Desolation Flats

by Andrew Hunt

  “No. I found him surprisingly chipper, given what a dangerous scrape he’d been in earlier in the day.” I looked directly at Dot’s ethereal face, which appeared porcelain in this light. “Has Underhill ever gone missing like this before?”

  “No,” said Dot.

  “Well, there was one time in Daytona Beach, three years ago,” said Shaw. “Very similar to this. There was no sign of him in his hotel room. We reported him missing to the local police and they opened an investigation. Five days later, an eyewitness saw Clive walking along a country road out in the woods, near a little town called Kerr City, by the Ocala Forest. I promptly drove up there and found him almost euphoric, oblivious to the outside world and the consequences of his actions. The doctor gave him a clean bill of health. I told him he mustn’t go away like that. He scared us out of our wits.”

  “What was he doing all of those days?” I asked.

  “He said he went out to admire the scenery,” said Dot. “We don’t have that type of landscape back in England. It’s all very exotic to us.”

  Buddy nodded. “Might he have gone on one of his nature forays again?”

  Shaw shrugged his shoulders. “It’s possible.”

  “Does he have use of a car, other than the ones he’s racing?” I asked.

  “No,” said Shaw. “When we arrived, we rented a fleet of Buick sedans, all late-model four-doors, which we’ve been using for our outings. They’re all present and accounted for, in the hotel parking lot. For security purposes, only myself and Clive’s mechanic, Mr. Pangborn, know the exact whereabouts of the land speed vehicle.”

  I asked, “At any point, has Clive left the Hotel Utah unaccompanied?”

  When I posed the question, I had in mind Roscoe’s comments about Clive sneaking out of the hotel one night and provoking Shaw’s ire for doing so.

  But Shaw simply said, “No.”

  “What about this wreck on Saturday?” I asked. “I find it remarkable that it’d occur the day he went missing. Has anybody figured out what happened? Why the car wiped out like that?”

  “His mechanic, Julian, is looking into it now,” said Shaw.

  “I hear Clive is supposed to unveil his new racing machine on Saturday,” I said.

  “That’s correct,” said Shaw. “If all goes according to plan, he’ll break four hundred. Well, that’s what he was supposed to do, before all of this happened.”

  “It’s the same day Rudy Heinrich will attempt to set a new record,” said Dot Bliss. “Rudy’s car is supposed to be even faster than Clive’s, according to rumors. I suppose we’ll see.”

  “Where’s Underhill’s vehicle?” I asked.

  “It’s being kept in a warehouse locally,” said Shaw.

  “May I look at it?”

  “I don’t see what it has to do with this investigation, Detective Oveson.”

  “It might have everything to do with it.”

  Shaw nodded. “I’ll consider your request.”

  I shifted the line of questioning: “Has Clive been threatened recently?”

  As I posed the question, I thought of Roscoe’s comment when I talked to him in jail yesterday, about being hired by Shaw to provide protection due to threats Underhill was getting.

  “Not that I know of,” said Shaw.

  Either Roscoe was lying or Shaw was. I doubted it was Roscoe.

  “What about Nigel?” I asked.

  Pace leaned in close to me. “Don’t look now, but you’re wandering into my vegetable patch.”

  I furrowed my eyebrows at him, but Shaw answered my question.

  “Nigel had enemies, no doubt, and I can say that he wasn’t especially well liked. But I don’t know of anyone who wanted to see him dead.”

  “Other than Lund,” Pace mumbled.

  I glowered at Pace. He imitated me.

  “The other night at the Grove, someone mentioned that Nigel was working on his family history at the Genealogical Society,” I said. “Enlighten me, please. Why the strong urge to sort out his family tree?”

  “I don’t know,” said Shaw. “Nigel has always been enigmatic at best.”

  “I don’t want to have to tell you again to drop it,” Pace said to me. “Don’t forget which Underhill brother you’re looking for.”

  I pretended to ignore Pace’s comment, even as it prompted me to change the subject: “We’ll need access to Clive’s hotel room. We have to question members of his entourage.”

  “I’ll arrange for them to come here,” said Shaw. “Give me a time suitable for you, and I’ll have them driven over.”

  “I don’t mind questioning them at the hotel,” I said. “If that’d be easier.”

  “I prefer to remain discreet. We’d like this investigation to be handled as quietly as possible,” said Shaw. “Clive is a member of a prominent British family. He’s known around the world. In fact, the Warner Brothers studio in California has already purchased the rights to his memoir and they’re adapting it into a movie with Errol Flynn playing Clive.”

  “Impressive,” I said. “I imagine you want to keep the press out of this.”

  Shaw made a searching face. “They can only complicate things.”

  “The coroner’s office is observing an embargo on outgoing information to newspapers and radio outlets regarding Nigel Underhill,” said Buddy. “We haven’t notified his parents, either. His father, Lloyd, is a newspaper magnate, getting along in years, and I understand his mother is quite frail. To hit them at once with news of Nigel’s death and Clive’s disappearance might be more than they can take. Am I correct, Mr. Shaw?”

  “Yes,” said Shaw. “Quite.”

  “What’s going to happen to the body?” I asked.

  I knew my questions about Nigel irked Pace, but at this point, I cared not at all.

  “We’re stalling,” said Buddy. “With the hopes that we’ll find Clive soon.”

  “The longer he’s missing, the harder it’ll be to keep this thing covered up,” I said. “It’s a small town. Word gets around. Especially with someone of his stature.”

  “Do your best,” said Dot. “That’s all we ask.”

  Eleven

  Nearing the Missing Person’s Bureau, the opera music grew louder. It rang through the halls where the second-floor Detective Bureau offices were located. Could I not have a moment’s peace, I wondered, reaching the top of the stairs. I knew DeVoy had been playing his music full blast again, and I’m sure I was going to get an earful from my fellow detectives down the corridor. I walked into the office and went straight to the phonograph, lifting the tone arm to its resting place. DeVoy turned in his chair and seemed perturbed that I would touch his precious record-playing machine. Myron continued typing out forms in triplicate using carbon paper, pretending as though nothing had happened.

  “What are you doing?”

  “This isn’t an opera hall,” I said, tossing my hat on my typewriter.

  He swiveled around, now facing me in his chair. “Do you even know what piece that is?”

  “No,” I said. “And I don’t care.”

  “Take a wild guess,” said DeVoy.

  “Mozart,” I said.

  “You’re about as far off as you can get,” DeVoy said. “It’s Jozef Sterkens performing ‘Pourquoi me réveiller,’ from Jules Massenet’s Werther.”

  “Never heard of it,” Myron taunted from his desk.

  “Of course you haven’t,” said DeVoy. “That’s because you’re no different than the rest of these uncivilized brutes on the force.”

  “It’s not Benny Goodman so I wouldn’t pay a plug nickel for it,” said Myron.

  “Why are you two in such foul moods?” asked DeVoy, rising from his chair to slip his record back in its sleeve and into its maroon protective cover. “Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?”

  “I just got out of a meeting with the chief of police,” I said. I took a load off my feet, sitting down and then easing back in the chair. “Do you mind?”
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  I gestured to the door, and Myron got up to close it. He sat back down, and I furnished the two detectives with a recap of what happened at the meeting.

  After I finished, DeVoy rubbed his hands together with excitement. “So how are we going to divide this investigation up?”

  “That’s just it, we’re not,” I said. “It’s important for everything to appear to be business as usual around here. That’s why I need you sticking around the office, manning the telephones.”

  DeVoy winced. “Aw, shoot. How come? I wanted in on the action!”

  “I’m pretty sure the police beat reporters suspect something is going on,” I said. “It’s a small cohort. They talk to each other. If they get wind of this, there will be pandemonium the likes of which this city hasn’t seen in a long, long time.”

  “Bigger than that murdered polygamist prophet four years ago?” asked Myron.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “Bigger than that high-society dame that got hit by her own car?” asked DeVoy. “That caused a whole lotta ballyhoo way back when?”

  “Bigger than both of them combined,” I said.

  “Isn’t that one still unsolved?” asked DeVoy, staring almost wistfully into space. “What do you make of that? Killer still at large.”

  “That’s ancient history,” I said. “We need to sort out what’s right in front of us.”

  “What about me?” asked Myron. “What should I do?”

  “Let’s go to the Hotel Utah together,” I said. “We’ll get a sense of the lay of the land. From there, we’ll figure out how to divvy up this case.”

  “How come he gets to go and I have to sit here on my rump and answer the telephone all day?” asked DeVoy. “It’s not fair. Let Myron answer the telephones. I want to go out on the streets and work a case for once, instead of all this bureaucratic office work. I was meant to be a man of action.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll go and you answer the telephones,” said Myron.

  “Ha! Big funny of 1938,” he said, sneering. “Give that man his own variety program on the radio.”

  “Maybe next time you can come along,” I said, rising from my chair.

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” said DeVoy, rolling his chair back to his desk.

  We left before DeVoy could squeeze in another objection.

  * * *

  The Hotel Utah, in all of its skyscraping white grandeur, towered above the buildings around it. We could have walked there from Public Safety. Nothing in downtown Salt Lake City is far from anything else. But at quarter past ten on a Monday morning, the temperature felt too hot to walk even a few blocks. Nearing the stately hotel, I spied Amelia Van Cott waiting out front, spiral notepad in hand, as Ephraim Nielsen stood behind her, in the shade of the awning, adjusting his bulky camera. To dodge the nosy duo, I surreptitiously circled the block and turned into the parking lot behind the hotel.

  Myron and I managed to avoid being seen by her. We slipped quietly into the elevator, asked the operator to take us to the seventh floor. We exited the elevator and met a dapper, two-chinned fellow in a matching derby and chalk-stripe suit. A gold chain dangled from his vest, and he checked his pocket watch as we approached. The pouch of skin under his fat lower lip told me he was a tobacco chewer, and he probably needed the relief of a spittoon right about then.

  “Oveson?” he asked.

  “That’s me.”

  We shook hands. “Hello there. I’m Dooley Metzger, house detective here at the Hotel Utah.”

  “Good to know you, Metzger,” I said, releasing his hand. “This is my partner, Detective Myron Adler.”

  They refrained from shaking hands. He moved aside to let me open the door. He stared at Myron in a knowing and penetrating way, and my partner offered the closest thing to a scowl I’ve ever seen him make. I detected mutual hostility, and the two men seemed to want nothing to do with each other. While still out in the corridor, Myron and I slipped on thin cotton police gloves, to avoid leaving fingerprints.

  “You any relation to Will Oveson?” Metzger asked me.

  “He was my father.”

  “He used to be my boss,” said Metzger. “I admired him. Say, they never did figure out who murdered…”

  “No,” I said, finishing his sentence before he could.

  He arched his eyebrows and then—thankfully—changed the topic. “I keep getting calls from the press, especially that Van Cott dame. She’s a pain in the neck.”

  “What does she want to know?” I asked.

  “She keeps asking about the crash out at the flats on Saturday and Underhill’s recovery,” said Metzger. “I’m under strict orders by hotel management not to say a word about Underhill. As far as the press knows, he’s sitting comfortably in his room, soaking his injured ankle in hot water.”

  “Did you see him leave the hotel early Sunday morning?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” said Metzger. “My shift ended at eleven P.M. Saturday night.”

  “Any chance he took the service elevator?” I asked.

  Metzger shook his head. “No. It has a night operator.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Haywood Arliss,” said Metzger. “You needn’t bother. I’ve already questioned him. He didn’t see any sign of Underhill that night.”

  “What about the two regular elevator operators?” I asked.

  “Raymond McCoy and Emil Dinsdale,” said Metzger. “Dinsdale gave Clive Underhill a ride up to this floor after he got back from the Grove. Neither saw Underhill again that night.”

  “Did Dinsdale see him go to his room?”

  “No.”

  “Underhill could’ve taken the stairs when he left the hotel,” I said.

  “Yes, that is so,” agreed Metzger. “The stairs would’ve let him out in the lobby. The lobby is big, as you’ve no doubt noticed. A careful fella—late at night—could sneak out of there without being seen by the front desk man or the bellhop.”

  “I take it they’ve been questioned, too?” I half asked, half stated.

  “Yes,” said Metzger with a single nod.

  “We’ll still need to question them,” I said. “It’s just a formality.”

  “Of course,” said Metzger.

  “Wouldn’t the doorman have noticed him leaving?” I asked.

  Metzger shrugged. “There are other ways of getting out, without being seen.”

  “Such as?” I asked.

  “Rear service entrance,” he said.

  “Isn’t there somebody guarding that?” I asked.

  “It’s locked on the outside at that time of night, so you can’t use it to enter the building unless you’ve got a key,” said Metzger. “But if you’re inside, you can freely use it to go outside. At that hour, it’s easy to leave through that door without being noticed by anybody.”

  “I see. On a separate but possibly related note, I’ve heard that there were three eyewitnesses who saw Roscoe Lund come up here in the middle of the night to confront Nigel Underhill about money owed to him. Do you know if that’s accurate?”

  “Yes, it is,” said Metzger, nodding. “A pair of guests—a couple from Canada—and a Negro hotel employee. It’s my understanding that detectives from Homicide have already questioned each one, so that ground has already been covered.”

  “May I get their names?”

  “I’m sure your fellow detectives will know,” he said.

  “I’d prefer to get it from you.”

  “The McKennas—Estelle and Claude—from Saskatchewan, were the two guests staying in the room across the hall from Nigel Underhill,” he said. “They’re here for the big radio sellers’ convention. And Winston Booker is the colored bellhop. Beyond that, I don’t care to say anything. You see, I know a thing or two about the law enforcement business, and, well, I don’t care to pour gasoline on brush fires, if you get my meaning.”

  “Yeah. I get it,” I said. “Thank you for your help.”

  Metzger tipped his
derby. “I’ll be in my office, ground level, if you need me.”

  I looked at Myron. “Ready?”

  “Lead the way.”

  I opened the door and went inside, followed by Myron, who closed the door behind him. I switched on the lights. Between the two of us, it took less than a half hour to search the premises. It contained only the bare essentials: a freshly made bed, a closet packed with the finest clothes, bureau drawers full of socks and undergarments, a leather toiletry case on the bathroom counter, and two books on the nightstand: The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, and a dusty copy of Hubert Howe Bancroft’s History of Utah from 1889.

  Myron, meantime, opened the desk drawer. No surprises there. He found copies of the Gideon Bible, the Book of Mormon, and a telephone directory. I opened up Underhill’s steam trunk, hoping to find a secret compartment or an object that would furnish a clue about his disappearance. Instead, I went through undergarments, handkerchiefs, and other such notions. A suitcase on the floor of the closet was empty. The shelves above his hanging clothes were barren. If there was anything that could be of help in our investigation, it wasn’t to be found here. I went over to Myron, already peeling off his gloves.

  “You were mighty quiet out there,” I said, gesturing to the door. “You gonna tell me how you know him?”

  I couldn’t see Myron’s eyes through the lenses of his glasses, but I felt them looking at me.

  “There’s nothing to tell. He was before my time.”

  “So you don’t know him?”

  “Should I?”

  “Suit yourself, don’t tell me,” I said. “But I got a whiff of something earlier, and it smelled none too good.”

  We left room 702. I briefly considered knocking on the door across the hall to find out what the guests staying in there had seen or heard early Sunday morning. I opted against it, deciding now was not the time. Back at the elevator, a bell dinged and ornate brass doors slid open. Out walked a young mail carrier in a blue uniform and matching cap. With a canvas U.S. Mail bag slung over his shoulder, he carried a thick beige envelope in his hands that looked as if it contained a telephone directory.

  “Say, you fellas know where room seven-zero-two is?” he asked.