Page 51 of Only Girl Alive

She had no idea why Aaron helped her. Chances were good that it was part of a bigger plan. Evil permeated this community, but it wasn’t an evil designed by the devil, it was one designed by men.

An abused ten-year-old child—that child, as Aaron and Howard Wall referred to Hannah—had brutally murdered her family. The polygamist church could not afford for the world to find out.

Twenty-Five

Nine-year-old Eve looked down at the blisters on her dry, red hands. She had swept and mopped the entire bottom floor of the house before the women prepared dinner. The mop was heavy and she had a hard time lifting it from the water and wringing it out. She was in trouble because Aaron had found something to mark the walls that she was responsible for keeping clean. Her punishment was mopping the floor. When she was finished with half of it, Aaron knocked the water over and she had to start again.

“I hate you,” she said, even though she knew it was a sin and that she could get into more trouble. No matter how hard she tried, it was difficult to keep sweet.

Aaron knocked her down and kicked her leg after she hit the floor. This was nothing new. He enjoyed kicking her.

“You will be punished when you belong to me. Father said I could have you when I was older and he would speak to the prophet about it. My father is important and he will make sure they choose you as one of my wives.”

Eve did not want to marry her brother. It made her afraid and caused her to lay awake at night and fear for the future. The women and most of her siblings were mean to her. She didn’t understand. Her mother, who she could barely picture, had left a year ago. Her other brothers stayed away because of Aaron. They were afraid of him too.

Aaron’s father always took his side. His mother also believed him when he spoke against Eve. They told her she was not keeping sweet. Her job was to follow Aaron’s direction even at nine years old. She didn’t know why his direction hurt so much.

The night after the mop incident, she woke to find Aaron standing over her. She was in a room she shared with three of her sisters, but they were asleep. Aaron hit her in the stomach with a sock. It had something in it and hurt. She curled to her side and he hit her hip. He covered her mouth when she cried out and hit her again.

His low whisper rang in her head through the pain.

“Abomination.”

Eve’s eyes flew open, her heart racing as she found her bearings. She’d fallen asleep in the chair beside the pictures of the homicides. Her head pounded, which was why she’d taken a break. She grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen and took two of them before she leaned back in the chair.

Aaron hadn’t changed from the vicious bully he was as a child. His position as county attorney made him more dangerous.

A ping on her laptop dragged her from the chair. It was an email from Aaron with two attached files. It was hard to read his official email address as the county attorney and think of him and his corruption as a part of law enforcement. A short message gave an overview of the two lists he’d sent.

Aaron had come through with the names of the wives removed from the Tanner home as she’d requested. He was generous enough to include their current addresses. One was out of state and two out of the country in Canada. Candace was the only wife removed from Bart Tanner who remained in Utah. Four in total, with Marcella and Tracy making it six wives. Five children had left with their mothers. They were victims, just like Elijah and Hannah. Eve had no idea why the church had allowed Bart Tanner to stay in the community and might never learn the reason. Hiding crime came naturally to the polygamist sect. The women, controlled by extremist doctrine, would remain silent if they were told to.

During college, Eve had studied the hows and whys of cults to try and grasp some semblance of understanding. The class did the opposite. She came away with a sense that the people who followed them were disturbed to begin with. Even though it was before she went to college, fundamentalist Eve had fallen for the lies fed to her, struggled with her sins, and desperately wanted to go to the Celestial Kingdom. She’d been young and still couldn’t forgive herself. Clyde knew that was her biggest problem and he was right.

Unwanted memories filled her thoughts. After the incident with the sock, the prophet visited their home with his favorite son in tow. Her father made it clear it was a huge honor. They’d cleaned the house from top to bottom, making everything more pristine than usual.

The wives lined up in the gathering room wearing their newest prairie dresses, color-coordinated to show they belonged proudly to their husband. The boys and girls stood in front. Even the youngest daughter’s hair was piled high for Christ’s return. The prophet slowly passed them while his tall son looked over his shoulder. His arrogance even as a teenager was just the beginning of his immorality. The prophet asked a question here and there of Eve’s mothers. Eve remembered her terror that he would see her unworthiness.

Aaron’s continued bullying had caused severe doubt in her mind. He cornered her alone whenever possible to whisper of her tainted blood. According to him, she would not be granted a place in heaven because Aaron, when he was her husband, wouldn’t pull her up by his side. Eve tried to keep sweet but when he said those horrible things, she broke the covenant placed on women and was punished. Even when she managed to control her feelings, he read the fear in her expression. He used that fear to terrorize a young girl with no defense against him.

“We don’t know how pure your blood truly is but God knows and you will be cast into hell for your sin.”

It was Aaron’s favorite monologue. She wasn’t born of a priested father. That and a pure bloodline were needed to enter the highest tier of heaven, or so she’d been taught. During the prophet’s visit, he never looked at or spoke to her. After he inspected the wives and the older daughters, he walked around and checked for dust on the cabinets and furniture. He gave Eve’s mothers a nod of approval for keeping a righteous home. He then told them to get on their knees and pray with him. They gathered around in a half circle with the prophet standing, his son beside him, and prayed. Eve remembered her knees hurting by the time he finished the long-winded version of what was expected of women according to God.

With a shake of her head, she dispelled the memory and returned her thoughts to the homicides.

She examined the list of Bart Tanner’s wives again. She made a note to inform the jurisdictions where the women were located and have local detectives handle interviews. She would discuss the plan with Judge Remki when she spoke to him. Eve hoped the children would receive some type of counseling for what had happened inside the Tanner home, but she wasn’t the person who would make that decision.

The second list included the names and addresses of the families close to the Tanner’s home. Her team had most of that information now and she knew the delay in sending the list was a tactic to slow the investigation down.

Her team would return for lunch in about thirty minutes. Eve reviewed the evidence against Hannah again and walked through the crime scene with new eyes. It made more sense now.

She didn’t plan to say anything until they finished their work today. She wanted to give them time to conclude the same thing she had. The evidence didn’t lie, even if she wanted it to. Once her team opened their minds to what the photos showed and the one thing that would cause this kind of cover-up, they would need time to absorb the information. Yep, she would wait until they concluded today’s interviews.

The height of the blood print on the master bedroom doorframe and Hannah’s closet doorframe would be difficult for an adult to unconsciously leave behind. Other anomalous marks of blood could be explained if the murderer was no taller than an average ten-year-old. The blood on the sleeves of the dresses now made sense. The killer was not looking for Hannah. It was Hannah.

The phrase that child kept running through Eve’s head.

The church’s response and everything that had occurred since the team arrived in town made more sense now. Her brother had known who murdered the Tanners from his first phone call. The church had been unable to cover the crime and dispose of four bodies. They didn’t think Eve and her team would figure out the truth. They forgot that Eve knew what monsters they really were and, after a year, so did her unit. They may even have hidden the knife and Hannah’s bloody clothing. Yet proving their involvement would be hard unless she could interview Hannah.

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