Desert Run

by Betty Webb

  Now I aimed my revolver at the center of his torso. Chest shot or gut shot, either would suffice, although I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. “Clasp your hands behind your head and stand up slowly.” I stepped back to give him room.

  He looked at me, his face a mask of hate. “Go fuck yourself.”

  With a grunt, he launched himself forward in an attempt to drive me off the trail. It didn’t work. Ready for this last-minute effort, I merely pressed myself to the cliff wall and watched as he lost his footing and began the long roll down to the valley floor below.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  When I finally reached Mark, I found him crumpled against a spine-studded prickly pear cactus on the valley floor. A white bone poked through a tear in his pants, revealing a compound fracture. Compared to that, the rest of the cuts and scrapes he’d sustained while rolling down the slope were relatively minor. As he lay on the ground moaning, I unclipped my cell phone and called 911. Although my conversation with the dispatcher was interrupted several times by static, I managed to convey my message: hiker down on the Peralta Trail approximately a half-mile southeast of Weaver’s Needle.

  Send AirEvac.

  And cops. The hiker was a suspect in the killing of Erik Ernst, Fay Harris and former Maricopa County Deputy Harry Caulfield.

  Help summoned, I left Mark’s side to search for the Beretta and found it ten feet up the slope, nestled underneath the magenta blossoms of a barrel cactus. I couldn’t leave it for hikers to find, so I hauled it out with a stick, trying my best not to superimpose my fingerprints over Mark’s, and clicked the safety on. Prepared for a possible overnight in the Wilderness, I’d carried a large Baggie full of trail mix in my backpack, so I dumped out the mixture for the field mice, turned the Baggie inside out, and slipped the Beretta into the clean side of the Baggie. It wasn’t flawless crime scene technology, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. When I returned to Mark, his eyes were still closed, but the tautness of his body hinted that he’d regained consciousness.

  I gave him a poke with the same stick I’d used to retrieve the Beretta. “How’s it going, guy?”

  “Bitch.”

  I smiled. “How unoriginal.”

  There was no point in letting the man suffer more than necessary, so I gave him a sip of water from my canteen, then slid the sheet of waterproofing from my backpack and erected a rough lean-to over his face to keep off the sun. Good deeds thus accomplished, I sat back a few feet away and waited for help.

  I had just begun to hear the whupa-whupa-whupa of helicopter rotors over Weaver’s Needle when two young men came around a bend in the trail, headed back down the Peralta Trail from their trip to Weaver’s Needle. Loaded with climbing gear, they were dirty-faced but smiling. When they saw Mark, the smiles faded and they rushed over to help.

  “Was geschah hier?” one said. “Ah, sorry! What happened here?”

  Germans, about the same age as Gunter and Josef when they followed Das Kapitan into the Wilderness.

  I flicked a look at the cave above us, where another German lay awaiting rescue.

  “What happened? Oh, it’s a long story. A long, sad story.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  As soon as the medics loaded Mark into the helicopter, I hiked back to my Jeep and zipped back to Desert Investigations. When I’d copied the Erik Ernst file, I drove up to Scottsdale North and turned it over to Captain Jocelyn Alcos, Kryzinski’s replacement. She was a hard-eyed woman whose abrupt demeanor boded ill for my future relations with the Scottsdale Police Department.

  “Don’t think we’re not going to look carefully at your involvement in this,” she snapped, staring at the business card I’d attached to the file. “I don’t approve of private detectives acting like one-woman police departments.”

  The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. “They wouldn’t have to if you guys would do your jobs.”

  Her eyes narrowed further. “Keep yourself available for further questioning.”

  “You know where to find me.” Fighting the urge to genuflect, I walked out of Kryzinski’s old office for the last time.

  Then I went home and showered the Wilderness away.

  ***

  Warren had a fit when I met up with him on the set later and told him what had happened. His sharp voice turned everyone’s attention toward us, but I didn’t care. I was too tired, both physically and emotionally.

  “Jesus, Lena! When you said you were going out for a hike I never thought…What did you think you were doing, going into those mountains alone?”

  “My job,” I answered quietly.

  That shut him up for a moment. Then, “Some day you’re going to get killed!”

  “Goes with the territory, Warren. If you want a relationship with a private detective, you’d better get used to being scared.”

  He took a deep breath and sat down on a boulder with his head in his hands. I said nothing, just let him struggle through his emotions. This was my life, and however dangerous, it was the only thing I knew.

  When he looked up, the expression on his face told me he loved me enough to accept that.

  ***

  After leaving Warren’s motel room the next morning, I battled my way through rush hour traffic to Shady Rest Care Home. With the morning newspaper tucked under my arm, I walked the dank halls to Chess Bollinger’s room, praying that his wife wasn’t there. My prayers weren’t answered. There Judith sat, malicious as an adder, in the corner.

  “Well, if it’s not the famous detective. Think you’re a big deal, don’t ya?”

  I ignored her. Lifting Chess’ untouched breakfast away, I leaned over the bed. “Chess, can you hear me? It’s Lena Jones.”

  His eyes were open but I couldn’t tell if there was anybody home. Maybe he was hiding in the only way he now could from his victim-turned-persecutor, but maybe he had slid back into the twilight world of lost memories Alzheimer’s patients inhabit until their hearts forget to beat.

  I held the newspaper open so that if he was awake and aware, he could see the front page.

  Old Murders Solved! the headline screamed, over pictures of the Bollinger family, both Schanks, and the 1939 Oldsmobile as several Navajo law officers and FBI agents pushed it out of a shed on the Navajo reservation where it had been hidden away for more than sixty years. It still gleamed.

  I read every word of the two-page article aloud to Chess, my voice rising to cover the sounds of his wife’s sulky departure when I reached the part about the arrests of Gilbert and Mark Schank and the part where it said that Chester Bollinger was now officially cleared of involvement in his family’s murders. Mark was now residing in Rada Tesema’s old digs at the Fourth Avenue Jail, but Gilbert had been sent straight to the jail’s medical clinic, a smart judge deciding that the combination of piles of money and a current passport made him a flight risk. However, I doubted he would live to stand trial for the Bollinger killings.

  Once I was through reading, I folded the newspaper, headline out, and laid it next to Chess on the bed. “Now everyone knows you didn’t do it, Chess. Everyone.”

  No awareness crossed his features. He lay there staring at the ceiling, his eyes blank.

  On my way out, MaryEllen almost ran me down in the hall. She had a newspaper in her hands, and was in such a rush to get to her father’s room that the presence of another human being in her path barely registered. I almost called to tell her that her father was out of it again, but stopped myself in time. Perhaps the sound of his daughter’s voice would temporarily lift the descending curtain of Alzheimer’s.

  I wished her luck, in more ways than one.

  ***

  After being released from the Fourth Avenue Jail, Rada Tesema spent only enough time at his apartment to pack his meager belongings and tender his resignation at Loving Care. He’d received permission to use the money raised by his synagogue and Reverend Giblin’s church for a one-way ticket back to Ethiopia.

  “Ame
rica not for everyone,” Tesema said, as we sped along the Hohokam Freeway to Sky Harbor Airport two days later. I’d volunteered to take him to the airport, since I couldn’t bear the thought of going to Desert Investigations and seeing Jimmy’s empty desk. Today was Jimmy’s first day at Southwest MicroSystems.

  I pulled my attention away from my own sorrows and focused on Tesema’s. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Tesema. Maybe if you gave it another chance?”

  He shook his head. “I miss family. This place, it not for me.”

  He was right, of course. America wasn’t for everyone. Despite the myths, our streets were not paved with gold, hard work did not always guarantee success, and perfect justice remained more of a dream than a reality. Those of us born here accepted these truths. For immigrants, they came as a shock. As my Jeep barreled along the freeway and the exhaust from other cars almost choked us, I fleetingly wondered if no dreams at all are preferable to dreams denied. Then I pushed that heresy away. For good or ill, we Americans are defined by our dreams.

  When I let Tesema off at curbside Delta check-in, he gave me a smile that just about finished breaking my heart. “You a good woman, Miss Jones. My family, we will offer up prayers for you.”

  Considering the way things were going, I’d need them.

  But maybe not, because as soon as I drove back to Desert Investigations, I found Jimmy at his desk. Working.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought…”

  He gave me a sad-eyed smile. “Esther and I broke up yesterday. Right in the middle of Ethan Allen. She was determined to go Early American and I made the mistake of saying, ‘Whose Early American, mine or yours?’ Then we were off and running. It soon became pretty clear we were operating from totally different philosophies. Esther has this idea in her mind of what life should look like, and I have this idea of what life should be like. There’s a big difference, you know.”

  Yeah, I knew. All of my foster parents had taken great care to look loving on those rare occasions when the social workers came to call. What went on after the social workers left was the real deal, and it wasn’t half as pretty as the picture my foster parents painted.

  Almost afraid to ask Jimmy what he planned to do now, I stared down at the mail on my desk. One letter was from Beth Osmon, and it bore a Birmingham, Alabama, postmark. Intrigued, I opened it to find a short note.

  Dear Lena,

  I’m writing you from Birmingham, where I’m spending some time with Eddy Joe. Oh, he’s so cute! I just can’t get enough of that accent.

  Tomorrow, we’re going to drive up to Hamilton to meet with Alea Rinn and do something about her situation. The poor girl has been devastated by all this.

  Maybe you’re surprised by my actions, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I couldn’t let Jack’s pretty babies starve.

  No, she couldn’t. Beth wasn’t that kind of woman.

  Warmed by the reminder of another woman’s courage, I summoned the nerve to ask Jimmy what I needed to know. “Now that Esther’s no longer in the picture, what do you plan to do?” Unasked was the question: Are you still leaving me?

  He smiled. “The same thing as before. Live in my trailer on the Rez. Work with you.”

  Somehow I refrained from letting out a whoop. “You’re not going to take the job at Southwest MicroSystems?”

  “Nah. Me and big corporations don’t mesh all that well. I’d have to cut my hair, buy new clothes, maybe even get rid of my tatts. Who needs that? Besides, I was only taking the job to please Esther.”

  “Maybe she’ll be back.” In my selfishness, I hoped not.

  He shook his head. “It’s over, Lena. I’m running toward something, and she’s running away.”

  Running away. I had already come to that conclusion about myself. If I moved to California to be with Warren, I’d be running away, too. And Lena Jones doesn’t run. In the meantime, however, thank God for Southwest Airlines and Angel’s offer to consult on Desert Eagle. I could stand to make some real money for a change. Maybe I’d even make enough to buy some snazzy classic car to tool around Hollywood in. But not a ’39 Olds.

  For now, I had to get busy. Putting my chrome dreams aside, I called out to Jimmy, “Hey, partner! What’s the next case on the table?”

  ***

  Filming is seldom done in sequence. The final day of filming on Escape Across the Desert included a scene from the beginning of the documentary, where the German POWs were standing in the blind spot by the compound fence where the guards couldn’t see them, finalizing their plans for the escape. Behind them, sunset’s pink light tipped Papago Buttes with fire. With Warren watching carefully, the actor playing the role of Kapitan Erik Ernst told his men what he expected of them that night. “Gunter, you will go first, and I will follow behind. Josef will bring up the rear. Once we are through the tunnel, we will immediately assemble our boat. If all goes well, we will be in Mexico by next nightfall.”

  The actor playing Josef replied, “Jawohl, Kapitan!”

  But the actor playing Gunter did not look convinced. As Warren directed the camera closer, he asked, “What if all does not go well, Kapitan?”

  Das Kapitan scowled. “Under my command, all things will always go well!”

  Gunter looked up at the Buttes, stared at their fiery glow. “This land looks little like Germany, Kapitan. Its hardships may be more than we can bear.”

  Das Kapitan spit on the ground. “Fool! There is nothing a German soldier can not bear. Especially among weak people in a soft country. Although we will ride our boat south, we will keep our eyes toward the east—toward our dear Fatherland.”

  Above the three actors, a red-tailed hawk, its presence an unrehearsed gift of nature, swooped down to make its final kill of the day. It missed, and the rabbit it had set its sights on scampered safely into its burrow.

  I saw Warren smile.

  “That’s a wrap!” he called, as the hawk rose back into the sky.

  Epilogue

  As the band at Phoenix Sky Harbor played a military march, the old man waited patiently on the tarmac, shielding his eyes against the morning sun. Although the drive up from Yuma had exhausted both him and his wife, they were uplifted to find that the ceremony had drawn such a respectful crowd.

  Near his family stood several friends from Gemuetlichkeit, as well as a sprinkling of other civilians and military personnel from several wars. Yesterday’s soldiers and today’s, Germans and Americans, all standing shoulder to shoulder, united in purpose. He thought he recognized one of the old American soldiers as a former Camp Papago guard, but couldn’t be certain. Most men changed shockingly with age. Of the identity of one old soldier, though, there was no doubt. The golf course millionaire! Regardless of the tragedies in that rich man’s life, his clear eyes belied his age and he still fit perfectly into his old uniform. Clinging to his arm was the millionaire’s flame-haired niece, the living memory of another woman from so many years ago.

  Standing near her was the pretty blond detective he had heard so much about. Her tireless phone calls had resulted in this grand ceremony of farewell, Josef Braun’s journey home to the son and six grandchildren Josef had not lived to meet. If circumstances had been different, he would have fallen on his knees in front of the pretty detective in gratitude, but as things were…

  No, as his wife continued to remind him, the arms of INS were much too long. However—and here he hid a smile—he saw the pretty detective staring intently at him with the light of recognition in her eyes.

  But she said nothing. She just gave him a big grin and looked away.

  What a woman!

  The only thing that even slightly marred the perfection of this day was the nosy film crew sticking their mikes and cameras into everyone’s faces. Several times one of them had approached him. He’d given a curt refusal, then turned his head, because it would not do to have his face show up on a screen somewhere. Yet for all their intrusiveness, he could not dislike them, especially the han
dsome young director the pretty detective looked at with such love. After all, if there had been no film, this day might have never arrived.

  The band’s last note died away. In that short pause before the honor guard picked up its too-light burden, he stepped toward the casket. With soft reverence he leaned over and settled his age-spotted hand upon the glistening wood.

  “Auf Wiedersehen, Josef,” he whispered.

  With that final farewell, Gunter Hoenig straightened his old submariner’s spine and walked back through the Arizona sunlight to the people who loved him.

  Author’s Note

  The Real History Behind the Book

  On March 12, 1944, German POW Werner Dreschler of U-118 was found hanged in the shower room of Compound 4 at Camp Papago, a prisoner-of-war camp located between Phoenix and present-day Scottsdale, Arizona. Before death, Dreschler had been tortured; an autopsy found more than one hundred burns and stab wounds.

  After seven POWs—all crew members of German U-boats—were arrested for the crime, Camp Papago became peaceful again, but only because the Germans were busy digging a one-hundred-and-seventy-eight-foot-long tunnel under the stockade fence. On Christmas Eve, 1944, twenty-five Germans (Eric Ernst, Gunter Hoenig and Josef Braun are fictitious characters, which brings Desert Run’s total to twenty-eight) crawled through the tunnel and under the fence. They were led by Kapitan zur See Jurgen Wattenberg, of U-162, who had managed to smuggle a map into Camp Papago which appeared to show that a nearby river flowed all the way to Mexico. Upon exiting the tunnel, Wattenberg and his men soon discovered that in the Sonoran Desert, rivers are usually dry. Their plan to float to Mexico thus quashed, the POWs scattered across the desert. A reward of $25 per German was posted, but in some cases was not necessary, because several POWs surrendered within the first few days. Others stayed on the run until they were captured by local farmers, ranchers, housewives, and members of Arizona’s Indian tribes.