A Killing in Zion

by Andrew Hunt

  “Did I do any damage…?”

  “No harm done, Mr. Roscoe.”

  Shoes on, Roscoe steadied himself on his feet. “Say, Miguel, is your wife still making them, uh…”

  “Empanadas? Si! I tell Arturo here, she make a batch tomorrow.”

  Roscoe walked over to Miguel and handed him a soggy dollar. “I’ll take one. Tell her to throw in some of that hot sauce she makes. That stuff’s the bee’s knees.”

  “I get you change.…”

  “Keep it,” said Roscoe. He faced me. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  I waited in Roscoe’s living room while he showered. He resided on the second floor of a two-story beige brick apartment building at the corner of 200 South and 800 East. Thin walls let me hear someone in the next apartment singing to piano scales. Tall trees outside the open window cooled the place in the dead of summer, and a breeze parachuted the sheer curtains. Roscoe’s cats, Barney, a venerable orange tabby, and Millicent, a younger, mischievous tortoiseshell, kept me company while I waited.

  The living room was filled with stacks of magazines, a tabletop radio that played crackling music with bluesy horn and a colored lady singing, and an antique table supporting a row of framed photographs. One showed a young Roscoe standing alongside his coworkers from Donovan and Sons, a company that called itself a detective agency, yet really specialized in rental strikebreakers. In another portrait, teenage Roscoe stood by his mother in a photographer’s studio, sometime early in the century. The next framed image was a five-by-seven school picture of a young girl that I hadn’t seen the last time I was here. I prided myself on being an observant fellow. How did I miss it before? I nudged Barney off my lap and he meowed his protest and leaped to the floor. I walked over to the table and picked up the framed photo to get a better look. I ventured a guess the girl was somewhere in her early teens, with shoulder-length dark hair, a cute squint, and a toothy grin. When hinges squeaked down the hall, I returned the frame to where it sat. Roscoe entered the living room and it surprised me to see what a difference a fresh change of clothes made. Even though the bruises and cuts were still visible, he looked halfway presentable.

  “You ready?”

  “Yep,” I answered.

  The sedan’s front seat felt piping hot when I slid in and closed the door. A fire engine raced past us with bells clanging as Roscoe got in and muttered something about forest fires. I didn’t hear him and I didn’t feel like asking him to repeat it. I started the car, steered onto 200 South, and headed downtown. I had no desire to get to the bottom of what happened to Roscoe, but I felt I had no choice.

  “You gonna tell me who did it?”

  He turned his head to me, swollen-eyed and fat-lipped. “Huh?”

  “Your face.”

  He looked forward. “Remember Pearl?”

  “Not the married woman.…”

  “Don’t start in on me.”

  “Was it her husband?”

  He opened a tobacco pouch and stuck a wad between his cheek and gum. When he tilted it my way, I shook my head. “You sure? It’s Red Man.”

  “No thanks.”

  He tucked it in his pocket. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “You’re thinking: He oughta settle down. Find himself a wife. Have some kids. Like me.”

  “Actually, I was wondering how that lady’s husband bested you.”

  “What makes you think he bested me?”

  “I’m basing it on your appearance. Am I wrong?”

  “I tore him apart.” He burped and pounded his fist against his chest. “Prick had no idea what hit him.”

  Roscoe’s proclivity for fooling around with married women and his brutish fisticuffs—stories of the latter probably exaggerated for effect—left me cold, and I’m sure he noticed my troubled expression, or heard my sigh of frustration. Once upon a time, I used to harangue him about his reckless ways, but it only made him sore and more reluctant to confide in me. Over time, I grew less judgmental and more inclined to listen the way a good friend ought to. I held out hope that by letting Roscoe find the words to describe his more troubling behaviors, he’d see them more clearly and try to change his ways. He hadn’t rounded that corner yet, but the optimist in me refused to give up on him.

  I reached the congested intersection of 200 South and State, signaled, and turned right—north—in the direction of Public Safety. We were downtown, which meant I didn’t have much time left to be alone with Roscoe. Change the subject, I thought. “That girl in the picture, the one in your living room. Who is she?”

  “Nona.”

  “Oh yeah? Nice name. Nona what?”

  “Nona your business.”

  “Oh. It’s like that, huh?”

  “Yeah, it’s like that.”

  “Sorry. I figured she must be somebody important. If you keep her framed picture in your apartment.” I waited a beat. “She must mean something to you.”

  “Art?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Her name’s still Nona.”

  “Okay. Fine.” On the last block of our drive, I told Roscoe the thing I dreaded saying the most. “I can’t cover for you anymore.”

  “Not now, Art.…”

  “Yes, now,” I said. “You need to realize that you’ve got a job, and a good one. That’s a luxury a lot of men in our day and age don’t have. You need to keep that job. Showing up on time in the morning is a good start.”

  I turned down the shaded alley to the side of Public Safety while Roscoe stewed next to me. Behind the building, I turned into a parking spot and killed the engine.

  Roscoe flung open his door and stepped onto the running board, then to pavement. “Listen, thanks for coming out to the Tampico to get me,” he said. “But I don’t need you looking after me, Art. The way I see it, if the higher-ups can my ass, they’ll be doing me a favor.”

  He slammed his door hard, startling me. As I watched him enter Public Safety, the main thing on my mind right then was that Roscoe had said nothing about the Running Board Bandit episode of Crime Does Not Pay. A stabbing pain stuck me above my abdomen, the same sensation I’d felt in the past when someone I loved ignored a milestone in my life.

  Four

  “Any good news in there?”

  Myron lowered today’s issue of the Examiner and shook his head without taking his eyes off the print. I didn’t know why I asked him that question. I guess I’d grown tired of staring at a newspaper for the past half hour and listening to police alerts. He squinted through those thick eyeglasses of his as he read, as if he were still pondering my question in that overactive brain of his.

  “It depends,” he said.

  “On?”

  “If you think forest fires burning up half of this state, dust storms burying entire towns on the Plains, Hitler knocking off half of his henchmen, and San Francisco being turned into a ghost town by a general strike are good news.” He raised the newspaper, once again hiding behind a curtain of ink. “Looks like they’re closing in on the Dillinger gang.”

  We sat in an unmarked police sedan with the windows open, down the road from a mansion on Lincoln Street that had been converted into the main branch of the so-called Fundamentalist Church of Saints. The temperature had climbed into the low nineties, and the few breezes that blew were a welcome relief. We were far enough from our target not to be noticed by visitors, who seemed to be coming and going regularly, but still within sight of the grounds.

  A wall of hedges prevented passersby from getting a good look at the steep-roofed house with a rounded tower on its west side and a tall chimney so narrow a good gust of wind could have knocked it over. Parallel-parked autos lined the streets, mostly dusty black Fords and Chevrolets from the previous decade, taking up curb space in all directions. We’d been parked in the same spot since noon—about an hour now—waiting for LeGrand Johnston to make a move.

  Signs of life: Eight women in long prairie dresses that covered
everything from neck to feet lined up side by side on the wide gravelly driveway, as if they were accustomed to assuming this formation daily. All of them wore their lengthy hair pinned back into braids and buns, without a loose lock in sight. Before long, the prophet came hobbling down the line with the use of a cane, stopping at each woman, leaning in close for a kiss on the cheek. His beefy driver, in a black suit and cap, walked past Johnston as he kissed the women and opened the door to a limousine. Johnston eventually reached the end of the line and advanced forward to his waiting driver.

  When his two-toned black-and-green Packard limousine rolled out of the driveway, I plunged my key into the ignition and the engine turned over right away.

  “Look alive,” I said.

  Myron closed and folded his newspaper, flinging it onto the backseat. I tailed the Packard up shady Lincoln Street to 2100 South, where it turned left onto the wide, congested road. We had to wait for a break in traffic to make the same turn. On Twenty-First, I leadfooted past assorted restaurants, shops, auto garages, bungalows, and weed-choked lots until we reached State Street, a major north-south artery running up and down the center of the valley. My focus was fixed on the Packard’s taillights ahead in the distance.

  Northbound on State, I stayed three car lengths behind Johnston’s Packard, weaving around a Utah Light & Traction trolley and a few slow cars and trucks. At 400 South, by city hall, I hit a stop signal and I briefly feared we’d lose him, but as soon as the go sign flashed, I stomped on the accelerator and shot forward. In my peripheral vision, I noticed Myron lick his lips nervously and clutch the ceiling strap.

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “What don’t you get?”

  “What do you think he’s going to do today that he hasn’t done since you started shadowing him?”

  State Street plugged into downtown at this point. Tall buildings were reflected in the Ford’s shiny surface. I considered Myron’s question and offered something in the way of a shrug. “We won’t know unless we follow him.”

  “If you asked me, which you didn’t, I’d say we’re wasting our time.”

  “Well, we aren’t making any progress sitting around that stuffy old squad room.”

  That shut Myron up temporarily, which was good because I needed to concentrate on finding the Packard. Thankfully it was a unique enough automobile that it was easy to spot circling the block on Broadway (300 South), and braking to turn left on Main, the next street over from State. I swerved into the left-turn lane, and during a break in the traffic, steered onto Third and caught up to the Packard, letting it turn before I got too close. Johnston’s car was heading toward Exchange Place, a cluster of classical architecture that included the federal building and post office. Broadway churned with traffic, packed lanes on both sides, the constant ringing of trolley bells, and car horns blaring.

  “I’m sure he’s up to no good,” said Myron. “Probably trying to send a postcard without a stamp.”

  I ignored his wisecrack. The Packard eased to a halt, and the driver got out, circled the car, and opened the door for Johnston. I parked at the curb and watched the elderly man hobbling into the post office with the help of a cane, his face shaded by sunglasses and a black fedora. We stayed put while he went inside. Our prowl car was fitted with a police radio, required to remain on at all times, and the alerts hit one after another. “Calling car twelve! Car one-two! See a domestic disturbance at eight-four-four South, three-zero-zero East,” droned a woman’s voice from the speaker box wired to the dashboard Motorola, the favored brand of patrol cars across America. “That’s eight-four-four South, three-zero-zero east. Neighbors called to report two men quarreling. Liquor may be involved. That is all.”

  “Maybe you ought to consider a different approach,” said Myron.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Find a mole. Pay him well.”

  I shook my head. “There aren’t any finks in this outfit.”

  He looked at me. “You hate polygamists, don’t you?”

  “Makes you say that?”

  “The way you tense up when you talk about them.”

  I waited to answer him. “I feel sorry for the women and children. They’re victims.”

  “Maybe the wives want it that way.”

  I grimaced. “Why do you say that?”

  “You know the old saying about the devil you know.”

  “No woman in her right state of mind would choose that way of life,” I said. “Not of her own free will, anyway.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “That answer doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”

  I looked at him. “You really want to know why I hate them?”

  “Sure.”

  “They’re deviants. They make a mockery out of all the things I hold sacred. Marriage. Family. Religion. They rule by fear. Nobody in those families dares to step out of line. Do you want me to go on? I could, you know.”

  Myron began to recite something. “‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.’”

  “What’s that from?”

  “Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Ever read it?”

  I felt myself coiling up on the defensive. “What are you saying? That I don’t know anything about polygamy? If so, let me tell you—”

  “I know, I know. You’ve got ancestors who were polygamists. You’ve already said it a hundred times. You think it gives you credibility. It doesn’t.”

  “Okay, smart guy,” I said, my voice rising in frustration. “What’s your solution?”

  “Putting them in jail won’t do any good.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He gestured to the building. “That old man in the post office has nearly two dozen wives, and probably triple that number of children. If you send him to prison, what’ll his kin do to make ends meet? Tossing him in jail is only going to make things worse.” He drew a breath. “And another thing…”

  “What?”

  “How come it was kosher to have a bunch of wives fifty years ago but not now?”

  I eyed the Packard in front of us. “I’m not going to sit here and debate Mormon doctrine with you, Myron.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said. “I wouldn’t either if my God kept changing His mind every five minutes.”

  “If you don’t believe in this squad’s mission, maybe you should request a transfer.”

  “What, go back to my dreary job in records and miss all the fun? Not on your life.”

  Not a second too soon, LeGrand Johnston exited the post office, cane in one hand, burlap mailbag in the other. He moved slowly down the steps to his waiting Packard. With his driver’s help, he climbed into the car. I started the engine and followed Johnston’s car into the traffic. I was glad to be on the move again. The prospect of continuing this fruitless debate with Myron left me drained. There was, I had to admit, some truth in his words, yet his emotionless self-assurance left me cold. Every word he spoke was anchored in his unflappable sense that he was always right. It’s pointless to debate a man who thinks he’s always right.

  For the next few hours, Johnston crisscrossed the city, making rounds that were all too familiar to me. Visiting his wives and offspring, never staying in any one place for too long, had become the old man’s daily routine. Most of the women and children on his route resided in modest bungalows dotting the city’s residential neighborhoods as far north as the Avenues and as far south as Sugar House. One wife and a trio of youngsters greeted Uncle Grand at the entrance of a two-story Tudor in the Harvard-Yale neighborhood, a ritzy area of tree-lined streets and lavish homes south of the University of Utah. This house, with flower gardens on all sides, was more upscale than the others we’d been to that afternoon.

  Five o’clock arrived a
nd we headed back to Public Safety so Roscoe could spell Myron. Roscoe opened the passenger door and Myron, with folded newspaper in hand, tugged the brim of his hat and stepped out. Roscoe got in the car and complained under his breath about the heat as I watched Myron charge—skipping every other step—to the entrance of headquarters, wading into departing policemen ending their shift.

  * * *

  Half past ten at night found us parked near the fundamentalist church on Lincoln Street, where Myron and I had started our long day of surveillance. There were no streetlamps out there, so the moon and the stars were our only light. Roscoe snoozed, breaking out into snoring now and then, his fedora pulled low over his eyes. I watched the house, only able to see glimmers of yellowish light through breaks in the hedge wall.

  I blocked out the incessant radio alerts, minding only my own self-pity. These surveillance outings were ripping me away from my family, the most important thing in my life. Earlier in the night, I’d called Clara from a drugstore telephone booth on 2100 South to let her know I’d be home late. She did her best to sound upbeat, but I heard the resignation in her voice. And to think, it was only a few weeks ago that I’d promised her I’d stop working these late nights when summer arrived.

  It really bothered me that tonight, Monday, was Family Home Evening, a Mormon custom in which each family got together for a night of fun and games and, in warmer months, evening strolls or auto treks to the ice-cream parlor. So much for Family Home Evening, I thought. Was I turning into Buddy Hawkins—my ambitious friend who had swiftly climbed to the position of captain of detectives—willing to push everything aside for my job?

  I tried to steer my focus back to the present. Myron was right: Johnston—or Uncle Grand, as his followers called him—was careful. He had come back here to his church after a two-hour-long meeting with his apostles at a house belonging to one of them, Alma Covington, on Third Avenue. I had waited in front of Covington’s, puzzling over what these codgers could possibly be jabbering about so long. The meeting presumably concluded and the tireless old man left. His driver whisked him to this place, his sanctuary out in the shade trees, the place he stayed on nights when he was busy sorting out church matters until the wee hours. By this time of night, most of the cars at the church were gone. Only Johnston’s limousine remained in the driveway.