City of Saints

by Andrew Hunt

  Only one option remained. Clutching the flashlight, I lifted the box with both hands and started walking in what I thought was the direction of the stope. I could not be sure, though, because not so much as a ray of light broke through that far beneath the earth’s surface.

  I tried talking to myself—“Keep going, Art … You’re going to make it”—which I found strangely comforting. It felt as though someone else, a friend, was down there with me, sharing in the grief. “When you get out of here, you can take Clara and the kids out for—”

  My feet slipped out from under me. I slid down a gravelly forty-five-degree slope. I kept sliding for what must have been fifty feet. The box fell out of my hands. The ground and roof kept narrowing until rock closed in on my waist like a pincer and stopped my fall. The good news: I was no longer sliding. The bad news: I was stuck at the waist. Below my waist, the crevice was so narrow I could hardly move my legs. The box slid to a halt next to me, and even though it was an inanimate object, I felt like it was taunting me, telling me I was a fool to creep down into this Stygian hole in the earth.

  Funny thing is, even though my religion taught me that if I died I would be reunited with my family in the hereafter, I found little comfort in that thinking. Instead, the fear of never seeing my wife or kids again dogged me.

  Staying where I was, lodged in a crevice, was not an option. I summoned what strength I had left and pried my body loose. The warm sensation of blood on my shin came from a deep cut on my knee.

  “If you make it out, Art,” I said, “you can take your family to Keeley’s for ice cream…”

  I dislodged myself and hooked my arm around that box. Then I inchwormed up the slope, tugging the box with me. This continued for a half hour until I felt the slope leveling. I shoved the box to the level surface at the top of the incline. I slid several feet backward but dug into the rocky ground with my fingernails and clawed myself to a halt.

  By the time I made it to the level path, I was exhausted and my lungs ached when I breathed. I picked up the box and resumed my trek to the stope. Soon I could feel myself inside of that enormous room thanks to the sound of dripping water. I was almost out.

  When I finally emerged from the Hurricane, my body was bruised and cut up in dozens of places, and I had abrasions all over my front and back from sliding into that crevice. I no longer had my Stetson, either. It was somewhere back in that black hole, and I had no intention of returning for it.

  The sun never felt so wonderful, the air never cleaner, and I considered dropping to my hands and knees and kissing terra firma. I dropped the box into the back of my car, and I used my pocketknife to cut the pieces of twine that held the lid shut. I opened it and feasted my eyes on those eighty-odd canisters of film, and below those, a stack of about half that many phonograph albums, all labeled with the name of the interviewee. I closed the flaps and figured I would soon find out whether my foolhardy escapade into that abandoned mine was worth it.

  Twenty-three

  The movie marquee at the Isis advertised a double feature of Song of the West. starring John Boles and Vivienne Segal, and On with the Show, starring Joe E. Brown and Betty Compson. Below those headliners, a smaller sign promised ICED AIR, AUDIBLE SCREEN, NEWSREELS, SPORT REVUES & CARTOONS. Not quite 10:00 A.M. and storm clouds brewed over the valley, spitting droplets on my windshield as I got out of my car. I had on my new Stetson, my third in a month. At this rate, I was running the risk of going broke buying hats.

  I carried the box of films in my arms, and my body ached from yesterday’s ordeal in the Hurricane mine, especially the cuts on my back and chest. I got a good earful from Clara when she saw me in my dusty and battered state after I narrowly escaped that deep hole in the earth. She insisted on taking me to see Dr. May. He bandaged me, gave me free tins of Anacin, and sent me home. On the way, I stopped at Roscoe’s apartment to feed Barney and used his telephone to call the hospital for an update. “Officer Lund is awake,” the doctor told me. “It’s a great sign.” I sighed with relief.

  At the Isis, my church pal Owen Vanderhoff had promised me an hour of projector time. He told me to check for a key in the drop box near the entrance. I fished out an envelope with a note and a key inside. The note said, Don’t forget the leaves and branches you promised to help me clear. I laughed as I read it—I was running up tabs all over the place—and stuffed it in my pocket. Then, balancing the box in one arm, I used the key to unlock one of the swinging doors.

  In the dim lobby, I located a panel of black and white buttons near the snack bar. A few finger punches activated lights, including blinking globes around COMING SOON glass-case poster displays. Only a few days left until the opening of William Haines and Leila Hyams in The Girl Said No. “Hmm,” I said. “Maybe I’ll have to get a babysitter and bring Clara to that one.” I cut across the lobby to the projector booth. Owen had left me handwritten instructions on how to operate the machine, but I already knew how it worked.

  I opened the box and took out the canisters, all eighty-two, stacking them on a table by the projector. Many had notes taped to them, presumably written by C. W. Alexander. I read the scrawls. A few were illegible. They appeared to be notations, perhaps to remind Alexander of each film’s contents. DAUGHTER OF SENATOR & MRS. M—. MISTRESS OF THOMAS L—. WIFE OF CONGRESSMAN R.A—. NIECE OF VICE PRESIDENT …

  The notes listed the name of the woman in the film and her connection to someone powerful. Among the luminaries were baseball players and movie stars, members of Congress and industrialists, bankers and attorneys, investment whizzes, physicians, oil barons, radio performers, and governors. The sound disks sat at the bottom of the box in a neat stack, all of them in yellowing paper, most dated between ’25 and ’29.

  I popped open a canister, threaded a film into the projector, and turned a dial, and the reel began spinning. The projector clackety-clacked as it engaged the film’s sprocket holes. For the next hour, I watched as many films as I could thread and rewind, thread and rewind, thread and rewind.

  The sound warbled, and the lighting in Pfalzgraf’s office was not sufficient. Despite the poor quality, I could plainly see the uniqueness of each woman. Some were shy, others gregarious. In age they ranged from young women—girls, really—who couldn’t have been any older than their midteens all the way up to spinster types, late thirties or early forties. High-pitched talk came out of some mouths like squeaks, while a few women had throaty, almost mannish voices. Nearly all appeared prosperous, and many could be described as fashionable. Cloche hats. Bobbed hair. Vogue dresses.

  After a while, they blended in my mind.

  I rubbed my eyes and buried my face in my hands. Then a thought flashed in my mind—Clara somehow ending up in a situation like this—and a bout of nausea gripped me. Each of those women could have been Clara. All of those faces, voices—they wouldn’t leave me alone. They mixed together in my head, a kaleidoscope, swirling in circles. Long after I stopped the films, the voices kept coming at me out of the darkness.

  The clock on the wall warned me I had been in there more than an hour. Owen would be returning soon. Time to pack up. I had only had a chance to watch about a quarter of the films. I would have to return later, maybe late at night, after the last picture of the day.

  I lifted a stack of reels and lowered them into the box, tucking them in neatly next to the phonograph albums. That’s when I saw it at the bottom of the box. An object poking out from under a stack of phonograph albums. I reached my arm all the way down and pinched the corner of what turned out to be a large cream-colored mailing envelope. I walked over to the light to get a better look. Somebody had written the name PARLEY TANNER on the outside. I sat on a nearby chair and opened it.

  I tipped it open side down and shook it. Out spilled the contents: a canister of film and a bundle of letter-sized envelopes, each torn open, and wrapped in a blue ribbon. The letters smelled of a men’s cologne. The film can had the name ELIZABETH TANNER, all caps, handwritten on it.

 
“Elizabeth Tanner,” I said. I flashed back to the Tanners’ house last month … my conversation with Parley and Miriam Tanner … Parley’s words: Poliomyelitis. We rushed her to the hospital, but we didn’t get her there in time. The virus entered her bloodstream and …

  It was 11:12 A.M. Would I have enough time to watch it?

  I snapped the reel onto the projector, fed the film into the metal loading chute, and turned the start dial.

  The silent black-and-white film showed Elizabeth Tanner—identical to the woman in the painting in the Tanners’ living room—sitting in Pfalzgraf’s office, carrying on a conversation with the doctor. There wasn’t any sound. I eyed the date on the canister: May 18, 1928. This reel should have had a phonograph recording to go with it. I tipped my head up at the movie screen again. The flickering image showed Elizabeth shaking hands with Pfalzgraf, putting on her cloche hat, and leaving the office. The film ended there.

  What on earth were they talking about?

  I thumbed through the phonograph albums in the box, each labeled with the name of a different patient and recording date, but I could not find one for Elizabeth Tanner. “Dang,” I whispered in frustration. I really wanted to hear what they were saying in the film.

  Next, I picked up the stack of letters and untied the ribbon. There were eight in total, all inside of torn-open envelopes. Each envelope bore the name HELEN PFALZGRAF, front and center. I plucked all eight letters out of the envelopes and quickly skimmed each one. They were love letters, full of flowery words in cursive, clearly written by someone who was smitten. It made me squeamish, reading other people’s private letters, but I convinced myself it was necessary.

  Most of them began with “Dear Baby Doll.” I skimmed lines and flipped pages. How I yearn to hold you again … I miss you terribly, and when I see you with the doctor, my heart aches … Let’s go away from here, far away, where we can love each other without any interference … I can’t go on living without you … They were all signed, “Your Lover Daddy.” They all sounded the same, and a few were filled with graphic descriptions of sexual intercourse between the man who wrote them and the recipient. They were dated between June 28, 1928, and February 16, 1930.

  The last letter differed starkly from the rest. For one thing, it was typed on a typewriter, on letterhead from the law firm of Tanner, Smith, and Wells. “Dear Mrs. Pfalzgraf,” it opened. “You will henceforth cease and desist with your claims that I shall be the father of your baby once you have given birth.” The letter went on in icy legalese. “You have no evidence that your pregnancy is the outcome of our intimate relations together. We have not been with each other in that manner for months and I believe you know this to be the case. If you are being perfectly honest with yourself, instead of vainly hoping that I will cast aside my wife of thirty years, you will move on and forget about our illicit companionship. I told you when we spoke on the telephone last week that I intend to remain faithful to my wife and that there is no hope for a reunion between the two of us. If you carry out your threat to tell her about our affair, it will only devastate her. She is innocent and she does not deserve to be hurt in such a dastardly way. Moreover, I ask you right now to stop telephoning me at home, especially late at night, as I do not wish for you to arouse her suspicion.”

  My eyes wandered to the end of the letter and the signature at the bottom nearly made my heart stop. “Sincerely, Mr. P. Tanner, Attorney at Law.”

  Prime blackmail material for C. W. Alexander, one of Utah’s heavy hitters in that highly questionable line of work. How much money was Parley Tanner paying him to keep these letters a secret?

  A knock startled me. I stacked the letters and envelopes and stuffed them, along with the canister marked ELIZABETH TANNER, back in the big envelope.

  The door opened.

  “It’s me, Art,” said Owen, all smiles and good cheer. “Didja get my note?”

  My heart raced and I had the jitters something awful, but I hid it well. “I, uh, I sure did. Thanks so much for letting me use your projector.”

  “Don’t mention it. Sorry I have to chase you out of here, but the matinee is starting soon.” He scooped a pocket watch out of his vest. “Time to ready the reels and open the box office. What about you? Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “If it’s alright with you, I’d like to come back and watch more of these things later.”

  “You can use the place any old time I’m not, Art.” He glanced at the box of films, grinned, and said, “Short subjects, I see. Anything good?”

  “Mostly dull stuff,” I said, patting the top of the box. “Home movies.”

  “No kidding? That’s surprising.”

  “Why?”

  “Most home movies are shot on sixteen millimeter stock. Folks buy those dinky toy projectors to show ’em on the wall. Montgomery Ward sells ’em for forty bucks. These babies here are thirty-five millimeters.”

  I took a deep breath.”Yeah, well, they’re different.”

  “How so?”

  His prying made me squeamish, so I lifted the box and stepped out of the projection room. “Thanks again, Owen.”

  “Hey, Art.”

  I’d gotten a few steps out of the room when I turned. Owen stood in the doorway, wiggling the bulky envelope. “You forgot something.” He read the name on it. “Parley Tanner. Name sounds familiar.”

  I set the box on the floor and opened the flaps, pried the envelope gently out of his hands, and placed it inside with the films and phonograph albums. “See you at church, Owen. Thank you again.”

  “Sure thing, Art.”

  This discovery gave me a rush that somehow alleviated the pain of my cuts and bruises. My mind raced with a hundred different thoughts, all mixed together. My urge to dig up more information outweighed any need I felt to nurse my injuries. I hurried across the movie theater lobby, out the swinging doors into the rain. On the sidewalk in front of the Isis, I loaded the box into the backseat, slammed the door, hurried behind the wheel of the car, started the engine, and sped into a U-turn, so fast I almost slid off the road.

  My car roared through rain-slicked downtown streets at record speeds, and when I reached the City and County Building, across the street from my former place of employment, I parked illegally with my front tire on the sidewalk (“Let ’em ticket me,” I mumbled) and dashed inside in a mad hurry. Glass display directory check—tiny white letters on black background: PUBLIC HEALTH—ROOM 310. Third floor.

  I sprinted up marble steps, breathless by the second floor. I pushed myself to the next floor, banging through a heavy wooden door and maneuvering around the few scattered people in the hallway. They looked at me like I was crazy for running so fast.

  I stumbled inside an anteroom with a couple of chairs, a receptionist at a desk, and a watercooler. A bespectacled redheaded clerk in a light blue dress was so alarmed by my heavy breathing and the rain dripping off me that she went straight to the watercooler and filled a paper cone. She passed it to me, and I thanked her between breaths and took a sip of water. I plopped down in a waiting chair, trying hard to catch my breath.

  “Thank you,” I panted.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I guess I came up here a little too quickly.”

  “You sure did. What is it that you needed so badly you had to rush like that?”

  I wiped moisture off my brow with a handkerchief and drank the rest of the water, then crumpled the cup and tossed it in a nearby wastepaper basket.

  I looked at her—she had freckles, like Clara, but more than Clara, and her soft hazel eyes put me at ease. “Are records of polio deaths available to the public?”

  “Yes. We’ve tracked the disease for almost thirty years. There haven’t been many cases. It hasn’t reached epidemic proportions. Not like the influenza twelve years ago. Do you have a specific name?”

  “Elizabeth Tanner,” I said. “T-A-N-N-E-R. If she died of polio, it would’ve been two years ago.”
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br />   “Tanner?” she asked. I nodded. She stood up and brushed off her dress. “Let me check. I’ll be right back.”

  She left and was gone for five minutes. She returned, nodding her head and pushing her glasses higher on her nose. “Here she is. Diagnosed by Dr. Edmund Reid on the fourteenth of June, in ’27.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “But she recovered.”

  “Come again?”

  “Reid gave her a clean bill of health.”

  “So she didn’t die from it?”

  “Evidently not.”

  “OK. Much obliged.” My panting had eased up, and I stood.

  She laughed and folded her arms over her chest. “Is that why you almost killed yourself running up here? To find out if that Tanner woman died of polio?”

  I straightened my Stetson. “It’d take me a long time to explain it all to you, but yeah, that’s why I almost killed myself. I’m grateful for your help.”

  Twenty-four

  The postman requested I sign for the small parcel. I scribbled my signature, and he passed me the package. It came wrapped in brown paper and, sealed in twine, and the mailing label listed a return address in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Who could have sent it? I closed the door, took the parcel into the kitchen, and found a steak knife. Two upward slashes cut off the twine. I tore off the paper, opened the box, and pulled out a pair of Dictaphone cylinders wrapped in tissue paper. A note came with it. I unfolded it.

  Dear Deputy Oveson: I am sending you two sound cylinders that belonged to my late husband, Seymour Considine. They are compatible with the Dictaphone machine. The first is a recording of his interview with Clyde Alexander, conducted in Park City on March 4, 1930. The second is his interview with Twyla Smoot, formerly of Ogden, dated March 9, 1930. He was in the process of transcribing these at the time of his death. You are the only lawman he ever mentioned by name, and he said you had worked with him. I found your name in his address book. I hope you will be able to make good use of these. Signed, Yours Truly, Mrs. Fern Considine, Asbury Park, New Jersey.