Desolation Flats

by Andrew Hunt

  “I was expecting you sooner,” he said.

  “Oh?” I accepted the file and gave him a curious look. “What do you mean?”

  “Surely you’ve heard the big news. It’s all over the newspapers, the radio. Clive Underhill is nowhere to be found. I know you’re in the Missing Persons Bureau, Art. But this is the first time I’ve heard about Nigel. That is terrible news.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said. “It came as quite a shock.”

  He nodded. “Maybe whatever is in that folder can shed some light on it.”

  “May I?” I asked, gesturing to the coveted object in my hands.

  “Go right ahead. Whatever is in there is quite popular.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone else came in to see it,” said Lowell. “A rather large Englishman. His name escapes me.”

  I thought of “rather large” Englishmen. Only one came to mind.

  “Was his name Albert Shaw, by any chance?”

  He snapped his fingers and his face lit up with a smile. “That’s the one.”

  “What did he say? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “He wanted to take the file with him,” said Lowell. “He wouldn’t tell me what it was about. I told him the file had to stay here, on the premises. He seemed agitated, rushed. He was only in here briefly. He said he’d come back. He hasn’t—not yet, anyway.”

  “Nobody else has come in to look at it?” I asked. “No police? No feds?”

  “Nope. You’re it. Well, you and that Shaw fellow.”

  I nodded, opting against telling Lowell that I’d recently lost my job at the SLCPD. I hated lying, but a lie by omission was not as bad as uttering an outright falsehood. Or so I assured myself.

  With Lowell standing beside me, I opened the file. It contained a stack of photostats, still smelling of fresh ink—if I had to venture a guess, I’d say probably about a hundred or so pages in total. Not a single document had anything to do with the Underhill clan. I flipped pages. The documents were all in German. Two names kept coming up over and over: Gerhardt Rudolf Heinrich and Gerda Strauss. And the two words I saw over and over again—underlined in pen, presumably by Nigel Underhill—were JUDE and JUDEN. When I got to the bottom of the stack, I found a couple of pieces of tan-colored scratch paper, provided to patrons of the Genealogical Society for note-taking, and I guessed the mostly legible cursive on them belonged to Nigel Underhill.

  I looked at Lowell. “Mind if I take this with me?”

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Anything to help with the investigation.”

  “Thank you ever so much, Lowell.”

  I closed the file and we started off across the black-and-brown checkerboard linoleum. Lowell and I made small talk about the weather and the people that came in each day to do research and the boxes of records that were arriving here on a daily basis. On the way to the exit, I peeked in the reading room, where dozens of women of all ages—and a handful of men—pored over documents at wooden carrels. At the entrance, I thanked Lowell once more, shook hands with him, and left.

  Thirty

  From a distance, the engine’s rumble rolled across the salt-encrusted earth, bouncing off of treeless mountains and stubby purple hills. I skirted the makeshift tent city, scanning the banners announcing the big showdown tomorrow between Great Britain and Germany. A clash of monumental proportions, the newspapers had called it. Yet news of Clive Underhill’s disappearance had gone public, casting a pall over Saturday’s scheduled event. This morning’s newspaper had reported that Rudy Heinrich was still planning on showing up to break the old speed record. “I hope they find Clive Underhill,” he told reporters. “But that won’t stop me from doing what I’ve traveled all this way to accomplish.” Albert Shaw told the press that the Brits had no intention of canceling, either, and he insisted Clive would be found before Saturday.

  Still, the clock was ticking away, and Clive’s disappearance threatened to eclipse Saturday’s event. Already, a search of epic proportions, spearheaded by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, was under way. As I traversed crystals, recalling Clive describing them as “desolate,” I felt the hot surface penetrating my shoe soles. Venturing out onto the raceway, I spotted a silvery dot on the horizon, where azure skies and white earth met.

  This crusty landscape, devoid of life, had been named for a nineteenth-century Frenchman, Benjamin Bonneville, who crossed the Atlantic, joined the United States Army, and came out West to survey the land and trap fur. For a place not fit for man or beast, the flats teemed with signs of life on this day, as workers erected banners welcoming visitors to the raceway, and raised rows of Union Jacks, Old Glories, and twisted black swastikas on white circles in the middle of red banners. To the west, bright newsreel trucks shimmered in the sun.

  I had no business being out here, in the middle of this strip of raceway. No longer a police detective, I now enjoyed the status of an ordinary civilian, with no power or authority to do anything, not even give out a traffic ticket. Still, the security guards out here in these parts knew who I was, and because I was the cousin of the legendary Hank Jensen, they left me alone. So I stood out a ways from the hubbub of the tents and the bleachers, out here where the cars drove. The shadow of my fedora brim protected me from the worst of the sun’s ferocity. My left hand gripped the dossier that I had obtained earlier in the day at the Genealogical Society in downtown Salt Lake City.

  As the Auto Union Streamliner—a practice car prototype—neared, its engine grew louder, until the grinding roar convinced me to move aside a ways, to the east. The sleek machine Rudy Heinrich planned to drive tomorrow had been built to break speed records on the Autobahn in more temperate stretches in Germany. Nevertheless, it ended up out here, in the kiln-baked deserts of Utah, gleaming under the bright sun. The vehicle rocketed past me, its deafening engine noise stabbing my eardrums, and a hot wind gusted from its rear, nearly blowing my hat off my head. I watched it shrink in my line of vision and its roar fade in my ears as it whipped up clouds of dust in the final stretch.

  I walked south to get closer to Heinrich’s prototype. The five-minute trek took me across white diamonds that crunched under each step. To the east, where the tent city stood, a giant loudspeaker atop a high pole crackled an announcement about time trials. I tugged my hat brim low, to better shade my eyes, and I held tighter to the file folder. Up ahead, Heinrich’s crew had swarmed around the car, and the German racer raised the tinted dome above his head, climbed out, and leapt onto the ground. He peeled off his goggles and helmet and handed them to a young blond-haired assistant, and his face lit up with what seemed to be genuine happiness when he saw me approaching. He squinted, offered a toothy smile, and came at me with his hand extended outward.

  “Kripo!”

  I headed toward him, raising my hand to grasp his, when a familiar-looking woman stepped in my path. She appeared so abruptly I nearly walked right into her. I instantly recognized her as Leni Riefenstahl. Her golden hair was made disheveled by the desert wind, and tiny flames of rage burned in her eyes with intimidating ferocity. She was wearing some sort of getup that was much too hot for the desert, involving a leather jacket, jodhpurs, and boots. Her lips were pursed. Her fists were clenched. A thin layer of sweat covered her face. Her bosoms rose and fell with each angry breath. Behind her, a cinematographer finished filming the scene and stepped away from his camera. I found Riefenstahl so intimidating that I had to back up a few steps as she advanced toward me.

  “You never showed,” she whispered, in her thick German accent.

  “I never said I would,” I whispered back.

  “No männlich has ever turned me down.”

  “I’m a married männlich,” I said, waving my wedding ring in front of her. “Pardon me, please.”

  As I maneuvered around her, she shot me an incredulous, open-mouthed “how dare you” look. In an uncharacteristically crass move on my part, I managed to steal a glimpse of her rear end, enough of one to know that I’d probab
ly missed out on something memorable by not journeying to her hotel room a few nights ago. But I could bear my momentary wistful sting of regret. I can’t say the same thing would have been the case had I strayed behind Clara’s back. Once past formidable Fortress Riefenstahl, I went straight over to shake Rudy Heinrich’s hand. His grip was firm.

  “What a pleasant surprise to see you again,” he said.

  “You as well,” I said. I gestured to the car behind him, now crawling with crew. “Practicing for the big day tomorrow?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, nodding, and looked at me again. “She’s not the P9, but she’s the next best thing.”

  Just then, the phantom-like Ernst Voss chose to put in an appearance. I didn’t even see where he came from. He simply cut in like a jealous husband. He looked as frail as ever, as if he’d escaped from the tuberculosis ward of the nearest sanatorium.

  “What brings you out here?” he asked.

  “I’ve come to wish Heinrich good luck tomorrow,” I said.

  “Thank you,” said Heinrich. “We’re about to pour beers over in our tent. Care to join us?”

  “No thanks. But I do have a few more questions, if you have a moment.”

  Voss said, “All questions must be submitted in advance to my office for…”

  “Ernst,” said Heinrich, leaning toward Voss. He spoke German softly. Then he straightened and his focus—along with that big smile—returned to me. “Ask away, kripo. I wish to cooperate, especially if it will help in locating Clive Underhill.”

  “May we talk alone?” I asked, eyeing Voss’s pasty face. “Shouldn’t take long.”

  “Of course,” said Heinrich. “Why don’t we take a little walk?”

  I noticed Voss glowering as we walked away.

  We went north, away from the maintenance crew and the Nazi hangers-on. The heat was taking a toll on Heinrich. I stopped. He stopped. We faced each other. The sun bleached him and his white racing coveralls, like everything around us. I held up the file folder, and he blinked at it, then at me.

  “What’s that?”

  “It belonged to Nigel Underhill,” I said. “He loved genealogy.”

  “What?”

  “Genealogy. It’s the study of family history.”

  “Oh. I see.” He chuckled uneasily. “Sorry, what does this have to do with Nigel?”

  “Before he was murdered, he spent a lot of time at the Genealogical Society.”

  “What was he doing there? Researching his ancestors?”

  “No. Researching yours.”

  Heinrich seemed even more mystified than before.

  “My ancestors?”

  “Yeah. He also unearthed some documents related to Gerda Strauss.”

  “Gerda?”

  “She’s your wife, no?”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t my imagination: Heinrich was tensing up. His smile tightened. “Frau Strauss is my wife.”

  “So I gathered,” I said. “The documents indicate that you and Strauss are Jews. I understand it’s a crime to be a Jew in Germany these days.”

  That killed Heinrich’s smile.

  “You’re mistaken. My mother converted to Catholicism years ago,” he said. “My father was born into a long line of Catholics. That makes me a Catholic. And Gerda is a practicing Lutheran. Obviously, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Was Nigel blackmailing you with these documents? Is that it?”

  He swallowed hard as he looked me up and down. “I perform a useful function to the Reich. Hitler himself called me Germany’s greatest racer. He invited me to a reception at the Berghof to celebrate my Grand Prix victory at the Masaryk circuit three years ago.”

  “I’ll ask again,” I said. “Was Nigel Underhill blackmailing you?”

  “The Reich authorities already know about everything in that folder,” said Heinrich. “If they were going to do anything to me, they would’ve done it by now.”

  “Possibly,” I said. “But there are other ways of getting to you.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Sir Lloyd Underhill, Nigel’s father, owns newspapers in England,” I said. “Several of them. I’m sure Nigel had enough clout to persuade at least one of them to make a big stink out of this. It’s one thing for the Reich bosses in Berlin to be privy to this information in private. It’s a different matter entirely for the whole world to know that Rudy Heinrich is a Jew.”

  He turned his back on me, hands on hips, and walked out into the whiteness of salt. He stared for a long while into the distance. A faraway car thundered across the flats arrow-like, and he watched it intently. Minutes passed, and I began to wonder whether he was going to say anything. I almost broke the silence, but I thought it best to give him a chance to speak. When he looked off to the south, I saw a flash of his profile, and the smile had returned.

  “Do you know what I love about this place?”

  “No. What?”

  “Its purity.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Listen. What do you hear?”

  The world around us had fallen silent. Not even the wind whistled. I gazed up at the sky, so blue it almost stung my eyes to look at it. I lowered my head and set my sights on Heinrich once more.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “That’s right. Nothing. No jackboots marching. No Luftwaffe planes in the sky. No cheering mass rallies. Sometimes we forget how beautiful it sounds, the silence.”

  Heinrich faced me and approached slowly. “How much do you want?”

  I opened the dossier and fished out a picture. I held it up for him. “His name is Winston Booker. He’s a bellhop at the Hotel Utah. His parents asked me to find him. I have a feeling he saw something over the weekend he wasn’t supposed to. I don’t know what it was. I thought there was a chance you might.”

  He glanced at the picture, then at me. “I’ve never seen him before. Good luck in your search.”

  “I’ll need more than luck,” I said, tucking the photo away. “I’m thinking along the lines of miracles, at this point.”

  “What would you say if I told you I murdered Nigel Underhill?”

  “Did you?”

  “What if I said I did?”

  “I wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the maître d’ at the Coconut Grove confirmed my suspicions,” I said. “According to him, on Saturday night—well, Sunday morning, really—you were the last guest to leave the place, along with Karl von Rimmelkopf and Dr. Meinshausen, and that would’ve been around three, maybe a little after. He sent you all back to the Ben Lomond in a yellow taxi because you weren’t in any shape to drive. There was only one person missing from your group at the time. Ernst Voss.”

  “Stay away from him,” Heinrich whispered grimly.

  “Why?” I asked. “What’s he hiding?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Night of the Long Knives?”

  “No. Should I have?”

  He nodded. “It was blood purge four years ago. Hitler ordered mass executions of members of the Sturmabteilung, the Brownshirts, including its stabschef, Ernst Röhm. Der Führer’s chief executioner was another Ernst—Voss. Nobody knows how many people Voss has murdered, but I hear it numbers in the thousands.”

  “Where was he the night Nigel was murdered?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Heinrich. “Not with me, I can say that much.”

  “Not even for part of the evening?”

  “No.”

  “One more question,” I said. “Then I’ll let you go.”

  “All right. Go ahead.”

  “Vaughn Perry. Name ring any bells?”

  “Of course! He was my first close friend from America,” he said, with a dreamy smile. “I got to know him when I was an exchange student at Oxford.”

  “I’ve got bad news for you,” I said. “He’s in the morgue.”

  Heinrich’s mouth fell open. “My God. How—”

  “The cor
oner listed the cause of death as a heroin overdose,” I said. “I happen to think he was murdered.”

  “Who’d do such a thing?”

  I dodged his question with a slight shrug, unsure of whether I could trust him if I told him I saw that it had been Voss.

  “Did the two of you stay in touch over the years?”

  “We wrote to each other from time to time,” said Heinrich. “He stayed in Germany, and spoke the language fluently.”

  “How would you describe him?” I asked.

  Heinrich made a long face and shrugged. “Ruggedly handsome—a bohemian type. Loved by the ladies. He practically lived outdoors. He always had a fresh tan. He loved jazz. He read literature, and had tremendous natural intellect, but not in a boastful or arrogant way. He wanted to live out in nature, like Thoreau. His father, Newton Perry, was—is, I suppose—a famous American fascist and radio personality. Father and son were estranged. They stopped speaking to each other years ago.”

  “Over what?” I asked.

  “Fascism,” said Heinrich. “The elder was for it, the younger against. Vaughn used to write me impassioned letters condemning Hitler and the Nazis. I’d throw them into the fire after reading them. I didn’t want to get in trouble with the authorities. Of course, the censors never checked my mail because I am who I am. They’ve always left me alone, as long as I produced the desired results.”

  “When was the last time you saw or heard from Vaughn?”

  “Last week,” said Heinrich. “I ran into him at the Old Mill.”

  I arched my eyebrows in surprise. “Oh? You were there, too?”

  “Yes. Clive and I frequent the same establishments.”

  “What about Peter Insley?”