The Butterflies of Grand Canyon

by Margaret Erhart

  “Garage.”

  “Right. It’s this other thing. These telephone calls. He’s been calling her, but where in the heck is he calling from? Heaven?”

  “Who, Gavvy? Who’s calling?”

  Gavia Immer sighs. “She calls him Lowell.”

  “She, who?”

  “Dotty Hedquist.”

  “And this is Lowell Dunhill, you imagine?”

  “I happen to have a perfectly good imagination, Professor, but that’s not what I’m talking about. This is fact, plain and simple.”

  “But surely there’s more than one Lowell in the world. Isn’t it possible Mrs. Hedquist knows someone named Lowell who isn’t that Lowell?”

  “No,” she says firmly. “It’s not the slightest bit possible.” Elzada laughs. More accurately, she snorts. A derisive snort. If there’s one thing in the world a switchboard operator cannot tolerate, it’s derisive snorting, and Gavia Immer is no exception. But she likes Elzada. They’re like sisters. They met a dozen years ago and only see each other once a decade, but they talk on the telephone, and Elzada’s told her things she’s never told anyone, and Gavia’s done the same. So she’s patient. She merely says, “I can tell you don’t believe me, Professor, but you don’t know the story of Dotty and Lowell. That business was before your time, and you won’t find it in a book. A reader like you, it’s got to be in a book or you won’t believe it.”

  The switchboard blinks and Gavia slips on her headset and goes to work. It’s Josefina Delgadillo, the butcher’s wife, calling around to ask if anyone among the stouter ladies of the village has a white dress that might fit her daughter, Lulu, who’s getting married. Poor Lulu’s on her way to motherhood. She ordered her wedding dress in Flagstaff, but when she went to pick it up yesterday, it was already too small. “She growing,” laments Josefina. “By the time the wedding come she big and fat like a calabaza!”

  Gavia Immer covers the mouthpiece and whispers to Elzada, “What’s a calabaza? A pig?”

  “A dumpling, I think.”

  Gavia nods. “I promise you, Josefina, she won’t look like a dumpling. The wedding’s only a week away. Yes, of course. Well, it’s been a long time since I needed a white dress, but I might have a cream-colored one. With pansies on it. Oh, I see. It has to be white. Well, if you can’t find one anywhere else, we can always try the Clorox trick. I don’t know about the pansies, but the rest would be white all right. Yes, yes. White as the driven snow. Very virginal. No, nothing. Just talking to myself. Good luck to you! ¡Buena suerte!”

  “Your Spanish sounds very convincing,” observes Elzada.

  “Do you really think so?”

  “At least I knew it wasn’t English.”

  “Any time you want a lesson in how to give a real compliment, Professor, ask me,” Gavia Immer says, scowling. “In the meantime, I’ll tell you this. You’re stubborn and you think like a scientist. If you weren’t and you didn’t, you’d understand that what I’m trying to tell you about Lowell Dunhill is impossible but true. He’s alive, Professor. The man who died thirteen years ago, he’s alive. I don’t know how he is, but he is. And he and Dorothy Hedquist, who believed no one in the world knew about their love affair, they’ve been in touch all these years with telephone calls placed late at night, after certain amounts of alcohol have been consumed—”

  “Wait!” Elzada holds up her hand. “How many calls are we speaking of?”

  “Close to thirty.”

  “In thirteen years?”

  Gavia Immer nods. “They were very rare at first. One a year. Usually Mr. Dunhill—”

  “Hearsay,” snaps Elzada.

  “All right, Professor, ‘the man called Lowell,’ if you prefer that. Usually ‘the man called Lowell’ exhibited signs of inebriation—slurred words, repeated endearments—”

  “What kind of endearments?”

  “Honestly, I don’t remember. Lovey-dovey names. I think he called her Birdie for some reason. And once, at least once, he called her Dodo Bird. But the point is, the calls were few and far between for many years, and then suddenly, in the past few months, there’s been a flurry of them—”

  “How many?”

  “Approximately thirty minus thirteen. That’d be seventeen. It’s as if he’s waited all this time for things to blow over.”

  “He’s waited, you mean, for his death to blow over?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But why?” asks Elzada.

  “Why, indeed, Professor! That’s what you have to find out!”

  “Does she ever call him?”

  “No. I have a feeling he moves around. Maybe he’s a man on the run. She lives in the same house, at the same telephone number. That makes it easy for him.”

  “And Mr. Hedquist has no suspicions?”

  “I can’t say. The only thing I know for a fact is that Oliver would rather eat soap than answer a telephone.”

  Elzada begins at once to pace the small room. On her third lap she comes to stand beside Gavia Immer. “It’s not possible,” she says. “It’s simply not possible that this Lowell is that Lowell. That Lowell is dead. I saw him myself.”

  The switchboard operator’s hand flies to her mouth and she gasps—something a woman of her profession is trained not to do. “Never display emotion,” warns the handbook. “Create a persona and vocal presentation as close to machine quality as can be achieved.” Gavia Immer has never excelled at sounding like a machine, but she has become used to acting with a machine’s composure. For a long minute she sits and stares into the air.

  “Why didn’t I know this?” she finally asks, then answers her own question. “Because you didn’t tell me.”

  “No one knows, Gavvy. Except Lois and Emery. We hardly knew each other, you and I. It was a confusing time. I didn’t set out to see the body. I don’t like dead things—unless they’re plants. But one thing led to another, and the evening became somewhat unpredictable, and before I knew it that little wrangler—I forget his name—Italian fellow . . .”

  “Amadeo.”

  “Precisely. Amadeo. He found the body, I believe, down at the river, and brought it up. Anyway, he got it in his head it was vital I take a look at the remains, and it was only at that point I understood he had something to show me. And quite a something it was, Gavvy. It was, I’m certain, the reason the matter was never brought to the police. And Lowell Dunhill didn’t seem to have a family, so no one came forward to demand an autopsy or investigation of any kind. Didn’t you find that strange? An unclaimed body? An unrecorded death at Grand Canyon? I thought it very strange.”

  “People said it was because of the love affair. Discretion was the word that went around. Dotty Hedquist was a married woman, and everyone’s always liked Oliver. They wanted to protect him.”

  “But surely a married woman’s affairs are subject to the same scrutiny as everyone else’s. That’s the law of the land.”

  “Not this land, Professor. Not here at Grand Canyon National Park. But you haven’t told me,” says Gavia Immer, impatiently. “What was it?”

  “What was what?”

  “What did Amadeo show you?”

  Elzada begins to pace again, head lowered, hands behind her back. “A few days later the body vanished. I didn’t know that, of course, because by then I had left the South Rim and was back on the river with Nevills, grateful to leave all that nasty business behind. But I heard about it later, and it all sounded very mysterious. And now Emery’s got a skeleton in his garage, but the latest word is it’s not Lowell Dunhill because the Kolb skeleton has a distinctive feature, a cause of death that doesn’t match Dunhill’s death. And that feature is . . . ?”

  “Well, it’s strictly hush-hush,” whispers Gavia Immer, “but I’ve heard there’s a bullet hole in the skull.”

  “That’s right. At the base of the skull. Right here.” Elzada places her hand at the back of her head. “A difficult place to shoot yourself, no? You’d go for the temple, wouldn’t you?”

&nbs
p; “I honestly can’t say, Professor. I’ve never given it much thought.”

  “You would. You’d go for the temple. But, if you were going to kill someone, you’d most likely have them stand facing away from you while you shot them in the back of the head.”

  “I suppose you don’t want to have to look a person in the eye while that kind of thing’s going on.”

  “No, you don’t. So the fellow in Emery’s garage,” Elzada continues. “Do we think he was murdered, or did he kill himself?”

  “This is a quiz. I don’t like quizzes. He was murdered plain as dirt.”

  “I agree. He was murdered. And Lowell Dunhill was . . . ?”

  “That’s easy. He died of unrequited love. Jumped in the river and drowned.”

  “So the story goes. But what if I were to tell you that I saw with my own eyes a bullet hole in the back of Dunhill’s skull—”

  “No!” cries Gavia Immer.

  “And that was what the wrangler wanted to show me.”

  “It couldn’t be!”

  “It was a small hole, easy to overlook, especially given the deteriorating condition of the flesh and the superficial evidence of drowning. I don’t know much about guns or pistols, but my guess is it was done by someone who knew what they were doing, at close range. I’d also guess its placement happens to match precisely the hole in the skull of the skeleton in the Kolb garage. I’m not convinced that makes Emery a murderer. In fact, it seems to argue against it. Who would be so foolish as to kill a man and hide the body on the premises? It was planted there, Gavvy. I’m sure of it. But by whom and for what reason, I just don’t know. And Emery doesn’t know either—I’d bet a dollar on it. He’d rather go to jail than cooperate with the Park Service. He’s been at war with them for a long time.”

  The switchboard blinks, but Gavia Immer ignores it. She looks at Elzada, at her friend the professor, at her dark curly hair, without a streak of gray, and the glasses that make her look wide-eyed and intelligent. All those hours on the telephone. It’s different from being in the same room with her. She wonders how well she knows her after all. There may be vast tracts of land inside her where no explorer has ever set foot and never will. The Elzada Clover Wilderness. And she, Gavia Immer, has set off naively into this territory, roped to her chair, whistling “Old Hundredth.” No food, no water, no matches. A fool, in short. On the other hand, who isn’t more than they appear to be? She herself, in placid moments, forgets entirely that her legs are thin as two straws and useless. She’s at heart an energetic walker and the gal who kept them up all night laughing. So who do you trust? The person on the inside or the person on the outside?

  “We need a strategy, Gavvy,” says Elzada. “At times like this I ask myself, ‘What would Inspector Roderick Alleyn do?’ ”

  “Inspector Roderick Alleyn lives in a book, Professor.”

  “But a book must imitate life.”

  “Life’s hard to imitate. At least in New Jersey, and here at Grand Canyon. The person who killed Lowell Dunhill, if in fact he’s dead—”

  “What do you mean!” cries Elzada. “Haven’t I convinced you of that?”

  “There’s still this fellow on the telephone, Professor.”

  “I’ll tell you what you do next time he calls, Gavvy. You eavesdrop, do you hear me? You discard the operator’s code of ethics, put it aside for the sake of the greater good, and you listen in, Gavvy! Do you understand? Find out who this imposter is and what kind of trick he’s playing on Mrs. Hedquist. Meanwhile, we won’t breathe a word of this to anyone else. It’s no one’s business but our own.”

  “It’s not our own,” says Gavia Immer crossly. “It’s Kolb’s. It’s his garage got the skeleton in it, not mine.”

  “There’s been a murder, and you’re in a position to help solve it.”

  “All right,” sighs Gavia Immer, wrinkling her brow. “All right. But I’m no sleuth.”

  “Leave the sleuthing to me.”

  “I’ve got two talents, Professor, and you’re welcome to both of them. I can run a switchboard, and if I keep away from Saltines, I can whistle pretty good.”

  “We won’t need the whistling, Gavvy.”

  “I’m just telling you.”

  “We’re looking for a murderer and a motive, and we need your ears.”

  “You got ’em.” Gavia Immer nods. “What else?”

  “We’ve got to get Emery to talk.”

  “I can’t help you with that, but I know who can. Edith.”

  “Edith?”

  “Edith Chase. At the post office. She was, let’s say, close to the Kolbs. Emery’s brother Ellsworth in particular. They were what I think you’d call an item. Oh, this was years ago.”

  “Edith Chase.” Elzada nods. “She doesn’t strike me as much of a talker.”

  “Oh, she can flap her lips with the best of them.” The switchboard suddenly comes alive, blinking in three different places. “Excuse me, Professor. I got calls coming in. It’s that darn H. C. again, and Josefina. You know what I ought to do? I ought to put her through to Washington and let him fuss about Lulu Delgadillo’s dress. They’ve got the wrong jobs, those two. I could fix a few things around here. But wait just a minute. Who’s this other one? It’s the Hedquist line. Let’s see what mischief Dotty’s up to . . . Hello, this is the operator. Why, certainly, Mrs. Merkle. I’ll see what I can do for you.” She covers the mouthpiece and grumbles, “But don’t hold your breath, missy.” She frowns at Elzada. “It’s the sister-in-law, wanting to get in touch with Mr. Wigglesworth, and she asks me would I happen to know where he is right now. What do they think? I’ve got a crystal ball?”

  “You do, Gavvy.” Elzada points to the switchboard. “You’ve got better than a crystal ball. You’ve got technology.”

  Anax Junius

  Euell wakes in a cold sweat from the same dream he has dreamt all week. A giant slug with the face of Mrs. Sayer, the malacologist, crawls up the side of his bed and across his helpless body, coating him—smothering him—in a thick, malodorous slime.

  In the kitchen Roger Hemple is brewing a pot of coffee. “Morning, Euell.”

  “Morning.” He nods and shuffles to the table.

  “Who’s the lucky dame, buddy? You had quite a night of it.”

  “I did?”

  “Moaning and mumbling all night long. Having your way with the ladies, I figured.”

  “Mollusks,” Euell replies. “Having their way with me. Limax maximus, if you want to know the truth. How about some of that coffee, Roger.”

  Euell has four days off and the only thing he’s certain of is that he doesn’t want to spend them here, talking to Hemple. He drinks his coffee, showers, dresses in dungarees and a clean white T-shirt, grabs his butterfly net, and heads out to his truck. It always feels strange to him to be out of uniform. He feels direc tionless and mortal—though the net acts as a kind of compass. At Jacob Lake he stops to buy a box of doughnuts, then the road comes toaTand he can put it off no longer: left to Utah or right to . . . ? He won’t allow himself to think about her. Instead, as he turns east, he thinks about Ivy Sayer and her husband Ethan, whose company he’d shared a few nights ago. “From Norwich,” they told him, “rhyming with porridge.” When Euell confessed he didn’t know his geography, Ethan drew a map of England in the air and pointed to what he called “the left hip.”

  “Well, it’s the right hip, isn’t it,” Ivy insisted.

  “It depends which way the old girl’s facing,” said her husband. “Looking at us, it’s her left.”

  Euell nodded politely, though he wasn’t much interested in England’s hips. He couldn’t rid his mind of the evening’s earlier event, his bewildering telephone conversation with Mrs. Hedquist. He hadn’t found Haas, though he’d searched in and under every bed in the ranger station. In the end he’d gone alone to the campground, where the Sayers were playing checkers by firelight and drinking out of a flask.

  Ethan Sayer brought a camp stool from the tent while
Ivy related the history of the tent, including the fact that it went with them on safari and was mauled by elephants. Euell sat between them, which doubled the time he spent with the flask. It was straight gin and went right to his head. He hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. At some point Ivy Sayer brought him a plate of crackers, cheese, and sardines, and he remembers balancing the small meal gratefully on his knees.

  Bumping along the road past the new Cliff Dwellers Lodge, the accommodations at Vermilion Cliffs, and the lodge and service station at Marble Canyon—a three-jeweled necklace of food, drink, and slumpy beds—he fears he made a fool of himself that night, but he can’t remember how or the extent of it. He does recall, late in the evening, a dramatic reading by Ethan Sayer from Pilsbry’s Land Mollusca of North America. The stout little man stood by the fire, one hand tucked into his coat, looking very much like another stout little man, a certain ambitious and highly successful French general. He’d all but committed to memory several passages about the mating rituals of Limax maximus, and he delivered them like poetry to Euell’s astonished ears.

  Afterward, Ivy Sayer put her hand on Euell’s knee. “The terms of courtship are often more depraved than delicate, Mr. Wigglesworth. You’ve found that out for yourself, I imagine.” She smiled at him, a chilly smile full of teeth, and he nodded dumbly.

  He finds himself now on the short stretch of road to Lee’s Ferry, an unpremeditated detour, perfectly pleasant, if a little hot. The butterflies will be flying, and after he chases a few he can soak in the Colorado River. Past the peach and pear orchards of the Lonely Dell Ranch, he crosses the Paria, only a braided trickle of a tributary today. The road follows the base of the cliff, down to the landing, where the water is high and muddy red. A dozen Boy Scouts drag their inflatable rafts onto the shore. Odd-looking craft, Euell decides, descendents of hippopotami. The more familiar creatures lie at the other end of the landing. Three wooden boats—cataract boats, he’s heard them called, with a blunt stern and a pretty point at the bow, “Mexican Hat Expeditions” painted on their sides.