TWO

Abbie left Clarke to finish at the scene and started the drive up the canyon to Huntsville. In the dark, you couldn’t see the wide valley with Pineview Reservoir at its center. Once upon a time, Huntsville and the neighboring town of Eden had both been dominated by open fields punctuated by a few houses and barns. Now, the well-heeled from around Utah and beyond had discovered the quiet beauty here. The Bentsens’ place was grand, but not as grand as some.

Once Abbie made it to the part of Huntsville where the big houses were, she pulled into the circular driveway in front of the Bentsens’ place. The porch light was on, but the rest of the house looked dark. For a moment, Abbie wondered if she should wait a few hours until morning, but that thought left her almost as soon as it drifted into her awareness. Eliza would want to know. Abbie got out of her car, walked up the steps to the door, and rang the bell.

Eliza must have been a light sleeper. She answered the door almost immediately, wearing a lavender nightgown that touched the top of her feet with a matching robe, belted tightly at her waist. Her gray hair was thick and cut in a chin-length bob. She didn’t look like she’d aged a day since the last time Abbie had seen her.

After Abbie’s mom died, Eliza, like Heber, had been one of the few people Abbie could tolerate. Eliza didn’t babble on about Abbie’s mother being in a better place or Heavenly Father knowing what was best. She let Abbie be heartbroken and angry, without judging her for either.

“Come in.” Abbie sensed Eliza was hesitant, which was an entirely normal response to anyone visiting at this hour, even someone Eliza knew as well as she knew Abbie. Abbie followed the older woman into the formal sitting room, which during the day would have had a spectacular view of the valley.

“Let’s sit down,” Abbie said. “I have some difficult news.”

Eliza sat down on a love seat near the fireplace and turned on a table lamp. The room was large enough to accommodate Eliza’s six adult children and their spouses, but probably not big enough for all the grandchildren. A grand piano dominated one corner of the room. There were fresh flowers on the coffee table.

“I’m here in my capacity as the detective of the Pleasant View Police Department.” The sentence sounded stilted to Abbie’s ears, but she wasn’t ready to speak the words she’d come to say: Heber is dead.

Eliza took a lace handkerchief from her robe pocket. The two women gazed out at the Reservoir, where the reflection of an almost full moon wobbled on the surface of the dark water.

“It’s Heber, isn’t it?” Eliza said. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of him for the past several hours.”

“He swerved off the road coming up the canyon.” Abbie shifted uncomfortably. “I’m afraid he didn’t make it.”

Eliza covered her face with her hands. When she finally lifted her head, her eyes were glistening. She pressed the handkerchief underneath one eye and then the other.

“Did he suffer?” she asked.

“No.” Abbie knew no such thing, but lying seemed like the right thing to do.

“Do you have any idea how it happened?”

“I don’t, but I will.” Abbie knew it wasn’t professional to promise Eliza anything, but this case was personal. “Do you know why he was on the road so late?”

“There was a meeting in Salt Lake.” Eliza didn’t need to explain. Salt Lake was shorthand for Church business.

“Was it common for him to make that drive?”

“Not really, but not uncommon either. Things come up. I’d been trying to talk him into getting a driver, but Heber was not a man who liked the idea of someone else driving him. His eyesight was good. His mind was as sharp. I couldn’t argue.”

The handkerchief was no longer enough. Tears were streaming down Eliza’s face now even though her voice was calm. Hers was the quiet crying of someone who knew loss well. Two of her children had died, one as a toddler and one to suicide in his teens. Eliza Bentsen was at a point in her life where funerals outnumbered weddings and baptisms.

“May I call Steve or Donna?” Abbie surprised herself that she remembered the names of Eliza’s children who lived in the Ogden area, less than an hour away.

“No, thank you.” Eliza placed her hand on Abbie’s. “I’ll call everyone myself in the morning. I’d like a little time alone.” She smiled through watery eyes. “Don’t worry about me. Heber and I both knew this day would come. We didn’t know who would be first, but we knew our time on this earth was coming to a close.”

Abbie said nothing because there was nothing to say. Eliza’s pain was not something anyone else could carry for her.

Abbie gave Eliza another hug before she left. She walked into the warm moonlit night, feeling not only her own grief about Heber’s death but also a gut-wrenching sadness for Eliza. Did losing a spouse get easier with age? When your body approached its more natural end, was it more normal to say good-bye?

Abbie turned back to face the house. The light shining through the living room window went dark. Abbie stood, motionless. She inhaled the scent of a distant campfire as it drifted on a cool breeze. It was a stolen moment. As soon as she climbed back into her Rover, the pressure would be on. A man who had been like her father—a man who sometimes had been there more than her own father—was gone. And even more than that: Heber was one of the three most important men in the Church. All eyes in the state of Utah, and all eyes of members of the Church, would be focused on the Pleasant View City Police Department.