by Andrew Hunt
“Your friend could use a few lessons in manners,” he said.
“I’ll be quick, because he won’t be in the restroom long,” I said. “I’d like to take you up on your offer. It’s probably better that you don’t to call me at work. I’m at home most evenings. My telephone number is Wasatch four-eight-four.”
He uncapped a pen and wrote the number on the back of his hand, looked past me, and made a long face. His signal for Your partner is coming. I dropped a couple of coins by the cash register and told Roscoe I was treating. He snatched a cinnamon toothpick and let it dance on his lips for a minute but didn’t bother saying thank you.
At the cash register, Annie, the owner’s redheaded, apple-cheeked wife, punched in our bill. “You hardly touched your fish and chips, Art,” she said. “Everything alright?”
“Fine, thanks, Annie. I guess I just wasn’t hungry.”
“It’s not like you,” she said as I dropped coins in her palm. “You usually clean off your plate. Want a box, to take it home in, for your daughter?”
“No thanks. I don’t think my appetite will be returning anytime soon.”
Considine eyed me over his plate of food. Roscoe stood two feet away. Even though he wasn’t studying my every move, I played it safe by pretending to ignore Considine. As we exited the café, a little brass bell on the door rang.
* * *
“Daddy, Daddy, does this piece fit?”
Sarah Jane, a freckly sprite with brown hair in pigtails, held up the puzzle piece. Cerulean sky. We sat side by side at the dining room table. She pressed the blue piece against another piece with colorful tulip bulbs but couldn’t fit them together.
The cathedral radio in the next room played violin music while outside a snowstorm pummeled the valley.
“It doesn’t go there, S. J.,” I said. I held up the box and showed her the windmill, the blue sky, and the tulip bulbs. “This is Holland. The blue sky goes above the hill and the windmill.”
“Have you ever been there, Daddy?”
I smiled as I set the lid on the table. “Nope, but I’d love to go.”
She blinked at the puzzle for a moment and snapped her blue-sky piece with another blue-sky piece. She smiled triumphantly as she sorted through other pieces with her index finger. “Where’d you go on your mission, Daddy?”
“Los Angeles.”
“What was it like?”
“Hot,” I said. “Big, too. There were lots of palm trees. And if you reached up…” I lifted my arm high. “You could pick an orange. I’d grab one off the branch and rip the peel off and eat the sections one at a time. Nothing hit the spot on a hot day better than that.”
“What else was there?”
I snapped two tulip pieces together. “They had these big Pacific Electric streetcars. They called ’em Red Cars because of their color. You could hop on one and in twenty minutes you’d step out at the ocean.”
Clara entered the room through the swinging kitchen door holding a glass of lemonade on ice. She passed it to me and smiled at Sarah Jane, who triumphantly snapped two more pieces together.
“Thanks,” I said, sampling the lemonade.
“You’re welcome. How much longer until you two are finished?”
“Mommy?” said Sarah Jane.
“Yes, dear?”
“Can we go to Holland?”
“We’ll see. Let’s focus on putting this puzzle together, so we can get you to bed soon.” Clara walked over to the table and winced when she got a good look at all the pieces. She picked up the lid and inspected it. “My goodness, Art. Two hundred and fifty? Couldn’t you have picked one with fewer pieces?”
“It was the smallest one they had at Skaggs,” I said.
“You two had better finish this tomorrow.”
“We can’t,” said Sarah Jane. “We’ve got another puzzle to put together tomorrow.”
Clara’s mouth fell open. “Another one?”
“The Grand Canyon,” she said. “Right, Daddy?”
Clara glared at me. I spoke haltingly. “I meant to tell you. There was a sale on puzzles.”
Sarah Jane burst into giggles, and I could tell it was going to be a late night for her, which meant it was going to be a late night for me as well.
* * *
For most of my life, I’ve been plagued by insomnia. I spend hours staring at the shadows on the ceiling and listening to the ticking of the alarm clock. Insomnia comes in different forms. Some sufferers can’t get to sleep for a long time, while others—and I fall into this category—have an easy time drifting off to sleep but wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall asleep again. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a light sleeper, and on Saturdays—my only day to sleep in—I was incapable of sleeping beyond about seven thirty in the morning.
In general, lawmen are more susceptible to insomnia than other people. Insomnia, like the nightmares that often precede it, comes with the job. Each lawman thinks different thoughts while tossing and turning in the darkness, but at some point, many of us are haunted by that one unsolved homicide case. For me, the murder of Hazel Hamilton, six months before Sheriff Cannon deputized me, was that case.
At the time, I was working as a dispatcher at the Provo Police Department, a job I landed thanks to the behind-closed-door machinations of my older brother Grant. Newspaper headlines and radio reports told and retold her tragic story. She was twelve when it happened. Born in Duluth, Minnesota, Hazel moved with her family a few times and finally settled in Salt Lake City. She had a five-year-old sister and three-year-old brother and lived with her family in a two-story brick house on Fourth South and Fifth East. She went missing on New Year’s Eve day 1928. Her parents telephoned the police midmorning to report that she had been gone a few hours and it wasn’t like her to leave without telling them. Her younger sister, June, told the police that a car had pulled up and the driver had lured Hazel inside. June didn’t see the driver’s face, but she said Hazel smiled and nodded while talking to the motorist and willingly climbed in, which led police to theorize that the murderer was someone Hazel knew.
The next day, county deputies found Hazel’s badly beaten and mutilated body in a rural canal that ran parallel to Redwood Road, a wide, dusty street full of potholes. You couldn’t find a more desolate stretch of the valley—snowy fields that turned to weeds in May, no houses for a few miles.
When news of the killing broke, a wave of panic spread across Salt Lake City. Frightened parents escorted their children to school and picked them up in the afternoon. In many instances, children were not allowed to leave their yards on the weekends and holidays. You could feel fear in the air well into the fall.
In the dead of summer, late July ’29, shortly after starting my deputy job, I drove out to where the deputies found the body. I squatted at the edge of the canal to get a better look at the stone marker her family had placed there. HAZEL HAMILTON, 1916–1929. OUR BELOVED DAUGHTER & SISTER. WE WILL BE TOGETHER AGAIN.
Nothing grew in the fields near the spot where the body was found. It was as if a curse had been placed on the earth there. Staring at the canal’s murky water, I dwelled on how terrifying her final moments on earth must have been. I remembered the coroner’s report: raped and assaulted. I couldn’t think about it for very long. How could anyone focus on such a ghastly crime without going a little bit crazy?
Four months into the investigation, Sheriff Cannon touched off a fierce public outcry when he accused the girl’s father, Raymond Hamilton, of direct involvement in the “foul deed.” “I am not sure what his exact role was in this tragedy,” Cannon told a room full of reporters and radiomen, “but I have reason to believe, based on evidence in our office, that he played some part in the tragic death of his daughter. Only time will tell if I’m right, but I believe I am.”
Turned out Cannon had no evidence to back up his accusation, which he later admitted. By the spring of ’29, most of the leads in the Hamilton case had gone cold. Cannon’s future as
sheriff was more precarious than ever. He still faced accusations of corruption arising from a scheme he concocted a year before Hazel disappeared to tax local gamblers. Allegations of ineptitude and corruption were taking a toll on his reputation. It only made matters worse that his opponent, Lorenzo Blackham, the respected sheriff of Weber County (north of Salt Lake City) looking to return to his hometown, had already won the endorsements of key local politicians and businessmen.
Now here I was, “Cannon’s spy”—a lackey for a man whose days as sheriff were numbered. I wanted as little to do with him as possible, yet I feared for my future if I didn’t cooperate. The election was still months away, this November, so I sought a cautious middle line: stall him, feed him as little information as possible, keep him wondering—but not too much. The way I saw it, sometimes not doing anything is actually a way of doing something.
These were the kinds of things I thought about while I roamed the halls of my house in the wee hours of the morning, hoping Mr. Sandman would pay another visit soon.
Six
Naked and dripping water, I tried to remember my locker combination.
A dozen deputies were in the locker room across the hall from the gymnasium in the county jail building. Sheriff Cannon insisted his deputies take part in an hour of rigorous calisthenics each morning before going out on patrol. “It clears your mind of all cobwebs,” he once told us, “and makes you better lawmen.” The men obeyed, despite grumbling among the heavier fellows.
So here we were, carrying out his directive before the A.M. rounds. Men leaned in close to mirrors as they ran straight razors over their lather-covered necks. Metal slammed against metal with the opening and closing of locker doors. Showers hissed, filling the air with steam, and the soles of bare feet slapped tile. For some reason, I was blanking out on the last number of my locker combination. Roscoe sat on a bench bolted to the tile floor, already dressed, tying his shoes and eyeing me.
“Sixteen,” he said.
“Come again?”
“Sixteen is the last number.”
“Oh.” I arched my eyebrows. I turned right to 16. Bingo. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Three men—Romney, McKitrick, and Glendon—stepped out of the showers with white towels wrapped around their waists and began turning the dials on their lockers. Glendon was fat, while the other two men were lean and pale-skinned.
“I’m just saying the man is inept,” said Romney.
Glendon laughed. “That’s one word for it.”
“I’d say that’s about the only word for it,” said Romney. “Cannon wouldn’t know how to solve a murder case with the confessed killer in custody. The other day, I stuck five dollars in an envelope and mailed it to the Lorenzo Blackham for Sheriff Campaign. If Cannon’s reelected, I’m quitting my job. I don’t care if times are hard. Unemployment can’t be worse than working for that SOB.”
I scooped my temple garments out of my locker and put them on, avoiding eye contact with the others. Their talk made me feel uncomfortable in the extreme, and I did everything in my power to stay out of it.
“Cannon is pussyfooting, sending us on one wild-goose chase after another,” said McKitrick. “It’s like he isn’t even trying.”
“All he gives a shit about is getting voted back in office,” said Roscoe. He eyed me with a grin. “What do you think, Art?”
I glanced at him as I buttoned my shirt, hiding my anger about being asked the question. “I guess I don’t have much of an opinion, one way or the other.”
“C’mon, Art,” said McKitrick. “You must feel something. This is our future we’re talking about here. I don’t see how you can sit on the fence.”
I put one leg in my pants, then the other, and tugged up the zipper. “Put yourself in Cannon’s shoes,” I said. “He’s faced a lot of challenges these past few years. Think about it: the Hazel Hamilton murder, thefts, homicides on the rise, and now this. The newspapers are turning it into a soap opera.”
“Sounds to me like you’re on his side, Oveson,” said Romney, running a comb through his thin hair and gazing at the mirror in his locker. “Are you?”
I closed my locker and faced the men getting dressed. “Last I checked there were only two sides: the law and the lawbreakers.”
“I’ll shoot straight with you, Art,” said McKitrick. “I noticed Cannon calling you aside the other day. Just you. I have to admit, it got me wondering about you, where your loyalties lie. The men don’t care for a snitch, you know.”
I glared at McKitrick. “If I run into any snitches, I’ll tell ’em you said that. Now if you’ll excuse me…”
“We’re just looking out for you,” said Romney. “Sooner or later Cannon’s going to be out on the pavement. We don’t want to see the same thing happen to you. You seem like a decent sort. And your father—well, he was the best in the business. It’s too bad he didn’t live to become chief of police.”
“I appreciate you looking after me,” I said, “but I can take care of myself.”
Glendon moved his chunky body in my way, dangling a piece of paper in his fingers. I stared at him a few seconds, and he wiggled the paper. “We’re circulating this letter for the deputies to sign. It’s calling for Cannon’s resignation. Our goal is to get all the deputies to sign on. We’ve only got five signatures so far, but I understand Boyd has agreed to sign. We figure if we can get a few more John Hancocks, maybe some of the other fellows won’t be so yellow about adding their names.”
“We plan on sending it to the Examiner, and they’re gonna print it word for word and have a reporter do up a story on it,” said McKitrick. “We’re endorsing Blackham for sheriff. What do you say, Art? Care to sign?”
All eyes were on me. I sighed and gazed down at the checkerboard tiles on the floor. “No thank you. I don’t want to get involved.”
“You’re already involved,” said Roscoe. “You’re in it like the rest of us.”
At that moment, I loathed Roscoe worse than anybody else in my life. His shiny bald head, sunken eyes, toothy grin, gravelly voice—everything about him I disliked. I noticed the contempt in his eyes as he watched me. I said, “Maybe if you men spent a little more time searching for Helen Pfalzgraf’s killer and a little less time grousing, we might actually bust the criminal for once.”
I walked out. I could feel all eyes on me.
Sometimes a man reaches a point where he simply doesn’t care anymore.
* * *
The Wednesday morning after we found Helen Pfalzgraf’s body down by the Pole Line Road, I sat alone in a long common room full of desks. Most of the men were out on patrol. I had no idea of Roscoe’s whereabouts, and truth be told, I didn’t want to know.
I telephoned Dr. Pfalzgraf. Leaning back in my swivel chair, I lifted the receiver on the candlestick telephone and raised the transmitter to my mouth. The party line popped with static, but I heard the operator’s voice. “Number, please?”
“Operator, ring State nine-ninety-eight.”
“Now ringing. Please hold the line.”
“Thank you.”
Party line chatter: “I’m going to make it up to the dry goods store on Wednesday…” “Yes, our water line froze down here late last night and now it’s leaking everywhere…” “We’re hoping it’ll be a warmer March than it was last year…” “Sorry, LaMarr told me you was comin’ next Tuesday…”
“You may go ahead,” said the operator.
A woman’s voice said, “Dr. Pfalzgraf’s office, may I help you?”
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Deputy Art Oveson, Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office. To whom am I speaking, please?”
“Eunice Mickelson, Dr. Pfalzgraf’s secretary.”
“I wish to speak to Dr. Pfalzgraf.”
“If this is about his donation to Sheriff Cannon’s reelection—”
“No, I just had a question for him.”
“Oh.” A good ten seconds of silence followed. I almost spoke, bu
t I thought I should wait for her to say something. “Well, Deputy, you may wish to contact his attorney—”
“Parley Tanner?”
“Yes. He’s at Grand seven-eighty-five.”
I nodded and stared out the windows at the snow falling on downtown Salt Lake City. “Thank you. I’ll try Mr. Tanner. If the doctor suddenly finds himself in a talkative mood, maybe you can let him know that I can be reached at County nine-ten.”
“I’ll pass him the message, Deputy. Mind you, I can’t guarantee anything.”
“No, of course not,” I said. “Until tomorrow.”
I lowered the receiver on the metal cradle, pushed the telephone aside, and massaged my temples, hoping to offset the effects of a headache.
“Oveson! My office!”
I turned to see Cannon, sleeves rolled up, snapping his suspenders. He turned and ducked into the twin doors of his office, leaving the left one open for me. I momentarily feared the worst. What if he heard me telephoning Pfalzgraf’s office? I walked past rows of desks, past a bulletin board covered with WANTED posters, past a watercooler and a large, unused carpeted space to his office entrance.
He had an enormous office with spinning ceiling fans, plush green carpeting, and huge arched windows looking out to the City and County Building across the street. Brass lamps with green glass shades furnished soft light. Cold wind blew snowflakes through an open window and brought the office’s temperature to meat locker levels. Cannon squirmed in his thronelike chair behind a long oak desk, and Sykes sat off to the side, right leg over left knee. Cannon smiled. Sykes frowned.
“Have a seat, Art,” Cannon said, “but please close the door behind you first.”
I did as asked, pulling the door gently shut until the knob clicked, then sat on one of two high-backed leather chairs that faced his desk.
“It’s Wednesday morning,” said Cannon. “The coroner’s office will begin a public inquest in less than a week. The coroner says his goal is to bring together all of the information from the police and sheriff’s department investigations into one hearing, to make all the evidence available to the public. Frankly, I think it all stinks.”
