The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(65)

As I closed the door behind her, I thought about how her mood had swung over the course of the hour or less she had been here. She had been distraught, and was now cracking jokes. Maybe none of her decisions now would last. After all, she was still grieving. I remembered that first month when people told me that I would never get over my daughter’s loss. It hadn’t been what I wanted to hear. I thought I was too strong to be in pain forever. I just had to get through this day, and the next, and eventually, I would heal.

I never had, and didn’t expect to anymore. But that didn’t mean that either Anna or I couldn’t have joy left in our lives, whatever form that came in.





CHAPTER 23




I went down to Provo for a couple of days midweek because Adam and Marie both had a terrible case of the flu. I left Samuel and Kurt well supplied with casseroles in the freezer (though I doubted they would ever get them out—Cheri Tate had heard I would be gone and likely the Relief Society would bring in meals). For two days I did laundry and made soup and cleaned up dishes and drove Adam and Marie to the doctor’s. When they were starting to get up and around again, I left Adam with the warning that next year they’d better make sure to get their flu shots.

I drove home just in time for the ten o’clock news on Friday night. Kurt was eating a late dinner so we were watching together in our room when the channel ran a teaser about a new, dark twist in the Carrie Helm case. I felt sick waiting through the commercials, and then the news came back on.

There was live footage of a body being bagged and carried away from what looked like a long stretch of empty, still frozen road.

“A body that has since been identified as missing Draper woman Carrie Helm was found this evening by a motorist near Wendover, Utah,” the reporter said.

“No, no, no, no,” I moaned. I felt physically assaulted, as if someone had dragged me through dirt. I’d known it—I should have known it—nothing I’d done had helped her. Kurt tried to hold me, but I batted him away. This was his fault somehow. He was a man, a surrogate for Jared and Alex Helm, for Tobias Torstensen. I wanted to scratch his eyes out, and kick him in the balls again and again. But I didn’t have strength for any of that.

Kurt moved across the bed to switch the television off, but I growled at him, and he slid back to his side of the bed, his hands up in surrender.

Poor Carrie. Carrie, who wasn’t my daughter.

Poor Kelly, who wasn’t mine, either. She was five years old. How could she possibly accept this and have a normal life? How could she ever trust God again?

I listened as the reporter recapped the missing person case that had now turned to a murder case. “No statement has been given by Jared Helm about his wife’s death,” she was saying. “The case is under the jurisdiction of Utah state.”

Had Jared Helm done this, after all? Had I been fooled into thinking Carrie was alive and with this man Will? Had Carrie been somehow forced to buy that bus ticket and then taken to just across the border and killed, her body left like so much garbage?

I felt sick at the thought that I had felt sorry for him even for a moment, that I had blamed Carrie for any of this. I put my arms around myself and tried to imagine that my body was a shell of protection for my soul, because my soul felt pierced and bleeding.

The television immediately cut to live footage of the police walking up to the Helm house. I jumped up and moved to the bedroom window, Kurt behind me. From our vantage point on the second floor, we could see the police were handcuffing Jared Helm on the street below us, and taking him away. His father was shouting at the police. I could guess at what he was saying; he would be accusing them of incompetence and threatening that they would regret taking his son in.

The figure of little Kelly stood in the big doorway of the house, watching her father being taken away by the police—that was the worst sight of all. Now all she would have was her grandfather to look after her. Had anyone told her that her mother was dead? Would someone do it gently enough for her to sleep tonight? Would anyone read her a story and hold her close? Would anyone make her brownies when she needed them most?

“We have to do something,” I said aloud.

“What do you suggest?” said Kurt. He still didn’t dare to touch me, after my reaction before.

“Get Kelly out of that house. She should be with a loving family in the ward. She needs to be safe.” I couldn’t turn away from the scene down the street. Kelly was still outside, watching everything. She was wearing a thin pink nightgown, frills all over, and she was barefoot despite the cold weather. But it was the look on her face—I was sure I could see it from where I was, and that it was blank terror.

“And you don’t think she’s safe with her grandfather? Physically safe? You think we have any reason to call DCFS? You would have to prove legally that he’s incompetent or abusive,” he reminded me. “Being a neat freak isn’t enough. Nor is hating Kelly’s mother. Or religious extremism.”

I was exhausted after spending the last two days as a full-time caretaker for Adam and Marie, and Kurt was just making me angry at him again. I pushed away from the window, and away from him. “You’re just going to stand by and watch her spirit crushed,” I said. I started pulling the blankets, pillows, and sheets off the bed.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his face alarmed.