Desolation Flats

by Andrew Hunt

  That was three months ago. Rose moved out of Margaret’s apartment in June, but never sent Roscoe her new address. I contacted Captain Seton Walters of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Lost Person Detail to ask for his help. Walters’s specialty was finding missing would-be starlets who ran away from home searching for stardom in Hollywood. He was friendly enough and offered to “make inquiries,” but warned me that his hands were full. He gave me the name of a private investigator with an agency dedicated to missing persons called Skip Tracers. I telephoned the detective, Arnold Cameron, and wired him fifty dollars out of my own bank account to secure his assistance. Until now, my investment had yielded no results.

  And now, in the early morning hours, here was poor Roscoe, alone with his demons.

  Six

  Caroline Kimball, a nine-year-old pigtailed girl in a white dress with pink polka dots, interrupted me in the middle of my Sunday-school lesson. She told me a man was waiting for me out in the hall and wished to see me right away. I asked the children to excuse me, rose from my chair, and followed Caroline out of the room. In the dimly lit corridor, I came face-to-face with my partner, Detective Myron Adler. A diminutive, oval-faced fellow with a brown fedora and a subtle cleft in his chin, Myron gazed at me through thick spectacles that obscured beady eyes. A hint of gray was starting to appear in his inky black hair, and he kept his hands dug deep in his pockets, jingling change, a tic he often repeated when he wasn’t entirely comfortable in his surroundings, which was nearly always.

  “So this is what the inside of a Mormon church looks like,” he said.

  “Ward.”

  “Come again?”

  “It’s called a ward.”

  “Oh. Pardon me for using the wrong terminology.”

  “Don’t give it a second thought,” I said. I waited for him to say something. When he did not, I prodded. “I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

  “There’s been a murder,” said Myron. “Hawkins wants us at the crime scene.”

  I nodded. “Last I checked, we’re not homicide dicks.”

  “He still wants us there.”

  “Did he say why?”

  Myron frowned and shook his head.

  “Where is it?”

  “Hotel Utah. Seventh floor.”

  His words sucker-punched me. Hotel Utah? Clive Underhill came to mind. Maybe it wasn’t him, I thought. Maybe it was someone else.

  Myron drove to the Hotel Utah, ten minutes by car from my ward, which was located in the middle of a residential neighborhood. In the passenger seat, I silently speculated about why my old friend Buddy Hawkins—now assistant police chief of the Salt Lake City Police Department (which made him my boss)—would want us at the scene of a homicide. Myron and I specialized in missing persons cases, and in those unfortunate instances when they turned into homicide cases, we were under strict orders to turn them over to the Homicide Squad.

  Myron suddenly broke the silence: “I thought you’d like to know that I’ve made some real headway in my genealogy research.”

  “Good. I’m pleased to hear.”

  There was genuine excitement in my voice. I’d shown Myron how to do his family genealogy a few months earlier, because he was curious about his familial lineage.

  “You were right about that Family History Library,” said Myron, referring to a Mormon genealogy center downtown. “Even if you’re not a Mormon, which I’m obviously not, there is lots of helpful information there.”

  “Well, genealogy is important to us,” I said. “It’s one way to connect with our ancestors. You needn’t be a Mormon to appreciate something that meaningful.”

  “No, I guess not,” he said. “I’m discovering a lot about my family tree.”

  “Hey, I’d like to hear about your discoveries sometime. Maybe over lunch?”

  “OK.” Myron turned deadpan as he stared ahead. “Don’t look now, but members of the Fourth Estate have come out to greet us.”

  Myron swerved to the curb on South Temple, near the building’s entrance, and killed the engine. I got out and, briefly blinded by the sun, tugged my hat low to shade my eyes. Amelia Van Cott, a blond woman in a matching green hat and dress, stood by the revolving door, spiral notebook and pencil in hand, along with her gangly photographer sidekick, Ephraim Nielsen, a lad with a camera cradled in his arms. Van Cott worked as the crime beat reporter at the Salt Lake Examiner. I was certain she either owned a police radio or had a mole inside of the SLCPD, because she turned up at every single crime scene, long before we’d sent out word to the press. I found her to be aggressive, an asker of tough questions, and when she saw me coming, she rushed over to me, her high heels click-clacking on the sidewalk.

  “Detective Oveson!”

  “Hi Amelia.”

  I brushed past her, and she twirled and kept up with me as I headed to the hotel entrance. “That’s a smart suit you have there, Detective Oveson.”

  “What brings you out here on this hot day?” I asked, ignoring her compliment.

  “I heard you performed quite the heroic feat on Saturday,” she said. “They say you saved Clive Underhill from a burning car. Now that is news!”

  “There isn’t a story,” I said. “Anybody else would’ve done the same thing.”

  “Always so modest,” she said. “Care to comment on Saturday’s incident?”

  “I just did.”

  “What brings you here?” she asked, with a flirty smile. “Rumors abound.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “Something’s the matter with Clive Underhill,” she said. “Any truth to it?”

  “Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.”

  My hand pushed glass as I stepped into the lobby. A rush of chilly air greeted me, a relief on such a hot day. The clop-clop-clopping of high heels pursued me, and I glanced over my shoulder.

  “Let me go with you, Detective Oveson,” she panted.

  “Nope.”

  “At least tell me why you’re here today,” she said. “Does it have anything to do with Saturday’s crash?”

  “It’s police business,” I said. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”

  “Aw, c’mon. I promise I’ll stay out of the way.”

  “Sorry, Amelia,” I said. “No can do.”

  An elevator operator in a maroon suit held the doors for me, and I stepped inside, followed by Myron Adler. The doors closed, we faced forward, and the operator threw some switches. We were quiet most of the way up, but as the little brass arrow above us neared the number 7, Myron gave me a sideways glance.

  “Persistent, isn’t she,” said Myron.

  “Very.”

  “Does she always do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Switch on her ladylike charms to get what she wants?”

  “Usually.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I don’t treat her any differently than the other reporters.”

  “Sure. Uh huh.”

  I glared at him. “I don’t.”

  “That’s what I said. Sure you don’t.”

  A bell dinged. We stepped out of the elevator and crossed the hall to Room 703, where two officers, Elmer Dutton and J.T. Sanderson, stood on either side of the doorway in dark blue uniforms and peaked caps. Brass buttons reflected light from above, and they wore regulation jodhpurs with boots. Made me glad that I didn’t have to dress so stiffly anymore. Being a detective came with benefits, chief among them the right to put on more comfortable clothes. The men stood at attention, treating me like a sergeant coming through to perform an inspection.

  “Afternoon, sir.”

  “Hello, Lieutenant Oveson.”

  I nodded and tugged my hat brim. “At ease, fellas. Who’s the poor soul?”

  “Nigel Underhill,” said Sanderson.

  I tried to conceal my shock by keeping my expression changeless. I stole a peek at Myron, who side-glanced at me. I looked at the officers. “Who found him?”
>
  “Hotel dick,” said Dutton. “Dooley Metzger.”

  The name instantly rang a bell. Ex-cop. Used to be SLCPD, years ago.

  “Step aside, gents,” said Sanderson with a wave. “Coming through.”

  The uniformed men parted as white-clad morgue workers carried out a sheet-covered body on a stretcher. I raised my palm to stop them, and peeled back linen to see the victim. Hair still slicked back neatly, eyes closed, face colorless and waxy, Nigel Underhill appeared the spitting image of his live self last night, when he was animated and full of rancor. Myron peered over my shoulder. I stared at that lifeless face longer than I should have, and the morgue men eyed me expectantly, as if to prod me along. I could not tell for certain how he died. I guessed manual strangulation, because of the discoloration around his neck and jawline. But I reckoned I’d have to wait for a full autopsy to get my answer.

  “Is Livsey in there?” I asked, pulling the sheet over Nigel’s head. Tom Livsey, an old childhood chum, was now county coroner.

  “He left,” said one of the bearers. “He’s expecting us.”

  “Take him out the back way,” said Buddy Hawkins. “I don’t want the press getting wind of this.”

  Deputy Police Chief Buddy Hawkins chose that moment to emerge from the room. An athletic, broad-shouldered bureaucrat with close-cropped hair that’d once been red before going blondish silver, he reminded me of Spencer Tracy in those lavish MGM pictures, with his penchant for fancy suits and freshly shined shoes. He always made me feel like a slumming pauper in my frayed church threads. I could tell he was in no mood for small talk, and after being summoned out of my Sunday-school lesson, frankly, neither was I.

  “Buddy.”

  “Art.”

  “What gives?”

  “Sorry to pull you out of church,” said Buddy. “I need to have a word with you. In private.”

  “There somewhere we can talk?”

  “We’ve set up shop a few doors down.”

  “OK.”

  Myron and I followed Buddy to 708. He double knocked, the door opened, and he led us into the room. Hatchet-faced Captain Wit Dunaway, whose scowl seemed to get worse the more his hairline receded, stood between two other homicide investigators: Detective Lieutenant Pace Newbold, nearly chinless and sporting an overbite, and his partner, Detective Reid Whitaker, a newcomer, clean-cut, freshly shaven, in a professorial tweed jacket. Both men wore hats, and Whitaker carried an open notebook and pen, as if ready to record someone’s conversation.

  We said our “excuse me’s” as we squeezed past. In the spacious room, Buddy pulled up a pair of chairs, spun them toward the bed, and sat down on the bed’s edge, motioning for us to join him. I took off my hat, Myron left his on, and we plunged into the chairs.

  “Nigel Underhill is dead,” said Buddy. “We’ve determined it’s foul play. It appears he was strangled to death.”

  “Was a weapon used?” Myron asked.

  “Hard to say at this point, but it appears manual,” said Buddy. “Done by hand. Hell of a way to go.”

  “Are there any suspects?” I asked.

  “We’ll get to that soon enough,” said Buddy. “First, I’ve got a few questions for you, Art. Hotel employees state you dropped off Nigel’s older brother, Clive, at the hotel entrance around one o’clock in the morning. That so?”

  “Yes.”

  “I also understand you were having dinner with the Underhill brothers at the Coconut Grove last night.”

  “Yes. Earlier in the day I—”

  “You saved his life at the Bonneville Speedway,” said Buddy. “Pulled him out of the wreckage of his burning car. I know.”

  “Go on,” I said, uneasy with this line of questioning.

  “I need to know what the two of you talked about at dinner,” he said. “Start from the beginning, and give me as many details as possible—everything you can possibly remember.”

  “What’s this all about? Am I a suspect?”

  “I’ll level with you, Art.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Nigel Underhill is dead, but then, you already know that,” he said. “What you probably don’t know is that Clive Underhill is missing. His manager, Albert Shaw, has no idea where he might be. You wanna know the real bomb?”

  “I guess so.”

  “We’ve got three eyewitnesses who can place Roscoe Lund here, on this very floor, around three in the morning, stinking drunk, banging on doors, demanding payment for services rendered.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked.

  “In jail, downtown, cooling his heels,” said Buddy. “We’ll wait for word back on the autopsy. I’m sure it’s foul play, though. I’m hoping for a speedy arraignment, within the next two weeks, if possible.”

  I shook my head in stunned disbelief. “Surely you don’t think…”

  “We know for a fact that he got in a screaming match with Nigel Underhill last night, in plain view of the entire hotel staff.…”

  “Nigel was being unbearable.”

  “So you can’t blame Roscoe for strangling him?” asked Buddy in a wise-guy way. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Roscoe didn’t murder anybody,” I said.

  “Did you drive him back here last night around three in the morning?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I was at home, in bed.”

  “Then how do you know what Roscoe did when he came back here?”

  “Who are these eyewitnesses?” I asked. “I’d like to talk to them.”

  “It’s not yours. Don’t even think about touching it.”

  “Why? Clive Underhill is missing. I’m the head of the Bureau of Missing Persons,” I reminded him. “It makes sense that I would…”

  “You’re too close to Roscoe.”

  “I want to see the crime scene.”

  “Oh you do?”

  “Yes.”

  “The answer is no.”

  “It involves a missing person,” I said. “That means I’ve got a stake in it.”

  Pace Newbold picked that exact moment to barge into the room. He came over to where we were sitting and glared at me before stooping to whisper in Buddy’s ear.

  “Send him in,” said Buddy.

  “Yes, sir.”

  What came next was my second big jolt of the day.

  Into the room walked my eldest brother, Frank, an imposing, 250-pound version of me, about a half a dozen years my senior, dressed in a three-piece suit with a fedora tipped at an angle. His cologne nearly overwhelmed my nostrils. The man must have dunked his head in a bucket full of it this morning.

  “Frank,” I said, rising to greet him.

  He set his briefcase on the floor and threw his arms around me, giving me a vise-clamp hug, patting my back. Frank was head of the Salt Lake City office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  “How are you, kid?” Frank asked.

  “I’ve been better,” I said. “What brings you here?”

  “May I?”

  He gestured to the bed where Buddy was sitting.

  “Sure.”

  Buddy stood up when he saw Frank coming. He walked over to the window and opened the drapes. Sunlight flooded the room, blinding me a second. I blinked the brightness out of my eyes and returned to my seat. Frank took a seat on the spot where Buddy was sitting a moment ago.

  “Myron, this is my older brother, Frank,” I said. “Frank, this is my partner, Detective Myron Adler.”

  They shook hands.

  “Striking resemblance,” said Myron, tilting his head at Frank. “Only you weigh more, have less hair, and look older.”

  Frank chortled. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Why are you here?” I repeated.

  Frank studied me. “As Special Agent in Charge of the Salt Lake City field office, I’ll be working with the police on the Underhill case.”

  “Which one?” I asked.

  “Both. If Clive Underhill fails to surface by midweek, two business days from n
ow, the Bureau is going to regard this as a kidnapping and will formally take over and direct the investigation under the Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932.”

  “I thought kidnappers had to cross state lines before the feds stepped in,” I said.

  Frank shook his head. “The law stipulates that if a missing person is not found in twenty-four hours, federal agents may operate under the assumption that he or she has been taken across state lines. We’re giving you extra time because we feel the police should exercise jurisdiction when it comes to matters of local law enforcement.”

  “What does that mean for us?” I asked.

  “Your superiors will answer to me and coordinate their investigation with mine so we don’t step on each other’s toes,” Frank said. “I’m in contact with a fella from British military intelligence who is here in town right now, and whose identity I am not at liberty to reveal. I’ll be working closely with Deputy Chief Hawkins here, utilizing police manpower and sharing information. If I deem it necessary, I’m allowed to request additional federal agents to assist me in my investigation. But the presence of large numbers of G-men here in Salt Lake City will almost certainly draw attention to this case, and I would prefer to avoid that if possible. If the newspapers get wind of this, all hell is going to break loose, excuse the French.”

  “He’s right,” said Buddy. “We’ll have reporters camped out here, hounding the living daylights out of us. As you well know, being under the microscope of the press dials up the pressure considerably.”

  “Is there any evidence of a kidnapping?” I asked. “Is there a ransom note?”

  “Not yet,” said Frank. “Tell me something, kid.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You were with Clive the night he went missing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he say anything that might shed light on his whereabouts?”

  I spent the next while describing what happened Saturday night at the Coconut Grove, and Clive Underhill telling me about his desire to leave town and go see the Canyons of the Escalante. Frank already knew about my rescue of Underhill out at the Salt Flats. Word travels fast in the Oveson clan. He listened intently, as did Buddy and Myron, and by the time I finished, Frank was nodding and gazing into space, as if carefully considering my words.