The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(78)

God, I wished that I wasn’t just “Sister Wallheim.” I wished that being the bishop’s wife granted me some title of authority.

“Disobedient child? What in the world was she doing that was so terrible?”

“I told her not to go outside. It was a simple rule, designed to keep her safe,” he said. He was holding her, and she was struggling.

How I wanted to yank her away from him and call the police. But I knew very well that it would only end with her being sent back home. What I had seen did not constitute child abuse. It probably wouldn’t even warrant a follow-up call with DCFS.

“There aren’t any news vans out here. What is the danger you are trying to protect her from, then?” I asked.

“That is none of your concern. I told her to follow a rule, and she refused to do it. She needs to learn that she can’t do that.”

Was this just about power? “It’s a nice day. The sun is out. It’s not even that cold,” I said. It was April at last. “The snow is gone. She must be itching for a chance to feel the grass under her feet.” As I looked over at her, I could see that Kelly had bare feet. The ground was still wet, and there were brown splotches from mud that had gotten between her toes, but it made me feel even more sorry for her. What was wrong with a little girl getting mud between her toes?

“Thank you for your opinion, but Kelly is my granddaughter and I am the one who will face the bar of God for her one day for how she is raised,” said Alex Helm.

“Yes, you definitely will,” I muttered. The heat I had felt when I came running over was gone now. I just wanted to hold Kelly’s hand in mine, and tell her that everything was going to be all right, but that would be a lie, wouldn’t it?

“Now, please get off my porch, Sister Wallheim, and let me get back to teaching my granddaughter the way that a proper young woman acts.” He swept past me and slammed the door.

I was left with the realization that I had gained nothing, and might possibly have lost all the good will I had so carefully built up. False good will, but even so. And now? Alex Helm wasn’t going to be asking me to come over and babysit Kelly for him, that was for sure.





CHAPTER 27




The police took two weeks to determine that the body in the Torstensens’ backyard, killed by blunt-force trauma to the head, was “likely Helena Torstensen.” The problem with an actual identification was that there were no dental records that anyone could find for Helena Torstensen, and they had no DNA from her. They could do a mitochondrial test with her two sons, but that would take months to finish and it would be expensive.

There was no evidence that she had had cancer, which was what Liam Torstensen now insisted. The stories Tobias had told about a heart condition and a car accident were both clearly out. But Liam seemed to believe that his father might have worked some kind of “mercy killing” on his young wife, and suffered for it for the rest of his life, concealing the guilt he felt, but still being enough in love with her that he did crazy things like trying to find women who looked like her to pretend with him for a while that she was still alive.

The only thing that made me consider Liam’s version was that it helped explain how Tobias Torstensen could have remarried a woman like Anna and then lived happily with for thirty more years without a hint of a criminal personality. If a man was a wife murderer, how had he changed so completely? How could a man who killed be such a kind and loving father?

The police had called Anna back from her cruise, and it had taken her ten days to find a port and book a flight home. She’d only been back since the weekend, and she, too, had not been allowed in the house.

Anna had called to ask me to go with her to meet the police. I met her at the walk leading up to her house and was delighted to see her. I hugged her briefly, then stepped back to look at her. She looked tanned and tense.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“As well as can be expected,” she said.

She already knew the news about Joseph and Willow’s baby coming, which I’d shared in a short email, excited that she and I were going to be grandmothers within a span of months. I suppose we could have emailed more, but I’ve never learned how to do real sharing via a computer screen.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Anna said.

“I’m glad you called to ask me.” I desperately wanted to find an answer here. The case with Carrie Helm seemed to have ground to a halt, and the police were not following any new leads. It seemed that her murder would go unsolved, and I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, unsettled by the thought.

“I feel like I’m reeling, like I haven’t been able to sit down since I heard about the body,” said Anna. “At first I thought it was the cruise, but even when I was on solid ground, I felt the same disorientation. The whole world keeps moving around me, and I have to keep looking at my feet or I will fall.”

“I know,” I said.

“It isn’t just that he killed someone. It’s that I never guessed. I always saw him as such a gentle man, incapable of violence for any reason.” At least she wasn’t spouting a theory like Tomas’s about Tobias’s innocence. “We all believed him,” I said. I didn’t like to think that I was gullible, but they say Utah is the con capital of the world. People who are strong adherents to a miracle-based religion are more likely to believe in other miracles. And we tend to believe the best of others, never guessing that a scam might be perpetrated on us by someone claiming to be a member of our own church.