“Wash your mouth.”
“You try getting arrested sometime! So nobody called you. That’s interesting.”
“¿Por qué?”
“Pos qué something made them decide to let me go about my business. I had assumed it was talking to you.” I laughed mirthlessly. “You know, like I thought you’d vouched for me and they’d taken your word for it, or at least that your word was good enough to get them to take the handcuffs off, but here you say this conversation never occurred. So why’d they let me go?”
ORTEGA WAS RIGHT, of course. Prudence would have dictated that I find myself another place to stay, but fatigue, frugality, and fatheadedness made me dig in my heels and stay put. I told myself that it could be a week or weeks before I was cleared of any suspicion in this investigation, and that by then I’d be out of a job and wouldn’t have the means to pay off the plane flight out here that I’d jacked onto my credit card, let alone cover an extended stay at a hotel. I agreed to call Carlos if anything else happened. He agreed to phone the Salt Lake City Homicide Squad and find out what he could. I hung up the phone no more comforted than when I’d dialed it.
I sat staring numbly around George Dishey’s living room. It was more library than living room, chockablock with bookshelf after bookshelf, each crammed to the gills with academic tomes and scholarly texts on matters paleontological. I spotted the titles of a few popular books, like Crichton’s Jurassic Park and Bakker’s Dinosaur Heresies. Some of the more technical books were old, original monographs. These had to be worth a mint, and George must have known it, as some were turned cover out and proudly displayed on little holders that kept their spines from cracking. George’s writings—almost all of which gleamed from the glossy pages of popular books and magazines, rather than from scholarly texts—were also on display, some even with little spotlights trained on them, the banality of their hyped-up titles and illustrations standing in stark contrast to the more staid productions of the monographs. His covers were brightly colored, even lurid, and there he was on the dust jacket of the latest, flourishing that bronze jawbone, grinning into the camera. “As seen on TV,” the jacket blurb read. I marveled at his cheek, using a bullshit award as a trademark to impress the masses.
I examined it closely. It really was a showpiece, a good eighteen inches long and laden with teeth. He gripped it by the posterior end and had planted it flat across his chest, his other arm bent at the elbow and fist rammed against his hip, like a pirate brandishing his knife.
In one corner of the room stood a four-drawer filing cabinet. The drawers were labeled EENY, MEENY, MINEY, and MOE. I smiled at the thought of Detective Bert trying to make sense of them. Next to the filing cabinet stood a hollow-core door turned horizontally and set up on cinder blocks to serve as a desk. The hole through which a doorknob would have reached held a glass jar full of pens and pencils. A swanky ergonomic chair faced George’s computer, which was a gutsy state-of-the-art job from which the police detectives had extracted the hard drive. The rest of the surface of the desk was stacked high with papers that threatened to advance on the room like so many glaciers. The evidence team had gone through these too; I had seen a man working them when I returned. I glanced at the couch and the overstuffed chairs, a grubby grotto of garage-sale modern furnishings in which the police had taken no interest. George had been at heart an academic, placing his love and value in his books and the tools of his trade.
Speaking of his tools, I thought, where’s his field equipment? I assayed the room again, looking for the obligatory Brunton compass, field notebooks, and rock hammer any geologist would own, and the fine collection of brushes, dental picks, and pry bars one specializing in paleontology would have amassed. They were not in evidence. I wandered over to the basement door, opened it, and took a look. There was nothing down there but house guts and the scent of mildew; a wet basement even in this dry climate. I meandered into the kitchen and surveyed the backyard in hopes of a garage or storage shed. Nothing but the carport in which he had parked his truck, which now stood near wherever it was he had gone in such a hurry.
Confused by this lack of field equipment, I wandered back into the living room and got to studying a collection of framed photographs on the wall above George’s desk, the ego wall of which Earthworm Magritte had spoken. They hung interspersed with George’s Yale sheepskin, a thank-you plaque from a public television station, something from the Cub Scouts of America, a very dear childish drawing from “Mrs. Gearhart’s Second Grade Class, thank you Dr. Dishey,” and the empty walnut Golden Jawbone plaque. There were two snaps of George in younger days. One was of George as a young boy, precociously posed in front of the Tyrannosaurus rex mount at some cavernous museum, his hands up in predatory claw-creature mode, his lips retracted to display dentition made comical by the lack of one front tooth and the oversized appearance of one new one. Another showed George in Vietnam-issue jungle fatigues, lounging against a helicopter with several of his mates, all grinning and making obscene gestures except the pilot, a weirdly handsome young man who gave me the shivers. He had jutting cheekbones and regarded the camera with eyes as dark and menacing as a crypt. I wondered what the war had done to him, wondered for that matter how George Dishey and all the others in the photograph had fared.
The other photographs were publicity photos, the kind some photographer with a big-format camera snaps to publicize one event or another. Here, the dedication of a new museum display; there, a group of Cub Scouts visiting dino land; down here, a pose with a big find in the prep room of a museum, everyone in lab coats but him. From the middle of each picture, George Dishey mugged shamelessly toward the camera. No matter how formal or casual the occasion, he wore a T-shirt, baggy pants, and a bandanna around his neck and sported a ponytail so big and bushy that it had to be a parody of those I had just seen at the conference. He was a plain-looking man with a lumpy nose, lively eyes, a quick smile, and an unkempt beard. Just the sort of man to play the hokey prospector in the amateur theatrical of some gold rush play. In several shots, he wielded the Golden Jawbone in a corny impression of the run-amok madman from a horror flick. The sight of that awful prop reminded me of meat, which in turn reminded me of dinner.
My stomach tightened with hunger. Few things, even being arrested for murder, can dissuade me from eating for long. I wandered into the kitchen but stopped on the threshold. The idea of going through a dead man’s refrigerator seemed indecent. Moreover, the house was beginning to get on my nerves; it had a bad case of bacheloritis, from its unkempt furniture to the threadbare towels haphazardly strewn across the floor of the bathroom. The place screamed for a little housekeeping. I felt drained and depressed, and I needed something more cheerful to rest my eyes on than the disordered wreckage of a dead man’s life. I resolved to go out somewhere and find myself a meal worth eating.
Out on the streets, the sun’s rays were slanting low, transforming the thin Rocky Mountain air into liquid gold. Folks were beginning to switch on their headlights as they scurried here and there to their homes and pastimes. For once in my life, I was glad to be driving a car with an automatic shift, as I was able to do most of the steering with my right hand and spare my wounded thumb. I aimed my rental car downtown, following the residential streets downhill to a main artery and then turning toward the tall buildings that marked the city center.
Salt Lake is a clean sort of city, a showpiece reflecting the industriousness of the insular, highly productive Mormon society. The gilded evening light bounced cleanly off of ice-cream-pale buildings, dodging down sidewalks and through alleyways that smacked of cleanliness and pride. The only disruption in an almost overwhelming display of civic orderliness were the places, here and there through the downtown streets and skyline, where heavy construction was hurriedly under way to spruce up and expand the streets and lodgings in anticipation of the winter Olympic Games due to grace the city in 2002, a little scandal notwithstanding. I bumped over a newly laid section of track that would carry a pristine do
wntown light-rail transit system, then dodged around a lane closed off to accommodate a huge crane that was tossing new hotel space skyward. During the few short weeks of Olympic frenzy, Salt Lake City planned to throw a party worth strutting over, even if its resident populace had to suffer for it for years in advance.
Downtown, there was little traffic, and I got to poking along in my search for a restaurant. There would be eateries in each of the massive hotels, I was certain, but I wanted something more eclectic, something more local, something that would distract me from my mood. I headed west on South Temple until I reached Temple Square, then indulged myself in a brief bit of tourism, turning north on West Temple and then east on North Temple (the streets are named for their positions relative to the Temple building, rather than to the directions they head) in order to get a rolling glimpse of the gilded angel that trumpets from the top of the highest spire. As I turned south onto Main Street and slowed to gawk, I noticed a car in my rearview mirror that was likewise slowing to match my pace. What was strange about its movement was that it was half a block back and slowing down even though there was no intervening traffic. It had been in my mirror all the way into downtown, but I’d been following a major route, so that hadn’t seemed strange until now. Now I cursed aloud and said, as if Sergeant Ortega were in the car with me, “You see, Carlos? Like flies on shit. The boys in blue have stuck a tail on me. They think I’m pretty stupid, like I won’t notice an unmarked car.”
I sped up. So did the car. I turned west again on South Temple and headed toward the Delta Center. After a moment, I noticed the car again, still following along behind me. It was a nondescript car, the sort of midsize sedan with smooth streamlining and little character that one rents at the airport, not unlike my own.
I continued down into the plaza that fronted the Delta Center and found myself boxed into a cul-de-sac. I slammed my right hand against the steering wheel in frustration.
I considered spinning a quick U-turn around the plaza but then stopped to think the situation through. What if it was not, in fact, a police detective who was following me? What if—
That particular what if I did not care to consider.
The twilight was fading fast, but I was in a wide-open place, surrounded by crowds of people who were heading into the Center for some event, so I was, for the moment, relatively safe. I stopped, double-parked, and looked around. The plaza was closed on three sides by the Delta Center and its voluminous parking lots, a Victorian mansion that had been retrofitted into a Chart House restaurant, and the grand old edifice of the local Union Pacific Railway Station. I thought, I’ll just park here and head into this nice public restaurant and see who follows me, if anyone. If it’s the God Almighty police, they can cool their heels while I eat dinner.
I looked in the rearview mirror. The car that was following me had also stopped. Something in the tightness that was my stomach told me that the car did not belong to the police. This is how a deer feels when it’s being stalked by a hunter, I thought grimly. Well, it ain’t hunting season out here in the open, fellah.
The car had double-parked, just as I had. The owner of the truck it was blocking arrived and flagged it away. I saw it cruise past, turn around the plaza, and pull to the curb down near the crossing through which I’d have to make my exit. Now I truly was boxed.
I took a squint at the driver. He looked familiar, not like someone I knew, but like someone I’d seen somewhere. High cheekbones, a beard. Thick fingers on the wheel. Conscious that I was now looking at him, he drew sharply into the shadows, away from his window.
It’s just the cops keeping an eye on their flimsy excuse for a suspect, I told myself. Relax. I looked around for another exit, but every one headed into a parking lot, all of which were packed by the rivers of people flowing into the Delta Center to cry and swoon over the country and western recording star whose grinning mug loomed two stories high across the Center’s enormous face. I put my car into drive and rolled slowly forward, praying for a place to park. My day’s tiny ration of luck found me a place to park in the lot beside the restaurant. Hurrying out of my car, I scurried inside, where I hove to at the maitre d’s desk and waited nervously to be seated. A young man glided up and asked if I had a reservation.
“No,” I said, mechanically producing a smile. “Just one for dinner, please.” I glanced over my shoulder, checking to see if anyone was coming in the door behind me.
“Oh, I’m sorry, miss, but we’re completely full just now. If you’d like to wait …” His eyes fell to my bandaged thumb. He tried to glance away, but the thickness of the gauze drew his gaze like a moth to the flame.
“How long might it be?” I asked, falling into my starchiest English.
The young man looked perturbed on my behalf. “It might be as much as forty minutes. We’re usually not open on Sundays, but there’s a special event across the way there, and well, you know.” Then, with a teasing smile, he added, “If you’d like to tour the house while you wait, you might even meet one of our resident ghosts to pass the time with. We have a history of the mansion here in the menu.”
Ghosts. That was all I needed. The clinking of glassware and odd riffs of laughter that issued from the rooms full of jolly diners all around me began to further fray my nerves. “You got a phone I could use?”
The maitre d’ directed me farther back into the mansion. I dialed the number on the card Officer Raymond had given me and waited. When a dispatcher came on, I said, “This is Em Hansen. Officer Raymond gave me this number to call if I needed help. I’m a law-abiding citizen who’s gotten balled up in the George Dishey murder investigation, and I’d like to know if that’s your guy who’s tailing me.”
“Hold, please.”
I held for three minutes and was about to hang up when I heard not Raymond’s calm baritone but the caustic drawl of Detective Bert. “Emmy! What’s up?”
I breathed hotly into the phone. I had prepared to say that someone was following me, but this creep would delight in letting me know just how melodramatic that sounded. So instead, I said, “What’s up? Not me. You want to pull your tail off me? Why don’t I just call in and tell you where I’m going, so you don’t have to follow me around like a goddamned criminal. You know, maybe save the poor taxpayer a buck.”
Bert’s reply dripped with sarcasm. “You have a tail? What’s it look like, tiger? Black-and-yellow stripes?”
“Listen, cut the shit,” I said, before I got a grip on myself. He had asked what the tail looked like. That meant it might not be his. “He’s driving a tan sedan, late model, midsize American make. Don’t know exactly what kind—they all look alike. It was too far away to read the plates, except that they were Utah. One guy on board, couldn’t see him clearly. White male with a long beard and high cheekbones.” Kind of like the helicopter pilot in the vietnam picture. Except not really. And it wasn’t just the beard. This man was just not as handsome. Something different in the brow … “Wearing gloves, maybe,” I added, remembering the thick fingers on the steering wheel. Gloves? In this weather? Wait a minute—is that to cover evidence? “He yours?” I demanded, trying to sound more angry than frightened.
“And you are calling from the Chart House restaurant,” he said.
“Yes, but I’m not staying. Got any recommendations for a place that’s open on a Sunday night that doesn’t have a half-hour wait?” I asked, trying to sound cool.
He laughed softly. “I don’t get out half enough. But drive around, enjoy yourself. In a town this big, you’re bound to find something open.”
“Great.” I volleyed. “Hope your guy has a full tank.” As in, This is your guy, right?
I hung up and stalked back out the door to my car, cranked the engine, tore around the plaza, and waved to the driver of the tan sedan as I sped past him. My shadow fell in behind me, half a block back. He wasn’t even trying to stay out of sight. So that means he’s a cop, right? Or it means he’s not a cop, and not altogether bright, which is a truly scary
thought, because stupid people can be more dangerous sometimes than smart people, and—
It was time to get rid of him. I led him around downtown Salt Lake City, back up to Temple Square and down past the Salt Palace with its spinning windmills. I finally got a good lead on him when I took a hot pass through the long parking lot behind the Little America Hotel and then zipped through a light just as it turned red. He hesitated and I kept going, slipping through an alley that fortunately was not blocked. As I swerved around yet one more construction barrier, the car jumped on a bit of uneven pavement and banged my aching thumb hard on the steering wheel, but it had been worth it. I didn’t care if that man had been foe or friend, I was one fox who could not stand the breath of dogs.
Once free of my doppelganger, I had no stomach left for dinner. The events of the day had finally overwhelmed me, leaving me for once lacking in appetite and tense to the point of physical pain. I resolved to go back to George Dishey’s house, gather up my belongings, and move to a motel—a nice, obscure concrete-block special with ugly carpets and a policy of forgetting faces.
It was now fully dark, and the streetlights competed with the heavy foliage of the mature trees that studded the residential lots of the neighborhood where George Dishey had lived, and read about dead reptiles, and apparently annoyed most people with whom he came in contact.
I couldn’t find a parking space in front of the house, so I pulled up to the curb around the corner and backtracked along the sidewalk and up the walkway toward the front door. I was in such a rush to get my gear and leave that house that I had the key in the lock and the door halfway open before I noticed that I was not alone.
6
SOMEBODY WAS IN GEORGE DISHEY’S HOUSE, SOMEBODY who didn’t care what he tore or broke or shattered as he careened noisily through the far rooms. I didn’t see him. I saw only the living room, a quick camera-shutter glimpse; saw books dumped out onto the floor, illuminated only by the dancing reflected light of the intruder’s flashlight and the glowing blank screen of the computer. It hummed eerily, struck stupid by its lack of a hard drive.
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