Page 8 of Only Girl Alive

Eve calculated a few things in her head before continuing. “Does anyone have something they want to say before I leave?”

“Check on the child,” Clyde requested.

“I may not be able to physically see her today but I’ll set it up with Aaron. She’ll be at the top of our interview list and that will begin as soon as we have things processed. Anyone else?”

“Don’t kill him,” Collin said, deadpan. “We have enough on our hands without adding another homicide.”

His comment, meant to be funny, jogged something in her head and she dug her cell phone back out of her pocket.

“What?” her stepbrother barked.

“Have you checked surrounding church members’ homes? Could there be murdered families you are unaware of?”

Seven

After a short pause, Aaron hung up on her.

“That would be a resounding ‘I don’t have a clue,’” Bina said. “By the way, making him the media liaison was a stroke of genius.”

They all smiled grimly, fully aware that the spirits of the dead listened in too and that now was not a time for laughter.

Eve allowed her own tight smile to convey her feelings. “It should keep him busy. Unfortunately, we need his connections and the media won’t keep him out of our hair completely. I’ll figure out a way to be nicer or at least try. The man punches my buttons with a steamroller.”

“You used a curse word when you called him,” Ray said.

“I did?” Law enforcement and cussing went hand in hand but she had never gotten past her upbringing and when she swore on purpose it sounded silly to her ears. This was also a running joke among the team. Collin and Eve, with their Mormon roots—though his were not fundamental—rarely swore. Ray, Clyde, and Bina made up for their lack and pointed out whenever Collin or Eve crossed the line.

“You called him an asshole,” Bina reminded her. She’d removed her gloves and popped a gummy bear in her mouth from a package she kept in her pocket.

“I did, didn’t I? I’ll say a bunch of Hail Marys tonight or something.”

“That’s Catholic,” Ray said.

“I’m widening my options,” Eve replied. “I think the Pope gave permission for Catholics to call assholes assholes. If that’s true, I’ll convert.”

They all knew Eve was delaying the inevitable. She had to face her stepbrother in person once more today.

“They were drugged,” she said.

Her team nodded. They had all come to the same conclusion. There was no other way the victims would have stayed still while their throats were slit. Something had knocked them out. “Tag anything that could be the source. I’ll take the photos and process the bodies when I return. If there are images that can’t wait, take care of it and I’ll add your photo log to mine.”

Eve took the SUV. The unit needed the van and its contents to do their job. The drive to her brother’s office would have taken ten minutes but she wanted him to have time to make sure his community was safe so she drove toward the hotel first.

Thoughts of her mother always came up when Eve was in the polygamist community. They had a tentative relationship and she wasn’t sure what she could do to change it. She loved her mother but she resented her choices that had caused so much hurt in Eve’s life. She owed Maggie a phone call. How did she get over the damage her mother had caused? Maggie carried so much guilt and it left Eve conflicted. If her mother would talk about what happened to suck her into the cult and the years after she left, it might help. Maggie would rather hide away from life, live quietly, and stay away from confrontation. Eve shook off these thoughts. She would call her mom as soon as she had time.

The hotel wasn’t what you would call luxurious but it was the best in town. Since the polygamist prophet was found guilty of sex with children and imprisoned, new businesses had moved into the area, including a bar. This hotel was one of the improvements. Eve doubted they got business from more than a few truckers and nature lovers visiting the area but it was obviously enough to keep the doors open and this provided nicer accommodations for the team.

She always bunked with Bina. Ray and Collin shared and Clyde got his own room. When they were on a case, they lived in each other’s back pockets. Their intense chat sessions discussing the homicides would take place in Eve and Bina’s room, away from prying ears.

Much of the evidence would be stored at the closest police department. There were three towns in the county. If it was an unincorporated part of the area, the sheriff handled law enforcement. The police chiefs took care of everything within their town. The county attorney’s office prosecuted all crime county wide. Eve knew the men in charge and disliked them all. They were fundamental polygamists and she considered them part of the problem. Having them store evidence couldn’t be helped because Eve needed a chain of custody and leaving it in the van was not acceptable. The van had one locked compartment for lab evidence and that was it. Local law enforcement would help whether they wanted to or not. This case landed in city jurisdiction, not the county, so at least she didn’t need to deal with the sheriff. He might be the worst of them all.

Eve checked them into their rooms and received five keycards. After dropping her and Bina’s luggage off, she steered the SUV toward the county attorney’s office for her next confrontation with Aaron. Every other block held a pole camera, which was monitored in the town’s security center, controlled by the church. She’d had a warrant for camera footage on one of her past cases. They claimed their entire system malfunctioned and were unable to provide the videos. Everything she did here was an exhausting battle.

She passed blocks of homes much larger than the one where the bodies were found. The farther you lived from the prophet’s compound, the lower your church standing. The Tanners were somewhere in the middle because the house held room for more wives and children. She guessed Mr. Tanner could’ve redeemed himself and one day added to his wife count.

Eve drove past the largest property, located in the center of the community. The prophet’s followers maintained it for his return. The building that housed his wives took up two city blocks. He had a large separate home just for himself on the premises. With his seventy-plus marriages, he obviously needed alone time. No privacy existed in prison.

The county offices were located a mile from the compound. They looked dignified with their US and state flags. It was the light-blue-and-white Mormon flag proudly displayed that frustrated Eve. Fundamentalist church members believed their prophet was the true president of the United States and their flag, the one and only.

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