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sat down. Almost as heavily as Sam had just moments before. Probably with even more weight, despite his thin frame. He’d been carrying the burden of her catatonic mother for twenty years now.
    “Well, let’s see. I worked some on my pear trees. And the peaches are getting ready to come on. Those are going to make some mighty tasty pies.”
    Or would, if anyone here made pie. Or could even manage to peel a peach. Her father was no cook, so Sam knew the peaches would fall to the ground and rot or Dad would give them away to the neighbors. Same as last year.
    Sam put one tea bag in each mug and carried them over to the table to steep. She set them both in front of her father, since her mother would only drink the tea with Sam’s father’s help—and even then most of it would run down Ruthie’s chin and onto her clothing.
    “No tea?”
    “No thanks,” Sam said.
    He leaned over and sniffed the tea, closing his eyes briefly, letting the aroma and steam float up over his face, and then opening them again. “Did you hear about Gladys Knight?” her father asked her, as though sensing that her next words would be filled with ideas and options he did not want to hear. She’d said them before. He never listened.
    “Gladys Knight the singer?” Here we go again.
    “Yes, she joined the Church. Isn’t that wonderful?”
    “I think we’ve talked about that before, Dad.” Once a week for the past few years . Whenever you don’t want to talk about what you know is going to come out of my mouth.
    “Oh,” he answered, looking slightly confused. “Well, it’s certainly good news for the Church, isn’t it? Such a testament to the truthfulness of the Gospel.”
    Sam clenched her teeth to keep the acerbic reply that sat on the end of her tongue from escaping. The ringing of her cell phone saved her from having to answer.
    “I need you at the seminary building at Smithland High School, Montgomery.” The chief’s voice was loud and stress frosted every word. “We’ve found something that ties the Malone kid to the others.”
    “It’s not suicide,” Sam said, almost to herself.
    “Doesn’t look like it,” the chief answered.
    *   *   *
    “How did you find it?” Sam asked a nervous patrolman, twenty-one-year-old Eldon Watts, fresh off his church mission and just out of the academy. They both stared at a computer screen, barely able to take their eyes away from the scene in front of them. Watts moved from foot to foot, as though he were twelve years old and being questioned by the seminary principal. Of course, it probably hadn’t been that long since Watts had taken church classes in this very building. Every good Mormon boy and girl took seminary, and Watts came from a family that had arrived in Utah in covered wagons, with Brigham Young as their guide.
    Sam had ditched seminary class every day, so she wasn’t all that familiar with what the seminary looked like inside, although she had a vague recollection. From her survey today, it looked like a mini Mormon chapel, both inside and out. Now those she was familiar with, since ditching out on church services had never been as easy as skipping seminary, which was held during school hours. It was called released time, in an effort to separate church and state. The attendance of seminary did not affect one’s attendance at school, and thus Sam and her friends considered it their free period. As long as they didn’t get caught.
    As far as Sam knew, each public junior-high and high school in Utah had a seminary building in short walking distance from the school. Close enough that it was possible to get from the building to the next class without being tardy. She didn’t know if someone donated the land whenever a school was built or how it was managed, but the buildings were owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
    Someone in “released time” had had way too much free time, gauging from the PowerPoint presentation splayed across the