I went downstairs, thinking that I was most likely to find Rebecca in the kitchen. It smelled as if someone had burned something, but no one was there. One of the children must have tried a baking experiment, then cleared out before the evidence was discovered. I checked to make sure the oven was off, then hurried back upstairs to look for Rebecca.
I eventually found her upstairs in the master bedroom, looking through the night table on Stephen’s side of the bed. There were several envelopes, including one large manila one.
“I have something important I need to tell you,” I said. “About Stephen. And his brother.”
“His dead brother, Edward? Oh, you don’t need to bother.” She shook her head and put her hands on my shoulders. “Linda, I’m so sorry I’ve gotten you involved in all of this. I should have encouraged you to go home two days ago, but I have to admit, I was really enjoying having an adult woman around who wasn’t one of the wives I have to take care of all the time. Sometimes I really miss my old life, before all this happened. The regular Mormon world of Relief Society activities and lessons and meals. You know what I mean?”
I knew what she meant. “You really do want to know about—” I started again, but she hadn’t seemed to hear me.
She let go of me turned to the side. “First, can you look at this? I don’t understand it at all and it was on Stephen’s night table, marked Saturday afternoon mail delivery, which might mean it’s important or might not. I just need to know if I should throw it away or keep it,” Rebecca said. She handed the manila envelope and its contents to me.
I glanced at the document purely so that I could tell Rebecca it wasn’t nearly as important as what I’d found out about Stephen’s past. My eyes were getting older and I couldn’t see things as well, though I was vain enough not to carry reading glasses with me everywhere. I did have them at home.
I squinted at the page, but the more I read, the less sure I was about this not being important. The first page was simply a form letter, explaining that these were the results of a DNA test on paternity for three children, Grace, Eliza, and Zina Carter—Joanna’s children. The letter recommended that Stephen, to whom the letter was addressed, read through everything before he came to any conclusions.
Each page after that was labeled with a different one of Joanna’s children’s names and contained two columns. One had a bunch of letters and numbers in it and the other column indicated whether or not the child and Stephen were a match. There were scientific explanations underneath each chart, but I have to admit, I couldn’t really follow them.
For Grace, one marker out of fifteen matched Stephen’s; for Eliza, there were two matches, and for Zina only one again. I had no idea if that was normal or not for any random group of people.
I’d already known that Grace wasn’t Stephen’s biological daughter. She was born when Joanna still lived with the FLDS and her father was Joanna’s ex-husband. The real question was why Grace had almost the same number of genetic marker matches with Stephen as the other two children. I wasn’t a scientist and knew nothing about genetics, but something was taking shape in my brain connected to the truth about Stephen’s brother Edward.
“Does this mean they’re not Stephen’s children, any of them?” asked Rebecca, tapping at the final page that said the results were all “negative.”
“I think so,” I said.
“Then who’s the father?”
I remembered then what Jennifer had said about the will being changed to benefit only Stephen’s own genetic children. I’d thought that was a dig at Sarah, through Talitha. But now it seemed clear it was about Joanna’s children, none of whom were genetically Stephen’s.
How had he ever begun to suspect it? Had he heard Joanna talking on the phone to the other man? Had he followed Joanna out of the compound when she went to visit Edward? She must have visited him plenty if she’d had two children with him. How close was he? Had she gone all the way down to Spanish Fork or had he found a closer way to keep in touch with her? It would have been easier for her if he had, even if it were only temporary, and a lie. A neighbor. Or a delivery man. Or . . .
And then the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Mr. John Edwards, the kind gardener I’d met at the Perezes, the man who had taken over Joanna’s own position there, and who continued to send up flowers to her to enjoy here. I remembered his prominent nose, his wide shoulders without much height. I hadn’t thought then that he looked like Stephen, but bringing up the image in my mind and comparing it to the photograph of Stephen hanging just above the bed, I realized that John Edwards had to be Edward Carter, Stephen’s brother. He had to have planned all of this, not just Stephen’s murder, but Joanna’s first meeting with him, their marriage.
And Joanna, whom I had always thought innocent, had colluded with him. Were her premonitions just an act? Was there an evil mind at work behind her dreamy exterior or was she just a manipulated pawn, moved about between two men? I really had no idea, and I wasn’t sure that it mattered anymore.
My eyes were watering, and that was when I noticed that the smoke had been getting worse all this time. It couldn’t possibly have come from a minor food mishap in the kitchen. This was a real fire.
Suddenly, I remembered Joanna’s quoting Robert Frost’s poem, “Some say the world will end in fire.”
“Mom, what are you doing in here?” I looked up to see Kenneth standing in the doorway with Naomi. His nostrils flared. “We need to get everyone out of the house. Now.”
“Hurry, Mom!” Naomi said to Rebecca.
Rebecca looked up then and put the papers aside. “What’s happening?” She seemed frozen again, reverted to the child she had been when Stephen’s body had been found.
“It’s the house,” said Naomi, “It’s on fire and we need to get out of here.”
She herded her mother out the door and I followed close behind.
In the hallway, the smoke was worse. I had to assume that Edward Carter had set the fire, a last revenge against his brother, who had taken this property from him after the first fire killed their parents and changed both their lives forever. Whether Joanna had helped him, I didn’t know. But somehow she had known there was going to be a fire.
Naomi turned to Kenneth. “You get Talitha and check for any children who might still be upstairs. I’ll make sure our moms get out and we’ll look for any other kids on our way through the house.”
He nodded and they embraced but quickly separated again. Then Kenneth turned to me and put a hand on my back. “Mom, be careful.”
“Don’t worry about me. Worry about the children.” Their lives couldn’t be the price of the legacy of hate between Stephen and Edward, played out on this property where they’d once lived together, and where their parents had died.
I made my way downstairs with Naomi and Rebecca, pausing a moment to call 911 on my cell phone, explaining where the compound was and which house was on fire. Then I helped Naomi with Rebecca as she bumped confusedly from one of us to the other. I could hear Kenneth opening and closing bedroom doors behind us, calling out in case any children weren’t already outside.
We were at the front door when I remembered that Rebecca had left the manila envelope with the DNA evidence in it upstairs. That was evidence the police would need if they wanted to prosecute Edward Carter. I’d been convinced not to call the police in the first place because I wanted to make sure that Rebecca wasn’t convicted of the crime. Now I knew who had done it and I couldn’t just let a murderer go free. I had to get those papers.
Naomi opened the door. The hot midday air felt refreshing compared to the smokey heat inside the house. It beckoned to me and I was so tempted to go into it. But I resisted the temptation and told Naomi, “I’ll be right back. I just have to go get something.”
“But—” Naomi started to say.
I didn’t give her a chance to say anything else. I hurried back to the staircase, so much smoke swirling now that I had to put my hands to the walls to make sure I knew where they were. I took the steps slowly, glad that there weren’t children rushing down past me. I counted steps to the second floor, then counted again to the third floor. I listened for any sound of Kenneth’s voice, but I didn’t hear it. I hoped he had headed outside after finding no one in the house.
I made my way down to what I thought should be the door that led to Stephen’s bedroom, opened it, and stepped back as the smoke swirled out. This was not the bedroom I recognized. I must not have gone far enough.
Not bothering to close the door behind me, I moved down the hallway to the next room. It was the third room that was the right one, which I might have remembered if I hadn’t been so addled by smoke inhalation. I stepped inside and could see the bed and the photo of Stephen with his entire family above the bed, fire licking up on the eastern side of the wall.
Where had Rebecca put the manila envelope and the pages inside it? I looked at the floor, but couldn’t see anything but the carpet smoldering. Was it back on the nightstand? Had everything already been incinerated?
This was what Kurt complained about when I investigated things. I was so convinced I could figure things out that I went to extremes, like coming back into this burning house. Like not calling the police in the first place. I should go back downstairs, let the police figure this out on their own. Surely the laboratory where Stephen had sent the DNA samples would have kept records and be able to produce a duplicate.
Then I saw the envelope tucked underneath the bed skirt. I bent over, picked it up, and collapsed. I coughed horribly, and couldn’t seem to clear my throat. Was I about to die here because I had been stupid enough to imagine that a piece of evidence against a murderer was worth risking my life?
I don’t know how long I lay there, but I heard a familiar, rough voice some eternity later and felt myself being picked up into the arms of my husband, who had arrived at last. Kurt was trying to carry me away, but I’d lost the envelope and the papers. I struggled weakly against him and reached for them. He didn’t argue with me, just grabbed what I’d pointed at, thrust it into my hands, and then picked me up again.
I sincerely hoped he didn’t end up with a herniated disc because of this. The whole ward would blame me, and with good reason. Of course we both had to get out alive first.
He carried me down two flights of stairs, then let me down once we were on the main floor, where the smoke wasn’t as bad. He put his face close to mine and kissed me firmly on the lips.
It was ridiculous and unlike Kurt and perfect.
“Shouldn’t we get out of here?” I asked after a moment, my voice hoarse.
He smiled at that, then held my hand (or possibly was just making sure that I couldn’t wander off again) as we ran out the front door.
Outside, I heard the sound of a siren approaching. Rebecca was on the gravel road, clutching her knees to her chest, sobbing something about the house. Kenneth was there, more smoke-smeared than he’d been before, but counting children with Naomi, who was holding tight to Talitha’s hand.
There was the crashing sound of the gate breaking down under the firetruck, and it occurred to me to wonder how Kurt had gotten in without a key, but I didn’t have the energy to ask the question. There was something symbolic about seeing the firetruck arrive in front of the burning main house, and looking up to see the gravel road open to the mountain. Everyone here was free now, free and safe and alive.
“What was so important about those papers?” asked Kurt.
I looked down at them, hoping that I hadn’t ended up risking my life for what turned out to be a phone bill. No, they were the pages about the DNA analysis of the three children who weren’t Stephen’s. I folded them back together with shaking hands and tucked them inside the singed manila envelope.
“We’ll see,” I said. My throat felt too sore to try to explain it all now.
“You look terrible,” said Kurt.
I laughed a little. “Thanks,” I said in a low tone.
He was holding so tightly to me that my arm had gone numb, but I didn’t ask him to let go. “I was sure when I saw the smoke coming out of the house that you were dead inside of it. I drove around the whole area and when I saw that other house nearby, I just took a chance and hoped I’d find a way from that backyard to this one, and I did.”
I couldn’t help but think that perhaps Kurt had been guided by inspiration to find that hole in the fence. It had been used for great evil, and now for good, as well. “You’re right where you’re supposed to be now,” I said. “And so am I.”
I wasn’t sure how we were going to figure out our problems, but the one thing I knew now was that I didn’t want to live without Kurt. He had come for me when I asked him to, and I wasn’t going to let go of him again.
“Linda, I love you,” he said, as if he thought this was his last chance to say it. “And whatever’s wrong between us, I promise I’ll fix it. Somehow, I will.”
It was just like Kurt to think it was his job to fix things, I thought. But what I said was, “I love you, too.”
After that, the EMTs came over to check everyone for smoke inhalation and it turned out I failed the test, which meant I got an oxygen mask and an invitation to ride in the ambulance to the hospital for treatment.
Kurt got in beside me.
“Do you want me to give you a healing blessing?” he asked, as the doors closed.
I nodded and felt a deep calm and sense of rightness as Kurt anointed me with consecrated oil from the tiny flask he kept always on his keychain, then spoke aloud a blessing of healing and comfort. I don’t remember any of the words, only the relief that I could let go and let someone else take care of everything.