by Andrew Hunt
“Hmm. Did Helen talk to you about her preparations for coming out to Los Angeles?”
“No. She told Roland that she had some personal matters to attend to before coming out. That was all.”
“Did she happen to indicate the nature of those personal matters?”
“My conversation with her was brief, and she said very little, other than expressing her excitement over the contract. She was closer to Roland. She knew him from social functions. Frankly, he’s the only reason she got past the studio gate.”
“Do you have a number where I can reach Roland Lane?”
“No. He’s unreachable, Deputy Oveson. You won’t find his name in any telephone directories, and no operator will be able to patch you through to him. He’s too big. He lives in a secluded house with a big wall. He’s got a big-shot agent who protects him like a guard dog. Besides, I happen to know he set sail to England a week ago.”
“England?”
“Yes. He owns an estate in the countryside. Splits his time between here and there.”
“Is there a telephone number there where he can be reached?”
“Not that I know of.”
“What about an address?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have that information. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Deputy, I am a man on a tight schedule.” He pronounced schedule “shed-you-el.” I’d never heard it said that way before. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask?”
“No, you’ve pretty much covered everything I wanted to know. I’m grateful for your time, Mr. King.”
“I would appreciate it if you could seal that screen test in a box and put it in tomorrow’s post, care of First National, Deputy Oveson,” he said. “This studio does not like its screen tests to be floating around out there for viewing by the general public.”
I was about to say, I’ll do that, but I am a man of my word. If I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it, and I knew that Considine wouldn’t be happy if I mailed his reel off to First National. So I gave King the best noncommittal answer I could think of. “I’ll consider it,” I said. “Thank you, Mr. King.”
The line went dead.
I lowered the receiver into the cradle, folded my arms, and stared for a long moment at the candlestick telephone. It seemed to be silently goading me to track down Roland Lane. I lifted the earpiece again and, for the next two hours, attempted to connect to an operator in London. Much of that time I spent waiting for a cross-country line to take me to New York, then a transatlantic line the rest of the way to the British Isles. The English operator, a faraway-sounding woman barely audible above the line static, informed me there was no Roland Lane in the local directory. She said unless I had a specific address for him, locating his telephone number would be impossible. I thanked her and said good-bye. My next telephone call went out to Los Angeles. Less of a wait this time, but I was still holding a long while. “There’s no Lane, L-A-N-E, first name Roland, listed here,” the operator finally told me. “Sorry, mister.” I said thanks, hung up, and opened the city directory to the residential section to look for Harmony Tattershall, the name given to me by Seymour Considine at Keeley’s. Dr. Pfalzgraf had filed a complaint on her behalf against Everett Wooley. There was only one Tattershall in the entire phone book, “Tattershall, Geo. T.”—listed at 1466 East 1300 South, telephone number Wasatch 594. I lifted the earpiece. “Operator, give me Wasatch five-nine-four, please.”
“One moment.” Minute-long pause. “Sorry, that number has been disconnected.”
“Is there another number?”
“No. I’m sorry. There isn’t.”
“How about Harmony Tattershall. Do you have a number for her?”
“One moment.” Clicks. More time passed. “Sorry, I have nobody by that name.”
“Thanks very much,” I said, returning the earpiece to the cradle. I leaned back in my chair, ran my palms over my face, and sighed.
Eleven
“Why the fuck are we here, anyhow?” asked Roscoe.
I lowered my issue of Field & Stream and stared across the room at him. He had his rump planted on the davenport, mine was on the love seat, and we kept the drapes closed, so nobody outside would know we were in the house. “Heigh-ho everybody,” said Rudy Vallee on a little tabletop radio while Roscoe thumbed through a book, something by Booth Tarkington, a surprise to me because I never pegged him as a reader. I think it was one of those Reader’s Digest condensed deals, but it was better than nothing. I shrugged my shoulders, raised my magazine, and went back to the primer for trout fishing in front of me. Rudy and his Connecticut Yankees performed a sentimental orchestra tune.
“Sheriff’s orders,” I said. “In case C. W. comes home to pick up his toothbrush or something.”
“We’re wasting our time,” he said. “How the hell are we supposed to catch Helen Pfalzgraf’s killer if we’re holed up in this place?”
“Don’t slay the messenger. I don’t want to be here any more than you do.”
“Somehow I find that hard to believe,” said Roscoe, glaring at me. “You know, Art, there’s still time for you to sign that letter calling on Cannon to resign. The men would see it as a good thing if you was to add your name.”
“I said I wasn’t interested.”
“I wish you’d reconsider.” I didn’t answer. He squinted to see the cover of the magazine in my hands. “At least tell me what the fuck you’re reading.”
“It’s called ‘How to Fish for Trout.’”
“Sounds fascinating.” His sarcasm did not lacerate me the way he hoped it would.
“I’ve read worse. I haven’t learned anything new yet.”
“Well, then why the fuck you reading it?”
Flipping to the next page, I said, “I’d prefer it if you didn’t use the F-word. I don’t like it.”
“Oh, you don’t, huh?”
“No, I don’t. Vulgar language is for men who can’t find the right words to say.”
“Sometimes the right word is ‘fuck.’ Did you ever think of that?”
“That’s never the right word,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. “If you want to use that kind of language, please take it outside. It pollutes the ears and the mind. I don’t care to hear it.”
“Good God almighty, are you for real, Oveson?”
I closed the magazine, keeping my index finger on the page where I left off. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t drink. Don’t cuss. Don’t blow half your paycheck on whores. As far as I can tell, the closest thing you have to a vice is eating too much ice cream.”
I feigned reading some more and said, “I’ve got a side to me you don’t know about.”
Roscoe slammed his book shut and tossed it on the table. “Now we’re getting somewhere. C’mon, Oveson. Talk. You can’t jackass around like that and then clam up. What’s this other side you’re talking about?”
It’s time, I thought, to add an element of levity to this grim conversation. I looked over my left shoulder, over my right shoulder, and whispered, “Jacks.”
He gave me a look of disbelief. “Jacks?” I nodded. “Jacks, the game?” I nodded again. “That’s your hidden side?”
“I’m up to my foursies.”
“I can’t believe it. I’ve got Tom fucking Sawyer for a partner.”
“I’ll teach you if you want.”
“Teach me what?”
“To play jacks.”
“I don’t want to play jacks, Oveson! For fuck’s sake!”
Roscoe uncapped a bottle of liquor and took a few swallows. While he drank, I said, “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Have you got a side you don’t want anybody to know about?”
“Everybody does. Even you do, though you won’t admit it.”
“What’s your hidden side all about?”
He laughed and ran his palm over the dark peach-fuzz bristle on top of his head. He said, “If I was to broadcast it, it wouldn’t be hidden, now
would it?”
“It might make you feel better to talk about it.”
“Art,” he said, sitting up straight and resting his elbows on his knees, “when you get to be my age—”
“Which is?”
“Nice try. When you get to be my age, you end up with a head full of bad memories. It doesn’t make you feel any better talking about them.” His face brightened, and he said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you come to Evanston with me this weekend?”
“What’s in Evanston?”
“A whorehouse.”
I laughed uncomfortably. “Now what on earth am I going to do in a whorehouse?”
“Brother, if you need me to explain that, you’re in worse trouble than I thought.”
I held up my ring finger and showed him my silver wedding band. “No, I mean I’m married. You knew that.”
“Don’t matter. Most of the men who go there have got wives. I go up there just to see this Chink whore goes by the name of Glenda—calls herself that because nobody can pronounce her Chink name. It sounds like a bunch of pots and pans falling down the stairs. For ten dollars, this dame will ride you till you’re bowlegged.”
“That’s a foul way to talk about a woman,” I said. “Did the thought ever cross your mind that she’s somebody’s daughter?”
“Not till now. Tell you what, Art. You find her parents’ address and I’ll drop ’em a picture postcard letting ’em know what a great lay their daughter is.”
He’s a lost cause, I thought, and I went back to reading my magazine and listening to Vallee crooning softly on the radio.
A few minutes later, Roscoe said, “When do we shove off? I don’t like being in another man’s home. It doesn’t feel right.”
“The other deputies are supposed to spell us at two. We’ve got about three more hours. Well, three and a half. We might as well make ourselves at home. Maybe he has some decent food in the icebox.”
“So do you think this shitbird murdered Helen?” asked Roscoe.
“It doesn’t look too good for him,” I said. “Especially him taking a powder like this.” For a second, I considered telling Roscoe about the conversation I had with Considine—about Pfalzgraf inheriting a fortune and his first wife dying in an auto accident a few months later; about Pfalzgraf’s one-man crusade to drive Dr. Everett Wooley out of Salt Lake City; about Wooley getting murdered in Ogden. I reconsidered, though, knowing Roscoe wouldn’t be happy with me for sharing information with Considine. So I held back and instead simply said, “But I do think we ought to be investigating other leads.”
“Now you’re talking,” said Roscoe. “Got any ideas?”
“Let’s just say I’ve been keeping my eyes and ears open. Sometimes you have to think against the grain.”
“Grain?” He looked perplexed. “The fuck you talking about, grain?”
“I agree with you that we should be out there,” I said. “Not in here.”
Roscoe grinned. “I like what I’m hearing.”
* * *
In the afternoon, Roscoe and I were relieved by a couple of deputies so I could testify on the next-to-last day of the inquest. In the witness box, I spoke about finding Helen Pfalzgraf’s body. Reliving that moment was harder than I’d thought it would be, but I didn’t show it. Once it was over, all my words became a blur. The same day I testified, Anna Pfalzgraf took the stand, but she didn’t say anything in front of that packed room that she hadn’t told Roscoe and me when we questioned her. After she stepped down, Deputy Coroner Tom Livsey spoke about the condition of the body. Before he could show slides of the badly mangled corpse, the coroner asked the women to leave the courtroom, including the stenographer. The black-and-white slides unleashed a torrent of memories for me. Looking at those images ended up being far more difficult for me than testifying.
A few more testimonies followed Tom’s. The managers of three local banks were called in to discuss Helen Pfalzgraf’s big deposits, which greatly exceeded the regular allowance given to her by Dr. Pfalzgraf. At least three of the deposits were traced back to the bank account belonging to Intermountain Mining Speculators, the company owned by C. W. Alexander.
Testimonies on Friday, the final day of the inquest, were equally damning for Alexander. A resident of the Van Buren Apartments in Ogden recalled seeing a man ditching Helen Pfalzgraf’s car in a parking lot in the middle of the night. His description of the man closely matched Alexander. A waitress at a dance joint called the Club 40, located on the highway between the airport and the Great Salt Lake, remembered seeing Helen and C. W. cutting the rug lots of times. Their last outing at the 40 came four days before Pfalzgraf’s death, and the witness said she saw the two of them having a terrible spat before they left. She couldn’t hear what they were fighting about.
The coroner’s inquest officially ended in the late afternoon on Friday, March 7, with an inconclusive verdict. Basking in camera flashes, Cannon announced to the press he still suspected C. W. Alexander was Helen’s murderer.
* * *
Our alert for all lawmen to be on the lookout for C. W. Alexander had gone out via Western Union across Utah and the surrounding states on Tuesday, and over the next several days, the fish kept nibbling. Men resembling Alexander were spotted in towns across the state—as far south as Panguitch down around Bryce Canyon, as far east as Vernal a little ways from the craggy hills of the Utah-Colorado border, and as far north as Cornish, a postage-stamp-sized town on the Oregon Shortline Railroad near the Utah-Idaho border. So far none of the look-alikes had turned out to be the real Alexander.
On Friday, as the inquest concluded, Roscoe and I found ourselves on telephone duty, but a radio tuned to station KSL played highlights of the inquest in the background. It turned out to be much busier than guarding C. W. Alexander’s house. Callers reported spotting Alexander near the vermillion cliffs on the outskirts of St. George in southwestern Utah; hiking a footpath in Echo Canyon, by Zion Park; riding on a Pullman car outside of Fort Collins, Colorado; leaving a boardinghouse in Spokane, Washington; painting a roadside billboard in Phoenix, Arizona. One man on a crackly line even fessed up to being none other than C. W. Alexander himself, in the flesh and spending his days on Santa Catalina Island working as a fisherman. I asked him to prove it by telling me his birth date. The line went dead.
* * *
Ogden was Salt Lake City’s besotted younger brother, a town that wore its wild past like a badge of honor. Like Salt Lake, it grew up pressed against the rugged Wasatch Mountains, a formidable eastern wall if ever there was one. Its earliest inhabitants were trappers; in fact, it was named after a legendary fur trader and explorer, Peter Skene Ogden, who explored the region in 1828 while on the payroll of the Hudson’s Bay Company. I’m not sure Ogden would’ve been too pleased to witness the evolution of his namesake city as it transformed from a sleepy village into a bustling railroad hub that lured all kinds of gamblers, speculators, opium merchants, con men, outlaws, and just general dregs of humanity.
By 1930, it had shed some of its Wild West past, but traces of its dark history lingered. The streets west of downtown were still home to grimy flophouses full of desperate souls, lunatics, addicts, slummers, and others who gravitated to the periphery. Prostitutes with wavy hair, empty eyes, too much lipstick, and runs in their stockings still roamed the sidewalks. Plenty of Ogdenites, whatever their station in life, thought Salt Lake City was a snooty Mormon burgh, too uptight for its own good. If only they knew that many Salt Lakers regarded their town as the armpit of Utah.
I made the forty-five-minute drive north to Ogden on a cold and wet Saturday that marked the two-week anniversary of Roscoe and me finding Helen Pfalzgraf’s body. Clark Peterson, a patrolman with the Ogden Police Department who also happened to be a friend of the family, offered to let me in the police station after hours to have a look at records on the Everett Wooley file. I arrived equipped with a spiral notebook, a pencil, and a brown bag of candy I picked up on the way at Kolitz Kandy Kitche
n in downtown Ogden.
Clark was a bearish blond man who always wore his black uniform, even to church. He led me down a hallway on the second floor of police headquarters to the last room on the right. He unlocked the door and punched a button that switched on a ceiling light. I walked over to a barred window and admired the view of Weber Valley. I pulled out a chair, and he set a stack of files on the table in front of me. I opened the bag of candy and held it in front of him.
“Want some?”
He peeked over the edge of the bag, his face long with interest. “Whatcha got there?”
“Butternut taffy from Kolitz.” He reached in the bag and snatched a piece, tore the wrapper off, and stuffed the taffy in his mouth. I said, “Best butternut taffy in the West.”
“You can say that again,” he said, chewing madly. “Mind if I take a few more?”
“Go right ahead.”
He grabbed a small handful out of the bag and gestured to the files. “These are all on the Wooley case. I’ll be across the hall. If you need anything, holler.”
“Thanks much, Clark. I hope you take me up on that chicken dinner.”
“Any chance of Clara making it instead of that old greasy spoon?”
“Let me have a word with her,” I said, smiling. “It’d be the perfect excuse to have you and Jean over.”
“Sounds swell, Art. I’ll check on you in a half hour.”
“Much obliged, Clark.”
He closed the door behind him, and I opened the file on top of the stack. A blue piece of paper with the words CASE FILE STATUS SHEET at the top and Wooley’s name in someone’s longhand below. Next: “DOB: May 4, 1872. PLACE OF BIRTH: Logan, Utah.” Then: “DOD: Friday, November 2, 1928. PLACE OF DEATH: Wooley’s office, Washington Boulevard, Ogden. AGE OF DECEASED: 56.” My eyes dipped farther down the page to “CASE STATUS: CLOSED/UNSOLVED.”
The black-and-white photographs taken at the crime scene showed him sitting in his wooden swivel chair, facedown over his desk with a bullet wound in the back of his head. Angle from top (flip), behind (flip), left (flip), right (flip). Coroner’s verdict on canary yellow paper: “DEAD OF GUNSHOT WOUND TO REAR OF SKULL FROM .45.” (flip) “SUMMARY OF THE CRIME: Dr. Everett A. Wooley, a physician residing in North Ogden, was found shot to death Friday, November 2, at his second-floor office in the 2400 block of Washington Boulevard. Ogden Police patrol officers responded to a call at approximately 11:15 reporting the sound of a gunshot coming from the said office. Police arrived at Wooley’s office to find the victim unresponsive.”
