City of Saints

by Andrew Hunt

  “I guess you could say that,” said Harmony. “He was the only other abortionist in town. He charged a hundred bucks. I thought I was getting a good deal. Pay a hundred, go home with a hundred.”

  “How did you find out about Wooley?” I asked.

  “I asked around. If you talk to enough people, you find out who’s who.”

  “How did you meet Pfalzgraf?” I asked.

  “Margaret called him when I got sick. He paid several house calls. I got to know him. He wasn’t such a bad guy. I’d describe him as considerate. He made a couple of follow-up visits.” She chuckled again. “If only he’d been so kind when I came up fifty bucks short. I later found out that Pfalzgraf has one of the best reputations in this country as an abortionist. I can’t say the same for Wooley. He used his clinic to mutilate innocent women and girls.”

  “Did Pfalzgraf approach you about going after Wooley?”

  “No. It was Margaret’s idea. Margaret said Wooley’s operation killed a lot of young women. She said somebody needed to stand up to him. Pfalzgraf was Margaret’s physician, so she talked to him. She convinced me to go after Wooley. I did. I’m glad I did. The board stripped him of his license. I remember the day it happened. He was upset. He hollered at Pfalzgraf. He hollered at me real good. I laughed at him. What was he going to do to me worse than what he’d already done? I heard he later hit Pfalzgraf in a restaurant. Then he vamoosed. Turned up in Ogden later, and I’m sure you fellows know what happened to him. Although you didn’t know Pfalzgraf was an abortion doctor, so I shouldn’t assume anything.”

  “We know what happened to Wooley,” I said.

  She pushed her glasses higher on her nose and said, “We didn’t lose much when he died. So is that why you’re here? He was murdered a year and a half ago.”

  “Partly,” I said, “and partly we’re looking into Helen Pfalzgraf’s murder.”

  She said, “But I thought—”

  “It’s complicated,” said Roscoe. “You’ll be doing us all a big favor if you don’t ask us to explain. I’ve got one more question, then we’ll leave you be.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you know somebody named Sam Louis?”

  She scrunched her face, shook her head. “Loomis?”

  Roscoe said, “No. Louis. L-O-U-I-S. Ring any bells?”

  “Oh, Louis. No. I don’t know anybody named Sam Louis. Never heard of him.”

  We rose from our chairs, and she stood and shook hands with us.

  “If you fellows ever have supplies you’d like to donate to Caroline House, we’ll gladly accept them,” she said. “We could use everything. Books. Aspirin. Toilet paper. Baby food. Diapers. You name it.”

  “It’s a great place,” I said. “I didn’t even know it was here.”

  “It’s been here ten years,” she said. “Margaret named it after her daughter. I guess you could say helping out here is my religion now. About the only thing I believe in now is helping these girls get a good start on life. We all need to look after each other. Girls are strong, but they’re also delicate at the same time.”

  On my way out, I turned to Harmony, took out my billfold, and donated a few dollars to the cause, even though I couldn’t easily afford it. As we left the house, I noticed Roscoe rolling his eyes and muttering something about me being a “sentimentalist.”

  “Guilty as charged,” I told him.

  Nineteen

  It takes a couple of minutes to get from A Street to the Brooks Arcade. I parallel parked between two cars next to the State Street curb. The day was overcast, and the lunch crowds had thinned out as the dashboard clock hands ticked toward one. We got out of the car and walked in through the office entrance, took the elevator to the second floor, and found our way down the carpeted hall to room 268.

  Eunice Mickelson, whose voice I’d heard so many times on the telephone, sat at the desk fielding switchboard calls. She had wavy hair the color of honey and a V-necked dress, short-sleeved, in an earthy brown. She wore a silver necklace with a purple amethyst, and her fingernails were painted a shade that matched the gem. She saw us entering the office and removed her cumbersome headphones with the attached transmitter.

  “Hello, gentlemen,” she said. “May I help you?”

  We flashed badges and made with the introductions.

  “I know you,” she said to me. “Why haven’t you called me lately?”

  I blushed. “I thought you’d be happy to stop getting those calls.”

  “To tell you the truth, I was starting to think you didn’t like me.” She smiled and winked.

  “Can it, you two,” said Roscoe, looking around. “Where’s Pfalzgraf? We’ve got some questions to ask him.”

  “He’s not here. He’s—”

  Roscoe put his hands on the desk and leaned in so close, he made her rear back. “Listen, doll face, we don’t wanna talk to that shitbird Berkeley-educated attorney of his. We want the doc himself. Where is he?”

  “I was about to tell you, you rude sonofabitch,” she said, eyebrows furrowed. “Why don’t you shut up long enough to let me answer?”

  Roscoe looked at me and said, “This is my kinda dame.” He looked at her. “Well?”

  “He’s gone for the day. You may wish to try him at his home.”

  Roscoe pulled his trousers higher on his waist and said, “C’mon, Art, let’s go have a look around.”

  She stood up so abruptly she sent her wheeled swivel chair rolling in the other direction. “Wait! You need a warrant to search this place!”

  Roscoe stopped, turned to Eunice, and pulled a piece of yellow paper out of his coat pocket. “I’ve got that taken care of, doll face. Judge Bringhurst signed it this morning. It’s right here if you’d care to read the fine print.”

  She eyed the warrant, then Roscoe, then the warrant. She licked her lips, took a deep breath, and eased back toward the switchboard. “Go ahead.”

  Roscoe started off down the hall, and I followed him. As we neared Pfalzgraf’s office, I said, “How’d you cop a warrant out of Bringhurst that quickly? I thought he was stingy with those things.”

  Roscoe faced me, unfolded the yellow paper, and held it up, and the first thing I noticed was the Firestone logo in the corner. “It’s for two pair of vulcanized tires. Four bucks and fifty cents apiece, down at Sam the Tire Man. You think I actually got a warrant from Bringhurst? I avoid that cocksucker like the plague.”

  “So you lied to her?”

  He glared at me as he tucked the receipt back in his pocket. “It was for the greater good. C’mon, choirboy. Shake a leg. Let’s get results.”

  DR. HANS PFALZGRAF—PRIVATE OFFICE, it said on the pebbled glass. Roscoe opened the door and walked inside. I followed him.

  Pfalzgraf’s office was larger than the waiting room and filled from floor to ceiling with bookcases packed with medical volumes and enclosed by glass doors. The eastern wall was covered with photographs of Pfalzgraf with big shots. On the west wall, behind Pfalzgraf’s huge long desk, an oil painting of Helen Pfalzgraf dominated. The painting of Helen shared the wall with a framed mirror to its left, and left of the mirror was a closet door. Roscoe rummaged through a few drawers and filing cabinets while I checked the view from the south window.

  “Come in here, Art,” said Roscoe from the closet. “There’s something you ought to see.”

  I stepped inside a narrow walk-in closet, startled to discover a motion picture camera mounted on a tripod and aimed at a two-way mirror. Sitting atop a table next to the camera was a big, box-shaped object with a metallic green surface that resembled a phonograph machine, only larger and without the horn-shaped speaker. A logo on the side of the machine read WESTERN ELECTRIC NO. 555 RECEIVER. There was a red light on it and a row of switches and dials.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “This, my friend, is the latest in motion picture technology,” said Roscoe. “A motion picture camera with synchronized sound. Used for shooting talkies. This baby right here h
as a perfect panoramic view of Pfalzgraf’s office. It’s wired to a control panel behind Pfalzgraf’s desk. There are hidden microphones in his office so the recorder can pick up the sound. All he has to do is throw a couple of switches and he films everything that’s going on.”

  Roscoe ran his hand along the camera’s black surface, stopping when he reached the lens. “Must’ve set him back a pretty penny.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Insurance. He may be good at what he does—hell, he might even be the best—but he’s still vulnerable. If a district attorney or judge gets any fancy ideas, Pfalzgraf can put in a telephone call to one of his rich friends, someone with pull who has a lot to lose if Pfalzgraf hands over the right film to the local newspapers.”

  I nodded, and the significance of what I was seeing hit me. “So if he has filmed everything…”

  “He’s got leverage,” said Roscoe.

  “Do you think Alexander got ahold of those films?” I asked. “And that’s what he was using to blackmail people?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. Come on. Let’s check the operating room.”

  We left the cramped space, passed through the office, and crossed the hallway. I opened the door to a room opposite Pfalzgraf’s office and switched on the lights. The whiteness of the room stung the eyes: white tile, a white bed with stirrups, white counters, bright white lights on adjustable, wheeled chrome stands. Adjacent to the bed was a long table on wheels covered with steel instruments—pointed, twisted, unnatural, used for cutting, poking, scraping, and sucking. Roscoe walked up to what I guessed was another two-way mirror and checked his reflection, mumbling the word “handsome,” then pushed open a closet door beside it, went inside, and found a setup similar to the one in Pfalzgraf’s office. Same type of camera. Same type of recording equipment.

  “I bet these things set him back a hundred G’s,” said Roscoe. “He probably had to go out to Hollywood to get them. I’m sure he sends the undeveloped films out there to be processed, too.”

  “Hollywood,” I said. “Roland Lane.”

  “The actor?” asked Roscoe.

  I nodded.

  “What about him?”

  “It’s a hunch…”

  I returned to Pfalzgraf’s office, to a file drawer marked J-K-L, and walked my fingers through the files until I reached a dossier marked LANE, DOROTHY.

  Roscoe came in with his hands in his pockets. “Well?”

  I read enough of the file to get the picture: Roland Lane had brought Dorothy Lane to Utah five years ago for one of Dr. Pfalzgraf’s famous “surgeries.” I closed the dossier and tucked it back into its proper place.

  I said, “So that’s how the doctor and Helen Pfalzgraf met Roland Lane.”

  “Do you suppose that’s how Helen landed her audition at First National?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, closing the filing cabinet.

  “Why don’t we go straight to the source?” asked Roscoe.

  I faced him. “You mean…”

  “Let’s go see what the doctor has to say.”

  * * *

  Floyd Samuelson, in his black security guard getup, lowered his copy of Outdoor America and eyed us as we pulled up to the curb in front of the Pfalzgraf mansion. I waited for a red trolley to pass and watched it round the corner onto Thirteenth East, then I checked my Bulova: 2:30. Crossing the street, I thought about how much things had changed since I came here in February. The snow had all melted, thanks to the arrival of warm spring weather. The first buds poked out of the ends of tree branches. No newshounds. No newsreel cameras. No shutterbugs. Normality had returned to South Temple and, once again, the loudest sound was the birdsong coming from the towering trees. Floyd grimaced when he noticed Roscoe, closed his magazine, and tipped his cap at me.

  “Hiya, Art.”

  “Floyd, how’s every little thing?”

  We shook hands through the gate.

  “Everything’s jake. Hey, I’ve got something to show you!” His grin widened as he scooped his billfold out of his pocket and flipped it open to a snapshot of his son, bundled up outdoors and holding a fishing pole. The boy was grim-faced, and his freckled cheeks puffed out to make him look even more sullen. “This is Bert with his first rod and reel.”

  I nodded. “You must be proud. He’s a handsome kid.”

  “He’s a chip off the old block,” said Floyd, admiring the photo for a moment before tucking it back in his trouser pocket and patting the lump for good measure. “Hey, are they hiring down at the sheriff’s office?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” I said. “Why? You thinking of applying?”

  Floyd went shifty-eyed and lowered his voice. “I’m getting tired of this job. Long hours with nothing to do but sit here and read magazines and pick my nose. It’s for the birds. Not what I signed up for when we went through the academy.”

  I bowed my head and laughed. “Well, come on down and fill out an application form sometime.”

  “I might just do that, Art,” he said, cheered up again. “I might very well.”

  “I need to talk to Dr. Pfalzgraf, Floyd. Is he here?”

  “I’m sorry, he can’t talk to you,” said Floyd. “He’s busy.”

  Roscoe cut in front of me, grabbed an iron bar, and gave the gate a good rattle. “Horseshit. Open this gate and let us in.”

  Floyd backed up a few steps, shaking his head. “You don’t scare me, Lund.”

  “You want me to make a scene out here?” said Roscoe, pacing back and forth in front of the gate. “I’ll do it, if I have to. I’ll make one hell of a racket. I’ll wake up the dead. I’ll let the whole world know what the doctor really does for a living.”

  Behind Floyd, the twin doors of the Pfalzgraf mansion opened, and the white-haired doctor in a black suit and string tie came hobbling out of his house. He crossed the lawn slowly and reached us at the gate, steadying himself with a silver-handled cane. He wore bifocals and a suit that, like everything else he owned, probably came from Germany and cost a small fortune. He was taller than I thought—about six one, neck bent forward. He had a soft face with wrinkles around his mouth and eyes and white hair around his ears.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, in a voice softer than rabbit’s fur. “I expected you to show up sooner. Floyd, let them in.”

  “But Doc…”

  “You heard me. Please let these gentlemen pass through the gate.”

  Floyd reached for his ring of keys, unlocked the padlock, and slid the gate open for us. Pfalzgraf started across the lawn, and we followed past the side of the house and into the backyard, a place full of flower gardens that weren’t yet blossoming due to the earliness of the season, with a burbling stone fountain that attracted birds. We ended up at a stone picnic table, under a canopy of trees that shielded us from the mild March sun.

  “I love to sit out here,” he said, still holding tightly to his cane. “It’s peaceful. It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Oveson.”

  “You as well,” I said.

  “I don’t believe we’ve ever met,” he said, offering his hand to Roscoe, who glared and refused to shake it. Pfalzgraf lowered his arm with a shrug and sideways tip of his head, as if to say, Your loss.

  “This is Officer Lund,” I said. “Of the Salt Lake City Police Department. We’re conducting an investigation together.”

  “I know why you’re here,” Pfalzgraf said. “It’s about Helen.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “I owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude, Mr. Oveson,” he said. “I hope that reward money I gave you has been of some help.”

  “You were too generous, Doctor,” I said.

  Roscoe said, “Let’s leave out the mutual dick sucking for another time, shall we? You best level with us, Doc, or I’ll haul your pruny hide down—”

  Doc cut him off. “What’s your name again?”

  “Officer Roscoe Lund.”

  “Don’t you ever speak to me that way again, Officer Lund,” he s
aid, raising his cane ominously. “You may think you’re tougher than me, but I promise you are not.”

  Roscoe looked Pfalzgraf over, knowing he was outranked. Glad as I was to be partnered with him again, it was refreshing to see him humbled by this elderly man.

  Pfalzgraf said, “Do you think I would’ve let either of you onto the grounds if I’d been the one who murdered Helen? I had nothing to do with her death. I am more eager than anybody to find out who murdered her. That is why I gave you the reward money, Oveson, because I thought you solved this case. And that is why I let you in here, on the grounds.”

  “Thank you,” I said, glancing sideways at Roscoe. “I’ll get right to the point, Doctor. Where were you the night your wife was murdered?”

  “I believe Parley Tanner answered that question at the coroner’s inquest. He and I attended a wrestling match at the Majestic, and there were many witnesses who saw us there and can confirm this fact.”

  “It’s strange,” said Roscoe.

  “What is?” asked Pfalzgraf.

  Roscoe tapped the marble with his fingers. “Your first wife was crushed to death thirteen years ago when your own touring car rolled on top of her. Your second wife was pulverized under the wheels of her own Cadillac. Doesn’t that strike you as a little too coincidental?”

  “I suppose it is…” He searched for the right word. “Unusual.”

  “To say the least,” Roscoe said quietly.

  I said, “Did Helen want to divorce you?”

  “Yes.”

  He blurted out the answer before I finished asking the question.

  I said, “But Parley Tanner said at the coroner’s inquest that—”

  “Dear Parley was trying to avoid embarrassing me in front of all those people. He was wrong. She wanted a divorce, and she asked me for it the day before she was killed. We quarreled for almost two hours, and we continued fighting even after we visited Parley’s office. I begged Helen to stay married to me and promised her that we could work out whatever problems we had. I reminded her that I lost my Nellie in a car accident all those years ago and I didn’t want to lose her, too. I also told Helen how much Anna loved her—adored her like a sister, in fact—and that her leaving would devastate Anna as much as it would me. I tried so hard to convince Helen to stay, but she said she could not remain married to me. She ran out, and I never saw her again. After Helen left, I experienced what you might call a change of heart and decided to give her the divorce she requested. The next morning…”