The Great Reminder

by R. R. Irvine

  He’d never seen an orange tree, and Kary had never gotten a job. When the money ran out, they came back to Salt Lake to live with Martin again. After that, she pretended the trip to the Coast had been nothing but a vacation all along. The second time she rushed Traveler off to California, he ran away.

  Lael said, “What about it, Moroni? Were you a Saint when you were a boy?”

  “My mother never thought so.”

  “My uncle says I can never marry anyone but a Saint in good standing.”

  Bill began stroking his prophet-length beard like a man contemplating a shave.

  “Saints marry in the temple and are sealed together for eternity,” she added.

  With a grunt, Charlie got up from his chair and began pulling handles and pushing buttons on the vending machines, chanting under his breath as if pleading with the gods to give him something for nothing.

  “Have you thought of converting?” Bill said.

  “To your church?” Lael asked.

  “The right woman might make me convert,” Bill answered. Behind him, Charlie pounded on a machine.

  “Moroni Traveler the Third needs baptizing and a mother,” she said.

  “My father says he’ll remarry if he has to,” Traveler said. “For the boy’s sake.”

  “It’s you I’m talking about, Moroni. You must do the right thing by your son.”

  “Claire filed the paternity suit against Martin.”

  Lael shook her head. “Willis Tanner has told me all about you and your family. He says he was your best friend when you were growing up.”

  “That poses an interesting theological question,” Bill said. “Can a Gentile and a Saint be best friends? Perhaps I should make it the subject of one of my sermons.”

  “Try it out on me,” Lael told him.

  Traveler handed her his cup of Ovaltine and stood up. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “A sermon might do you some good.”

  “He’s a lost cause,” Bill said.

  “The book says, ‘Blessed are the Gentiles,’ ” Lael said. “ ‘If they repent they shall be saved.’ ”

  Traveler walked away without comment. He kept moving, circling the block, until a loudspeaker announced the train’s arrival at 5:30.

  4

  TRAVELER’S FATHER got off the train looking rumpled. He glanced around the nearly deserted station platform and shook his head.

  “There used to be redcaps everywhere,” he said, handing his bag to Traveler. “Taxis were lined up halfway around the block. They’d practically fight to get hold of your luggage.”

  With a sigh, Martin moved around Traveler to greet Lael. When he stepped back from her embrace, his head was shaking again. “I’m afraid it was a waste of your money, young lady. There was no sign of the boy. No Moroni the Third, and no one who’d ever heard of Claire Bennion.”

  “Did you look everywhere?”

  “There aren’t more than fifteen hundred people in Milford. I checked with the sheriff, the local bishop, and the tithing office. I even walked through the cemetery.”

  Lael caught her breath. “Do you think he’s dead?”

  “Pioneer graveyards are a hobby of mine. Tombstones tell you a lot about people, no matter how long they’ve been dead.” Martin rubbed his eyes and sighed. “One thing’s for sure. There are no Travelers planted in Milford and no Bennions either. I checked for Bennions in case Claire used her own name instead of Moroni’s.”

  Lael bit her lip. Bill reached out to comfort her, but she stepped away.

  Martin grabbed Bill’s outstretched hand and shook it as if it had been intended for him all along. “Look at you, Bill. No sandwich boards, no robes. You too, Charlie, dressed to the teeth.” He shook hands with the Indian. “I wasn’t expecting a reception committee.”

  “I paid that Breen woman a lot of money,” Lael complained.

  A timer clicked somewhere and the depot’s outside security lights went out, even though the rising sun was still behind the Wasatch Mountains.

  Martin said, “Tell us again what Miz Breen told you about Milford.”

  “ ‘It’s a small town,’ she said. ‘The kind of place to raise children.’ ” Lael shivered in the chill air and pulled her hands up inside the sleeves of her baggy sweatshirt. “Over and over, she kept saying that she was Claire’s best friend. That she knew how Claire thought.”

  Traveler shook his head. That wasn’t the Claire he remembered. When he’d lived with her, she’d never spoken of women as friends, only rivals.

  “How definite was she about Milford?” Martin asked.

  “Claire never came out and pinpointed it, if that’s what you mean. But it was Stacie’s best guess.”

  “You told us you paid for solid information.”

  “Would you have gone looking for the boy if I’d said anything else?”

  Bill moved to Lael’s side. “Don’t blame her. Claire’s your responsibility, not Lael’s.”

  “What the hell,” Martin said. “I would have gone anyway just to see the tombstones.”

  He pulled a notebook from the pocket of his corduroy jacket and turned to a dogeared page. “I found an old favorite. ‘Behold my friends as you pass by / As you are now so once was I / As I am now, so you must be / Prepare for death and follow me.’ ”

  Lael shrugged. “Stacie gave me a number where I could reach her in California.”

  “If you call her,” Traveler said, “she’ll want more money.”

  “Don’t you think it would be worth it, to have another chance at finding your son?”

  “We can talk about that later,” Martin said. “Right now, I want my son to drive me to the office, so I can type out my notes on the cemetery while they’re still fresh in my mind.”

  ******

  As soon as Traveler and his father were seated in the loaner truck, Martin leaned back and expelled a ragged breath. “God, I had a hard time sleeping on that train. It’s not like the old days when the Union Pacific ran the City of Los Angeles. Do you remember that from the time you and your mother rode the streamliner to the Coast?”

  “Vaguely.”

  Martin jabbed a finger in the direction of Lael’s BMW, which was leaving the parking lot with Bill and Charlie on board and the church security sedan in pursuit. “Considering our success with women, take my advice, Mo, and watch out for that young lady.”

  Traveler eased the truck out of the parking lot and turned north on Fifth West, heading toward South Temple Street.

  “She’s after you,” Martin said after a block. “I hope you realize that.”

  “Do you think she lied about Milford?”

  “If I’d found the boy, she wouldn’t have a reason to hang around you anymore, now would she? Not unless you married her.”

  “We’re not even sure there is a Moroni the Third,” Traveler said.

  “But we keep looking, don’t we?”

  “Maybe now’s the time to stop.”

  “I want the boy,” Martin said.

  Traveler took his foot off the gas and coasted to the curb. “Isn’t one son living at home enough?”

  “A man needs children.”

  “Are you talking about me or you?” Traveler said.

  “You spend a lifetime accumulating answers. It’s all for nothing if you don’t pass them on to someone.”

  “Don’t I count?”

  “Two chances are better than one,” Martin said.

  “We’ll keep looking, then.”

  “We never had a choice. Claire knew that.”

  “I’ll drive you home so you can get some sleep.”

  “What about you?” Martin asked.

  “I have work to do,” Traveler said. “A missing person.”

  “You can tell me about it when we get to the office.”

  5

  TRAVELER PARKED in front of the Chester Building just as the sun cleared the Wasatch Mountains. Despite the early hour, Barney Chester was at his cigar stand reading a paper, an u
nlit cheroot clamped between his teeth. When he saw Traveler and Martin enter the lobby, he thrust his stogie into the perpetual flame. A haze of smoke surrounded him by the time they reached the glass counter, where bags of Bull Durham, Sen-Sen, and the same ancient Chiclets had been on display for as long as Traveler could remember.

  “I would have met you at the station,” Chester said around his cigar, “but I figured there was a crowd already. Besides, I knew you’d need a cup of coffee this time of the morning.”

  “My train was due at four,” Martin said. “I hope you haven’t been waiting here that long?”

  Shrugging, Chester grabbed the metal coffee pot from the hot plate and began filling a line of Styrofoam cups already arranged along the countertop.

  “I only count the three of us,” Traveler said.

  “Bill and Charlie are in the men’s room.”

  “And Lael?”

  Chester jerked a thumb toward the wooden phone booth next to the restrooms. “She said something about making a call to the Coast.”

  Martin raised an eyebrow at his son. “Where do you think Stacie Breen will send us next?”

  “Wherever Lael wants, probably.”

  Chester took the cigar out of his mouth and focused on it intently. “I’m sorry you didn’t find the boy. I was looking forward to being a godfather.”

  The phone booth’s door folded open with a thump. Lael waved and headed for them, her low heels echoing across the marble floor. When she reached them, she made a face at Chester’s cigar. He immediately craned his head and blew smoke rings at the ceiling where a frescoed Brigham Young was leading a wagon train of pioneers to the promised land.

  “Stacie Breen says she’s got some other leads,” Lael announced. “She’ll get back to me.”

  “In the meantime,” Martin said, “we’re going to take our coffee upstairs and do some work that’ll pay the rent.”

  She smiled. “Barney showed me how to work the elevator. I’ll run you up.”

  Traveler glared at Chester, who said, “She’s prettier than Nephi Bates.”

  “Talk about spies for the church,” Martin said. “But I’m too tired to climb three flights of stairs.”

  Humming “Material Girl,” she ferried them to the top floor. She didn’t speak until they’d exited the elevator. “Don’t worry. I’ll find Moroni Traveler the Third.”

  The brass cage dropped out of sight before Traveler could think of a response.

  “Our record with women continues to be perfect,” Martin said as he unlocked the office door.

  “Lael was business,” Traveler said. “I didn’t pick her.”

  “Sure.”

  “How do you say no to the prophet when his grandniece has been kidnapped?”

  With a sigh, Martin took up residency behind his desk. “Tell me about our missing person.”

  By the time Traveler finished recounting the details of Major Stiles and the missing prisoner of war, Martin was shaking his head. “Rule one: Don’t mess with the church. Rule two: Don’t take on hopeless causes.”

  “Check the petty cash,” Traveler said.

  Martin opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out the metal box. “Rule number three: Never take money from old men who are dying.”

  “If you’d been here, you wouldn’t have been able to turn him down either. He says he can’t die happy unless we clear his conscience of Karl Falke.”

  “Have you considered the odds? The man’s been missing for more than forty-five years.”

  “I’ve run off half a dozen copies of the form with Falke’s photograph.”

  “I can hardly wait to start passing them out.”

  “I’ve also put an ad in the Tribune, offering a reward.”

  “Perfect. All we’ve got to do is sit here by the phone and wait for an informant.”

  “You can’t fool me,” Traveler said.

  “All right. I admit it’s a challenge.” Martin rubbed his hands together. “Where do you want to start?”

  “You track down that ex-POW, Otto Klebe, the one who’s supposed to be living in Brigham City. I’ll check out Fort Douglas.”

  6

  AFTER BREAKFAST, Traveler drove up South Temple Street toward the Wasatch Mountains. By the time he reached the entrance to Fort Douglas, he was high enough on the east bench to view the Great Salt Lake without smelling it. The water’s surface, even in bright sunlight, looked as dull as a dead man’s eye.

  He refocused on the high ground that federal troops had commandeered in 1862. At the time, they claimed they were there to protect the overland mail routes. In reality, their orders were to keep an eye on the Mormons, who were threatening rebellion if the federal government outlawed their God-given polygamy. With that in mind, all cannons had been trained on a single target, Brigham Young’s home in downtown Salt Lake.

  From where Traveler had parked in front of the fort’s museum, hitting such a target looked like a longer shot than his missing person. He got out of the car and went to work.

  The museum building, like nearby Officers’ Row, dated from the 1880s and had been built in that ubiquitous two-story military style known as Quartermaster Victorian. As soon as he crossed the threshold, Traveler was overwhelmed by the army’s all-purpose smell of musty canvas. The room itself, large and barrackslike, was filled with rows of glass-topped display cases. Mannequins wearing two centuries of battle dress lined the walls. One of them, a soldier from the Revolutionary War, stood next to a wooden desk. The real man behind the desk was wearing a summer uniform of suntan slacks and shirt, though his only insignia was a plastic badge that labeled him as EARL LOCKHART, CURATOR.

  Traveler introduced himself.

  “I saw you play football once,” Lockhart said, shaking hands, making a contest out of it. He was a compact man, somewhere in his fifties and half a foot shorter than Traveler’s six three.

  “I’ve been retired a long time,” Traveler said.

  “I know how you feel. You’re looking at a master sergeant, U.S. Army retired.” Lockhart grinned and cracked a knuckle. “You don’t shake hands like someone named for an angel.”

  Traveler handed him a business card.

  “That’s more like it. A detective I can believe. Now what can I do for you?”

  Traveler told him about the missing prisoner of war.

  “You’ll want to see our permanent exhibit, then.”

  They left the main museum and toured two side-by-side rooms, one for each world war. In both rooms, grainy photographic blowups covered the walls with the anguished faces of German prisoners. Traveler looked for the missing man, Karl Falke. What he found were young men with haunted eyes, none of whom reminded him of the photograph supplied by Major Stiles.

  “I was a prisoner myself,” Lockhart said, nodding at the soldiers on the wall.

  “Vietnam?”

  “We didn’t bury our dead in ‘Nam, you know. We brought them home.” Lockhart slowly shook his head. “We still have twenty-one German prisoners in our cemetery here.”

  “I’d like to take a look,” Traveler said.

  “If it had been me, I’d have wanted to be buried at home.” Lockhart hung a sign on the museum door that said BACK IN 15 MINUTES. “It’s a short walk.” He fell into cadence step beside Traveler.

  From a block away, rows of plain white tombstones gleamed in the spring sunshine. The smell of cut grass mixed with sage coming off the mountains.

  “We had twenty-three thousand prisoners in Utah during World War Two,” Lockhart said. “That comes to one prisoner for every twenty-six residents at the time.”

  “How many escaped?”

  “The twenty-one who are buried here died of natural causes, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  Traveler shrugged without breaking step.

  “When a private detective shows up talking about a forty-eight-year-old war,” Lockhart said, “I can’t help wondering about his motives.”

  They left the path and cro
ssed freshly mown grass to a cluster of graves. The Germans had been buried together. Twenty of them had white headstones exactly like those of the American dead. One marker was made of dark granite and decorated with a chiseled swastika.

  Traveler knelt down as if to examine the emblem. “I’ve been told there are six more German graves around here somewhere. The ones who died in Cowdery Junction.”

  “So that’s it. I knew you were up to something. There aren’t many people who know about the Junction dead. I wouldn’t myself if I hadn’t had the time to read every record in my own museum.”

  Lockhart led Traveler to another part of the cemetery where a single white stone stood alone on a piece of land big enough for six graves.

  “The marker was added long after the war,” Lockhart said. “Sometime in the fifties, I think, though there’s nothing written down about that. But that’s when this entire section was planted.”

  The inscription on the stone read: HERE LIE SIX SOLDIERS WHO DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY. A potted geranium stood beside the marker.

  Lockhart nudged the potted plant gently with his toe. “Until three years ago, someone used to bring flowers here once a month, regular as clockwork. Then suddenly they stopped. I’ve got the duty now.” His shoulders rose briefly. “Someone had to keep up the tradition, one soldier to another, if you know what I mean.”

  “Tell me about the deaths in Cowdery Junction.”

  “There’s no secret about their names, even though they’re not on the stone.”

  “Is one of them Karl Falke?”

  Lockhart shook his head. “You’re welcome to check the list back at my office. There are photostats of death certificates to go along with them. They all died of heart failure. There’s also a transport document authorizing shipment of the bodies from the hospital in Salina to the cemetery here.”

  “What else can you tell me?”

  “As a historian, you’d expect me to have all the answers, wouldn’t you? Well, let me tell you, it ain’t that easy. Working for the army, I have to go through channels. Considering the red tape I’ve run into, you’d think Cowdery Junction was classified top secret. Hell, I’ve gotten more information out of the ghost stories the old-timers tell around here than I have from the Pentagon.”