed over breakfast that they would
celebrate every- one's well-being by taking in Teresa's show that night.

It took almost twenty-four hours for everyone to accept that Teresa was
truly out of danger. Finally, when the national press and the tabloids
pieced together the rudiments of the story and tracked Teresa to
northern New Mexico, Robin and Sam were able to convince Lauren that,
given the spotlight provided by the media, Teresa was as safe as she was
going to be for a while. The next day, the group parted company
reluctantly. Robin returned to Utah, and Sam and Alan and Lauren flew
home to Colorado. Alan was aware that Lauren was continuing to brood
long after Teresa's safety was assured. He wrote it off to the residue
of the trauma in Lion Canyon. Although he found it difficult, he tried
to give her some latitude to find her equilibrium. He also promised to
try to honor her unusual request to find a couple of good seats for some
upcoming Danver Nuggets games. Lauren appreciated his concern. But it
didn't change anything. She knew that this thing wasn't over. he streets
east of Washington Park were carpeted with the drying ornaments of elm
and ash and willow. The morning air in Denver was still and sharp. A few
trees--some birch, some aspen, a lonely oak or two--clung to their
fading leaves. But the colors that dominated Denver's landscape in late
autumn were the blues of the sky and the greens of the spruces and
pines. In-line skaters and bicyclists rocketed on paved trails in the
nearby city park. Sweatshirted couples migrated toward well-deserved
Sunday-morning indolence with fat newspapers under their arms, seeking
respite at nearby cafes. Lauren had trouble finding a place to park in
the block of South Gaylord Street where Anita Baumann shared a brick
bungalow with a friend. She finally had to walk back a couple of blocks
to Anita's little house. It's almost exactly like Teresa's place in Salt
Lake, she thought. Her walking stick was not as necessary to her now as
it had been a week before. She carried it for security. Her neurologist
in Boulder had stoked her full of enough IV Solu-Medrol to slow the
progression of her symptoms and to fill her brain with high-octane mud.

The drive into Denver from her own home in Boulder had taken forty-five
minutes. She had passed the time listening to Weekend Edition on NPR and
had mused at the lack of acumen displayed by the media as they recounted
one more time the oft-repeated speculations surrounding the bizarre
murder of Supreme Court Justice Lester Horner by his lifelong friend
William Price and of Price's subsequent suicide. The reports universally
played up Teresa's instigatory role in bringing accusations of
harassment against Blythe Oaks. Teresa was being transformed daily in
the media from victim to vamp to victor and back again. The attention
also transformed her into one of the hottest young comedians in America.

Now Teresa Crowder had an agent, and she was scheduled to do Letterman
on Friday night. Will Price had become the latest in a series of crazed
Mormons to be lionized and chastised by the national press. His
zealousness and fanaticism in protecting the LDS Church from the
consequences of Teresa Crowder's accusations against Blythe Oaks
temporarily renewed national interest in the obscure religion from Salt
Lake City. But the very fact of his fanaticism guaranteed that no real
critical public examination of the fastest- growing Christian religion
in the world would actually take place. The authorities in Salt Lake
City rode out the controversy with characteristic quiet. With the
prayed-for showcase of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games on the horizon, and
with the stupendous effort that continually went into choreographing and
packaging the LDS Church for public consumption, they knew that they
could not risk embroiling the Church in the daily polemics of the Horner
affair. Recent history in controlling the fallout from Ervil Lebaron,
Mark Hofmann, Paul Singer, Evan Mecham, and Bruce Longo told the Church
leadership that their safest position was to let this fiasco pass on its
own. Robin Tore- had been contacted by three true-crime writers and more
people who called themselves movie producers than she had ever thought
existed. She had moved into an apartment and was trying to decide what
to do about her marriage. Lauren had returned to Boulder, and she and
Alan had talked about going somewhere and eloping over Thanksgiving.

John Harley's apartment phone had been disconnected. Lauren had left
messages for him at the Side Pocket and at Bill & Nada's and at the
university. She had heard nothing back. If she didn't reach him soon,
she knew she would fly to Salt Lake City to make sure he was all right.

Lauren hadn't told anyone--not Robin, not Alan, not Sam Purdy--about the
purpose of her Sunday-morning visit to Denver. Anita Baumann opened the
door to her small blond- brick house wearing a sleek, all-white outfit
that was as loose on the upper half of her body as it was tight on the
lower half. Her blond hair was short and unstyled. She was blessed with
her mother's clear eyes and thin- lipped, warm smile. And, Lauren
thought, she has her mother's grace. "Hi. I'm Lauren Crowder. Thanks for
agreeing to meet with me."

"Hello. Come in." Anita's roommate, a beautiful Asian woman who barely
looked old enough to be living independently, grabbed a pile of
newspapers from the living-room sofa and, after smiling a shy greeting,
retired to another part of the house.

Lauren sat on a beige chenille sofa that had seen better days. She said,
"I'm so sorry about your mother. I met her only once, but she seemed
like a wonderful woman." The mention of her mother brought immediate
tears to Anita's eyes. She lowered them and said, "Thank you. Can I get
you something? Some tea?" Lauren ran her tongue over her dry teeth. "If
it's not too much trouble, please. That would be nice." She wondered how
puffy her face looked from the steroids. Anita returned with two cups
and saucers and fine china dishes for milk and sugar. "They were Mom's,"
she said poignantly. Anita's skin was moist and rich and seemed immune
to wrinkles, but her eyes conveyed the magnitude of the grief and hurt
she had suffered in the last fortnight. She handed Lauren a cup and
said, "About your coming. There's something I don't understand. Why
haven't you just gone and talked to the papers? Like everyone else."
Lauren raised her cup and drank, grateful for the lubrication in her
mouth. "I really don't know if I know anything, Anita. I'm only guessing
at what I told you on the phone. All that I'm reasonably certain of is
that your mother died to protect something. It's the piece that
everybody, so far, seems willing to write off without bothering to
explain. As I told you already, I don't think your mother lied to me. I
do think that maybe I didn't know enough to ask her the right questions.

But I don't think she lied. You? mother didn't strike me as the type of
woman who would lie to protect the thirty-year-old adolescent sexual
experimentation of a bunch of girls she hadn't talked with in years."
For a moment, neither woman spoke. Lauren continued. "At the end, a week
ago, on the Ute reservation, Will Price had a chance to kill me. He had
a chance to kill my sister. He didn't kill us. Which says to me that
although it may have started that way, in the end this rampage he was on
didn't have anything to do with my sister's accusations against Blythe
Oaks. "Price also had a chance to kill Lester Horner. In fact, I think
he kidnapped my sister to frame her for killing Justice Horner. But
Price did end up killing Justice Horner. Then he killed himself. And, of
course, before any of it, he killed your mother." Anita's gaze didn't
quite meet Lauren's. "It's convenient to blame this whole mess on my
sister's being assaulted in a bathroom in Washington, D.C. But it really
doesn't make much sense. Not enough sense, anyway. Your mother shouldn't
have had to die for that. Even if she knew something inflammatory about
Blythe Oaks's past. Blythe Oaks being a lesbian would just not be a big
enough scandal. The Church could have just blamed it on Satan and
excommunicated Blythe Oaks and hung her out to dry. The Church would
have weathered that. God knows they've weathered worse." Lauren examined
her hostess's face, hoping to ascertain how well her argument was being
received. But she couldn't tell. "As you've probably already read, my
sister said that as they fought in the kiva, she thought Will Price said
to Lester Horner that he had sinned. He said something like "It's because
you killed a child' or 'because you killed a soul.'" Anita raised the
index finger of her left hand and touched herself on the tip of her nose
as her palm covered her mouth. She gently closed her eyes.

She said, "And you think he was talking about old times?" Lauren nodded,
relieved. It sounded almost like an admission. "That's what I'm
wondering about. Yes."

"What do you want me to say? If I tell you you're right, what are you
going to do? Are you going to go talk to The New York Times? You want to
go on Nightline and tell Ted Koppel that Justice Horner was a
hyprocrite? Or are you just interested in announcing to the world that
my mother was a horrible person?" Anita burst into contained sobs. She
turned straight on the sofa, away from Lauren. Lauren resisted a
temptation to touch her. "Your mother was one of the most gentle, proper
women I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I just want to know what
was so important that she had to die. Why Pratt Toomey had to die. Why
my sister almost had to die. The answer can only come from understanding
why your mother and Horner and Price did have to die."

"And you think I know?"

"I got the impression from the people in Ouray that you and your mother
were very close." Anita didn't respond. "Anita, I think I already know."

"Take your best shot, then." Defiance and helplessness mingled in her
eyes. Her voice remained level. Lauren took a deep breath before she
began. "Your mother left BYU abruptly when she was twenty. She didn't
finish her sophomore year. She didn't marry some guy right after he came
back from his mission like most of the young women did. What does that
tell me? Not much. Maybe that she was more of an independent thinker
than her peers. I know she moved to Ouray for a while, and as far as I
can tell, she left the Church. Your grandparents don't live in Ouray.
None of your family does. When she married your father, your mother
didn't marry in the temple. I think something of an epiphany occurred
for your mother thirty years ago. I don't know what.

But I'm afraid you do." Lauren watched Anita Baumann juggle her emotions
and her conflicts. "You know, as reluctant as you are to have me visit
you today, that's how troubled your mother was by me and my friends
showing up in Ouray a couple of weeks ago. Your mother has been keeping
an old secret for a terribly long time, waiting to be discovered,
fearing she would be discovered. That secret, I think, eventually killed
her. And I trunk she left it to you. / fear that she left it to you. I
don't want it to kill you, too." Anita's eyes flashed. "What? I'm
supposed to sacrifice my mother's reputation--and my father's
memory--just to buy a little piece of mind for myself? That's not who I
am, Ms. Crowder. That's not how they raised me."

"I suspect that's true.

After only a few minutes with you, I think I already know that much
about you. But you also need to know something about me." Lauren paused,
waiting until Anita faced her. "I don't want to write a book about this.

I don't want to give interviews to Time and Newsweek. Whatever you tell
me won't ever get public because of me. "Today, despite everything, I
still have doubts that the Mormon Church killed your mother. Whether or
not somebody in Salt Lake City ordered Will Price to kill her is
something we'll probably never know. But I am sure that an authoritarian
culture did kill your mother. And I believe that there are more fanatics
out there like Will Price who are capable of doing great harm to someone
to protect their beliefs. "Lester Horner is a Mormon martyr right now.

The Church can live with that. Nicely, I'm afraid. They would have much
preferred to have an LDS Supreme Court justice, but they'll settle for
having a wonderful martyr. Because the alternative is unthinkable to
them. The alternative is that the real truth might come out. "If I'm
putting this together right, the truth has something to do with your
mother and Lester Horner. Cheating on an exam? Ridiculing the prophet?

Breaking the Honor Code? An illicit romance? I don't know. But I think
that when she left BYU and went to Ouray, she did it for a reason. And
that reason had something to do with Lester Horner. "I think that Will
Price's efforts to stop my sister's lawsuit were at first simply an
attempt to protect Horner from being stained by Blythe Oaks's current or
past homosexual behavior. Later, when we stumbled on your mother's
existence, the risks skyrocketed in somebody's eyes--certainly Price's.

Horner was in danger of something scandalous about his own past being
discovered. I think that that something involved your mother, and Will
Price knew about it. And I think eventually he killed everybody else who
knew about it in order to keep it a secret." Anita Baumann adopted the
same stoic face that Lauren remembered seeing the day she visited
Anita's mother. "Anita, I think that Will Price killed your mother and
then killed Lester Horner to keep something secret. I have nothing but
guesses about what it might be. But Price killed to protect the Church
from the consequences of the disclosure of something. Right now, that
something is still a secret. But I'm afraid--hell, I'm terrified-- that
other fanatics might be capable of killing to protect that secret, too."
Anita turned her gaze away from Lauren, out the front window of the
house. She was silent for almost a minute. Then she asked, "Lauren, do
you believe in God?" Without thinking, Lauren stammered, "I believe  ...
in believing in God." Anita Baumann stared at her with flat eyes and
then left the room. Lauren couldn't tell if she was planning on coming
back. She was gone only a minute or two. "I have some things to show
you. "First, though, you have to tell me something. If you don't want to
make this public, then why are you here? I've been assuming that the
whole point of your coming to see me was to find ammunition to bash the
Mormons or to bash the conservatives in Utah. Mother would have hated
all of that. Hated it. So what is it that you want?" Lauren's response
was composed, her voice soft. "If I'm right about my version of what
happened, I want to take a statement from you"--she tilted her head
toward the portfolio Anita was holding--"along with whatever documents
you have, and send everything to a couple of prominent attorneys I know,
in sealed envelopes, with instructions for them to open the envelopes
only if you die of any cause in the next few years or of any suspicious
causes later. I*will also send a copy of your statement, along with the
letter to the lawyers, to the members of the First Presidency of the LDS
Church in Utah." Lauren twisted a paper napkin between her fingers. Her
eyes teared. "My determination to help my sister fight her own demons
may have caused your mother to be reunited with hers. I can't stand the
thought that those demons might engulf you, too." Anita handed Lauren an
old, battered document folder and told her to read. She took both of
their cups and went to the kitchen to make fresh tea. Rachel Misker
Baumann was a born lawyer. She had kept everything. Pages from a journal
documented her horror as the days passed and her menstrual period didn't
come. She told no one at first. At first, she just prayed. Finally, she
told Lester Horner, who, disbelieving and ashen-faced, sent her away and
told her that he, too, would pray about it. He was sure, sure, it was
the work of evil spirits. He would seek a revelation from the Lord. News
of the revelation came to Rachel two days later in the form of a note
from Lester Horner. In the note was the name and address of a nurse in
Ouray, Colorado, who would "take care of the problem." Horner gave
Rachel detailed written instructions on how to find Ouray, on how to
find the nurse, and on what to say to her friends, and he gave her a
check for one hundred dollars. After two wrenching days, Rachel Misker
felt as if her soul had been torn and shredded. She was in love with
Lester Horner, wanted to do what he thought was right, felt he was the
man, the priest, she would be obeying all through this life, all the way
until he pulled her through the veil into the celestial kingdom, where
they would share eternity together. But she also knew in every Mormon
bone in her body that abortion was a sin worse than murder. Worse than
murder. Murdered people can be elevated to the celestial kingdom; unborn
souls cannot. She decided to ask Homer's best friend. Will Price, for a
blessing, for guidance. Price was cold and stern with her and told her
only that she had obviously been doing the devil's work. She needed to
have faith in God's revelations, and she needed to obey the priesthood
holder. Price chastised her ruthlessly for cavorting with Satan and
luring Horner into sin. After five minutes, he dismissed her. On her
own, in the course of a marathon of prayer that filled a week's worth of
sleepless nights, Rachel Misker concluded that this dictate from Lester
Horner wasn't about God's will. And that despite Will Price's rebuke,
she wasn't doing the devil's work. The revelation from Lester Horner was
about protecting Lester Horner. His reputation. His future career. But
Rachel felt powerless. She could bring Horner down with her. Maybe. But
the bottom line was that, unmarried and Mormon and pregnant in Provo,
Utah, in 1961, she was going down. She left BYU and went to Ouray. She
never cashed Homer's check. And she never had the abortion. Anita stood,
her focus locked on some imaginary spot above Lauren's head. She inhaled
deeply and began to speak in the tired, sad voice of a woman who has
felt great pain. "I found these papers in my mom's things. I read them
the very day that William Price killed him. Killed my father. Price
killed them both. He murdered my mother and he murdered my father. He
killed them both in the name of God." She sat stiffly and began to cry.

Lauren approached Anita and pulled her head to her abdomen. She said,
"I'm so sorry," and she, too, began to cry. It frightened her to know
that in Utah, this whole tragedy might somehow make perfect sense.

AUTHOR'S NOTE I relied upon a wide range of source material in preparing
this book. These references included America's Saints: The Rise of
Mormon Power, by Robert Gottlieb and Peter Wiley; What Do Mormons
Believe?, by Rex E. Lee; In Mormon Circles: Gentiles, Jack Mormons, and
Latter-day Saints, by James Coates; The American Religion: The Emergence
of the Post-Christian Nation, by Harold Bloom; This Is the Place:
Brigham Young and the New Zion, by Ernest H. Taves; Mormon Country, by
Wallace Stegner; Roughing It, by Mark Twain; Utah: A History, by Charles
S. Peterson; A Gathering of Saints: A True Story of Murder, Money, and
Deceit, by Robert Lindsey; Secret Ceremonies: A Mormon Woman's Intimate
Diary of Marriage and Beyond, by Deborah Laake; Odd Girls and Twilight
Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, by
Lillian Faderman; Brigham Young University: A School of Destiny, by
Ernest L. Wilkinson and W. Cleon Skousen; The Mormon Murders: A True
Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit and Death, by Steven Naifeh and Gregory
White Smith; Ute Mountain Tribal Park: The Other Mesa Verde, by Jean
Akens; Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, by Joseph L. Alien,
Ph.D.; Family Home Evening Resource Book, published by the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints; and the Book of Mormon, translated
by Joseph Smith. Although the wonders of the Ute Mountain Tribal Park
are described as accurately as possible, the kiva and "broken tower" in
Part Three are entirely fictitious sites. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For their
inspiration, my deepest gratitude goes to Bev- eriy Purrington and to
the memory of Patty Vanbenthuysen. With this book, I had a lot of help
in a lot of ways. My heartfelt thanks to Richard White, Harry MacLean,
Mark Graham, Marc Vick, John Graham, Mary Ma- latesta, Tom Faure,
Jeffrey and Patricia Limerick, Elyse Morgan, Enid Schantz, Robin Purdy,
Paul E. Johnson, Norm Avery, Rob and Virginia Bayless, Ann Nemeth,
Richard Blakely, Jean Naggar, Carolyn Carlson, Mat- thew Bradley,
Michaela Hamilton, and Al Silvennan. In addition, I am grateful to a
number of people who generously shared their perspectives on various
aspects of life in Utah but have chosen to remain anonymous. I gladly
acknowledge a special indebtedness to Dr. Richard Finkel, whose
compassion and skill made completion of this project possible; to Alice
Price Knight, who offered important direction when I couldn't get my
compass to work; and to Rose and Alexander, who provide light during the
gray times. And finally, my enduring thanks to my family, from coast to
coast. They believe in me, and there's simply no way to express
sufficient gratitude for that.