by Rich Curtin
Rivera glanced in the bathroom, inspected the contents of the medicine cabinet, then went to the kitchen and looked in each drawer.
“What are you looking for?” asked Tibbetts.
“Nothing in particular,” said Rivera. “I just want to get a mental picture of the man and his lifestyle.” He walked back into the living room and glanced at the books on Upton’s shelves. Many of the titles were related to the geology of Utah and Colorado. He pulled one off the shelf titled Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau and paged through it. It described the geologic evolution of the Colorado Plateau and depicted computer generated images of how the landscape might have looked at different eras in geologic time. It looked like something Rivera would be interested in reading. He put it back in its place. There were a dozen books on rocks and minerals and several more on petrified wood. He paged through a couple of the books and was again amazed at the variety of colorful specimens. Other books described the history of Moab and its development throughout the 1900s. They contained interesting photographs of old Moab during its uranium mining days.
Rivera inspected the rocks on Upton’s shelves. There were a few dozen specimens in his collection, and they seemed superior to most of the rocks he’d seen at the rock show. Interspersed among the rocks were several spearpoints and arrowheads, and a sandal made of fiber which Rivera assumed to be of ancient-Indian origin.
He opened the desk drawers and scanned the contents. He extracted a checkbook and read each entry in the check register, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. On top of the desk was an open yearbook from Grand County High School. The year was 1985. Rivera paged through the photographs of the graduating seniors and came upon Upton’s picture. The image was of an unsmiling, gaunt young man with mild acne and a plain looking face. No extracurricular activities were listed under his name.
Rivera noticed a bookmark from Moab’s Back of Beyond Books protruding from the yearbook. He paged back to the bookmark and saw Arthur Atkinson’s picture there. It had been circled with a red felt-tip pen. Interesting, thought Rivera. So Upton and Atkinson had known each other since high school. Another coincidence worth noting. Atkinson’s photograph depicted a handsome young man with blond hair and a winning smile. Rivera read the extracurricular entries under Atkinson’s name: Class President, Valedictorian, Voted Most Likely to Succeed, Captain of the Varsity Football Team, Debate Team. Clearly Atkinson was a golden boy in high school, and Upton seemed to be exactly the opposite. Rivera wondered if they had interacted much back in those days.
He sat down in one of the straight-back chairs and began paging through the yearbook from the beginning. He came upon a picture of a young Stanley Stevens, a friend of Rivera’s who owned an outfitting company in Moab that provided guided hiking and rafting tours in the canyon country. He smiled at how young Stan looked back then. Soon he came upon the image of the girl in the framed pictures in Upton’s living room and bedroom. Her name was Dorothy Ellison. She’d been a cheerleader and an honor student back in the day. In the pages devoted to extracurricular activities, he found pictures of the football team and the debate team which included Arthur Atkinson’s image. There were also several pictures of the cheerleaders, one of which showed Dorothy Ellison in her cheerleading outfit, a short, pleated skirt and a sequined top. She was grinning and leaping into the air with a pompom in each hand. Her long, blonde hair was flying outward in every direction.
“Find anything?” asked Tibbetts.
“Atkinson and Upton went to high school together.” He pointed to the framed photograph. “And the young lady in that photo was in the same graduating class.”
Tibbetts thought about that for a long moment. “Grand County High School is the only high school within a fifty-mile radius. Atkinson and Upton were about the same age, so they would naturally be in the same high school at the same time.”
Rivera nodded. “True, but it’s another interesting coincidence, don’t you think?”
Tibbetts laughed. “And I know how you are about coincidences.”
Rivera stood up. “Let’s take a look outside.”
They walked around to the side of the house and stopped at the window through which the bullets had been fired. Rivera noted that the stuffed chair upon which Upton had been seated was directly inside the window. Upton was tall and his head would have protruded above the back of the chair, making his skull an easy target through the open window. The opera music from the CD player would have masked the footfalls of the approaching shooter. The rock patio they stood on did not allow for footprints.
Rivera noticed the lady who lived in the rock house across the road standing in her yard watching them. A young boy with ruffled blond hair, perhaps five or six years old, stood next to her with his arm around her leg.
“That’s Annette Benson and her boy,” said Tibbetts. “She’s the one who found Upton’s body.”
“Let’s go talk with her.”
16
THE TWO DEPUTIES walked across the road, and Tibbetts made the introductions. Annette Benson looked to be in her early thirties. She had a pretty face and light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing jeans and a plaid flannel shirt.
“I understand you heard the shots that night,” said Rivera. He avoided referring to the dead man since the boy was standing there.
“Yes. Two shots. They woke me up. My husband was out of town. I looked at the clock. It was a little after two in the morning.”
“Is your husband Todd Benson?”
“Why yes, he is.”
Rivera smiled. “Todd and I worked on a case together a few years back. It involved some drug runners growing marijuana on federal land. He’s a good man.”
She laughed and seemed to relax. “Oh, I certainly agree with that.”
“Did you look outside when you heard the shots?”
“Yes. I pushed back the curtains and looked out the window. I could see the lights were still on inside Frank’s house. I figured he must have been shooting at the raccoons that were chewing through his roof and trying to build a nest in his attic. He’d been having trouble with them for weeks.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No, so I went back to bed.”
“Did you notice any vehicles out there?”
“Just Frank’s pickup parked in his driveway.”
Rivera scratched his head, wondering if the shooter had arrived on foot. “How much of the road can you see from your bedroom window?”
“About a hundred feet in either direction. Beyond that, the trees and bushes block the view.”
“Did you hear a vehicle drive off after you were awakened?”
She thought for a long moment. “Not that I recall. No, I don’t believe so.”
Rivera looked down at the boy. He could see from the odd look in the boy’s eyes that he was mentally challenged in some way. “And what’s your name, young man?”
“Billy.” The boy looked unhappy.
“And how are you today, Billy?”
“I didn’t get nothin’.”
“What do you mean?”
The mother spoke softly, looking at the boy and caressing his head with her hand. “He’s a little confused about what month this is. He thinks it’s Christmas time and he’s unhappy he didn’t get any presents.” She looked into Rivera’s eyes and forced a smile. “He’ll be going to a special school as soon as he’s ready.”
Rivera nodded his understanding. Someday he and Gloria would have children of their own. It crossed his mind for a fearful instant that there were risks involved in having a family, plenty of risks. The future was filled with uncertainty.
“What can you tell me about Frank’s personal life?” he asked.
“I didn’t know him really well, just as a neighbor. Frank was kind of a loner but a loner by choice, I believe. He seemed to have a good life and was actively trying to prevent the destruction of Moab, as he called it. He wanted Moab to remain a small town and was concerned about all
the development that’s been going on the past few years.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, I know he had a strong interest in rocks. He told me he studied geology for a year in college but despite not finishing, he knew a lot about the subject from reading books. He was an expert on minerals and rocks and sometimes went into the backcountry to collect them.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “He also enjoyed listening to opera music. I often heard it coming from his house. Other than that, I can’t think of anything else to tell you about him.”
“Did he have many visitors?” Rivera was thinking about Iggy Webb. He was still searching for a connection between the two rockhounds.
“Rarely. He seemed to prefer solitude. He always had a troubled look on his face whenever I saw him. To me, he seemed unhappy deep down, especially in recent weeks.”
“When was the last time you saw a visitor at the Upton place?”
She thought for a long moment. “Six months ago. Maybe more.”
“Can you remember anything about the visitor?”
“Not really. I just remember seeing a pickup in the driveway. It was black, I think.”
“Do you know if Upton had a girlfriend?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Any pets?”
“No.”
Rivera noticed that Tibbetts had folded his arms and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The questioning seemed to be making him impatient, probably because he had already asked her all these questions. Perhaps he felt embarrassed, as though he were a schoolboy and the teacher was checking his homework.
“Did you ever see Frank in town?”
“Yes. I attend St. Pius X Catholic Church and do volunteer work there a couple of days each week. I’m an accountant and I help them keep their books. On three or four occasions, I saw Frank visiting with Father Mahoney. They were standing outside the church and talking about something serious. I could tell it was serious because of their facial expressions and gesturing.”
Now Tibbetts looked interested. He lowered his arms to his sides.
“Was Frank a member of the church?” asked Rivera.
“I’ve never seen him at mass, so I’d guess he wasn’t.”
“Do you have any idea why he was talking with Father Mahoney?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Did you ever see him anywhere else in town?’
“Once at Pasta Jay’s. He was having dinner by himself. And I saw him a couple of times at City Market doing his grocery shopping.”
Rivera studied his notes, finally deciding he had no more questions. He thanked her, said goodbye to Billy, and returned with Tibbetts to Upton’s house. They locked the front door and headed back to Moab.
Rivera was tired after a long day. As he drove, he wondered why Upton had visited a priest several times, despite not being a member of the church. That seemed odd. Rivera attended services at that church on occasion and had never seen Upton there. His was a face Rivera would have remembered. Upton’s conversations with a priest represented another loose end. Rivera knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he tied it down.
Upon arriving home that evening, the first thing Rivera did was open the back door of the house. Bentley, his chocolate Labrador Retriever, was hungry after spending the day in Rivera’s backyard, playing and running the fence line with the German Shepherd next door. He came bounding into the house, greeted his master by slobbering on his hand, and turned to his food bowl. It was empty. The dog looked up at Rivera with an eager expression. He was wagging his tail, licking his chops, and exhibiting his “you haven’t fed me yet” facial expression designed to put his master on a guilt trip. Rivera laughed and patted him on the head. He opened a can of dog food and spooned it into the bowl. Bentley began gulping it down as Rivera freshened the water in the dog’s drinking bowl.
That done, he turned his attention to the fancy guppies inhabiting the ten-gallon aquarium on his kitchen counter. He added a pinch of tropical fish food to the water and watched as the colorful guppies flashed here and there, searching out and gobbling up each morsel. Then he put a frozen chicken pot pie into the oven for himself, opened a can of Budweiser, and took a cold, refreshing swig.
After dinner, he sat down on the couch and called Gloria. He loved the sound of her voice. They talked for several minutes the way lovers do about how much they missed each other and how much they looked forward to being together again.
“Manny, I got so used to having you here. Now that you’re gone, I miss you terribly.”
“I miss you too. I’ve been mentally reliving our time together in New Mexico. It makes being without you feel less lonesome. I carry you in my mind wherever I go, but it would be so nice to have you to come home to.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you mean. I have those same feelings. So tell me, have you adjusted to being back on the job?”
“Turns out I’m in the middle of a new murder case.”
“Already? How’s it going?”
“Well, actually, it may have just evolved into two related cases.” Rivera spent the next ten minutes briefing her on the details of the cases and his progress thus far.
“So what’s your next step?”
“I plan to visit the priest Frank Upton spoke with. Maybe he can tell me something useful.”
“He might not be able to tell you anything at all. His vows might prohibit it.”
“Well, I’ve got to try. Those conversations could be important.”
“I hope it works out for you. By the way, your mother called me this evening. She just wanted to talk. She sounded happy. I heard all about your childhood years.”
“Uh oh. She didn’t tell you about my first-grade romance, did she?”
“Oh yes! You were caught by the teacher kissing Lola Juarez in the clothes closet during recess.”
“She was a pretty good kisser for a five-year old.”
“And she told me about the time she gave you an apple to take to your third-grade teacher. You gave it to her after you’d taken a bite out of it.”
“I was hoping she wouldn’t notice.”
Gloria laughed. “I learned a lot about you. And I just love talking to your mother.”
“My mother likes to gossip. Nothing in my embarrassing past is sacred. What other secrets did she reveal?”
“She told me about the date you had with Norma Rodriguez for your junior prom in high school.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Did you really bring her a bouquet of roses you cut from your neighbor’s garden?”
“Yeah. I was broke and couldn’t afford a corsage. Turned out it was a bad idea. Norma’s mother took them outside and threw them in the garbage can because they were full of aphids. That was my last date with Norma.”
“Oh, that’s funny. Your mother also said how lucky she was to have you for a son.”
“I have a great mom. We hit it off as soon as our eyes met.”
Gloria laughed, then paused for a moment. “You sound tired.”
“I am tired.” In fact, Rivera felt too tired to bring up the sensitive matter of where they would live after they were married. He decided to raise the question when he felt more relaxed—maybe when his investigation was completed.
He told Gloria he loved her and said good night.
17
AFTER BREAKFAST THE next morning, Rivera paid a visit to St. Pius X Catholic Church and met with Father Mahoney in the rectory office. The priest, who looked like he was in his seventies, was sitting behind a small, oak desk. He was wearing glasses, a black cassock, and a starched white collar. He was a short, stocky man with pale skin and only a few wisps of white hair remaining on top of his head. Rivera sat stiffly in a red velvet padded chair, feeling slightly intimidated just like he did during his altar boy days when in the presence of a priest. His nostrils detected the faint scent of candle wax and incense.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about Frank Upton,”
he began. “I understand he visited you several times recently.”
“Indeed he did,” said Father Mahoney, speaking with an Irish brogue. “It was a terrible thing that happened to him.”
“Was he a member of the church here?”
“Oh no, I believe Frank had lost his faith many years ago. I’ve never seen him here during Sunday Mass services, despite my encouragement that he return to the fold. No, he came to me one day to discuss a matter that had been troubling him for a long time. I’d never laid eyes on him before that. We spoke many times during the past six months.”
“Any idea why he would come to a priest to discuss his problem? I mean, since he wasn’t a member of the church?”
“Yes. He told me he was once Catholic and had heard that priests were also available for consultations outside the confessional. And that is true. We are trained to understand the problems of daily life that people encounter. We hear much of the dark side of life in the confessional, so very little comes as a surprise to us. Our purpose is to help people work through their problems and lead a life consistent with Christian values.”
“Can you tell me what was bothering him?”
The priest leaned back in his chair and thought for a long moment. “He came to me for some counseling. We usually went for a walk and talked about his problem. It wasn’t something he told me in the confessional, but I feel I’m still bound by the priest-penitent privilege not to reveal the details of our conversation.”
“But Upton is dead. How could it hurt him?”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could help you, but the privilege extends beyond the death of the penitent.”
“Could you tell me in general terms? It might be helpful to my investigation. You know, point me in the right direction.”
“Frank was an unhappy man deep down. He’d been that way for most of his life. He knew the root of his unhappiness and wanted help in understanding how to deal with it.”