Desolation Flats

by Andrew Hunt

  Non-Mormons didn’t much care for Roscoe, either. He was a loner, forming few friendships on the force. His self-destructive streak led him to burn bridges. In the end, I was the only person on the police payroll that cared about him. To most of his superiors, including Buddy Hawkins and Wit Dunaway, Roscoe was expendable. They had no use for him. That he was an ex-cop would give them an opportunity to showcase their willingness to go after one of their own, if need be. The public likes it when the police punish bad apples, even if those apples had fallen out of the barrel, like Roscoe. It makes for good press.

  I pondered such matters as I steered my car into the parking lot behind Public Safety, a marble and granite colossus with columned entrances and cathedral-high ceilings. Located on the southeast corner of First South and State, it used to house the local chapter of the YMCA when it first opened its doors in 1914. The Y relocated to more modest digs, and the police made themselves at home here. Back in those days, around the time of the Great War, the police chief opted to keep its weight room and swimming pool and indoor track open to encourage officers to maintain rigorous calisthenics routines. All of those rooms had been sealed shut by the time I got here, and newer generations of police chiefs encouraged the men under their command to exercise on their own time.

  But that was all in the past, and I didn’t have time to dwell on distant yesterdays. Monday morning beckoned me to start the week anew, and I faced far more pressing matters than the aging, labyrinthine building full of bricked-off rooms that I called work.

  Nine

  Back around, oh, 1934, maybe early ’35, Chief Bill Cowley came up with the idea of creating a Missing Persons Bureau in the Salt Lake City Police Department. He envisioned it being a small squad, staffed by two detectives. He once confided in Buddy Hawkins that the inspiration behind the squad came from a Warner Bros. picture called Bureau of Missing Persons, starring Pat O’Brien and Bette Davis. I’ve never actually seen it, but I recall reading about it sometime back in Photoplay magazine. The film depicted a hard-as-nails cop with a heart of gold (what other kind is there in Hollywood?) played by O’Brien, who takes over the missing persons division of his police department, only to get mixed up with Davis, who is looking for her missing husband.

  Even if a movie had served as its source of inspiration, starting the bureau was a good call on Cowley’s part. It was long overdue. With economic hard times packing a particularly potent punch here in Utah, reports of missing persons were on the increase. So the bureau set up shop in a room only slightly larger than a broom closet, which had windows overlooking the dreary alley where cars entered and exited the parking lot. For the first few years of its existence, the bureau conducted its affairs under the able leadership of Detective Sergeant L.D. “Link” Andrews, an aging former Homicide dick who welcomed the change of scenery during the last few years of his career. Link retired in the spring of ’37, and his partner at the time, Donald Smoot, pleaded with Wit Dunaway to be reassigned elsewhere. Smoot ended up in Homicide. And guess who took over Missing Persons?

  Most detectives saw the bureau as a dead end, a place where the higher-ups put people like Link Andrews when they’re approaching gold watch time. I guess I had a different attitude when Wit asked me if I’d consider taking it over and whipping it into shape. I said yes instantly. I’d grown tired of the dreary internal politics of the Morals Squad. My commander, Lieutenant Harman Grundvig, had the job for life if he wanted it, and he expected all of his subordinates to be slavish brownnosers, willing to drop everything to work overtime with no advance warning. Not only did he choose favorites, he also insisted on broadcasting his impressive Mormon credentials every chance he got, and he would often ask the men under his command about their church duties.

  Now, you won’t find a more dedicated member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than me. In all of my years as a worshiper, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve missed church due to illness or some other unfortunate circumstance. But I’ve always been a firm believer that one keeps Church business out of police affairs. Grundvig’s unfortunate behavior, I felt, only added fuel to the fire of the anti-Mormon faction in the force. That camp consisted of a tiny yet vocal coterie of men who insisted the Mormons were persecuting them at every turn and generally making their lives miserable. So when Wit Dunaway, a non-Mormon who got along well with Mormons on the force, asked me if I’d consider moving into the Missing Persons Bureau, I replied yes before he was even done posing the question. The next thing he asked is if I had someone in mind that I’d like to have as a partner. I also furnished a speedy response to that question. I told him Myron Adler.

  Myron worked in the records division, located in the basement of Public Safety. He possessed an eidetic—or photographic—memory, which gave him an astonishing recall of the most minute details. Whenever someone paid a visit to records with a request for a box or file, Myron always knew precisely where to go inside of that labyrinthine storage area. He and I used to work in a short-lived squad formed to combat the local polygamy scourge, and we got along swimmingly. The two of us developed a healthy mutual respect for each other, and once the squad was dissolved, I was disappointed to learn that he would be returning to his former job in a part of the building that police nicknamed “the tomb.” So when Wit came to me last year, and asked me to run Missing Persons, I made Myron’s joining me a condition of my acceptance. Wit promptly acceded.

  Earlier this year, Wit appointed a third detective, DeVoy Beckstead, to our squad. He wore eyeglasses on his cantaloupe-shaped head, was bald on top, with prematurely wilting jowls and a Clark Gable mustache that sometimes grew into a walrus one when he neglected to trim it. He had a penchant for selecting some of the goofiest bow ties I’ve laid eyes on. Never neckties, mind you. Only bow ties. He was frumpy, but not in a thoughtless or careless way. He was genuinely concerned about his appearance. But his tastes were decidedly passé. And believe me, nobody could ever accuse me of being a dandy or glamor boy myself. Who was I to judge? But judge I did, as we all tend to, even if we don’t always give voice to it.

  DeVoy came to us from Homicide. They couldn’t stand him anymore. My boss, Captain Wit Dunaway, begged me to take him. There was desperation in his voice on that cool spring morning when he pleaded his case.

  “Listen, Art, I hired this fuckin’ clown, ’scuse the French,” Wit said. “Him being here—that’s my mistake, I admit. But now nobody can stand to work with him. He’s obnoxious as hell. He’s condescending, always grousing. He opens his mouth and out spews the bitching, especially about his lousy apartment and how his dentist made a mess out of his pearlies and won’t fix ’em properly. And he’s constantly listening to opera music. Fuckin’ wop shit. Drives the men crazy. They hate the guy.”

  “Why don’t you fire him?”

  “It’s too hard,” he said. “He’s long past his probationary period.”

  “So you’re going to unload him on me?”

  “C’mon. You’ve got a thing for strays and foreigners, Art.”

  “What’ll I do with him?” I asked.

  “Assign him to answer the telephone. Dump paperwork on him. Hell, if worse comes to worst, send him off to see that new Shirley Temple picture at the Rialto!” He pulled out his billfold and handed me a dollar bill. “Here, I’ll spring for it.”

  I gave Wit his floppy buck back. “I won’t make him go to the movies.”

  He put it back in his billfold, which he returned to his pocket.

  “I know he was a court stenographer at one point,” said Wit. “He’s the only man I know who can do shorthand.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I’ll have a stenotype sent up with him. He can transcribe interviews.”

  “That beats a kick in the pants,” I said.

  With those words, DeVoy Beckstead became the newest member of the squad.

  At first, the perks of running the Missing Persons Bureau seemed readily apparent, outweighing any drawbacks.
I was delighted to be working with Myron again, who brought with him a sense of humor so subtle you might not even know it existed. And DeVoy slowly grew on me. Slowly. And me? I no longer had to answer to Grundvig, a big improvement over my previous assignment. Wit was now my boss, and he more or less left me alone, placing full trust in my ability to run the squad.

  Unlike some of my past placements in the force, the Missing Persons Bureau was strictly an 8:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. job. I’d work all morning, take a half-hour lunch break most days, and resume my duties until it came time to go home. About 50 percent of the job involved Myron and me pushing pencils in bureaucratic tasks, usually handled before noon.

  The other half took us out onto the streets in an unmarked prowler to investigate reports and occasionally follow up on past cases. After DeVoy’s transfer into Missing Persons, he helped whip us into shape administratively, and answered the squad’s main telephone daily. Thankfully, most of the calls we fielded were easily resolved. They typically fell under one of three categories: 1) runaway adolescents, who were usually found in close proximity to their homes; 2) adult men or women fleeing domestic hardships or marital strife; 3) the elderly, reluctant to remain dependent on loved ones who could barely support them. The overwhelming majority of these people were quickly found, and most returned home after we encouraged them to do so.

  Yet the job, I soon learned, came with a dark side, in the form of what I called “the stack”—that is, a stack of folders, anywhere from perhaps a dozen to fifteen at any given time, of unsolved cases. Cases we refused to close. These were people who vanished without a trace. No eyewitnesses to place them anywhere, no hotels or motor courts with guest books containing their names, no friends or relatives who could confirm their whereabouts, no bank account activities post-disappearance. Gone. Erased. In some instances, not even a snapshot to place in their dossier.

  A typical file in “the stack” was that of Melvin Fernley Thompson, age 42, an automobile mechanic at Modern Motor Service, 635 South State Street. His stats sheet described him as five feet nine inches tall, weight 178 pounds, pale complexion, grayish-black hair, hazel eyes, and a prominent mole by his right ear. He resided with his wife, Gail, on the second floor of the Shubrick Apartments, 72 West 400 South. The two of them had lived there for at least a dozen years. Even though Thompson fixed cars, the couple did not own one. He’d board a streetcar to work. No children either, only some birds. For years, Thompson liked to take an after-dinner stroll over to Saxman’s Cigar Store, a few blocks away, to buy a stogie and a copy of the evening newspaper. He’d bring his purchases home, sit on the front stoop, and puff his cigar while he caught up on the day’s news. For seven years, Mondays through Fridays, he repeated this practice without fail, as well as on some Saturday and Sunday mornings.

  One evening—Thursday, April 18, 1935, to be specific—Thompson and his wife finished dinner and he left the apartment, taking a couple of coins but leaving his wallet behind. That night, he never arrived at Saxman’s, and he didn’t come home. The next morning, Gail Thompson visited Public Safety to report her husband missing. In his typical fashion, Link Andrews left no stone unturned, going to every apartment building and business between the Shubrick and Saxman’s in search of possible eyewitnesses. He interviewed Joe Saxman and his employees at the cigar store (mostly the owner’s relatives), even those that weren’t working that night. He talked to Thompson’s fellow mechanics. He telephoned relatives of Thompson’s, including the man’s mother and younger sister, both residing in Spokane at the time (sadly, his father had passed away). Link found out that Thompson never touched his account at Zion’s Bank after going missing. Link even visited the old garage where Thompson worked in Ogden in the early 1920s. It all added up to nothing, as Thompson was nowhere to be found. When Link finally passed the file on to me, he said with sadness in his voice, “I can’t say the trail ever grew cold on this one. There was never any trail to begin with.”

  Every so often, I still drop by Gail Thompson’s apartment, just to check in and see how she’s doing. Sometimes, I’ll drop off a bag of groceries—the essentials: milk and bread, eggs and lettuce, a couple sticks of butter, maybe a jar of honey or box of cookies. Gail is always grateful and thanks me profusely. She shows me her birds—a parrot, two cockatiels, and a couple of boisterous zebra finches. We’ll sit out on the stoop, where Melvin once smoked cigars and read the paper, and watch cars drive by. She used to get teary-eyed and say she still expects him to come walking through the front door any day now. She no longer tells me that. She has resigned herself to the fact that Melvin is gone and isn’t returning.

  These days, Gail will ask me about my kids, and I’ll tell her they’re fine, growing faster than weeds. Sometimes I’ll show her the latest wallet snapshots. I’ll inquire about her secretarial job at Peoples Finance & Thrift Company, and she’ll usually say it’s going fine. And in the uneasy silences when we’re sitting outside and a dry wind is ruffling our hair, I’m sure she’s probably wondering the same thing I am: Where on earth is Melvin Thompson?

  Those were the types of cases that inspired old Mr. Insomnia to pull Little Art out of Slumberland. I’d go into the kitchen and brood over a mug of warm milk. I never thought, back when I told Wit yes to the job, that working in this unit would give me nightmares, but it has. Many dreams are recurring: my children going missing without a trace; Clara vanishing from a family portrait, as if she’d been completely erased; and one terrible vision of me slowly disappearing, gradually becoming more and more transparent, until I was like that fellow in the H.G. Wells story, The Invisible Man. Nobody could see me. I couldn’t even see myself. I’d invariably wake up from these nightmares in a cold sweat, heart pounding, pillow soaked. I found solace at the kitchen table, sipping warm milk, waiting for my demons to calm down, and taking stock of all the good things in my life, all the reasons to be happy.

  All my life, I’ve tried to put on an optimistic face, tried to see the good in others, tried to look on the bright side. I’ve kept my sunny side up, so to speak, through good times and bad, telling the pessimists around me—and believe me, they’re everywhere—that everything will get better, that those who persevere and work hard will be rewarded, and that even with all the economic hard times, the high unemployment, and the businesses still going under, we in America have a lot to be thankful for. I suppose I really do believe in these things, and I’m being genuine when I say them. But I also know that evil sometimes lurks in the darkness, that some people have murder in their hearts, and even in these modern times when we want everybody to be accounted for, a man or woman or child can simply vanish, never to be seen or heard from again, as though they’d only been figments of our imaginations.

  * * *

  “Morning, fellas,” I said, hanging my hat on the coat tree near the door. “I hope everyone is rested and refreshed now that the weekend is over.”

  “Good morning,” said Myron.

  “Hello,” DeVoy said listlessly.

  Our three-man outfit housed three huge desks, each carved out of some kind of petrified wood and with its own chair, telephone, and typewriter. Rounding it out were several filing cabinets, a map of Salt Lake County on the wall, and a framed corkboard outside of our door where we posted WANTED notices for our more pressing cases. Did I forget to mention DeVoy’s ’34 RCA Victor Electrola combination radio/phonograph sitting on its own table? DeVoy loved music. Not just any music. Opera and classical music. Hence, the radio and record player combo.

  On this hot, dry August morning, DeVoy and Myron watched me as I headed to my desk, sat down in my chair, took off and tossed my hat on my typewriter, and sat down. I retrieved a yellow pad and pen, and swiveled toward my subordinates. For some reason, outside noises—a cacophony of streetcar bells, horns, and traffic cop whistles coming from State Street—were particularly loud, forming a constant din that sailed in through the open window with the warm breeze.

  “Squad roll call for the week of Monday, Aug
ust 8, 1938,” I said. “My turn to take minutes. I’ll get us started. As I’m sure you both know by now, Clive Underhill has gone missing, and it’s my responsibility to find him. I’m under orders to work this case alone, and to keep quiet about it. We don’t want the press getting wind of this, so I’d appreciate it if the two of you would use the utmost discretion. This is big—real big. Even the FBI is involved, and I have to be careful not to step on their toes. I may end up leaning on one or the other of you—or both—for help, but make no mistake about it: this is my case.” I rubbed my right eye with my knuckle, drew a deep breath, and gazed at DeVoy and Myron. “So, lay it on me fellows, where do things stand with you?”

  “I spent most of last week working on the Mildred Halverson case,” said DeVoy. “She’s seventy-six. Went missing from the Mayfield Rest Home on, uh…” DeVoy searched his notes. “… Third South and Fourth East. Mrs. Halverson was last seen leaving the dining room on Thursday, July twenty-first, after lunch, which runs from noon to one at the facility. She hasn’t been seen or heard from since. She requires routine doses of heart medication, so it is imperative that we find her at once. I’ve flagged her a high-priority case. So far, I’ve come up empty-handed, but I’m interviewing shop owners and residents near the Mayfield, as well as Halverson’s relatives. This one’s a real head-scratcher, I admit. I’m hoping to start back in on it after we’re done here.”

  “Very good,” I said, nodding my approval. “I’m pleased with the work you’ve been doing, DeVoy. Keep at it. Myron?”

  Myron spun in his swivel chair and picked files up off of his desk. “I’ve got three runaways. All teenagers. All friends. Gayle Ostler, age seventeen; Melva Peck, sixteen; and Irene Bernstrom, also sixteen. They’ve been missing nine days. I’ve made a few calls, but I’m planning to take an unmarked out and follow up on a promising lead. An employee at the bus station encountered three young women a week ago matching the subjects’ descriptions. They didn’t have enough money to buy three Overland Stage bus tickets to San Francisco, and they left the depot before the ticket agent could call the police. There’s another lead. One of Bernstrom’s friends thinks she’s staying with her boyfriend in Logan. And get this. He’s supposedly twice her age. So we might be dealing with stat rape charges.”