City of Saints

by Andrew Hunt

  “What do you think?”

  “That’s a lovely picture,” I said. “I especially like how happy the girl is. She looks like she really loves being in her sailboat.”

  “She does.”

  We sat side by side at the kitchen table. The radio played a jaunty tune by Charlie Straight’s Orchestra that on any other day might make me want to don a straw hat and fur coat and do the Charleston.

  Not today. Today I was in a gloomy way, although I tried my best to hide it around Sarah Jane. This was our time together. Yet she could tell I was not all the way there.

  “Let me see what you drew, Daddy.”

  I showed her my crummy stick figure. She shook her head and furrowed her eyebrows, not making an effort to conceal her disappointment.

  “Is that the best you could do?”

  I pulled the drawing closer to me. “Maybe not.”

  “You tell me I should always do my best,” she said, “but that’s not your best.”

  I sighed. “There’s an old saying. Do as I say, not as I do.”

  She giggled, and her blue eyes reflected the light above. She went back to coloring, this time a new picture.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is it true that God punishes people who do bad things? That’s what Mary’s dad says.”

  “Oh, he does, does he?” I thought about it for a moment. “I like to hope so. But I also happen to know that some people do bad things and never get punished for it. They get away with it.”

  She stopped coloring with her purple crayon and looked over at my gold star, sitting on the table near my elbow. “Can I see that?”

  “Sure.”

  I handed it to her, and she moved it around in her hands, touching each point, turning it around and running her finger along the pin in back. She passed it back to me. “Is that why you got that star, Daddy? Do you stop people from doing bad things?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and ran the palm of my hand over my clammy forehead. “It’s hard to prevent bad things from happening. The best we can hope for is to capture the men and women who do bad things, make sure they get punished, and hope others learn from it.”

  “Daddy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Promise me nothing bad will ever happen to you.”

  The telephone rang. She watched me, her eyes begging me to speak the words.

  “Excuse me for a second, jelly bean,” I said.

  “OK. Hurry, Daddy.”

  “I’ll do my best.” I winked at her, and she winked back.

  I walked over to the wall nook, lifted the telephone’s earpiece, and held the transmitter up near my mouth. “Hello.”

  The line crackled and party line voices came and went.

  “Hello,” I said again.

  “Art! It’s me, Seymour.”

  “Considine?”

  “Yeah, Seymour Considine. I think it’s about time we had one of our powwows. I’m sitting on a gold mine with this Pfalzgraf case.”

  I turned sideways to see Sarah Jane sitting at the table, smiling, looking at me expectantly, probably wishing I would join her again. I maneuvered into the kitchen, as far as the telephone cord would stretch.

  “Haven’t you heard?” I asked. “The case is closed.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’ve been digging deep for a follow-up story, and there’s a hell of a lot more to this case than meets the eye. For starters, Clyde Alexander was the wrong man. Sure, he was a no-good grifter and blackmailer, but he wasn’t a killer. Pfalzgraf’s murderer was a button man, I’m sure of it. Hired by someone who’s loaded and connected.”

  “So what’s next?” I asked.

  He laughed—a little too uproariously given the question I posed. “I hope you don’t think I’m going to tell you my plans over the telephone, Oveson. We’ve got party lines all the way to Omaha listening in. No, we have to talk in person.”

  “I don’t have much to give you in exchange for your information,” I said. “I put aside my investigation. Sheriff’s orders.”

  “So you believed that hogwash about Alexander?”

  “Sheriff Cannon closed the case after I found Alexander’s body with a suicide note,” I said. “You can’t blame me for giving up. Alexander had an awful reputation. I’m still not convinced he was innocent.”

  “What about Sam Louis?”

  I needed a moment because that name unexpectedly paralyzed me.

  “Oveson! You still there?”

  “Yeah. I’m here. How do you know about Sam Louis?”

  “I found out about him the same way you did,” said Considine. “I bothered to get my ass off the chair and actually do some legwork, which is more than I can say for most of your pals in the county sheriff’s office. The police haven’t done much better, either. I thought mentioning Sam’s name would shake you up.”

  “Well, it worked. You’ve definitely got my attention now.”

  “Something else,” he said. “Dr. Pfalzgraf knows people in high places. He’s protected. You and I need to talk, Oveson. I’m staying in town.”

  “Where?”

  “You know the Valley-Vu Motor Court?”

  “Thirteenth South and State?”

  “That’s the place. Number eight. Come around nine o’clock tonight. Wait till you see what I’ve uncovered.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said. I heard a click, my cue to drop the receiver on the cradle.

  Sarah Jane called out from the other room, “C’mon, Daddy. Let’s finish our coloring.”

  Her voice warmed my heart. “Coming.”

  * * *

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Valley-Vu Motor Court at five minutes to nine. The Valley-Vu consisted of two rows of ten identical cabins made to look rustic, complete with green shutters, flower boxes under each window, and attached carports. A neon VACANCY sign burned red and yellow into my retinas. The stars were out, but it was too early in the year for the crickets to chirp their nocturnal symphony.

  I passed between the buildings and arrived at cabin 8. A 25-watt globe lit the porch and a couple of rocking chairs. I gave a knock. Nothing. I knocked again. From the cabin to the left came sounds of moans and groans—a man and a woman making whoopee. Music played in another cabin, something jumpy, heavy on the horns with a little percussion thrown in to keep rhythm.

  I broke out the lock pick and a minute later pushed the door open.

  There wasn’t much to the cabin: one room with a bed, bureau, settee, and rolltop desk; a kitchenette with a small icebox and hot plate; and a toilet-and-shower restroom with cold tile floors. The room was empty, but I knew when I walked in and saw all the bloodstains on the bed, carpet, and walls that something terrible had happened to Considine. My gut told me he wouldn’t be churning out any more five-cent-a-word stories. I took out my .38 and cocked back the hammer. I made sure not to touch anything. The drawers had been yanked out of the bureau. Clothes were strewn everywhere. The top mattress was halfway off the bed, and the blood-saturated linens had been pulled off and thrown into piles in the corner of the room. Even the complimentary copies of the Gideons’ Bible and the Book of Mormon were on the floor. The icebox door was ajar, open enough for me to see that Considine had stocked it with Ward’s Strong Wyoming Ale. He probably picked it up from one of the downtown bootleg joints.

  The telephone rang. The clock said nine, the time I was supposed to arrive. I walked over to the bedside table and, using my handkerchief, picked up the earpiece receiver. I waited for the person on the other end to speak.

  A high-pitched woman’s voice said, “This is the front desk. I have a telephone call for room eight.”

  “Put ’em through,” I said.

  A man’s voice said, “You made your nine o’clock appointment, Art.”

  I instantly recognized the voice. “Roscoe? Is that you?”

  “None other. I hate to break it to you, my friend, but it looks like your little motor lodge conclave with Considine ain’t gonna happ
en.”

  “I guessed as much.”

  “You better meet me at Saltair—a mile west, to be exact, at the South Point turnoff. You can’t miss it. You’ll see all the police car headlamps. Make it snappy, will ya?”

  I didn’t wait to say good-bye. I wiped my prints off the exterior doorknob, then got in my car and sped up State to North Temple, took a hard left from North Temple onto U.S. Route 40, and kept on 40 all the way out to the Great Salt Lake.

  Fifteen minutes passed, and Saltair came into view. If Coney Island and the Taj Mahal could give birth to a runt offspring, it would be Saltair, a Persian-influenced fun park, with rides, slides, games, and eateries, located on the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake. The sprawling pavilion juts out into the water, and its big brown minarets give the place a certain Near Eastern exoticism. As you stroll the grounds, though, it quickly becomes evident that this place—its nickel arcades, its red-white-and-blue bunting, its carousel and rickety roller coaster—is about as American as it gets.

  The Mormons built Saltair in 1893, twenty miles from Salt Lake City, hoping it would be Utah’s Coney Island. They wanted to persuade the federal government that we Utahns were just like everybody else. In those years, there was stiff resistance in Washington to allowing Utah to be admitted into the Union because of the territory’s long history of allowing plural marriage. The Mormon Church stopped sanctioning polygamous marriages in 1890, but it would take more than that to convince the United States government to admit Utah as a state. The church also embraced all things American, including amusement parks, which happened to be the big craze at the time. Not only did the church fund the construction of this massive pavilion filled with rides, games, and sweet things to eat, Church authorities also footed the bill to build a Saltair railroad depot with lines coming in daily from Ogden, Salt Lake, and Provo.

  The original pavilion burned down back in the big fire of ’25, but the Church quickly rebuilt it, better than it was before. Today, thirty-seven years after Saltair’s grand opening, the place still drew big crowds and was open late for wholesome family fun under the stars. As I neared it—about a quarter to ten—park lights flashed in different colors, merry-go-round music cheered the darkness, and a few intrepid bathers braved the still-cold waters of the Great Salt Lake. I lead-footed it across the causeway in my Plymouth, keeping pace with a locomotive roaring west toward the park. Yellow lights burned inside the passenger car windows, and the people inside—men, women, and children—moved freely, talking, laughing, full of merriment.

  I passed Saltair, accelerating into the darkness and admiring the park’s resplendent glow in my rearview mirror. I turned off at the South Point exit and followed the short, very dark road north to the shore of the Great Salt Lake. The headlamps on my car illuminated the scene before me: five Salt Lake City Police Department patrol cars, two sheriff’s vehicles, and the county morgue wagon. Spotlights attached to autos beamed on the lake. An army of uniformed cops stood on the shore, watching two of their own wearing green chest waders pulling something out of the water.

  I parked and got out of my car. Walking to the scene, I came face-to-face with Roscoe Lund, dressed in patrolman’s blue with a Salt Lake City Police Department cap pushed back high on his head. He stood next to a black-and-white, looking every bit the policeman.

  I wanted to hug him, yet I settled for a handshake.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t—”

  “Yeah, I know. The choirboy. The Boy Scout. The goody-two-shoes. Am I forgetting anything?”

  He nodded. “The Mormon Marauder. Mr. Vanilla. Saint Art. Deputy Squeaky Clean. You know, I could go on…”

  “No. That’s OK. I get the picture.”

  Roscoe grinned, showcasing that gap between his front teeth. “How the hell are you, Art?”

  “I’d be a lot happier if we were partners again. How about you? You look like you’ve done well for yourself.”

  He made a long face and rolled his eyes. “I landed a job on Night Watch, Pioneer Patrol. The hours are late, but I don’t mind. Beats the shit out of being unemployed.”

  I nodded. “You’re sorely missed in the sheriff’s office.”

  “Yeah, well, I hope for your sake the voters give that cocksucker Cannon the boot and elect Blackham.”

  Now’s the perfect time to change the subject, I thought. I said, “How did you know to call me at the Valley-Vu?”

  “Your name and home phone number turned up on Valley-Vu stationery I found inside the glove box of a late-model Oldsmobile belonging to Seymour Considine. The car is parked up the road about a hundred yards. I was the one who found the car, and when I saw your name on the stationery, I pocketed it, so the homicide dicks wouldn’t find it. Not that you’d get in any trouble. You’re just a lawman like the rest of us, doing a day’s work. Still, Detective Hawkins can be a pain in the ass, even if you wear a badge. Along with your name and number, Considine wrote 9:00 p.m. I figured the two of you must’ve had an appointment. When I found the stationery, I drove to a nearby call box to call and see if you were there. Sure enough…”

  “Thanks for doing all that,” I said. “I owe you.”

  “You could say that.” He winked.

  I turned in time to see the police dropping a waterlogged corpse on the shore.

  Tom Livsey came sloshing out of the water toward us, wearing the same type of green chest waders as the police. We shook hands as water cascaded down his rubber-covered legs.

  “Art. We’ve gotta stop meeting like this.”

  “No kidding, Tom. How’s every little thing?”

  “I’m fine. Can’t say the same for him…”

  I walked over to the body and, by the light of the automobile headlamps, saw it was Considine. His face was sliced up in several places, much of his nose and part of his mouth had been cut off, and his shirt was covered with bloody tears where a knife had punctured his torso.

  “He’s a human pincushion,” said Livsey. “We won’t know how many times he was stabbed until Nash gives him a good going-over.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Livsey scratched his nose and gazed out at the shimmering water. “He was stabbed somewhere else, thrown into the trunk of his own car, and driven out here. Some bathers from Saltair were walking along the beach and saw the body floating facedown.”

  “Obviously the killer wanted the body found,” said Roscoe.

  Livsey looked at him. “Why do you say that?”

  “There are a thousand places in the West Desert where you can dump a body and nobody will ever find it,” said Roscoe. “The perp picked a stretch of water near Saltair, the busiest resort in the state.”

  Livsey shook his head and stared down at the lacerated corpse. “There’s nothing obvious about it. We might be dealing with a rank amateur who doesn’t know any better.” He began to unbutton his chest waders and started off toward the morgue wagon. “If you gentlemen will excuse me…”

  “See you later, Tom,” I said.

  Roscoe scowled as he watched Tom walk away. Tom was probably still in earshot when he said, “I can’t stand that cocksucker.”

  Roscoe looked at me. At that point, I could not hide the shock of seeing Considine so thoroughly sliced up, and I think Roscoe sensed that. He said, “What did Considine want with you?”

  “He was researching a story on the Pfalzgraf murder for that true detective magazine he writes for,” I said. “He was going to share some of his information with me. He telephoned me at home earlier and asked me to meet him at the Valley-Vu.”

  “How did you know him?”

  Time to fess up, I decided. “Remember when we saw him at the Vienna?”

  “You cut a deal while I was out back taking a piss?”

  “Something like that.”

  Roscoe nodded and made a slight face, what I’d call a partial glower. He said, “Well, if you did it, I know you meant well, Art.”

  “He said he dug up a lot of dirt on
the Pfalzgraf homicide,” I said. “He insisted there’s more to it than the public knows. He was going to show me what he had at our meeting tonight. I showed up at the time we agreed on. He didn’t answer the door, so I jimmied the lock and went in. Somebody ransacked his room. Gave it a good going-over. Did you find anything in his car other than that pad of stationery?”

  “Yeah, a couple of pints of blood in his trunk. No other papers, though.”

  I was quiet for a moment, staring at the lines etched into Roscoe’s face, the smoothness of his clean-shaven chin, the tiny razor cuts on his neck. He was looking at the body, but he sensed my eyes on him and turned to me. “What is it?” he asked.

  “C. W. Alexander didn’t kill Helen Pfalzgraf,” I said.

  “Who did?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to do my darnedest—” I saw him smile at my language. “I’m going to do my damnedest to find out.”

  “Good luck with that,” he said.

  “I need your help.”

  “My help?

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry, Art. I got fired. Remember? I’m off the case.”

  “You can still help me. I can’t do it without you,” I said.

  “Sure you can.” He rubbed his hands over his face, took a deep breath, and exhaled shakily. His eyes were weary and full of sadness. He said, “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a damn good lawman. You’re young. You’ve still got a few things to learn. You’re getting the hang of it, though, and you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Hell, all I am is an aging night cop, halfway over the hill and on my way to the bottom. I’ve got a lot of shit going on in my life that you know nothing about. I’m tired. I get paid chicken feed, and I’m in debt up to my chest. My joints ache. Every day, I’m amazed I have the juice to get the fuck out of bed. Excuse the French. I’m tired, Art. The last thing I want to do is stick my neck on the chopping block. Don’t ask me to get involved.”

  I nodded, and the two of us watched the morgue boys loading the body onto a stretcher and covering it with a white sheet. Buddy Hawkins and Wit Dunaway, in hats, ties, and buttoned-up coats, stood near the morgue wagon and watched the vehicle speed off into the darkness. Buddy walked over to me, looking me up and down.