by Andrew Hunt
“I want you to stay away from this case,” Frank finally said. “I’m aware of your friendship with the key suspect. You and Roscoe are close, aren’t you?”
Myron and I exchanged glances.
“Not like we used to be,” I said. “We don’t stay in touch like the old days.”
I was not entirely lying to my brother. I did not see or speak to Roscoe as much as I once did, back when we were partners on the force. But I opted to downplay our ongoing friendship, to avoid being taken off the investigation due to conflict of interest. Unfortunately for me, Frank responded with a skeptical raised eyebrow, and as soon as I stopped speaking, the silence became oppressive.
“I’ll remind you that lying to a federal agent is a felony,” said Frank. “Even if you are my little brother, if you ascertain my meaning.”
“Meaning ascertained,” I said.
“Look, kid, this is a volatile situation we find ourselves in,” said Frank. “In case you haven’t noticed, Utah is playing host to two rival racing teams from countries that aren’t exactly on the friendliest of terms with each other. Clive Underhill and Rudy Heinrich are celebrities back in their respective homelands, and the wrong incident at the wrong time … Well, let’s just say we’re sitting on a barrel full of gunpowder, and all it takes is one person with misplaced priorities to send it up in a gigantic fireball. Particularly if that one person happens to be an officer of the law who has a vested interest in clearing a key suspect.”
“That’s not the case with me,” I said. “If Roscoe is guilty of committing a crime, no matter what it is, I’ll personally bring him down. On that, you have my word.”
Frank eyed Buddy, who was already looking at Frank. I noticed each man offer the other a subtle nod.
Buddy said to me, “You’ll coordinate with Newbold. Exercise a subtle hand at all times. Refrain from putting your entire squad on it. Let Adler here and Beckstead work on other cases. Above all, keep it under wraps. You are to report directly to me, right down to the smallest of details. Is that clear?”
“Crystal.”
“We’re giving you a chance to prove yourself, kid,” said Frank. “Don’t blow it.”
Myron and I stood to leave. When we were halfway to the door, Frank called out: “It’s Sunday. You know what that means? I’ll see you at dinner tonight. My place. The usual time.”
Seven
The Salt Lake City jail is about as ugly as jails come. So ugly, in fact, the builders—in their infinite wisdom—chose to locate it away from the road. It opened its doors in 1903, constructed to the tune of a paltry $40,000, due to the excessive frugality of the mayor and city council. You don’t get much for $40,000, not even in 1903. Where a sea of tall grass once undulated in the wind, a multistory brick eyesore went up, complete with bars over the windows and the kind of thick, arched wooden doors you’d find in medieval dungeons.
The inside wasn’t any prettier. Poorly lit, kiln hot in the summers, icebox cold in the winters. Most occupants were either vagrants or suspects busted for public intoxication, so the place reeked of a vile mix of body odor and stale booze seeping out of men’s pores. Cells on each floor specialized in different types of inmates: juveniles went in the basement, women on the main level, misdemeanors on the second floor, and on the third and top, felons who’d typically be transferred under heavy security to the Sugar House Prison down on 2100 South.
After passing through a big set of double doors, I walked up to the front desk and tugged my hat brim at a beefy guard in a peaked cap and police uniform. He lowered his copy of Life magazine and cracked a toothy grin. I instantly recognized him as Officer Leonard Stroud, a low man on the totem pole who got stuck with Sunday guard duty at the city jail. I sympathized because I’d had the duty before, too. It entailed hours of boredom, occasionally interrupted by some sort of fracas in the jail cells, depending on how crowded they happened to be. Fortunately for him, Stroud had a Bakelite radio playing the American League baseball game. He partially rose from his chair to shake my hand.
“Art Oveson, how the heck are ya?”
We clasped hands.
“Swell. How about you, Len? How’s every little thing?”
“Aw, you know,” he said, releasing his grip, slumping back into his chair. “Another day, another dollar, and all that jazz.”
“Yep, yep, I hear you,” I said. I gestured to the radio. “Who’s playing?”
“Yankees and Indians,” he said. “Three-game series, at Lakefront in Cleveland, and New York is winning yet again.”
“Remind me where your allegiances lie.”
He gave a slight shrug and resigned head tilt. “Injuns.”
“So I thought,” I said. “Sorry to hear.”
“Ah, you know how it goes,” he said. “I don’t have a lot invested in it. I’d rather be hearing the Tigers/Red Sox game about now, but I’ll take what I can get.”
“I suppose it beats the other stuff on the dial,” I said.
“That it does.”
“Len, I’ve got a favor to ask.…”
“Shoot.”
“You’ve got a prisoner here,” I said. “Roscoe Lund.”
“Yeah, I know him,” said Stroud. “Ex-cop, in a felony cell. How the mighty fall.”
“I’d like to have a word with him, if I might,” I said.
“Sure, of course. I’m assuming you want an interrogation room?”
“Is one free?”
“It’s Sunday,” he said. “Take your pick.”
“How about three-oh-four?” I asked.
“Three-oh-four it is,” he said.
“That’s dandy,” I said. “Say, Len…”
“Yeah?”
“Do they still keep those big refrigerators in the chow hall kitchen stockpiled with soda?”
“Of course. What of it?”
I placed a trio of dimes on the counter. “Can you rustle us up a couple of bottles of cold pop? And one for yourself.”
“I’d be delighted. Pick your poison.”
“Nehi Grape for me, or Seven-Up if they don’t have it,” I said. “And a Dr Pepper for Roscoe.”
“Coming right up. Keep your money.”
“You sure?”
“It’s no good here. You know your way up to the third floor, I presume?”
“I think I can remember,” I said.
We shared a chuckle as I scooped up my dimes. He lifted the telephone to his ear and turned the rotary dial.
“Hey Dick, it’s Len.” Pause. “Yeah, Detective Art Oveson. Is three-oh-four free?” Pause. “Good. He wants to see Roscoe Lund. Will you deliver the prisoner?” Pause and nod. “Much obliged.” He hung up. He opened a cabinet behind his desk and pulled out an object. He handed me a rather large silver key on a ring attached to a chunk of wood with the number 8 etched into it. “You know the drill. Feel free to go up. Dick will bring Roscoe in shortly. I’ll be along soon with those sodas.”
“Thanks much, Len.”
“See you around, Art.”
I used the key Len gave me to get through several heavy steel doors, most of them painted dark gray. I could have used the elevator in the building, but it was ancient and slow, and I wanted to get up to the third floor while it was still 1938, so I went to the stairwell. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. It was hot in that narrow, dark space as I trotted up steps. By the time I reached the third floor, I was breaking out all over in a sweat. I walked out into a corridor lined with interrogation rooms and a couple of administrative offices. If you kept going to the end of the hall and hung a left, you’d get to another enormous gray steel door that opened up to the felony cells.
I reached 304, let myself into the windowless room, and switched on the lights. Electricity buzzed in the globes above the rectangular table. I had my pick of chairs. I pulled one out, its legs groaning against linoleum, and I sat down facing the door. A minute later, the doorknob turned, and in walked Roscoe Lund, escorted by Officer Richard Chapman, who went by Dick
. He and I exchanged quiet hellos as he pulled a chair out for Roscoe.
Roscoe grunted when he sat down. He rested his cuffed wrists on the ancient wooden table, marred from years of use. If I didn’t know him better, I might believe he was a criminal, what with his five o’clock shadow, bags under his eyes, chapped lips, and some stains on his shirt. He glanced furtively over his shoulder as Chapman left the room and closed the door. He looked at me with those forlorn peepers of his, blinking slowly, breathing through his nostrils, waiting for me to say something.
“Tell me what happened last night,” I said.
“I don’t feel much like talking,” he said. “I’m parched.”
Three knocks.
“Come in.”
Officer Stroud slipped inside with a bottle in each hand, and as soon as he put them on the table, he left without saying a word.
Roscoe picked up his Dr Pepper with his cuffed right hand and raised it to his lips. The soda churned and bubbled as the bottle tipped upward, gone in seconds, and he set the empty on the table and belched. I slid my Grape Nehi over to him, and he eyed it with confusion.
“Don’tcha want it?”
“Turns out I’m not thirsty,” I said. “Go ahead.”
He polished off the Nehi as fast as the Dr Pepper. He belched again, balled his right hand into a fist, and punched his chest. The handcuff chain rattled.
“Thanks,” he said. “That’s better.”
“Good,” I said. “Tell me everything—and I mean everything—you did last night. Take me every step of the way through it.”
“Christ, Art, I’m not up for it.”
“Listen, pal, I just finished talking to Tom Livsey before I came over here,” I said.
“Ain’t he a Mormon?” asked Roscoe. “What’s he doing working on a Sunday?”
“This is a big one,” I said. “Clear-cut case of foul play. Strangulation, if you want to get specific. So the way I look at it, you have two options. Talk to me and I’ll do what I can to help. Or prepare yourself for a date with the firing squad. Your choice.”
“I’ll take the latter. They’ll be doing me a favor.”
“I don’t think you really believe that.”
“I’m sick to death of swimming against the current. Those pricks have it in for me. Buddy, Wit, Pace. They hated me when I was on the force. Now they’re tripping over themselves to see me take the fall for this one.”
“What about your daughter?”
“What about her?”
“How do you think she’s going to feel when she learns that her father is a cold-blooded murderer? Whether it’s true or not, that’s what she’s going to hear.”
He leaned over the table and spoke low, yet intensely, for emphasis. “She’s gone. Remember? I won’t ever see her again. So who the fuck cares?”
“You can’t give up,” I said.
He stared at me, blinking in disbelief. “Doesn’t it exhaust you?”
“What?”
“Being so goddamned optimistic all the time.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said.
“What was it?”
“What did you do last night after I dropped you off at your house?”
“It’s all there in the transcripts,” he said. “Newbold grilled me. Wit and Buddy were there. So was Reid Whitaker. There was a stenographer getting it all down.”
“I’d prefer to hear it from you.”
“All right. After you dropped me off, I got piss drunk. I started stewing over that money that Underhill’s manager promised me. I was too blotto to drive, so I phoned for a yellow cab. I only vaguely remember making the call. The cab took me to the Hotel Utah and I went up to the seventh floor. I started banging like mad on his door. Probably woke up half the hotel.”
He fell silent and I prodded: “What happened next?”
“He opened it. He was sore as hell at me for banging on it so late. I reminded him that I was promised two C-notes for two weeks of work, and I wanted a hundred for the week I’d put in. He told me to go to hell, but I grabbed him by the pajamas and threatened to stomp his scrawny ass to China if he didn’t get me my money.”
“I see. Can you grasp how something like that might not look good?”
“I only wanted what was owed to me, fair and square.”
“Go on,” I said. “Then what?”
“Nigel buckled. Scared shitless. Ran into his room. Came out with five twenties. Threw ’em at me. Yelled at me to leave, and slammed the door in my face.”
“And then?”
“I left. The cab was waiting for me out front. And that was that.”
“You didn’t wring him by the neck?”
“No. If I were going to knock off the little prick, I’d put a bullet in his skull.”
“Best to leave that last part out, Roscoe.”
“If you insist.”
“What taxi service did you use?”
“Green Cab,” he said. “Their number is easy to remember.”
“Oh yeah? What is it?”
“WAsatch seven-seven-seven-seven.”
“Back to the confrontation,” I said. “What time did it happen? Roughly?”
“Oh hell, I dunno.”
“Take a guess.”
“Three. Maybe a little before. Maybe a little after.”
“Were there any eyewitnesses at the hotel?”
“I was too drunk to notice. Besides, I wasn’t expecting the prick to go get himself knocked off.”
“What else?” I asked.
“Next thing I knew, there was a knocking at my door this morning. Newbold was out on the porch with a couple of patrolmen. They cuffed me and brought me here. I spent two hours under the hot lamp answering questions. They told me I was being charged with the murder of Nigel Underhill, and I’d better confess if I knew what was good for me. At the time, I didn’t even know how the murder was committed. You mentioned he was strangled.”
“Yeah.”
He grimaced. “Poor bastard. He didn’t have that coming.”
I nodded. “Did you know that Clive Underhill is missing?”
Roscoe appeared genuinely shocked. “He is?”
“He hasn’t been seen since we dropped him off at the Hotel Utah.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I’ve got questions about this security detail you were working on with him.”
“Ask away, Art.”
“You were hired to guard him?”
“Yep.”
“You said Albert Shaw told you that Underhill had been threatened.”
“Yes.”
“Did Shaw describe the nature of the threats?”
“No. All he said was Underhill had been getting threats. He was short on specifics but long on dough. I was dodging eviction notices and needed the work.”
“Understandable. When did he hire you? What date?”
Roscoe raised an eyebrow. “Let’s see, what’s today…?”
“Sunday the seventh.”
“He dropped by my office in the Rio Grande at the end of last month,” said Roscoe. “It was on Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of July, because everything was closed on that Monday, what with it being Pioneer Day the day previous.”
“And he hired you to do what exactly?”
“He wanted someone who could guard Underhill at events, especially out at the Flats,” Roscoe said. “He promised me it’d be two weeks of steady work and I’d earn a hundred a week minimum. All under the table, of course.”
“When did the actual job start?”
“When Clive Underhill got into town, on August the first. Last Monday. A big crowd came out to greet him at the municipal airport. I was surprised to see all of those photographers snapping pictures and the reporters filing stories about some English chump getting out of an airplane. I had no idea he was that famous.”
“When you were guarding him, did you talk to him at all?”
“Oh, you know, ‘hello,’ ‘ho
w are ya,’ that kind of shit. He wasn’t the type to mingle with the help.”
“What did a typical workday look like for you?”
“Get up at half past six, go to the hotel first thing, wait for Clive to rise and shine, follow him out to lunch,” said Roscoe. “He tended to sleep late every day, till about ten or eleven. That slimy Nigel would enter his room and wake him up each morning. Clive would get up and shower, shit, and shave, and put on fancy duds.”
“You’d go with him to lunch…”
“Yes. He went to Lamb’s every day,” said Roscoe. Lamb’s Grill was a venerable old restaurant on Main Street, a favorite of the affluent. “He’d take long lunches. I’d sit near the cash register and wait. He always took his own sweet time. Afterward, he’d go exercise up at the university gymnasium for a few hours. They closed off an entire section of it just for him. Then he’d return to the hotel, get ready for dinner.”
“What were his favorite places?” I asked.
“For dinner? He preferred clubs, where live orchestras played and booze flowed. You know, the Coconut Grove, the Old Mill, the Brass Rail, the Pinecrest. Crowds of autograph seekers would flock to him. He never once had a second of privacy. It didn’t seem to bother him, though. He’d tell anyone that’d listen that one of the big studios is making a movie about him, starring Errol Flynn. Did you know about that?”
“So I’ve heard,” I said. “Flynn looks nothing like him.”
Roscoe shrugged. “He’ll have to shave off his soup strainer.”
I changed the subject: “Was there anywhere he went that struck you as out of the ordinary?”
Roscoe considered the question. “He met a man at the Old Mill. This was on, oh, Tuesday night. The music was too loud for me to hear what they were saying. They seemed like they knew each other, like a couple of old chums.”
“Who was the man?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sounds like an exhausting detail,” I said.
“Morning until night,” he said.
“What time of night would your shift end?”
“It varied. Usually between midnight and one.”