THREE

By the time Abbie got home, there was enough time for either a shower or a nap, but not both. The moment Chief Henderson had been told it was not a drunk driver at the bottom of the ravine but instead the much-adored First Counselor to the President of the Church, he had shifted into full-on general mode. He’d texted Abbie while she was at Eliza’s, wanting to see both her and Clarke first thing, which meant six in the morning.

Abbie opted for the shower, hoping the warm water would comfort her soul and a dousing of icy water would wake her body. She ended up clean, but her heart still ached and her body still craved sleep. She pulled her long dark hair into a wet knot before pouring coffee into a mug and sitting, for a moment, at her kitchen counter to drink it. Perhaps the caffeine could do what the shower did not.

When she got to the station, Clarke was already sitting in Henderson’s office. Both men were pale. Neither looked like he had slept. Abbie sat down in the chair next to Clarke.

“Every man is at your disposal,” Henderson said. “We need to find out exactly what happened as soon as we can. The Deseret News and the Trib have already posted about the passing of President Bentsen. I’m going to make a statement later this morning. There’s no way around it. I’m not going to mention details, only that we’re putting all our resources into finding out exactly how this tragedy happened.”

Henderson and Abbie did not always see eye to eye. She had learned the hard way that if Henderson had to choose between church and state, he chose church. In this case, though, it didn’t seem like that would be a problem.

“Thank you, sir,” Abbie said. “As soon as we can talk to the person who made the 911 call, I’ll have a much better idea of what happened. We have a partial license plate of the caller’s car from our eyewitness. There can’t be—”

Henderson interrupted her. “Clarke tells me your eyewitness had been smoking marijuana at the time of the accident.”

Had Abbie mentioned that to Clarke? She must have. It was true, and yet something about the way Henderson pronounced the word marijuana made her feel uneasy.

“Yes. Bryce Strong had been smoking, but I have no reason to believe he’s an unreliable witness.” Abbie had plenty of friends who smoked regularly. The caricature of an incoherent pothead was hardly accurate, but Abbie wasn’t at all sure she’d be able to convince Henderson of that.

“Well, be that as it may, I’d like to have something more concrete that the word of a marijuana-smoking rock climber.” Henderson then made a sort of harrumph sound, which signaled the end of the meeting. He had a press statement to make, something Abbie knew he hated doing.

She and Clarke both stood up. There was work to be done. A lot of it.

“We can’t have any mistakes. The sad fact is President Bentsen was very old and that road is very dangerous. I’m not expecting you to find anything. Let’s just make sure we dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.”

Abbie wanted to counter Henderson’s leap to a conclusion. He didn’t expect to find anything because he had already decided that this case was a tragic accident and that the word of a young, marijuana-smoking climber was not going to stand in the way of that.

“Sir,” she said. “I know there’s reason to doubt the reliability of someone who is under the influence of THC, but I feel strongly that at this point in the investigation we not rule anything out. The caller left the scene—we should at least try to find him. We can cross-reference license plate numbers with automobile makes. We can also bring in Bryce Strong to work with a sketch artist.”

“Whatever, but don’t waste time. You know as well as I do that in all likelihood this is exactly what it looks like: a tragic accident.”

Abbie wasn’t sure she agreed, but at the moment, there was no reason to antagonize her boss.

“Yes, sir,” Abbie and Clarke said in unison. The two left the office and were heading down the hallway toward Abbie’s when Clarke said, “I’ve set up the conference room. I got here early and thought we might want to spread out more than we can in your office.”

“Thanks,” Abbie said. It was good thinking on his part. Abbie’s office was always tidy, but it was small. Being meticulous required space, and they were going to be nothing if not meticulous.

The conference room sported a whiteboard on a cement wall. There were two long tables flanked by a half dozen metal folding chairs. The single window at the end of the room provided a lovely view of the parking lot. Luxurious it was not.

Clarke sat down at a boxy computer set at the end of the table nearest the window. A few taps on the keyboard and the screen lit up. He tapped again.

“Jeez, Bryce Strong’s legit. He placed in Psicobloc for the last three years and won silver medals at IFSC Bouldering World Cup for the last two. You can do that and smoke like he does?”

“It’s not exactly uncommon.” Abbie was relieved Bryce Strong had some credibility as a climber. It would make it easier to convince her fellow police officers that he was a reliable witness and it would be worth their time to look for the white car.

“Where are we on the 911 call?” Abbie asked.

“It was a burner phone. No trace of it since the call last night.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” Abbie didn’t like this new development. “Who carries a burner phone?”

“Some people can’t afford normal phone service,” Clarke pointed out.

“People who drive a nice car?” That was how Bryce had described the white sedan.

Clarke eyes shifted away from Abbie. He exhaled.

“Taylor,” he said, “I know you think Bryce Strong is a dependable witness, but who knows what kind of car he thinks is nice? Who knows how well he really remembers everything? I just think, well, maybe we shouldn’t trust his account even if you don’t think he had any reason to lie.”

Clarke had a point. Still, Abbie felt like Henderson and Clarke were being far less skeptical of the 911 caller than they should be. It was odd for someone to call in the accident and then leave. It was strange that Heber had died in an accident that should have caused minor injuries, at worst. Whether you believed Bryce Strong or not, his story of the phantom white car and man in the flannel shirt was just plain weird.

“I’d like to hear the 911,” Abbie said. Maybe she’d be able to pick up on something in the voice of the caller.

“Hazel will have it,” Clarke answered. The two walked from the conference room to the reception desk where Hazel sat. She was a grandmotherly woman in her early sixties who single-handedly kept the entire station running with mechanical efficiency. She also occasionally worked overtime and took 911 calls.

Hazel went to church every Sunday and volunteered at the temple. She was also unfailingly kind and openhearted. Surely she knew Abbie had left the Church, but that didn’t seem to concern her one iota. She had been Abbie’s original ally in the police department when Abbie made her move back to Utah. Even if Hazel was pretty old-fashioned about most things, she seemed to take some joy in seeing Abbie in a job that would have been closed to women back in her day.

“Hi. Can we have a listen to the 911 call?” Abbie didn’t need to specify which 911 call she was asking about.

“Of course,” Hazel responded. On top of her efficiency and friendliness, Hazel dressed in a style one could only describe as unfailingly happy. Her wardrobe consisted of a mind-boggling variety of bright tops with seasonal appliqués along with coordinating pants and jewelry. The look might garner derision in some circles, but Abbie found it utterly charming. Today, the theme was subdued: a pale-pink T-shirt embroidered with peonies and fuchsia pants with earrings in the shape of roses in a shade of bubble gum.

Abbie and Clarke listened to the recording. It was short. The caller refused to give a name, and when Hazel asked if anyone was injured, the caller said, “Don’t think so, looks like he just sorta slipped down into the creek.” The caller then hung up in the middle of Hazel’s voice saying, “Thank y—”

So the caller knew the victim was a man, which lent some support to Bryce Strong’s account that the caller had hiked down to the car and examined it.

“Hazel, do you remember anything unusual about the call?” Abbie asked.

Hazel shook her head. “No. I really thought it was a drunk driver in the creek. When the caller hung up, I just figured he was a friend who was drunk, too, and didn’t want to get in trouble.”

“He didn’t sound drunk to me,” Abbie said.

“I know.” Hazel sighed. “He wasn’t slurring his words or anything, but you can be over the legal limit and sound normal.”

“True,” Abbie agreed. “If you think of anything else, will you let us know?”

“Of course, Detective Taylor.”

Clarke grabbed a homemade peanut butter cookie from a plate on Hazel’s desk before they left. He followed Abbie back to the conference room. It hadn’t even been twelve hours since Heber’s crash, and already Abbie didn’t feel very good about how the pieces were fitting together, or, more precisely, were not fitting together.

Abbie walked over to the window, with its scenic view of the parking lot, and watched the sun peek from behind the mountains. Why would the drop from the road be fatal? If you went through accident reports from just the last year, there would be at least a handful of cars that had crashed down into the water at or near where Heber’s car had gone off the road. None of the drivers or passengers in any of those accidents had even required hospitalizations. Sure, Heber Bentsen was old, but still.

According to Bryce Strong, the driver of the white car had told him that everything was okay. Was it possible that Heber had been alive when the driver checked on him but died before Clarke arrived at the scene?

Abbie surveyed the empty tables. They needed to start putting things together. “Let’s go through everything we collected last night,” Abbie suggested.

“Hang on,” Clarke said, “I’ll get the box from the evidence closet.” The evidence closet was a windowless room near Hazel’s desk with shelves and a few bankers’ boxes. Clarke disappeared inside, eventually returning with a box labeled HEBER BENTSEN.

He and Abbie gathered around the conference table.

Abbie watched as Clarke began to empty the box. He placed a worn brown leather wallet on the table. Abbie picked it up. There were several credit cards, a driver’s license, a temple recommend, some cash, and, two old photos. The first was a wedding photo showing Eliza and Heber in white finery in front of the Salt Lake Temple. They looked like children, but Abbie knew Heber had been twenty-two and Eliza eighteen when the picture was taken. Young, but not children, at least not by Utah standards. Heber had returned from his mission and Eliza had just graduated from high school. They were beaming in a way only possible when the years behind you were happy and you had no reason to believe the years ahead would be any different.

The second photo was from about fifteen years ago. There was a tall Christmas tree in the background. Heber and Eliza stood to one side surrounded by their children, ranging in age from adult to elementary school. On the other side was the Taylor family. Abbie’s teenage self was standing next to her mom. You couldn’t see from the picture, but Abbie remembered the warmth of her mom’s arm wrapped around her shoulder.

Abbie pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth. According to an article she’d read, this position made it impossible to cry.

Next, Abbie picked up the well-thumbed copy of the Book of Mormon. It had been found on the floor on the passenger’s side of the car. It was an old edition, maybe even the one Heber had been given when he was baptized. Abbie flipped through the pages. Large sections had been carefully underlined in red pencil. How old had Heber been when he started marking up his scriptures?

Abbie was startled back to the present when Clarke asked, “Did you notice this?” He was pointing to one of the first pictures taken of Heber’s car.

Abbie stared at the picture. Whatever Clarke was seeing was eluding Abbie’s power of observation. “What am I supposed to be noticing?”

“The door,” Clarke said. “The driver’s door.”

It was open. Not wide open, but certainly not closed.

“When was the picture taken?” Abbie asked.

“Before we even climbed down to the car. We knew we had to wait for the ME before touching the body, so I just took a bunch of pictures.”

“So, either Heber was alive and tried to open the door, or our mystery driver didn’t shut it completely?” The former was too terrible to contemplate. If help had been just a little faster in arriving, would Heber be alive right now? The latter gave them a reason to speak to Bryce Strong again and more reason than ever to track down the 911 caller.

“What about prints?” Abbie asked.

Getting prints from the car wouldn’t take long, not with everyone at the station available and anxious to help. What would take time was matching those prints. Abbie wondered if Bryce Strong had noticed whether the man in the flannel shirt was wearing gloves. She looked over her notes. Nothing. Would he have noticed such a small detail? The only way to know would be to ask.

“I’ll see where we are on that.” Clarke darted from the room, leaving Abbie with the last objects Heber was near when he departed this world.

Abbie stood back from the table. Alone. This time, Abbie didn’t try to suppress what she was feeling. She let the tears slip down her cheeks. She thought of Heber’s car. She’d ridden in the back seat at least a dozen times. People might describe it as “vintage,” but really it was just old. In a state where everyone drove and most people cared about cars, Heber was odd. He was happy to drive an old car, even a slightly run-down one. As long as it worked, he didn’t seem to mind. Abbie had found Heber’s lack of car pride charming, but looking at these photos, her entire chest ached knowing the car had no airbags.

Abbie sat down on one of the metal folding chairs near the window. She pulled a tissue from a box on the sill and blotted her eyes.

All right. That was enough emotion for now. She reached for Bentsen’s cell phone.

An idea flickered in Abbie’s brain. She pressed the small concave button at the bottom of the phone. The screen lit up. Now she needed the right six digits to open it. Abbie started typing. Her first try was a fail. She tried again. Success. The screen unlocked: CTR LDS. CTR was the acronym for “Choose the Right,” sort of an LDS equivalent to “What Would Jesus Do?” It wasn’t a terribly original password, but in Abbie’s experience, passwords rarely were.

Abbie pressed the phone icon and scrolled through all recent and missed calls. There wasn’t anything from Eliza since early on the morning of the crash.

Clarke reappeared in the conference room. “We’re checking the entire car for prints right now.”

“Great,” Abbie said, still holding the phone. “Is this the only phone we found?”

“Yes. Once we knew it was President Bentsen, we went through everything with a fine-toothed comb. I know you can never be sure you didn’t miss something, but I’m as close as I’ve ever been to saying we didn’t. There’s not a man, or woman, on this case who doesn’t want this done right.”

“Eliza Bentsen told me she’d been calling Heber for hours.” Abbie handed the phone to Clarke. Maybe he’d find something she missed.

Clarke scrolled through the calls again until he found a call from ELIZA. It was from 7:23 the morning of the accident. When Abbie had spoken to Eliza the night Heber died, she’d been under the impression the widow had been trying to call her husband in the hours just before the accident.

“She was in shock. Maybe she just thought she’d been calling him,” he suggested.

“Maybe.” Abbie felt her stomach tighten. One more little thing that wasn’t quite right.