A Killing in Zion

by Andrew Hunt

  He hung up, shut and locked the box, and faced us. “He wants to see you.”

  “Lead the way,” I said.

  Roscoe and I followed the men into a compound that I can only describe as being frozen in time in the 1850s. A whitewashed one-room schoolhouse stood empty at this time of evening. We walked by several two-story wooden frame houses surrounded by picket fences. Children peeked out of windows and pointed fingers and their mouths moved, as if they were talking to one another. A young blacksmith bearing a striking resemblance to Eldon Black stopped what he was doing inside of his workshop to come over to the door and look out. Women in long dresses took a break from their chores in yards to watch us.

  We rounded a corner and came upon the Victorian mansion that quite clearly stood at the epicenter of this desert utopia. An iron fence with spikes wrapped around it, and its lawn was a deep shade of emerald—as green as anything gets outside of Ireland. Flowers that I would have assumed could not grow in this desert environment flourished in beds, watered by a sophisticated irrigation system piped in here from elsewhere on the property, perhaps an underground spring.

  The bodyguards escorted Roscoe and me up porch steps where a young man with peach-fuzz hair, dressed in a suit and tie—another younger, bucktoothed version of Eldon—stood by the door and greeted the bodyguards with a nod. He opened the door and we walked into a grand entrance hall filled with lots of natural light and a high ceiling that let you know right off the bat that you were inside of someplace huge. We continued down the hallway. With its tapestries and yellow walls, its shiny floors and marble columns, the interior reminded me of a museum.

  Last time Roscoe and I were here, we’d agreed to wear blindfolds at Eldon’s request. It was a disorienting experience, to say the least. The only part of the compound we’d gotten a good look at was the cold, dimly lit office where Rulon and Eldon Black conducted their business. That room had a distinctly subterranean feel to it, though I could not be certain of anything on that last visit. So this sumptuous feast for the eyes that was Rulon Black’s mansion was new to me, as it was to Roscoe, yet it possessed a certain familiar quality that I could not quite pin down, like a place I’d been to in my dreams. Was I experiencing déjà vu, or had this place left a more potent stamp on me than I thought the last time I visited?

  Roscoe and I followed them down a corridor with wood-paneled walls to an elevator, and the bearded one unlatched and opened an accordion gate, stepped aside, and gestured for me to enter. I stepped into the elevator, followed by Roscoe and the pair of bodyguards. One of them pulled the gate closed. The elevator trembled its way down. A moment later, the door opened, and I stepped into a familiar marble room, long and dark, with lights above us that gave off a soft glow, and that desk fit for a pharaoh at the end of the room. Once again, I puzzled over why there was a row of four theatrical spotlights attached to the ceiling above the desk.

  Roscoe and I were shown to the two marble benches in front of the desk. My memory of that hard surface made my rump hurt before I even had a chance to sit down. They kept us waiting a long while. I checked my wristwatch by the low light a couple of times. Close to an hour had passed when Eldon Black emerged from a heavy steel door on the other side of the desk, and when he eased it closed, it groaned for more hinge oil.

  Eldon walked over to us purposefully. His dark suit gave him the appearance of an undertaker. As he spoke, his stare shifted back and forth between Roscoe and me, as if he were observing a tennis match.

  “The prophet wishes to have the lights in the room dimmed except for the high-powered ceiling beams above his desk, which will be switched on and aimed at you. I must warn you the lights will be bright. They may hurt your eyes at first. I advise you not to stare directly into them. It’s like looking at the sun. I’m afraid this is a condition the prophet demands in order to safeguard his appearance in the presence of visitors. If you do not accept his terms, he will not come out and talk to you. Do you men agree to this arrangement?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Sounds bats-in-the-belfry crazy, like most of the shit you people do,” said Roscoe. “But go ahead and knock yourself out.”

  Eldon turned and walked away. The lights in the room suddenly went out. A few seconds of disorienting pitch-black transpired. Then a loud metallic sound echoed across the room and the spotlights flashed on. Oh heavens, they were bright, the brightest lights I’d ever seen.

  Each time I closed my eyes, I saw four dots burned into my retinas. I shielded my brow with my hand, but it made no difference. Through the shine, I did manage to briefly glimpse the darkened silhouettes of Eldon pushing his father, Rulon, in a wheelchair. Rulon wore a wide-brimmed hat, I could see that much, and he appeared to be leaning forward. As they positioned themselves behind the desk, it became harder for me to make out their shapes through the veil of light.

  When Rulon finally spoke, he did so in a guttural voice. Raspy. Low. It almost sounded as if he was growling his words. I wanted to see his face, but I could not.

  “The prophet was foretold of this day,” he said glumly. “A day of vengeance, when a man who was banished from his family as a youth would return to unleash his wrath upon those who cast him out. The prophet fears blood shall be shed today, and there will be a killing in Zion, maybe many killings, unless…” He coughed and cleared his throat. “Unless the virtuous slay the wicked wanderer first.”

  “Bloodshed is not inevitable today,” I said. “If you are willing to help me.”

  I squinted in a futile attempt to see him in the shadows, but I could only barely make out the outline of his wide-brimmed hat and the lanky form of his son hovering behind his wheelchair.

  “What do you want of the prophet?” he asked.

  “Give me Claudia Jeppson,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “I won’t repeat her name because you know who I’m talking about,” I said in frustration. “We’re onto you. The crooked landgrabs, the shady investments and illegal business activities, the recruitment scheme that your son here ran out of room 308 at the Delphi Hotel. Your financial dealings have got blood smeared all over them. We’ve got the records to prove it.”

  “What records?” asked Rulon.

  “Courtesy of Carl Jeppson before he slipped and fell out of your airplane,” I said. Now I was bluffing. But it was for all the right reasons, which made me feel better about it. “An incident captured on film, by the way, by a CCC photographer in Kane County. All we have to do is match the markings of the craft in the picture to your airplane parked in the hangar outside. I’ve got your wife Nelpha in protective custody, and there are four boys that took part in a heist that nabbed nearly a million dollars of yours in May so you could collect the insurance money. They’re willing to testify that Eldon helped them in pulling it off.”

  I expected Eldon to deny the charges, but he said nothing. Tense silence followed. Burning-hot light made my eyes throb and bleached our faces. I straightened on the bench, licked my dry lips, and did my best to remain confident.

  “I’ve got everything documented or backed up by folks willing to testify,” I said. “I plan to share what I have with Harold O’Rourke, who’s investigating the polygamists of Dixie City for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. I’m no poker player, but if I were, I believe I’d be holding a royal flush right about now.”

  “All of which begs the question: Why are you here?” asked Rulon. “If you plan to act on this information of yours, then bring the other authorities with you. Bring the FBI. Bring the state troopers. Bring the county sheriff. Raid my compound. Arrest and incarcerate the prophet and his inner circle. Confiscate incriminating evidence for a trial at a future date. But when you come to this sanctuary and speak of card games, you merely amuse the prophet.”

  I caught a flash of movement in my peripheral vision. One of the Kunz brothers—I’m not sure if it was Dorland or Devlin, but he wore a big black Stetson—shot past us. I craned my neck, trying to see beyond t
he lights. I glimpsed Kunz’s silhouette leaning in close to Eldon. Whispers hissed. The bodyguard left, walking past us in the opposite direction, into the darkness. Through the blinding glare, I saw Eldon’s figure stooping to whisper to his father. More uneasy silence followed.

  “What are you proposing, Mr. Oveson?” Rulon finally asked.

  “Give me Claudia Jeppson,” I said.

  “In exchange for?”

  “I will act as an intermediary to stop Jared Weeks from attacking you,” I said.

  “Is that what he goes by now?” asked Rulon. “He’s taken his mother’s maiden name and his brother’s Christian name. Not wise choices, as they are both dead.”

  His comment caught me off guard. “Do you know him?”

  Rulon let out a gravelly laugh.

  “You really should not come here and talk of card games, Mr. Oveson, until you learn how to play cards,” he said.

  A series of doors opened in the darkness—the entrance on the other side of his desk, the elevator behind us. I kept squinting, trying to see what was happening, but those lights were so intense and jarring that I had no sense of what might be unfolding in the dark.

  Footsteps approached from behind, growing louder with each one. A lineup formed behind us. The first in the light was Claudia, blinking the brightness out of her eyes. A moment later, Jared hobbled forward, hair messy, bruises and swelling on his face, a tiny line of blood trickling down his chin, shirt untucked, clearly roughed up.

  Rulon said, “And the pièce de résistance…”

  The final person to step into the light, Myron, approached slowly and with a sheepish expression, unable to make eye contact with me. I stared at him over my shoulder, and when he finally looked down at me, I mouthed only one word. “How?” He just shook his head, puffed his cheeks and blew air in apparent exasperation.

  “What were you saying, Detective Oveson, when I so rudely cut you off?” asked Rulon from the darkness. “Something about cards, I believe it was.”

  Thirty-four

  After our dismal conclave in Rulon Black’s office, the Kunz brothers, in Stetsons and pointing .45s, escorted all five of us—Myron, Roscoe, Claudia, Jared, and me—to a small, low-ceilinged concrete room with no windows. When the heavy steel door clanged shut, the room went black. In that grim setting, deep under the ground, I found out how Rulon had gotten the best of us. All of the whispering back and forth brought clarity to the picture of what went wrong.

  In Myron’s case, one of Rulon’s aerial patrols had spotted the cars parked on the escarpment, and Dorland Kunz was dispatched to nab him. Kunz thankfully missed Nelpha, due to her split-second decision to inchworm her way under my Oldsmobile. Myron wasn’t so lucky.

  Claudia recounted her ordeal of being abducted by Steed and the Kunz brothers in Salt Lake City, along with the trunk containing the stolen heist money. I left out my story about hiding in the basement, witnessing her with Steed and the Kunzes, fearing she wouldn’t understand my paralysis at the sight of three armed men.

  And Jared? Never stood a chance. Rulon’s guards had seen him coming from a mile away. They intercepted him in a secret escape tunnel leading in and out of the compound. In a room like this one, he endured a terrible beating at the hands of the Kunz brothers.

  It occurred to me, sitting in the dark and listening to all of these stories, that I’d grossly underestimated Rulon Black. Going into this case, I had regarded the polygamist leaders as sex-obsessed codgers who wanted to leave civilization behind to go live in the wilds and marry as many women as they pleased. It had occurred to me only recently that their choice of lifestyle might actually serve as a cover for all manner of crimes and bloodletting. My black-and-white thinking had steered me wrong. It also failed to make allowance for the few kind souls among them, like Carl Jeppson.

  My inability to understand the polygamist mindset also prevented me from seeing Rulon Black for what he was: a tyrant, complete with his own cutthroat security forces. Over the years, he’d developed his own twisted vision of Zion, where obedience reigned supreme, and nobody dared question his authority, lest they end up dead. I had not realized till now just how ruthless he was.

  While others whispered, I wondered about Nelpha. I hoped against hope that Rulon’s men hadn’t caught her. She had my gun, but I feared she would not be able to defend herself. In my eyes, she was a vulnerable girl, like my Sarah Jane, in need of protection and love.

  Time passed, and I continued mulling over these matters. At some point, the heavy steel door moaned open, and light splashed in from the dim glow of dangling bulbs in the corridor.

  Ferron Steed stood in the doorway. “Let’s go.”

  With machine guns aimed at us, we left Rulon Black’s house, venturing into the night. We boarded a motor coach bus with the words FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCH OF SAINTS CHOIR, DIXIE CITY, AZ on both sides. Duke walked up the steps, entering first, and went to the back of the bus, and we five captives filed on without a word of protest. Dorland Kunz took his place behind the wheel, turning the key in the ignition. Last aboard was the bearded man, who kept the bad end of his Thompson trained on us. Kunz shut the door and revved the engine.

  “You each sit alone,” said big beard. “So much as whisper to anyone, you’re both dead—the whisperer and the listener.”

  I sat on a wooden seat as the motor coach lurched forward, taking the middle spot in a three-vehicle convoy that drove across the nighttime desert. In front of us was a limousine driven by Devlin Kunz, transporting Rulon and Eldon Black in the backseat. Behind us was the town marshal’s dark blue Model A, with Ferron Steed behind the wheel.

  With my window down a crack, I could hear the distinct howl of coyotes outside. I gazed up at the sky, splashed with stars. The full moon followed us, illuminating the landscape with a soft glow. We spent an hour on that rough road.

  The vehicles reached a steep grade. The road narrowed and hugged the edge of a mesa. The climb made me woozy, on top of the dread I was already feeling. The moonlight shone bright enough that I could gaze out at the desert floor dropping away, until we were hundreds of feet above it. My fear of heights began to kick in as the bus rocked from side to side, hitting jarring bumps. I’m sure I would have been a lot worse off in the day, when I could see everything.

  The cars and bus reached the mesa top and parked side by side a hundred feet or so from what appeared to be a deep fissure in the earth. When I stepped out of the bus, warm air fanned my brow. A symphony of nearby car doors slammed. All of the headlamps remained on, casting light on the opening in the ground. The men with guns—Duke and the bearded man, the Kunz brothers, and Ferron Steed—formed a phalanx behind Roscoe, Myron, Claudia, Jared, and me. They herded us forward, toward the gaping crevice. Behind the row of armed thugs, Eldon dutifully pushed his father’s wheelchair. The only part of the prophet I could see from here was the dim outline of that wide-brimmed hat on his head.

  The distant, muted voices of Rulon and Eldon conversed. Then Eldon came forward, stepping between the grim-faced men aiming guns, and his lanky scarecrow legs took him over to the edge of the opening. By the light of the bus and cars, he picked up a stone and tossed it into the void. It never made a sound.

  Eldon looked at me and smiled. “No one knows how deep it is,” he said.

  I gazed into the yawning abyss. On either side of it were embankments dipping at about a forty-five-degree angle, and at the end of those, a sheer drop. A covering of loose rocks and pebbles on the embankments spelled doom for anyone unlucky enough to end up there.

  “The prophet calls it the Den of the Transgressors,” said Eldon. “He likes to imagine it has no floor, and God’s punishment is to make the wicked spend an eternity falling in darkness.”

  “Too many people know we’re here,” I said. “They’ll come looking for us.”

  Eldon picked the strangest time to showcase his big overbite with a smile, but that is what he did before walking away. He went over to Claudia, standing between Myron
and Jared with her head dipped, staring at the ground.

  “You can save yourself,” he told her. “Tell me where the boys are.”

  “No.”

  “So be it.” Eldon faced Devlin Kunz, who was watching intently, .45 in hand. “The task falls upon you,” Eldon told him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Devlin strode forward, but Jared lunged in his way. Devlin swung his pistol into Jared’s cheek. Jared grabbed at his bleeding wound with both hands and teetered backward. Devlin walked around him to Claudia, hooked his hand on her forearm, and gave her a powerful push. She almost fell over the chasm’s edge, but she steadied herself inches away from it.

  Out the corner of my eye, I saw the interior light of Steed’s car flash on, and the passenger-side rear door opened and closed silently. The light went off again. The gunmen had their backs to the vehicles, so they missed it. Someone had been hiding in the back of the marshal’s car. I wondered if it could be Nelpha.

  I had to distract these men. I moved forward several steps. All guns turned on me. Never before had I had so many firearms aimed at me. Any one of them could have gone off right then and I’d be a dead man.

  “You’re about to make a big mistake,” I said. “You can still turn back.”

  That set off Ferron Steed. With his revolver in his left hand, he came at me, stirring dust under his feet. He seized my shirt collar and forced me—tripping and stumbling—to the monster fissure. He glared at me with cold-blooded ferocity and raised his gun to my face.

  “I’ve had it with you!” he shouted. “You’re first!”