Desert Wives (9781615952267) by Betty Webb

giving talks at libraries? Guess where those guys been showin’ up for the last couple of years. Homeless shelters! The welfare office! Even the court house! It ain’t always too hard to convince some woman that if she moves to Purity her nutty ex-boyfriend won’t find her and beat her up again. And it ain’t hard to convince others they’ll find true love at Purity, either. By the time they find out it’s all a big lie, they’ve been cut off from everybody they know and they’ve got new babies they can’t bear leavin’ behind.”
    Leo put a restraining hand on her arm. “Hon, we can talk about this until Doomsday, but I doubt if it’s going to make any difference to Lena. She’s seems pretty focused on her own assignment, not donning a suit of armor to join our little crusade.”
    Aptly put. So aptly, in fact, that I found myself wondering how the rough-cut Virginia had wound up with the much smoother Leo. But when I studied her face more closely, I saw the remnants of considerable beauty. That explained everything. Educated men like Leo had married uneducated beauties before, and would again.
    â€œI’m no Joan of Arc, that’s for sure.” I offered an apologetic smile.
    Saul looked at me. “Don’t say that yet.” Then he transferred his glance to Virginia. “Seems like a good time to ask her, don’t you think?”
    Virginia nodded. “I’d say so.”
    Saul chuckled with the rusty sound of someone who hadn’t laughed in a long time, then astounded me by leaving his chair and getting down on his knees. “Well, Miss Private Detective, seeing as how you look to be of child-bearing age, how’d you like to come and live with me in my little honeymoon cottage at Purity?”
    I opened my mouth but no sound came out.
    â€œOf course, we’ll have to get married before we get there, otherwise our new Prophet Davis might want to snatch you up for himself. He likes tall, skinny blonds. In fact, all six of his wives are blonds! So how about it, Lena? If you’re worried about Ruby, well, she won’t mind me dragging home another wife. She was born in Purity and knows that sharing a husband is her God-ordained duty.”
    My voice faltered. “I don’t think, I don’t think…” I looked at Virginia for help, but she’d hidden her mouth behind her hands. Those sad eyes were laughing, though.
    Leo rescued me. “Lena, posing as Saul’s new wife is the perfect way to smuggle you into the compound. You can’t find out who murdered Prophet Solomon if you don’t talk to the people involved. And the only way to do that is to go to Purity.”
    Now that I’d recovered from my initial shock, I realized the plan made sense. Yes, Saul might have his own reason for wanting Solomon dead, but that didn’t matter to me. Pretend-marrying him would certainly bring me up close and personal with all the other people who had motives, too. I did see one weakness in the plan, however.
    â€œLet’s say, just for argument’s sake, that I do this. How would you explain me to the others? Would you tell them I was some sort of mail-order bride? Frankly, I can’t imagine anyone with half a brain believing that.”
    Saul rose from his knees and returned to his chair. After taking a couple of more bites of peach cobbler, he told me he’d already figured that out.
    He had been away from the compound for several days, supposedly on a trip to Salt Lake to visit one of his daughters, but in actuality, he’d been conferring with his attorney in Zion City. When he returned to Purity with a new wife, he would simply explain we’d been introduced by an acquaintance who ran a shelter for battered women, and that I’d leapt at the chance to have a permanent roof over my head while at the same time getting far, far away from the crackhead boyfriend who’d threatened to