Desolation Flats

by Andrew Hunt

  I said, “That night at the Grove…”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you happen to overhear Clive asking me to take him down to the Canyons of the Escalante?”

  “No. That’s a strange request.”

  “He’d read about Everett Ruess vanishing there,” I said. “He offered to pay me ten grand to show him around the place. He wanted to go that night.”

  Roscoe whistled. “That’s a hefty chunk of greenback. What did you say?”

  “I told him to hire a guide,” I said.

  “For ten grand, I woulda given the prick the grand tour.”

  I smirked. “You don’t know your way around there.”

  “How hard can it be to mosey up some goddamned canyons?”

  Roscoe’s comment made me laugh. Then it got me thinking.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I wonder if he went down there,” I said. “By himself, without telling anyone.”

  “Try calling tour guides down there,” said Roscoe. “Who knows? Maybe Underhill is down there right now taking in a little bird-watching or dipping his toes in some creek.”

  “That’s a grand idea,” I said.

  I eased my chair backward and stood up.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “My cats…”

  “I’d be happy to take care of them,” I said. “Barney and Millicent, right?”

  “And Captain Jack,” he said. “He’s the one I got last month.”

  “I’ll look in on them.”

  He held up his hand. I took it in mine and gripped it.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said.

  “I know,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I stood and circled the table, plucked up the empties, and patted Roscoe on the shoulder with my free hand before leaving. Out in the corridor, Officer Chapman stood against the wall, waiting. I thanked him, told him I was finished, and made my way to the stairwell. I thought of Roscoe all the way to the ground level, about how life had dealt him so many bad deals, and about the role he played—often a reckless one—in exacerbating his own troubles. Most of all, I pictured his sagging, defeated face.

  * * *

  On my way home, I stopped by Roscoe’s residence. He shared it with three distinctive felines: the slow-moving orange tabby Barney, now getting along in years; the sprightly tortoiseshell Millicent, ready to duke it out with the toughest of alley cats; and paranoid newcomer Captain Jack, black as licorice, and constantly afraid of being followed. I gave the trio a mix of dry food and opened one of many cans of tuna Roscoe had stacked on the kitchen table especially for them. Once that was done, I filled a couple of bowls full of water and put out a saucer of milk for good measure. Barney and Millicent circled me, smacking into my legs like sharks thudding into the pillars of a fishing pier. Captain Jack put in a brief appearance, and I guess I spooked him when I called out “hello,” because he took off in the direction of the staircase.

  “Nice to see you, too,” I said.

  I went upstairs to look in on Roscoe’s room. The door was ajar. I nudged it open. I found the bedclothes disheveled. Obviously, he didn’t have a chance to make his bed before he was arrested. I don’t know what came over me, but I began searching the bureau drawers. I rifled through socks, underwear, T-shirts. I opened a wooden box in the top drawer and found cuff links and jewelry. In the bottom drawer, beneath some undergarments, I found a stack of racy adult magazines with titles like The Bachelor, Vim & Vigor, Silk Stockings Magazine, Spicy Tales Illustrated, Tijuana After Midnight, and Man about Town. I put them back, tucking them under white cotton shirts, exactly where I’d found them. I closed the drawer and stood up.

  I wandered around the house for another half hour, looking for something—anything—that might help me get a better grip on why Roscoe was in the situation he was in. I went through his daughter’s room, too, and saw everything frozen the way she’d left it. A framed picture hanging on the wall of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing. A bedside diary full of girlish handwriting. A neatly made bed with a pink bedspread and ruffled white skirt. A breeze blew in through the open window, ballooning the curtains. I came to a portrait of father and daughter from happier years. It made me sigh. I set the frame on the nightstand and left her room.

  I probed rooms downstairs. I glanced at a picture of Roscoe and a trio of his comrades from his days as hired muscle with Donovan and Sons, a Denver-based company that hired out mercenaries to help companies crush strikes. He was great at his job, no doubt about it. In his youth, he was strong and handsome and had a head of unruly dark hair that spilled over shaved sides. I returned the photograph to the mantel and then left, locking the door to Roscoe’s house behind me. Being in his house saddened me, but it also made me want to redouble my efforts to find who killed Nigel Underhill. I was sure it wasn’t my best friend. Maybe I was blinded by my loyalty, but I was determined to find the killer and free Roscoe from jail.

  Eight

  A few years ago, after all of our families got to be too big and unwieldy, my brothers and I agreed that we would relocate our weekly family dinners to Frank’s spacious farm in West Jordan. That way, we figured, we’d be taking some of the pressure off of our aging mother to hold these events every Sunday. Our mother still attended, although she seemed relieved not to have to plan such enormous undertakings so frequently. My older brother, Frank, always sat at the head of the table, beside his wife, the dour redhead, Margaret, who got to be more and more humorless with each passing year. My brother John, the gregarious sheriff of Carbon County down in the central part of the state, was seated near his wife, Eliza, a vocal woman who was essentially good-hearted, but didn’t always filter her words before they came out of her mouth. And then there was Grant, the next-to-youngest Oveson brother, the police chief of Provo, Utah, athletic and angular-faced, with a portly, dark-haired wife named Bess, who could be a mix of charming and cold, sometimes all at once.

  The huge, wood-paneled dining room in Frank’s house, with its high rafters, was big enough to accommodate all of us—and all of our seventeen children. Frank accomplished this by placing two long tables together and draping linen tablecloths over them. In the corner of the room, near where the adults sat, was a short, round table for the youngest children, including our four-year-old daughter, Emily. Being closer to the adults, it made it easier to monitor the little ones.

  Not surprisingly, I remained preoccupied throughout the evening. Clara kept eyeing me, likely frustrated by my aloofness. Truth is, I felt blue and bedeviled. The image of Roscoe languishing in a jail cell loomed large in my thoughts. In fact, nothing else mattered to me at that moment. All of the talk around the table about church activities, sporting news, the ongoing economic slump, or whether Clara would actually stick to her vow of having only three children and no more, all of those matters struck me as insignificant. As a result, I wasn’t much of a dinner guest, and I knew it. Entire conversations happened without me hearing a single word spoken. Mouths moved, but my brain blocked out the sounds. I flashed back to Clive Underhill’s car rocketing across the salt flats and flipping out of control and exploding into flames. I blinked the vision out of my mind, doing my best to chase away that grim memory.

  “Well?”

  John was eyeing me expectantly.

  “Well what?” I asked.

  “We’re hoping you could help us settle this debate,” said John. “I say President Roosevelt has saved our country from disaster.”

  “Cow dung,” said Grant. “If you ask me…”

  “Which I didn’t,” John mumbled.

  “… he’s turning America socialist,” said Grant. “Washington’s taxing everybody to death, and spending it all on relief programs to help the indolent.”

  “Indolent, my foot!” snapped John. “These are decent, hardworking folk. Why, I’ll have you know that at least half the people in my county keep framed pictures of Roosevelt in their curio cabin
ets.”

  “Oh, how do you know?” asked Grant, with a sneer. “Have you counted?”

  “I just know it for a fact. Name me another president where people did that. And don’t say Herbert Hoover or I’ll laugh in your face.”

  “The only thing that proves,” said Grant, “is that the lump-headed proletariat have been duped by the Washington Brain Trust.”

  “I wish you two wouldn’t go on and on about politics over dinner,” said Eliza. “There are more pleasant topics of conversation, you know.”

  “Like what?” asked Grant. “Which dish soap leaves your hands feeling smooth?”

  John laughed and spoke with a full mouth: “Or where you get the best deal on hosiery?”

  “Well, those are steps in the right direction,” said Eliza.

  “I have to agree with Liza on this one, dearest,” said Bess. “It’s not as though you’re going to talk sense into John and turn him to a Republican.”

  “What do you mean ‘talk sense into him’?” asked Eliza. She dropped her fork on her plate and it made a loud clank. “And what exactly have Republicans ever done to help ordinary Americans?”

  “Now, now,” said John. “Let’s not start a catfight.” John turned to me. “What’s your take on Franklin D., kid?”

  “I’d hate to be in his shoes,” I said. “He’s got a lot fuller plate than any of us.”

  “Well, isn’t that a surprise,” said Grant. “Old Mr. Neutrality gives an answer he thinks will make everybody happy. Remind me not to ask him to go door-to-door for me when I run for Congress.”

  Clara leaned toward me. “You OK?”

  “Sure, I’m fine. I just don’t care about politics, that’s all,” I said. “Never have, never will. I could use a little fresh air, I think.”

  “Go ahead,” said my white-haired mother, staring at me over her bifocals. “We’ll all be here when you come back.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  As the conversation resumed around the table, I got up and headed out to the front porch. A cluster of wooden chairs formed a semicircle, and I pulled one aside and sat down. Inhaling warm air, I enjoyed the view of the Wasatch Mountains. The instant I got comfortable, the screen door clopped shut and heavy footsteps came my way. A shadow fell over me. I looked up. Frank stood there, hands in pockets, running his tongue along his molars.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “It’s a free country.”

  He pulled up a chair and sat down. He reached in his briefcase and fished out a thick file, creased in multiple spots, frayed around the edges. He passed it to me. The thing must’ve weighed a pound or more. I placed it on my lap, opened and thumbed through a thick mix of classified FBI reports on bond paper, newspaper articles, and case photographs. I noticed morgue photos. Dead men. Battered. Mangled. Most had open mouths and closed eyes. Flipping from front to back, I scanned headlines on yellowing newsprint.

  LOCAL UNION LEADER DISAPPEARS

  STRIKE-BREAKERS BELIEVED TO BE BEHIND KIDNAPPING

  THREE KILLED IN STEEL PLANT LABOR CLASH

  I looked at Frank. “What is this?”

  “It’s a classified file from the bureau’s investigation of Donovan and Sons, where Roscoe once worked. Look, kid, I don’t like union agitators any more than Mr. Hoover. Most are either dirty reds or corrupt to the gills. But even the lousiest of ’em doesn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of the kind of violence that your friend Lund and his associates dished out. Only the worst company bosses hired gun thugs from Donovan. Those men terrorized and intimidated strikers and their families in the worst ways imaginable. That file demonstrates conclusively that murder was standard operating procedure for Donovan’s men. Roscoe Lund was no exception.”

  “What’s your point?” I asked.

  Frank held up three fingers. “Three eyewitnesses saw Lund return to the Hotel Utah in the middle of the night, demanding payment for services rendered.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” I said.

  “Listen, kid, the eyes of the world will soon be upon us. The feds and the police will come under scrutiny. Catching the killer right away means we escape that. On the other hand, if we allow this case to drag on, it’ll embarrass the bureau, the police, and the state. The outside world will see us as hapless bumpkins who can’t tie our own shoelaces.”

  I turned through crime scene photos, newspaper clippings, and investigation reports from the days when the FBI used to be called simply the “Bureau of Investigation.” Frank waited in silence. Before long, I closed the file and gave it to him, and then he did something I was not expecting. He handed it back to me.

  “Consider it a loan,” he said. “I could get demoted for taking it out of the office. But it’s worth the risk. I want you to see for yourself what Lund is capable of. You can drop it off by my office at the federal building when you’re done.”

  “Thanks, Frank, but I don’t need…”

  “Uh-uh, I insist,” he said, holding up a palm. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go finish my victuals. I think it’d be a swell idea if you were to join us.”

  On his way past me, Frank stopped to grip my shoulder. The bang from the screen door assured me I was alone again. The file weighed heavily on my knees. The last twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind. I needed to absorb it, make sense of it all, and figure out how I fit into the grand scheme of things.

  * * *

  “He doesn’t want to see you crying. You’ve got to be strong.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Try harder.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “You don’t want your tears to be the last thing he sees, do you?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Frank says. “Now, I ain’t gonna let you near his bedside till you stop your blubbering.”

  It takes time for the tears to stop. Once they’re out of my system, I return to the hospital room. My brothers stand against a whitewashed wall, waiting for word on our father’s condition. Incandescent bulbs dangle by cords attached to the ceiling. The room is filled with dull yellow light.

  Frank’s arms are folded over his chest.

  John keeps hands in pockets, staring blankly at the floor.

  Grant bites his fingernails.

  The room is cold and dim. Dad is gaunt, his eyes sunken, his thick mustache covering his upper lip.

  My brothers have already paid their final respects. It is time for me to offer mine.

  “You ain’t crying anymore, are you?”

  “No,” I tell Frank.

  “You’re up, kid,” says John. “Now is your chance to say good-bye.”

  I approach his bed in short, measured steps. The bed reminds me of a coffin, with its steel headboard, footboard, and rails on both sides. My glacial movements are due to my not knowing what to say. Should I thank him for taking me out on the lake early in the morning to fish for the first time on my eighth birthday? Or thank him for all of the special times he shared with me—the Christmases, the birthdays, the family outings? Maybe it is enough to say I love you. I’ll miss you. Life won’t be the same without you.

  His breathing suddenly becomes labored. He gasps. He opens his eyes. His mouth falls open. Fear shines in his tiny pupils. His chest rises one last time. A final, crackly exhale is all that is left. He’s gone.

  The doctor comes in, checks Dad’s pulse. Finding nothing, he takes off his stethoscope, closes Dad’s eyes, and pulls the sheet over his head. The doctor leaves.

  I am frozen in the spot where I stood when he died, taking in the outline of his body under the linen.

  It is too late.

  * * *

  I awakened to darkness, pierced by moonbeams. Clara slept soundly. I checked my watch in the moonlight. 3:48 A.M. I kicked my feet over the bed’s edge, stood, donned my robe, and left our bedroom, closing the door behind me.

  In the kitchen, I switched on the light. I pulled a bottle of milk out of the icebox, and poured some in a saucep
an. I set it on the stove’s bluish-orange gas flame. Minutes later, I poured warm milk in a mug, went over to the kitchen table, and sat down. I never did look at the file. It was tempting. I stared at it long enough. Instead of going through it, I returned to bed. What little sleep I got was fitful. Next morning, I stopped off at my brother’s office on my way to work to leave the dossier with the secretary at the front desk. She said Frank was in a meeting. I asked her to make sure he got the file. Scrap paper I clipped to the front said: Thank You. I left the federal building and headed to work.

  En route, my thoughts swirled. I wanted Roscoe’s past to stay irrelevant. I preferred to think of the man I knew now. Despite his flaws, he had a good heart beating in his chest. That’s all I needed to know, I reasoned. Roscoe had been a loyal partner when we worked together on the Dawn Patrol—the midnight to eight A.M. shift—our first few years on the SLCPD, and before that, when we were deputies in the county sheriff’s office. He’d always been there for me, saving my life twice. He was a regular visitor to my house on holidays and birthdays. My children knew him as Uncle Roscoe. I was closer to him than I was to any of my brothers. Even after he left the police force to start his own detective agency, I’d stayed in touch with him. I knew he had skeletons in his closet. It stands to reason that he would, given the nature of his prior employment. Roscoe had always been guarded about his past, but I’d discovered fragments of it, enough to know that he’d been present at some big labor battles. A man doesn’t leave behind a profession like that without blood on his hands.

  For the higher-ups in the police force, Roscoe made the ideal culprit, straight out of central casting. He’d been reprimanded countless times for insubordination. He cussed. He drank. He spat wisecracks like a Gatling gun, and nearly everybody got turned into grist for his mill at one point or another. Rumors circulated that he visited prostitutes. Pious Mormons—other than me—disliked him for obvious reasons. He wasn’t one of them, and they thought he behaved reprehensibly. It did not help that he loved to turn their sacred cows into hamburgers, or that he showed up to work hungover on a number of occasions.