by R. R. Irvine
“What about your wife?”
“She won’t be answering the switchboard for a while either. She and Baby Joe volunteered to help make turkey sandwiches and lemonade at the Relief Society.”
“Is it all right if I call from my room?” Traveler asked.
Beasley shrugged. “If you want privacy, there’s a pay phone down the road at the Wasatch Cafe.”
Traveler took out his wallet, extracted a twenty-dollar bill, and laid it on the lowboy. “I’m willing to pay for your special arrangements.”
“If I plug in an open line to your room, there’s no telling how many long-distance calls you might make.”
Traveler laid down another twenty.
“We’ll still have to bill you for any toll calls.”
“Agreed.”
Beasley fiddled with the switchboard for a moment. “You’re all set.”
Traveler went to his cabin and sat on the front step where he could keep an eye on the office. He’d killed half a dozen mosquitoes and donated blood to half a dozen others by the time Beasley drove away in his car.
Brushing himself free of bugs, Traveler fled inside to check the phone for a dial tone. After that, he showered, changed clothes, and then lay on the bed waiting for Martin’s call. A rumbling stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten anything since Louise Dority’s cookies.
The phone rang at six exactly.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Martin said. He sounded like he was eating something.
“Hold on a moment,” Traveler said. He got up, went to the bathroom, and drank two glasses of water to keep his stomach quiet. As soon as he picked up the phone again, he asked for the bad news first.
“I contacted the State Medical Board like you asked. I told them the usual story, that lives were at stake. They told me to put any request for information in writing and they’d get back to me.”
“You sound like you’re eating peanuts,” Traveler said.
“Cashews actually.”
“What’s the good news?”
“I found an old friend of Claire’s, a man named Homer Young.”
“I never knew her to have old friends, only new ones.”
“He’s the one who left his card at the apartment where you were attacked. He claims he hasn’t heard from her since then. I believe him. Oh, there’s one more thing. When I asked him if he knew where she was now, he said, The last thing she told me was that she was going home soon.’ ”
“Where’s home?”
“Young asked Claire the same thing. “I’m going home to Moroni,’ she said. At first he figured that meant you. But later on he got to thinking about it and decided she meant the town of Moroni. He says she once told him that her family used to live there, but that all the Bennions had finally moved away.”
“That doesn’t get us much closer to the boy.”
“The best thing I could think of was to follow her. That’s why I came to Moroni. I’m there now, twenty miles away from you.”
“And?”
More chewing sounds came down the line. “I’ve located a relative of sorts, but I thought you’d want to be here when I knocked on the door.”
“What about Claire?”
“If she’s here, I figure her to be staying with the relative.”
Traveler was torn. He didn’t feel up to coping with Claire or her relatives at the moment. At the same time, it would take two of them if they were to have any chance at all of getting information out of Claire should she be there.
“I’ll be with you in thirty minutes.”
16
TOPPING A rise in the road, Traveler saw the town of Moroni nestled against the north bend of the San Pitch River. A couple of miles later Highway 116 changed into Main Street. Following Martin’s directions, Traveler passed the Moroni Tithing Office on the southwest corner of the town square and turned onto Jabez Avenue. His father’s Ford was parked in front of the third house on the right. All Claire had to do was look out a parlor window and be forewarned.
The house dated from the 1870s, one of those practical brick structures with chimneys at both ends. When he knocked, Martin opened the heavily paneled front door. A short stout woman, no more than five feet tall, stood beside him. She was probably Martin’s age, though her face was wrinkled enough for a hundred-year-old.
“This is Miz Neff,” he said, pronouncing “Mrs.” the rural Utah way. “She saw me parked out front, took pity and invited me in.”
“Everybody around here calls me Ma Neff,” she said. “I’m not really anybody’s ma, but Claire started calling me that when she came to live with me. A few people call me the widow Neff,” she added with a wink in Martin’s direction. “You can call me Dora.”
Martin rolled his eyes in mock protest. “We missed Claire. She was staying here until last night but then took off.”
“Come on in,” the woman said. “Dinner’s on the table. I’ve got a roast I bought for Claire. Since she’s not here I need help eating it. Besides, I like feeding hungry men.”
The oak dining room set was nearing the prerequisite years to become a collectible antique. So was the Woolworth china.
“Carving’s a man’s job,” she told Martin when she set the roast beef in front of him.
A knife and sharpening rod had already been set out next to his place setting. While he carved, she dished out mashed potatoes and gravy, carrots and string beans.
“This was Claire’s favorite dinner when she was with me,” the woman said.
“When was that?” Traveler asked.
“Through her last three years of high school. You see, her family used to live next door, where the vacant lot is now. But when they moved to Salt Lake, Claire didn’t want to go with them. She can be very stubborn, you know.”
Traveler nodded. Claire had seldom spoken to him of her childhood. Usually, she did it in the calm after sex.
“She didn’t want to get lost in a big high school in Salt Lake,” Ma Neff went on. “After all, she had her friends here in Moroni.”
“I was abandoned as a little girl,” Claire had told him once. “I used to stand at the window all day waiting for them to come back and find me. But they never did. “
“Where is Claire now?” Traveler asked.
“Lord knows. I wish I did. She went off to meet someone last night, or so she said, and hasn’t been back since.”
“Who was she going to meet?”
The woman heaped a second helping of potatoes on Martin’s plate before answering. “I don’t know. I got the impression she was driving over to Wasatch.”
“Why?”
“I don’t remember exactly. She must have said something during the day, but my memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“One thing’s for sure,” Martin said. “You remembered how to cook the best roast beef I’ve ever tasted.”
While Ma Neff beamed, Traveler thought over the situation. Knowing Claire, Wasatch was the perfect destination. There, she could put the screws to him one more time and get even for her loss in court.
17
TRAVELER LED the way to Wasatch driving the Ford, his father following in the Jeep. Flames from the forest fire had been visible from as far away as the Moroni junction where 116 ran into U.S. 89.
By the time they pulled into the Sleep-Well Motel, it was nearly midnight. The NO VACANCY neon out front paled in comparison to the red glow coming off the fiery mountains.
The crunch of an extra set of tires on the gravel track leading to the cabins brought Mrs. Beasley outside, carrying a sleeping Baby Joe in her arms. Pink curlers stood out in her hair like night crawlers. A man’s plaid overcoat was draped around her shoulders. Her white nylon nightgown hung all the way to her bare feet.
“Don’t think because my husband’s still out on the fire that you can put anything over,” she said, picking her way gingerly across the gravel. “You paid for a one-man room. Guests cost extra.”
“This is my father,” Travele
r said.
“Man and wife can share a room at the same price. All others pay extra.”
“I have to put up with a grown son living at home,” Martin said. “I want my own room when I go on vacation.”
“How’s the fire doing?” Traveler asked.
Baby Joe opened his eyes. Immediately, Mrs. Beasley repositioned him in the crook of her arm so she’d have one hand free to wave mosquitoes away from his face.
“They’re evacuating some of the outlying homes and ranches now,” she said. “That’s why I’ve got the No Vacancy sign on. We expect refugees if the ward house and the hotel can’t hold them.”
“What about me?” Martin said.
“Like I said, you’ll have to pay extra. In advance.” She started back toward the office, tiptoeing like someone walking over hot coals. “You’ll have to sign in, too.”
They let Mrs. Beasley get out of earshot before following her toward the office.
“Unless we find Claire,” Traveler said, hanging back, “a couple more days in Wasatch ought to do it.”
“Does that mean you’ve come up with something to help that man, Nibley?”
“Hell, no. I’m being stonewalled wherever I go. When people do talk to me, I can’t figure out what’s going on. Small towns are bad enough anywhere, but in Utah they’re impossible. A bishop’s court has been held and letters have been written to the State Medical Board. How the hell am I going to get information out of doctors or the church?”
Ahead of them, the office lights came on.
“So what are you going to do now?” Martin said, flailing at mosquitoes.
“Go home if I don’t get a break pretty soon. Tomorrow I’ll check out Melba Nibley’s medical records. Since there’s no doctor here in town, that means a trip to Ephraim.”
Martin grunted. “Claire or no Claire, if I’d known about these damn bugs I’d have stayed in Moroni. Your old dad hasn’t lost his touch. The widow Neff offered to put me up for the night.”
“Claire said the same thing the first time I met her.”
18
WHEN TRAVELER entered the Sleep-Well’s office the next morning, Mrs. Beasley was bent over a quilt that covered the entire lowboy. The quilt’s intricate design looked to be a map of Wasatch, with stylized roads, buildings, and a very prominent church. The colors of the landmarks varied. But the only time red appeared was in the figures, all skirted to denote the female sex. Centered at the bottom of the quilt was a hand-stitched legend that said ZION.
“That must have taken a long time,” he said.
“I’ve been working at it since I came of age,” she answered without looking up. “And now finally I can finish it.”
“What’s it to be, a bedspread?”
She shook her head. “A history.”
“I see,” Traveler said noncommittally, figuring that any further interest on his part might lead to theology. “I need directions. I’m driving over to Ephraim today to see a Dr. Gourley. When I talked to Ellis Nibley on the phone last night, he told me the doctor had his wife’s medical records.”
“Joe Gourley has been taking care of Baby Joe for some time now.” She raised her head from the quilt to make kissing noises at the child, who was sitting in his playpen watching Traveler.
“What’s his address?”
“I don’t really know, though I’ve been there a dozen times. It’s right on Main Street in the center of town, next to the bank. If you need help, ask anybody. They’ll know where he is.”
Outside, Martin was sitting behind the wheel in the Jeep. “I decided to take my own car for once,” he said.
“I may need the four-wheel drive if I have to go into the hills again.”
Martin sighed, got out, and headed for the old Ford. “I wish you’d get your damned air conditioning fixed.”
“You said you didn’t believe in it, that air conditioners pollute the atmosphere.”
“There you go again, quoting me.”
“There’s a garage here in town, McConkie’s. You’re welcome to take the Ford in.”
“I’m on my way back to Moroni to check on Claire.”
“Checking on the widow Neff is more like it.”
“I’ll call the motel with any messages.”
“Nothing complicated,” Traveler advised. “With any luck I ought to be back from Ephraim in a couple of hours.”
******
Ephraim was very much like Wasatch, or Moroni for that matter. Its offices and stores, its public buildings, built of the ubiquitous oolitic limestone, clustered in a four-block area around the intersection of Main and Center streets. Traveler parked in front of the Towne Theater, which had somehow escaped the oolite. Its marquee advertised shows Thursday through Saturday.
“Sunday movies are a sin,” Traveler’s mother had said every Saturday night to forestall argument. “As bad as drinking Coke-Cola or smoking.”
He crossed Main to the United Order Co-op, built in 1864 as an offshoot of Salt Lake ’s Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution, ZCMI to the faithful. The derelict Co-op bore an inscription above the door, HOLINESS TO THE LORD. A contractor’s sign out front, faded over the years, said RESTORATION IN PROGRESS.
Farther down the block he found the doctor’s office. It was on the first floor of a two- story adobe hiding behind a Victorian false front.
Traveler shook his head the moment he walked into the waiting room. But nothing changed. The time-warped illusion continued. Turn-of-the-century love seats, upholstered in rose velvet, faced each other across an Edwardian table strewn with Reader’s Digests.
One love seat was empty. The other contained a mother and child. Traveler bypassed them for the nurse’s window, where he was told he’d have to wait his turn.
Forty-five minutes later he was ushered into an office as modern as the computer on the desk. Dr. Gourley was somewhere between time periods, about fifty and starting to go gray. Half-glasses were perched at the top of his forehead.
Traveler identified himself. “I represent Ellis Nibley, who’s asked me to look into the death of his wife. He said you had her records.”
“She wasn’t a patient of mine. I hope you understand that.”
“You’re Dr. Joseph Gourley, aren’t you? Doctor Joe?”
The man clucked sympathetically. “It’s an easy mistake to make. Josiah Sutton was Doctor Joe. Everyone called him that, myself included. He died a week ago yesterday.”
“How?”
Gourley lowered his half-glasses into place. The thick lenses obscured his eyes. “I don’t see that that has anything to do with Mrs. Nibley.”
“Curiosity is a habit with me.”
“You’ve got to understand something about this part of the state. About Sanpete County. Things don’t change around here. At least not very fast. I was born and raised right here in Ephraim, but I went away to college. I stayed away to practice medicine, too. Until a year ago when my father died. That’s when I came back to take over his practice. I thought it was my obligation. My father always said it was. But you know what happened? Half my father’s patients walked out on me without giving me a chance. They switched over to Doctor Joe. The other half still consider me an outsider. About the time I’m ready to retire they may accept me back into the fold. If I’m lucky.”
He lowered his head to peer over the glasses, which began a slow slide down his nose as he spoke. “You see, Doctor Joe and my father were institutions in these parts. Their practices took in just about all of Sanpete County. Doctor Joe was centered in Wasatch but still covered Moroni, Freedom, Wales, and even Jerusalem. That’s a lot of territory, especially when you consider the fact that he made house calls like my father. Hell, so do I. A doctor couldn’t live on a one-town practice in this county.”
When the glasses reached the end of Gourley’s nose, he halted their progress with a forefinger without pushing them back into place. “All the house calls in the world won’t make you a rich man in this part of Utah. Sanpete’s a
depressed area. Has been for years. At the rate the population’s shrinking, there won’t be anybody left before long. It’s no wonder we can’t get new doctors to settle here.”
“Are you sorry you came back home?” Traveler said.
“Unfortunately I don’t have a son to follow in my footsteps.”
That surprised Traveler, since Mormons made Catholics look barren when it came to family size. “Doctor Joe’s death must be going to help your business.”
Gourley smiled and raised his glasses back onto their hairline perch. “You make that sound like a motive for getting rid of the competition.”
Traveler smiled back. “I don’t know how he died yet.”
“What do you know about Doctor Joe?”
“Not much. Only that there seem to be two points of view about him. You say he was an institution. Others I’ve talked to have called him a saint. Someone else said he was the devil incarnate, or words to that effect.”
Gourley snorted. “Doctors are like anyone else. When they save lives, they’re called saints. When they lose one, through no fault of their own usually, they make enemies.”
He straightened his shoulders to take a deep breath. Exhaling made him sag. “In Doctor Joe’s case I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. So you might as well hear it from me as anyone else. The man hanged himself.”
“A week ago?”
“That’s what I said. A week ago yesterday.”
“It’s strange that nobody’s mentioned it to me before.”
“People don’t like bringing up painful subjects. Besides, the man was sick. Cancer. I didn’t make the diagnosis myself, but his wife told me the details when I called her. It hit me hard, I’ll tell you. I don’t remember a suicide in these parts before.”
“But Melba Nibley killed herself.”
He shook his head. “You must be mistaken. The bishop himself told me her death was from natural causes.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I signed the death certificate, didn’t I?”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Traveler said.
“That’s all you’re going to get from me on the subject of Melba Nibley. Like I told you before, she wasn’t really my patient. Her records were forwarded to me for the autopsy.”
