The Investigators—Chapter 4

This work is copyright Amanda Mayne November 2011.

Dressed in official looking suits and ties, the two detectives showed up at the home of Elle and Charles Bennett.

"I didn't realize that Elle was married," Aaron commented as they wiated on the porch.

"She's not, unless she's in her 60s. But judging by that picture I'd say she's remarkable younger than that. This house has been owned by one Charles Bennett and his wife for at least 35 years."

Just then the door clicked open and a gray- haired lady greeted them.

‎"Oh my! Charles, come quick! Look it's some of them Mormons!"

Before they could say or do anything, the elderly woman closed the door in their faces. The two detectives exchanged a curious glance.

"Well, that went well," Aaron stated after an awkward moment or two standing on this woman's porch, "Now what genius?" He added, his voice thick with sarcasm.

Detective Young just shrugged and they turned to leave to go regroup and come up with a new plan. They were sure they'd have to go back to square one when the door opened again.

"Come on in, Elders!"

"We're not--" Aaron started, but Detective Young elbowed him in the side.

"Just go with it," He muttered under his breath to his less-experienced partner.

Shed led them through an entryway and into the living room. It was small but tidy and well decorated. The men took seats on the large tan leather couch and waited as Elle, sr. gathered her family.

Charles came in first. His hair had more color than his wife's, but he had a considerably smaller amount of it. The top of his head shined in the artificial lighting in the room.

He had an annoyed glare on his face and he stared down the "missionaries" with obvious disdain. Young didn't know much about Mormons, but he didn't think they'd done anything to earn this man's obvious hatred. Or maybe Charles just hated Young and Ackerley in particular. He continued to glower at them as he sank into his over-sized recliner.

Elle, sr. came back in the room with a plate of cookies.

"Growing boys need their cookies," she told them when they tried to refuse the offer. Then they each took a cookie to be polite. The motherly woman seemed satisfied with this and placed the platter on the glass- top cofee table.

Finally, the two people central to the case entered the room, hand- in- hand, both looking very much like their respective photographs.

"I'm Elle," The Elderly woman began, "and this is my husband Charles. These two beautiful ladies are my daughter and granddaughter, Elle and Julie. If you get us Elles mixed up you can just call me Janice. That's my middle name, and I've been going by it almost exclusively since my daughter moved in." She grinned at them and sat on the loveseat across from Aaron and Craig. She patted the seat beside her and Elle sat down and placed her daughter on her lap.

Janice turned to Julie, "We're going to listen to these nice men as they tell us about Jesus."

Julie didn't say anything, but stared at the men with an interest that most children didn't display when religion was brought into conversation.

"I'm--" Craig struggled to find the right word. Janice had used it earlier. It started with an "E." Oh that was it, "I'm Elder Young and this is my . . . um"

"Companion," Aaron supplied.

"Yes," Craig started again, "I'm Elder Young and this is Elder Aaron. I mean Ackerley. Elder Ackerley."

"Young, now that's a good solid Mormon name, isn't it. You're first name Brighton? Wasn't that his name? Brighton Young, founder of the Mormons?"

I thought the founder of the Mormons was Mormon? Craig wondered to himself. And what kind of name was Brighton?

Then things got silent. Everyone in the room was staring at Young, "Oh, right. We were talking about Jesus, huh? Um. who knows who Jesus was?"

Immediately Craig regretted asking the question. It sounded really stupid. Who hadn't heard of Jesus? But no one complained and after only a few moments Janice chipped in.

"Jesus was a great teacher. Some people say he was a Savior."

Young waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't appease him.

"Ok, good. Um, we," again he was lost. What religion did she think they were? The one with missionaries, right? They were just BARELY talking about this. Brighton Young. What was it?! Jehovah's Witnesses? No! "Um, we believe Jesus was a great teacher too. Elder Ackerley, tell the um," he looked at the family portrait above the piano for help. It said in big letters BENNETT. "Ackerley, tell the Bennett's about Jesus' teachings."

The look Aaron gave Craig said that we was going to tear his head off when they got back to the car, but when he turned back to face the family he was Mr. Cordiality.

"Julie," He said addressing the little girl with dark hair, "Do you know something that Jesus taught?"

Oh great, Young thought, I pass the buck to Ackerley and he passes it to the youngest person in the room. But to the surprise of everyone, Julie replied, "Jesus said to not be mean to people even if they're naughty and don't get presents from Santa."

"That's very good Julie," Ackerley cooed. Then he gave Craig another expectant look. The look said, I don't want to talk about this anymore, you're the one that was eager to pretend to be missionaries, you take over.

Criag nodded half to Aaron and half to himself and then took over. "Jesus said love everyone. Didn't he? He said we should be kind?"

There was general nodding going around.

"Who's Mormon?" The little girl asked.

Mormon! That was it! They were pretending to be Mormons. Well, pretending sounded so . . . they were undercover as Mormon missionaries.

"Mormon was a very important man in our Church. I mean without Mormon, we wouldn't be Mormons. If you know what I mean. Mormon's like the head honcho. Mormon is or was um a great teacher too."

Craig hated that his speech was riddled with "ums." Hadn't he always been the one to scold those that talked like that? "Find your words before you speak!" He would lecture. And now here we was "um um um."

"We also believe in Heaven," Ackerley said to change the subject.

"No, I," was he really about to blow their cover over that. Get in the game, Craig, he scolded himself, "I mean, of course we do. I thought he said we believe in 'Heather' and I was, like, what?"

Crap, now he was using "like" as an interjection. What was it about this investigation that was making his grammar leave him? He sounded like a teenaged girl. Or maybe it was the subject matter. Talking religion was never one of Craig's strong points. In hindsight, maybe "just going with it" was a really bad idea. He'd been thinking that Elle would be able to "confess her sins" more easily to a couple of missionaries who promised of a God who loved them, than to confess to detectives who were trying to prove she was guilty of kidnapping her daughter, potentially taking her away from the family and landing Elle in a jail cell.

"Aren't you boys a little old to be out proselyting?"

And now Janice was using words that Craig wasn't sure what they meant! Could this day get worse? Luckily, Aaron had this one.

"Most guys start proselyting when they're younger, but we kind of slacked off, and were just born again recently. That's why we're older."

"Born again?" Elle asked, with a hint of suspicion in her voice.

"Like, we found our faith . . . Again." And there he was using the "like" again.

The first thing Craig did when he got home from the Bennett house was turn on his laptop. While it was booting up he took of the tie that had started to feel like a noose very early in the visit. Next the shoes were kicked under the bed, and then the jacket was placed on the back of his computer chair. If they kept this guise up, there was no way Craig was wearing that suit jacket again. Even in cold October, it was way too hot.

Finally he heard the boot up jingle that said his computer was ready for him to begin his midless browsing of the world wide web. Only tonight he wouldn't be catching up on 90s tv shows or endlessy clicking stumble to see what stick-figure comics would appear. No tonight he was going to find out more about the Mormons.

He opened a browser, then his favorite search engine. He lightly tapped his fingers agains the keys, trying to decide what to look up. Then he shrugged and typed in: Brighton Young. It seemed like a good starting point, if Brighton really was the founder of the faith.

After finding a whole lot of nothing useful and a whole lot of United Kingdom maps he rephrased his search. Mormon Brighton Young. Did you mean Brigham Young? Craig wasn't sure what he meant. But he clicked in the affirmative.

He found himself skimming an encyclopedia entry. Words like polygammy, American Moses, and Utah stood out to him. He also found that the website called Mormonism the LDS Church. He followed the footnotes to mormon.org.

He scanned the tabs before deciding to begin with the one labled "Our Faith." It seemed like a good place to start. If he was going to pretend to be a Mormon preacher he would have to know at least something about the faith. From there he found links that said things like "The Restoration", "God's Plan for Happiness", and "Joseph Smith." He did not see a link for any Youngs, Brightons, Brighams, or otherwise. He clicked on the "Joseph Smith" link.

There he rad about a time and place of "theological turmoil." A phrase that struck a cord somewhere inside Craig. He could say that he himself was in a state of theological turmoil. He had always wanted to believe in God, but he wasn't sure if he ever really had. And now he wasn't sure that he could. How could a loving God take his family away from him? They'd done nothing wrong. Don't Christians believe that you reap what you sow? Karma? You put good energy out and get good energy in return? Why then had his wife and daughter been taken so long before it was their time. They were both so young. Too young to die.

He looked back at the website. At the painted blue eyes of the man some called a prophet. He was no longer doing research. He now needed some answers. He clicked on a link labled "God's Plan of Happiness." And wondered as the page loaded, doe God care for our happiness as human beings? Does he care for MY happiness personally? Does he know that I even exist? If I don't believe in Him does he still believe in me?

The page loaded, and it looked pretty boring. He scrolled down, not really reading. There were pictures and videos and big quotes from the bible. Did Mormons read the bible? He wasn't sure.

He spent all night on mormon.org. He learned that Mormon's do in fact read the bible as well as the Book of Mormon and maybe even more books. He found out that they preferred to be called Latter-day Saints. That they believed in being with your family forever.

Somewhere along the way he bagan taking notes. PArtially for himself, and partially so he and Ackerley could be more convincing as they contiued their investigation.

Before he fell asleep--at the time he usually woke up--Craig put in an order for three copies of the book of mormon. One fore him, one for Ackerley, and one fore the Bennett family. He couldn't believe they were giving them away for free. And he hoped they'd arrive before their next "lesson." He wondered if he should get a bible as well, since he now knew that Latter-day Saints also read that, but he figured he could find used bibles anywhere. In fact, he was pretty sure that they put a used bookstore where the music store used to be a couple years back.

He was also surprised to find that they had all the LDS scriptures available online for free. The book of mormon, the bible and a couple of books called the doctrine and covenants, and the pearl of great price. He'd check those out later, for now he was going to sleep.

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