The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(95)

“Something has to be done to stop him,” I said, sometime long past midnight, still sitting in the kitchen amidst the dishes of dinner that I had yet to put into the dishwasher.

“Yes, but what?” said Kurt.

“Can’t you call a church trial or something? He should be excommunicated at the very least. A man like that in the same church with us—it makes me want to run away like Carrie Helm did.”

“Hmm,” said Kurt. And he guided me upstairs, tucked me in bed with a kiss on the forehead, and then went back down the stairs. He was on the phone most of the night in his bishop’s office.





CHAPTER 32




“It’s done,” said Kurt when he came home from work that Friday evening. He looked terrible. The last time I had seen him like this was when he went on a high adventure with the Varsity Scouts for a full week in the Uintas, a backpacking trip where he claimed to have gotten no sleep at all and had to cook food over a fire for fifteen boys ages sixteen and seventeen—two of them our oldest sons, Adam and Joseph.

I touched his beard. “You forgot to shave this morning,” I said, rubbing at it. I hadn’t seen him before he left for work. I’d slept in, feeling good. I trusted that Kurt would do something. It might be that I didn’t agree that men should hold all the offices in the church, but I trusted Kurt that if he had power, he would use it well.

Kurt put a hand to his face. “Oh, damn,” he said, which said a lot to me. Kurt didn’t curse easily, and I didn’t think he was cursing about his beard.

“So, what happens now?”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you anything about it. It’s too personal, and I don’t really know any of the details. I’ve just set something in motion. I don’t know how it will turn out.”

I looked him in the eye. “Don’t tell me there’s a possibility that he will go scot-free.” Church discipline wasn’t exactly a legal system. There was no “evidence” to be offered, no experts to testify. Some witnesses might be called, and then the “jury” of priesthood holders deliberated, allowing the accused to speak for himself if he wished. And they all prayed.

The idea was that God would tell the truth of the matter, and it was supposed to be far better than a regular court system, where you had to rely on things like reason and logic. But those men who would be deliberating were all likely to be men who knew Aaron Weston, who admired him, and served with him. If he denied everything, which I was sure he would, would they be able to see past the shiny sticker of perfection he wore so well?

“If he’s innocent, then he will face no punishment,” said Kurt.

I pressed my lips tightly together. Kurt had to know that wasn’t an outcome I could accept. Would it simply be a matter of Gwen Ferris’s word against Aaron Weston’s? A woman who had mental-health issues, who wasn’t a mother, and who didn’t always come to church, against a Melchizedek priesthood holder and leader in Zion?

“And if he’s not, which I’m confident God will show to all who are deliberating, there will be harsh consequences,” Kurt finished.

“Can you tell me what they might be, say, hypothetically?” I asked. I had an idea, but I didn’t know the particulars. I hadn’t seen a church court in action before, except for returned missionaries who had admitted to breaking the law of chastity. That happened fairly regularly, and they were often disfellowshipped, which meant they had to serve a certain number of months without all of the blessings of the church like going to the temple or taking the Sacrament.

“Well, for a man who has been in the high positions he has been in, to be seen as guilty of sexual abuse in a church court would mean almost certain excommunication, cancelation of sealing to his wife and daughter, and revocation of any temple blessings.”

I let out a long breath. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t a jail sentence. But it was something to show that the Mormon church took a crime like this seriously and didn’t blithely go on as if the most important thing was how a man looked, how well he managed paperwork, and how much the other men around him liked him. And it separated him from Carrie, who could only be helped in the hereafter. At least she wouldn’t be bound to her father forever there.

“And how hard would it be for him to be rebaptized?” I asked. Was that vengeful of me?

Kurt shook his head. “Part of getting repentance for something like this would be confessing the truth and showing remorse. It would be accepting the consequences of a legal admission, which would mean confessing to the police and serving time for his crimes. In addition, he would have to do whatever is possible to make it up to those who were sinned against. In this case, I don’t know how a man could ever gain forgiveness from his dead daughter. Or how he could ever make it up to her. But I won’t say it’s impossible. God forgives even the most heinous sins, so it would behoove us not to deny forgiveness ourselves.”

“I don’t suppose ritual castration is one of the options?” I asked Kurt.

He choked a little at that. “Not that I’ve heard of.”


SATURDAY AFTERNOON, ANNA and I went on a walk. She had given up the condo and moved back into her old home. That made it easier for us to get together often, and we had begun to go on long walks together around the ward. It is surprising how much you can learn about people just by looking at their houses. The car that hasn’t moved for days. The windows with blinds that are never opened. The porch with more and more boxes piled up around it, the sagging fascia or the unpainted garage. The brick that has been painted, yellow or blue, over and over again, year after year, until it doesn’t appear to be brick anymore. I should have been noticing things like this years ago.