Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 11

by Majic Man (v5. 0)

  Right now, however, the sun was high and hot, the air still and dry, and I had people to see, starting with the sheriff of Chaves County. A risky proposition, walking right up to the local law and introducing myself; wasn’t this the sort of tumbleweed town where they didn’t cotton to my kind around these here parts? Where the man with the badge gave prying strangers a choice between the noon outbound stage or a one-way ticket to Boot Hill? The only proposition riskier would be not seeing the sheriff, first.

  The Chaves County Courthouse, on Main Street, was a neoclassical tan brick structure dating to 1912, the year New Mexico joined the Union. A green-tiled dome loomed imposingly over a massive entryway, and the interior sported equally impressive Greek-key-design tile floors, brass chandeliers and ornate plasterwork. But the adjacent office of the sheriff proved as shabby and nondescript as is customary, bulletin boards sporting Mexican, Indian and white suspects in unprejudiced array.

  I wanted to keep things casual and unthreatening, so I’d dressed like a tourist, in a two-tone shirt—tan with blue collar and sleeves—and lightweight blue twill slacks and two-tone brown-and-white shoes. Taking off my straw fedora and slipping my sunglasses in my breast pocket, I checked in with a thin, young, dark-haired deputy—his name tag said Reynolds—and asked if I could see the sheriff, telling the kid briefly who I was.

  “If this is a bad time,” I said, “I can make an appointment. I plan to be in Roswell for several days.”

  “In all the way from Chicago, huh?” the deputy said. He had bright eyes and a ready toothy smile. “Fly into El Paso?”

  “Sure did. Pretty drive up here.”

  “Get a load of them white sands? That’s as close to Christmas as it gets around here.”

  “Never saw anything like it. Low crime rate around these parts?”

  He snorted a laugh. “About as exciting as pickin’ a flea off a dog.”

  I had figured as much, as long as this was taking. Finally, the chatty deputy scooted his chair back, rose and checked with the sheriff, who saw me right away.

  Sheriff George Wilcox stood to shake hands behind his tidy desk in his doorless cubbyhole off the main office, which was taken up by the booking area and his two deputies at their desks. In a short-sleeve khaki shirt with a badge and Apache-pattern tie, Wilcox was a sturdy-looking, square-headed, jug-eared lawman of maybe fifty-five; his dark white-at-the-temples hair rose high over dark careless slashes of eyebrow, and his large dark eyes were somewhat magnified by wire-rim glasses; blunt-nosed, with a wide, thin mouth, Wilcox had a no-nonsense manner, gruff but not hostile.

  “What’s the nature of your business here, Mr. Heller?” he asked; his baritone was as sandswept as his county’s terrain.

  I had already shown him my Illinois private investigator’s license and my Cook County honorary deputy sheriff’s badge; neither seemed to impress him much.

  Settling into a wooden chair no harder than the expression the sheriff was giving me, I said pleasantly, “I’m doing some background research for a nationally known journalist.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “My client requested I keep that confidential.”

  “Why?”

  “Frankly, he’s got a controversial reputation and he doesn’t want people to be put off.” That was about as candid as I could afford to be.

  Wilcox rocked back in his swivel chair, digesting that. Then he said, “What’s the nature of the article? You’re too late for Rodeo Days.”

  “Sounds like that would’ve made a fun story, but this one’s fun, too. You know, this flying saucer fad, in all the papers a couple years now—my client’s doing a kind of wrap-up, sort of a postwar hysteria angle. Looking into the better-known of the so-called ‘sightings.’”

  Wilcox said nothing; his eyes had gone cold, their lids at half-mast.

  I pressed on: “You know, Roswell has a special significance—it’s the only time the Air Force officially recognized the existence of saucers; they even put out a press release saying the wreckage of a disk had been recovered.”

  Wilcox was studying me the way a lizard looks at a fly.

  “Anyway,” I said, shifting in the chair, crossing my legs, “I’ve come to see you for two reasons. First of all, I didn’t want to go poking around your town without you knowing.”

  “Appreciate that,” he said, nodding slowly.

  “Second, I’m hoping I can interview you, for the article. I understand this rancher, Mac Brazel, brought in some samples of the oddball debris, and that you’re the one who called in the Air Force…. You mind if I take a few notes?”

  I was taking my small spiral pad from my right hip pocket.

  “Put that back, son,” he said, waggling a thick finger. He wasn’t all that much older than me, not enough to be calling me “son,” anyway; but he made me feel about fifteen, in the principal’s office, just the same.

  “Sheriff, if you don’t want to be quoted,” I said, the notebook still in hand, “I could still use some background information …”

  “Mr., uh—Helman, was it?”

  “Heller.”

  “I’ll let you take a few notes, and you can use my name, too. This won’t take long.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “The Air Force said that thing was just an air balloon. That first press release … three hours later, they said it was a mistake.”

  “Well, uh, Sheriff, mistake or not, there was quite a fuss—you had to field phone calls from all around the world, I understand.”

  He nodded again. “I sat up all night, taking calls from Germany, London, France, Italy, all kinds of places, and probably every state of the Union. I told ’em what I’m telling you: talk to the Air Force.”

  “That what you’re advising me?”

  “No.” His tone was firm but not unkind. “My advice to you would be, move on to the next flying saucer story on your list.”

  “Why is that?”

  He nodded toward the notepad in my hands. “Now I am going to insist you put that thing away.”

  “All right.”

  “Don’t quote me. Don’t paraphrase me.”

  “Certainly.”

  Wilcox sat forward and placed both his hands on the desk; his tone shifted to a flatly ominous one that would have seemed ridiculous if it hadn’t been chilling. He said, simply, “Don’t look into this or you’re going to have real trouble.”

  “Trouble from you, Sheriff?”

  “Not from me.”

  “Who from?”

  “That’s all I have to say, on or off the record. Do yourself a favor, son—move on.”

  “But, Sheriff, my understanding is that you saw some of this strange debris, even handled some of it. Was this stuff really as weird as has been reported? Thin metal that goes back to its original shape, if you wad it up? Unearthly hieroglyphics?”

  Wilcox stood, slowly, smiling as benignly as a Buddha. “I appreciate your courtesy, Mr. Heller, stopping by to let me know about your inquiry.”

  There’s a stage out of town at noon; be on it.

  I sighed, stood, sticking my pad in my back pocket, nodding to him. “Thank you for your time, Sheriff.”

  On the way out, the chatty deputy called to me, “Mr. Heller! Where are you staying, should we need to get in touch with you?”

  I went over to his desk. “I’m at the El Capitan Hotel.”

  “Over the drugstore downtown,” Deputy Reynolds said, nodding, writing it down. “Thank you, Mr. Heller.”

  Then he extended his hand and I shook it, and felt a piece of paper there. His bright eyes narrowed and communicated something, and when I withdrew my hand, I tightened it over the note he’d passed me.

  I didn’t look at it until I was out of the courthouse and onto the street: “Clover Cafe, two p.m.”

  But right now it was barely ten, so I headed for the next stop on the list Major Marcel had provided Pearson; with the exception of the sheriff, everyone else was either expecting me or at least
a chum of Marcel’s, and should be a friendly witness.

  On the third floor of the Roswell equivalent of a skyscraper—a four-story brick building on Main Street—down on the left of a wood-and-pebbled-glass hallway, black stenciled letters on the door announced the HAUT INSURANCE AGENCY. I knocked, and a flat, midrange voice called, “Come on in!”

  It was a single office, not very wide, and not very long, either, barely big enough for the ceiling fan that was lazily whirling, like a propeller warming up; no receptionist—no room for one. By an open window looking out on Main Street, at a work-piled rolltop desk, a boyishly handsome blue-eyed blond young man—maybe twenty-six, in shirtsleeves and a red-and-blue tie and blue slacks—was on the phone, talking life insurance with a client.

  He waved me toward the hardwood chair alongside his desk and I sat, removing my straw fedora. The blond kid smiled at me, motioned that this call wouldn’t take long. It didn’t.

  “Walter Haut,” he said affably, without standing, extending his hand, which I took and shook. “And you are?”

  “Nathan Heller,” I said. “I believe Jesse Marcel warned you I’d be stopping by.”

  “Oh, oh, yeah—sure! Glad to see ya. But, uh … you mind if I check your i.d. first?”

  “Not at all.” I showed him the Illinois license and the honorary deputy’s badge.

  His grin was affable and embarrassed. “You’ll have to excuse the less than lavish digs … I’m just getting in the insurance game … independent agent. I was in your field till about two months ago.”

  “Investigation?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Collection agency. I don’t know how you guys stand it.”

  “My firm doesn’t do repo or skip tracing. Ugly work.”

  “I agree.” He leaned an arm on his desk, leaned forward. “You know, I like people—I’m a member of the chamber of commerce—and the last way I want to make my living is doggin’ folks for a dollar. So … let’s make it ‘Nate’ and ‘Walt’ and skip the formalities. Any friend of Jesse’s is a friend of mine.”

  “I don’t want to overstate my case, Walt. I’ve only spoken to Jesse once. But my feeling is he’s pretty bitter about taking the fall for Uncle Sam.”

  Haut’s head bobbed up and down. “He got a bum shake, all right. Which is why I’m willing to talk … off the record, of course—confidential source, that kind of thing?”

  “You got it. Mind if take notes?”

  “Feel better if you would. Only thing … if my phone rings, I have to take it … one-man agency, you know how it is.”

  “Actually, I do. I spent almost ten years that way, myself. When did you leave the service, Walt?”

  “I left last August. I never intended to make a career of it. Were you in the service, Nate?”

  I nodded. “Marines.”

  “Overseas duty?”

  “Guadalcanal.”

  He blew an appreciative whistle. “Then you can understand how good civilian life looks to a guy who flew thirty-eight combat missions against the Japs.”

  “Not a pilot, I take it.”

  “Bombardier and navigator.”

  Pen poised over the pad, I said, “Your postwar position out at the air base, I understand, was public relations officer?”

  Haut leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, elbows winging. “Yeah, it was a pretty uneventful ride—except that Tuesday after the Fourth, in ’47. You gotta understand my job was kind of a funny mix—there was a lot we kept the lid on. Very tight security out at that base—keep in mind, you’re talking to the guy who dropped glass-gauged instruments smack dab into the Bikini explosion, and yet even I couldn’t get near aircraft with atomic bomb configuration.”

  “Tightly run operation.”

  He nodded vigorously. “Secure areas fenced off, MPs on twenty-four-hour guard—not only do you need a pass to get on that base, you need a further pass to even get near those aircraft.”

  “Understandable.”

  Haut sat forward again. “At the same time, for all of that, we wanted to foster good relations with the local community. Colonel Blanchard’s first duty out of West Point was same as mine, a public relations officer. So he had a real thing for building good feelings between the town and the base. Anything we were doing that was newsworthy, I was to let the two newspapers and two radio stations in on it. We let ’em come out and take pictures, whenever and whatever they wanted—long as they didn’t try to snap pictures of the B-29s.”

  On the morning of July 8, 1947, Haut told me, he’d been called into the base commander’s office. Colonel Blanchard dictated a statement to his public information officer for immediate release to the local press acknowledging the 509th Bomb Group being “fortunate enough to gain possession” of a downed flying saucer (I had read the clipping in the file Pearson gave me).

  “Around ten-thirty that morning,” Haut said, “I drove to town and made the rounds, dropping off the release at the radio stations, KGFL and KSWS, then over at the Roswell Daily Record and Roswell Morning Dispatch. The Record’s an evening paper, and they’re the ones that had the headline story, that night—I just barely beat their deadline.” He shrugged. “Then I had lunch.”

  “You didn’t think anything of it? Another day, another captured flying saucer?”

  “Hey, it was lunchtime, so I ate lunch. I didn’t give it a second thought; when a superior officer said, ‘This is what it is,’ that was what it was. I went back to the base, to my office, and nothing much happened the rest of the afternoon, except the phone was ringing pretty heavily for a couple hours, there.”

  “The press?”

  “Oh, yeah, from all over the world!” Haut laughed, shaking his head, struck by a funny memory. “First call I got was from London, this very proper English accent asking me how the ‘chap’ who found the saucer had known how to fly the ‘craft’ back to the base! I had to explain it was just wreckage that was found.”

  “Walt, you and I both know how cautious, and secretive, the military usually is. Here’s the first instance of the Air Force capturing a flying saucer … obviously, an event with national security implications, and international repercussions. Do you think Colonel Blanchard could have issued that press release on his own authority?”

  Haut rocked in the chair, thought about that. “Well, the Old Man could put out just about anything he wanted, short of information about the atomic weapons on the base. Things of a secret nature, that’d have to be cleared with the Eighth Air Force, and probably further up the chain of command….”

  “Don’t you think a flying saucer would fall into that category?”

  The insurance agent sighed, nodded, mulling some more. “Come to think of it … I honestly don’t think Colonel Blanchard did authorize that release. My feeling is it went to General Ramey and probably on to higher headquarters.”

  “Why would they sanction something this sensitive?”

  An eyebrow lifted. “I can hazard an informed guess, if you like.”

  “Guess away, Walt.”

  Haut sat way forward, eyes narrowing. “That same afternoon, remember, word from General Ramey came down that the wreckage wasn’t from a flying saucer at all. And all of a sudden, we’re sending out pictures of Jesse Marcel holding up fragments of your everyday garden-variety weather balloon, looking like Public Idiot Number One.”

  I was shaking my head, confused. “Why would the brass do that? Issue a statement about a flying saucer, then a couple hours later contradict themselves?”

  Haut’s smile turned sly. “I believe they knew the cat was out of the bag … the rumors about a recovered saucer were flyin’, around here. So the best cover-up is to announce a saucer’s been found, attributing it to Major Screwup, then have the much smarter, more knowledgeable general say, ‘Oh no, you children got it wrong—it’s just a weather balloon.’ And the incident gets laughed off and forgotten. It was a real sleight-of-hand trick, typical disinformation.”

  “Disinformation?”
>
  “That’s an intelligence term, Nate—same as ‘black’ propaganda, purposeful misinformation issued by the government to confuse its citizens. And as a guy who put his ass on the line for his country, that ticks me off. I mean, America’s supposed to be in the truth business.”

  “You believe a saucer was found.”

  The boyish features tightened. “I believe Jesse Marcel knows a weather balloon when he sees it. And did you hear about that weird tinfoil shit?”

  “Yes. Did you see any of it?”

  “No. I saw nothing—no wreckage, no outer space creatures, none of it. A public relations officer is kept away from things that the public isn’t supposed to know; that’s a practice I was accustomed to.”

  “But you believe Jesse Marcel.”

  “We were friends. My wife and I would go play bridge with the Marcels; we rode to work together. He was rock-steady, and hell, they kept him on as intelligence officer for something like a year after that. Then he was transferred to a job of even higher responsibility!”

  “You mentioned ‘outer space creatures’…”

  Haut raised a hand. “You need to talk to Glenn Dennis about that.”

  “I have.”

  “Well, Glenn’s a friend, too, and I can tell you, he’s not a nut; if he tells you something, you can give it credence. Now, I don’t know much about this military clampdown that supposedly went on, and nobody threatened me or anything—but you might want to talk to Frank Joyce, over at the radio station.”

  Which was my next stop, an adobe storefront operation with a small neon reading radio station, in small letters, over KGFL in large ones, above a sun-faded canvas awning. In a small control booth, I talked with Joyce, a sturdily stocky brown-haired kid in his mid-twenties, who ran a one-man operation on his afternoon show, reading the news, spinning records, doing live commercials and serving as his own engineer. I sat at the little table used for on-air interviews and we chatted sporadically, while discs spun—not flying ones, the kind with Crosby and Perry Como on them.

  Joyce had Mickey Rooney-ish features clustered in the midst of his round face, making his rather large head seem even larger; he might have been young, but he had the no-nonsense attitude and manner of a seasoned reporter.