A Killing in Zion

by Andrew Hunt

“Bess here asked you a question,” said Clara.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said. “What was the question?”

  I looked at Bess, a roly-poly brunette with a permanent wave like the rest of the women at the table, but a little more makeup than the others. She smiled. She had lipstick on her teeth. “What did you think of the crib?”

  I needed a moment to absorb the question. “Oh yes, the crib. It was lovely. It was in perfect condition.”

  Bess’s husband, Grant, smirked. Two years my senior, my elder brother Grant didn’t much care for me. The feeling was mutual. He never missed an opportunity to say something negative and try to put me in my place. Sometime in our shared past, an adversarial relationship had taken hold. I did my best to ignore his comments, but it wasn’t always easy. Even our jobs seemed competitive. Over the years, Grant had climbed through the ranks of the Provo Police Department and now served as its chief of police.

  “Do you have the baby’s room all decorated, Clara?” asked Eliza, John’s wife.

  John, second oldest of the Oveson brothers, was sheriff of Carbon County, a part of the state renowned for its rich coal deposits and its militant miners’ unions. He somehow always stayed jovial, slapping backs and laughing at dumb jokes, and was by far the most strapping of all of us. He had married Eliza, big-hearted and sincere, and someone who never hesitated to say what was on her mind.

  “We still have to pick out wallpaper,” Clara told Eliza. “Otherwise, I think we’re all set. Don’t you, honey?”

  I looked up from my chicken leg and potatoes. “We’re ready for the new Oveson to arrive.”

  “You want my advice?” asked Margaret, Frank’s wife, as she dabbed her lips with her linen napkin. “Give the baby cod-liver oil.”

  My eldest brother, Frank, worked as an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the federal building in downtown Salt Lake City. The job required traveling, and Frank often took his family to Washington, D.C., where they once dined with J. Edgar Hoover. His wife, Margaret, a confident redhead, could be something of a cold fish and a know-it-all, but essentially harmless.

  Clara reared her head back in curiosity. “Cod-liver oil?”

  Margaret nodded, working food out of her molars. “It promotes healthy evacuations.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Bess. “Surely there must be a better dinner-table topic than passing stools. Pass me the rolls, will you, dear?”

  Grant handed her a basket of hot rolls wrapped in linen.

  Margaret ignored Bess and went on: “Regularity is so important in the lives of babies. One bowel movement a day is critical to the good health—”

  Frank cut her off: “I’m afraid I’m going to have to side with Bess on this one, honey. It just doesn’t go with the cornbread.”

  “I heard a doctor on the radio the other day saying a baby oughtn’t to be swaddled,” said Eliza. “Babies prefer to move around, you know. They love to throw their arms and kick and whatnot. We learned that by the time we had Wayne. Why, we had him in loose-fitting clothes all the time and he was just as content as could be. Wasn’t he, dear?”

  “Darn tootin’,” said John, his mouth stuffed with food. “Whatcha gonna name the critter?”

  “Dear, please,” said Eliza. “Swallow what’s in your mouth before you speak.”

  John wiped his mouth with his napkin and swallowed his food in a loud gulp. “Shoot, sorry. Got a name picked out for the new kid?”

  Clara and I said “Emily” at the same time.

  “Emily if she’s a girl,” Clara said.

  “And Clarence if he’s a boy,” I said.

  “Why Clarence?” asked Grant.

  “We like the name,” I said. “I used to love Clarence Mulford’s books when I was growing up.”

  Grant laughed. “Oh, you mean the hack who wrote the Hopalong Cassidy tales?”

  “Now, dear, don’t call him a hack,” said Mom. “They’re fine books.”

  “You got something against that name?” I asked Grant.

  “Don’t mind me, Arthur,” said Grant, chuckling. “Go ahead and name your baby after a spinner of cowboy yarns. If that’s what toots your horn.”

  “Doggone it, Grant, leave the kid alone, ya turkey,” said John. “Ignore him, kid. That’s a fine name.”

  “Sarah Jane’s friend is awfully quiet,” said Eliza. “What’s her name again?”

  For a second, I forgot Sarah Jane’s made-up name for the girl. My confusion showed, I’m sure.

  “It’s Priscilla,” said Clara.

  Priscilla! I smiled and nodded in agreement.

  “Remind me how they know each other?” asked Margaret.

  “It’s an old friendship,” I said. “It dates back a ways.”

  “Sarah Jane told me they know each other from school,” said Bess.

  Margaret leaned over her plate of food, lowering her voice. “I’m pretty sure she’s mute. She hasn’t uttered a single word. That’s unusual for a girl her age.”

  “It could be she’s just shy,” said Eliza.

  Bess tilted sideways, peering over John’s shoulder to get a better view of the youngsters at the next picnic table. She resumed eating her spareribs. “Which is it, Art?”

  “Which is what?” I asked.

  “Is she mute or is she shy?”

  “She’s mute,” I said, my voice full of hesitation. I hated lying. I was terrible at it, too. For all I knew, I might’ve been telling the truth. “It just adds to her shyness.”

  “How long has she been that way?” asked Eliza.

  “As long as I’ve known her,” I said.

  “I’ve never actually known a mute,” said Bess. “I mean a real, actual mute, someone not capable of saying a single word. Not until now, anyway.”

  “I wish I knew a few more mutes than I do,” said Margaret.

  Bess stopped chewing and glared at Margaret. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I wasn’t meaning you, of course,” said Margaret. “I meant in general.”

  Bess gave her a surly look. “Yeah. Uh-huh. In general.”

  “Got any big trips lined up, Frank?” asked Clara.

  Frank raised a napkin and dabbed the corners of his mouth. “Hoover is sending me to the City by the Bay,” he said. “Frisco.”

  “He returned from Chicago last week,” said Margaret. “They had him working on that big crime wave out in the Midwest. Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd and what have you.”

  “Why San Francisco?” I asked.

  “Haven’t you been reading the papers?” sneered Grant.

  “Reds have turned the place into a ghost town,” said Frank, scooping beans on top of his ham. “Not even the trolleys are runnin’. The strikers have got one of them Workers’, Soldiers’, and Sailors’ Councils set up and running the show. Bunch of Moscow-trained agitators, calling it the Supreme Soviet of the Golden State. We can’t let ’em get away with it. Next thing you know, the reds will be taking over Seattle and Los Angeles, control the whole Pacific seaboard.” He lowered his voice and gestured to a blue bowl. “Hand me the corn, will ya, dear?”

  Margaret passed him a bowl loaded with boiled cobs.

  “Seems like everything is falling apart,” said Eliza. “I don’t dare pick up the newspaper, or watch a newsreel, for fear of more bad news. I don’t think this country can take much more of these hard times.”

  Frank waved his free hand while he used the other to scoop food into his mouth. “Baloney! Greatest country on earth, and she ain’t goin’ nowhere, I’ll tell you that much.”

  I twisted my upper body and turned my head to see the girl. With her chin pressed to her chest, only the top of her head was visible. Who is she? What is she thinking? What did she see the night …

  A pointy-toed shoe nailed me in the shin. Whoa! It hurt like mad. I swung around. It got my attention. Clara jerked her head in the direction of Grant. I looked at him. His arrogant grin returned. “He was daydreaming again.”

 
“I was just checking on the girl.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” chuckled Grant. “It’s not as though the little cannibals are eating her alive or anything.”

  “Something you wanted?” I asked him.

  “Are you on the trail of any suspects in this polygamist murder?” Grant asked, probably knowing the answer already.

  “Yes.”

  He arched his eyebrows. “Oh? Care to reveal any details?”

  “It’s early yet,” I said. “Wasn’t even forty-eight hours ago.”

  Grant laughed as he lifted his corn on the cob.

  “Did I say something funny?” I asked.

  He gnawed on his corn for a moment, and then he set it down and wiped his hands with his napkin. “Why don’t you come right out and admit it?”

  “Admit what?”

  “Someone I trust told me the Salt Lake police are in over their heads,” he said. “To hear this man tell it, you fellows blundered the case yesterday by jumping the gun with mass arrests. I don’t know who planned that move, but I’m guessing it was someone who had no idea what he was doing, or who he was dealing with.”

  Grant waited for me to take the bait. He lifted his corn on the cob and went back to gnawing. With a full mouth, he asked, “Well?”

  In my younger years, back when Grant and I used to verbally spar all the time, I would’ve opened fire on him. Hurled insults. Taken potshots. Called him a name. Or two. In fact, I sensed the others at the table watching us, fearful of some sort of showdown.

  I decided not to give him what he wanted.

  But I did lean over my plate of food, to build up a little tension. “I’m not at liberty to comment on the investigation at this stage. If I could, I would. But, well, rules are rules.”

  I looked over at my mother. “Mom?”

  “Yes, Art?”

  “This is the best fried chicken I’ve ever tasted,” I said. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time.”

  “Why, thank you, dear.”

  I went back to eating lunch, and I winked across the table at my elder brother Grant. His response? A sneer.

  * * *

  On that stretch of highway between the valleys, multitudes of stars and planets glowed in the sky. We reached the pass a few minutes before midnight. Ahead of us, the distant lights of Salt Lake City twinkled, and a shooting star disappeared behind the black wall of the Wasatch Range. The reflection in the rearview mirror revealed the children in the backseat—S.J., Hyrum, and the girl—all had fallen asleep. With both hands on the steering wheel, I checked on Clara, who watched me with sleepy eyes, doing her best to resist the onslaught of slumber. She scooted closer to me and rested her head on my shoulder while I drove. I kissed her honey-colored hair and promptly went back to staring out at the headlights’ beams. She squeezed my knee.

  “Too bad about the fireworks.”

  “Maybe next year.”

  Clara waited a while to speak. I thought she had fallen asleep, but then she glanced fleetingly behind her. “She did well, all things considered.”

  “The girl?”

  “Priscilla.”

  We both chuckled at S.J.’s pseudonym for the girl.

  “Good thing I talked her into letting me take that ring off her finger,” said Clara. “Your sisters-in-law would’ve noticed, and imagine the grilling we would’ve been subjected to.”

  “Especially Bess,” I said. “She’s the gossip queen of Utah.”

  That got a laugh out of Clara. Then we were quiet for the next mile or so.

  Clara said, “She spent a lot of time by herself. After the picnic, I noticed her sitting under the tree, by the canal.” Clara paused. Something was on her mind. “Who do you think she is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She must’ve had a reason for being there. At the crime scene, I mean.”

  “I suspect she knew one or both of the deceased,” I said.

  “You don’t think she could have.… that she’s the one who…”

  Clara couldn’t bring herself to say it. I knew what she meant.

  “I doubt it. But when push comes to shove, there’s no way of knowing.”

  The car reached a steady clip at fifty miles per hour in the night, and distant lights came closer, until we zoomed past an off-ramp to a filling station, market, and motor lodge, each open all night. I was going to say something to Clara about the girl being a gentle soul, and that I couldn’t imagine her taking someone else’s life. But by that time, Clara had fallen asleep, and her breathing grew louder, turning into borderline snoring.

  Now I was the only one awake in the car, or so I thought, until—about five miles away from the city limits, I checked the rearview mirror and noticed the girl’s eyes were open, staring blankly, with a slow blink. I spent the rest of the drive puzzling over who she was, and why I had found her in that closet on the night of the murders.

  Thirteen

  The briefing in the Anti-Polygamy Squad office commenced at eight thirty A.M. sharp. My eyes burned from a lack of sleep, another gift on my doorstep from Mr. Insomnia.

  Jared Weeks: present.

  Myron Adler: present.

  Roscoe Lund: absent.

  “Anybody seen Roscoe?” I asked.

  “Nope,” said Myron. “Shock of the century, and we’re only a third of the way through it.”

  I leaned back in my chair with rolled-up shirtsleeves and a loosened tie.

  “Word came from Cowley on Tuesday,” I said. “We’re off Wit’s homicide investigation.”

  Their faces lit up for the first time that morning.

  “What?” Jared shook his head in disbelief.

  “Why?” asked Myron.

  “Politics,” I said. “Wit has already pulled his men off the crime scene.”

  “Looks like Granville Sondrup plays golf with all the right people,” said Jared.

  “What’re we supposed to do now?” asked Myron.

  “What we’ve been doing all along,” I said. “Minus my surveillance of Uncle Grand, of course. We need to keep building cases against these men. We’re not in the homicide investigating business.”

  “Big mistake, arresting all of those fat cats at once,” said Myron. “The Titanic’s maiden voyage went smoother than yesterday’s interrogations.”

  I shrugged. “I’m sure Wit believed the polygamists would all crack under the pressure. Clearly, he underestimated them.”

  “They’re a devout bunch,” said Myron. “To satisfy my morbid curiosity, I drove past the Lincoln Street church this morning. It was packed. I’m assuming they were all mourners.”

  “Now they’ve got their very own martyr,” I said, glancing down at my notes, zeroing in on the words “Model T truck?” in my familiar block letters. I looked at Myron. “What about running a check on the truck I saw at the church on the night of the murders? I didn’t see the plates, but I did notice it was a Model T.”

  “That’s directly related to the homicide case,” said Myron wearily. “We’re not supposed to go near it. Remember?”

  “I’ll look into it, boss,” said Jared.

  “Myron is right, this is a delicate matter, so let’s keep it strictly on the down low,” I told Jared. “Check with Pace Newbold, see what Homicide knows. No point in reinventing the wheel if he’s already on it. I suspect the Homicide dicks just haven’t gotten that far, otherwise they’d be coming to us asking for a list of local polygamists. I suggest you compare that list against the motor vehicle records of registered Model T trucks at the state department of revenue.”

  “Will do, boss, and mum’s the word,” acknowledged Jared, reaching for his spiral notebook. He licked his finger and turned pages until he found what he was looking for. “I’ve got one promising lead here. Harold O’Rourke is an investigator with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, based out of Flagstaff. He went on a fact-finding trip to Dixie City that took him door to door, questioning townsfolk who happen to be on federal relief rolls. He f
ound plenty of instances of multiple women listing the same man as their husband on applications.”

  I straightened in my chair with interest. “So you’re saying…”

  “Written evidence of unlawful cohabitation,” he said, closing his notebook and tossing it on his desk. “And from a New Deal relief agency, no less.”

  “Are all the applicants on the Arizona side?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Some, but a handful list residences in both states.”

  “How on earth did you find out about that?” I asked.

  He lifted a folded newspaper off his desk. “There was a story in this morning’s Examiner. Says O’Rourke is planning to testify before Congress later this month.”

  “Any hope of him sharing those records with us?”

  Jared shrugged. “I got ahold of his secretary this morning. He’s currently on the road. He’ll be back in Flagstaff on the ninth, I’m told.”

  “Good work,” I said.

  I opened a folder on my desk, took out a familiar yellow handbill, and walked it over to Myron. It astonished me how quickly he read it. He finished it in seconds, flipping it over and noting the Delphi Hotel reference scrawled on the back. That at least got raised eyebrows from him. He offered it to me, but I shook my head.

  “You keep it,” I said.

  “Golden Valley Improvement Association.” Hard to tell whether he was looking at me through those glasses. “Same outfit as Golden Valley Enterprises, I’m assuming.”

  “It’s a front,” I said. “I suspect they’ve got their hands in a lot of cookie jars. I was hoping you’d look into it.”

  “It may entail some joyriding to the counties in question,” Myron said.

  “Use an unmarked,” I advised. “Less conspicuous.”

  Myron gestured to Roscoe’s empty chair. “The invisible man can come along for the ride.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m going to have a word with him.”

  “It doesn’t do any good,” said Myron, putting on his hat. “If you ask me, he’s about as useful as a ham sandwich at a bar mitzvah.”

  “How long you gonna be gone for?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” he said. “I’ll call from the road.”

  Myron left with the tattered yellow paper in his hand.