The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(46)

I needed to talk to Anna about that, but it would have to wait. If there was a body there, the timing of its discovery wouldn’t make a difference, after all. Here was my chance to prove I’d learned patience.

Kurt knew me too well, because he said, “You know, I’m going to have to talk to Tomas and Liam about their father’s life history for the funeral.”

“Yes, I know,” I said.

“Maybe something will come out then,” said Kurt. “And you won’t have any more questions about Tobias and his first wife.”

“I hope so,” I said.

I thought about the two of them. By my calculations, Tomas had been only two years old when his mother had died, but Liam had been six or seven. Liam might remember, if he were asked the right questions. Maybe being back in the family house would trigger memories.

“I don’t suppose—do you think it’s possible the first wife ran off somewhere?” I said, the idea suddenly occurring to me. It had been Carrie Helm’s disappearance that had first made me wonder about Tobias’s dead wife, but what if the two stories were even more similar than I imagined?

Kurt chewed on his lower lip, then said, “I suppose it’s possible. Tobias might have lied to his boys, thinking that telling them the truth would hurt them more.”

Unlike Jared Helm. I thought again, cringing, of how he’d told Kelly that Carrie had taken her daughter’s favorite book because she hadn’t wanted Kelly to have it anymore.

“And then after so many years of lying, he couldn’t tell his sons the truth,” Kurt was saying. “Maybe that was what he really wanted when he said he needed to see his wife’s grave. He wanted to tell them the truth, but his mind had gotten too confused to know how to do it.”

But that still didn’t explain the hammer with the hair and dried blood on it, did it? Or the strange stone in the garden.

Maybe there was no explanation for those things. There are mysteries that they say we will just have to ask God to answer when we are on the other side. I always wondered if we would just stop caring about them then.


THURSDAY MORNING, WHEN Kurt and Samuel were gone, I sat down on the computer to do some investigating on my own. I’d had to do genealogy work for the church, and I knew how to find out birth dates, death dates, and other important information. After looking on FamilySearch.com, Ancestry.com, and Genealogy.com, I found several death certificates for Torstensens who had died in Utah in the five-year period I estimated was right, but none of them were listed for Draper. All the death certificates from that period were supposed to be available online, but I wondered if I should send in an official form just to be sure. But I didn’t even know the woman’s first name. Tobias had never mentioned it, nor had Anna.

As I worked on the computer, there was another knock on the front door. It was Brad Ferris, Gwen’s husband.

“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry, but Kurt’s at work. Do you want me to call his cell phone? Is there an emergency?”

“I—she isn’t—I came alone this time—because—” Brad was nervous. He took a deep breath. “I was hoping to talk to you, Sister Wallheim,” he got out. “About something private.”

“Me?” I said, surprised. I had thought nothing could surprise me anymore.

“If you don’t mind,” Brad said. “It’s about Gwen, but it’s woman stuff. I thought you might be able to help me understand it better than the bishop.”

I looked around the front room, but decided we were too likely to be interrupted there, either by Samuel, who would be home from school soon, or by someone else coming to see me. So, feeling a little odd, I led Brad Ferris into Kurt’s office and hoped that Kurt wouldn’t feel I’d invaded his private space.

I sat behind Kurt’s desk and Brad sat in the couch, as before. I didn’t close the door all the way, which was ridiculous, since no one else was in the house. But Kurt was so cautious about being alone with other women, even when he was counseling them, that some of the same nervousness had rubbed off on me. Kurt’s chair made me feel strangely small, but I tried to suppress that thought and sit up as tall as I could.

“What can I do for you?” I asked Brad Ferris.

“I feel like I’ve made too big a deal of this,” he said. His voice was shaky and I realized that was because his whole body was shaking. Small-boned and hardly five foot six, he couldn’t be more than twenty-six years old, Adam’s age. His hands looked like they had been rubbed raw with wringing. Was he getting ready to confess something to me?

“I was hoping that you could give me some advice,” he said finally. “About Gwen.”

“What kind of advice?” I hoped suddenly that this wasn’t a question about female sex organs. For all I wished that Mormons talked more openly about sex, I didn’t want to give Brad advice about pleasing his wife in bed. I could direct him to a few books, however, if that was what he needed. I scanned the room for Kurt’s laptop. Good, he’d left it to the side of the desk, and I was pretty sure I knew the password. I could print out a list of suggestions and then Brad Ferris would be on his way.

“I want to know how to make her feel as special as she really is.”

Relief. This was not about sex, then. “Special in what way?” I asked, feeling a sudden sympathy for Kurt.