Black Sun Descending

by Stephen Legault

  “How did you know?”

  “I been here before. I told you, Jane and I did a little work together. I came to see what might have got her whacked.” Silas stared at him in disbelief.

  Hayduke seemed to compose himself quickly. “You done in there? I gotta take a leak.”

  THEY GOT DOWN TO WORK. Hayduke, who had visited the offices of the Grand Canyon Preservation Society on several occasions, told Silas that he had a pretty good idea what they should be looking for.

  “I’m looking for a connection to my wife,” Silas told him.

  “You find out why Jane Vaughn was killed and you may find out where Penelope is.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Those two were close, man. They worked on a lot of issues together. Didn’t you ever talk with Pen about this stuff? We find out what got Jane killed and we might find a clue as to where Penny is.” It shocked Silas to hear Hayduke refer to Penelope with such a familiar tone. Hayduke opened a filing cabinet and started to thumb through the files.

  “You really think that Jane Vaughn kept her killer’s name on file?”

  “Next best thing, man. She kept a file of correspondence from everybody who hated her.”

  “Listen, Hayduke, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I doubt very much her killer sent her a letter.”

  “What else you got?” Hayduke handed him a thick file.

  Silas opened it. It was mostly printed pages of emails Vaughn had received. He watched as Hayduke sat down at Jane’s desk with a second file and started to leaf through it. Silas sat at the reception desk and began his search. An hour passed; when he looked up Hayduke was looking at him. “What did you find?” Silas asked. The young man seemed excited.

  “A lot of people didn’t like Jane Vaughn, that’s for sure. She got a lot of random emails condemning her stand on just about everything, including Wilderness along the river corridor in the canyon. Those motorized raft companies would get their clients to email politicians, and copy Jane, telling them that motorized rafting was their God-given right.”

  Silas agreed. “There’s a pattern in here. It looks like there were a few folks who really didn’t like what she was up to and told her that as often as they could.”

  “Who’s that?” Hayduke got up and crossed the floor to where Silas sat.

  Silas pointed to a few stacks of paper he’d arranged. “Well, Chas Hinkley. I’ve been hearing his name again and again. Jane and he had very long email exchanges, and let’s just say that Superintendent Hinkley didn’t feel the need to exercise restraint. Here, look.” Silas pointed to one page where Hinkley and Jane went back and forth. “He basically tells Vaughn that if she keeps up her antics, she’ll find herself at the bottom of Lake Powell. Not in so many words, but the implication is clear.”

  Hayduke suddenly looked pale.

  “What is it?”

  Hayduke hesitated. “That lake is the fucking worst thing that ever happened to canyon country. I hate that fucking thing.”

  “Yeah, Penny did too. That I did hear a lot about. Said that draining it was the ultimate goal for her work in the canyons.”

  “Not draining that fucking thing. No way! Destroying the dam. Not just tearing it down, but obliterating that motherfucker.”

  “Well, it seems that what Jane Vaughn wanted was to designate the lower reach of the river as Wilderness, and Hinkley objected. Strenuously.”

  “That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Wilderness designation in the canyon wouldn’t affect him upstream. His jurisdiction is over Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, not the Grand Canyon. It’s two different things. Lee’s Ferry is the end of Glen and the beginning of the Grand.”

  “I wonder why they spent so much time bickering with each other.” Silas rubbed his eyes.

  “Maybe Hinkley secretly wanted to be a motorized raft guide?” Hayduke laughed.

  Silas shuffled through the stack of correspondence between Hinkley and Vaughn. “You might be on to something.” He pulled out a sheet from the middle of the pile. “Not a guide, an owner.”

  “Really?” Hayduke took the page and read. “That slippery bastard. I think he might have been buying into a rafting outfit.”

  “Is that legal? Can a superintendent do that?”

  “How should I know? But I bet if he was, and Vaughn was making the moves to shut down motorized rafting in the canyon, he would be plenty pissed off.”

  “What’s the name of the outfit?”

  “Vaughn just says she thinks his relationship with Grand Canyon Adventures is too tight and accuses him of improper associations. There’s a letter here from Paul Love, the owner, telling Jane she should go jump in Lake Powell. We should go and brace these guys. They have a sales office here in Flag. Let’s go see what we can find.”

  “Hold on! I’m not going to break into another business. It’s bad enough that we’re sitting in here, in the dark, riffling through Jane’s stuff. The FBI would have our asses if they caught us.”

  “I think Penny went up against these guys a few times. GCA, she called them. She mentioned this guy Paul Love a few times …”

  “Be that as it may, I’m not breaking into their offices.”

  “Suit yourself.” Hayduke shrugged. “What else you find?”

  “Someone from the Page City Council was pretty riled at her. A woman named Terry Aldershot.”

  “Terry the Terror. That’s what we used to call her. She’s a soccer mom on steroids. Hundred and twenty-five pounds of hairspray and mascara who could rip the skin off a Gila monster with her pearly white teeth and look like a million fucking bucks doing it.”

  “Well, she didn’t seem to make Jane Vaughn welcome in Page. There’s a letter here, on the town’s letterhead, basically telling Vaughn to stay out of Page.”

  “Let me see that.” Hayduke laughed out loud. “Wow, this is really something else. I’ve never seen a municipal politician use such colorful language. But we are talking about Arizona here, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” He kept reading. “If we had some kind of suspects list, we would have to put Terry the Terror on it. Her husband too.”

  “What’s her husband got to do with it?”

  “Balin is his name. Like bailing wire, but different, you know? He’s a businessman. He’s into trucking, highway contracts, that sort of thing. He had a gig with the Navajo Generating Station, and I think he’s got the contract to maintain some of the highways up around Page. Terry is on the town council to protect her husband’s business interests.”

  “I think they have a word for that: nepotism.”

  “In Arizona—hell, in the whole fucking Southwest—we just call it good business.” Hayduke handed the letter back to Silas.

  Silas put it back on the pile. He patted another stack of paper. “This pile has angry letters from someone named Jim Zahn—”

  “Slim Jim! That bastard.”

  Silas shook his head. “Do you know this guy too?”

  “Everybody knows Slim Jim Zahn. Everybody who is an environmentalist, that is.”

  “Sorry not to be in the club.”

  “Well, Pen sure knew this slippery fucker. When we were advocating for a ban on new uranium mines on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, through the Arizona Strip, this guy was the number one opponent.”

  “Does he have mines there?”

  “A few, and he wanted more. But the Department of the Interior, and the Bureau of Land Management, shut him down. It was a big victory. Too bad Pen wasn’t around the see it. She would have been pretty happy.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Like, a year ago?”

  “So after Penny disappeared, but before Jane Vaughn was killed.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “What else can you tell me about Mr. Slim Jim?”

  “Well, he’s built like Ichabod Crane. The dude is like seven feet tall and weights a hundred pounds. What else can I tell you? He’s into uranium. Lives in Page when he’s not
prowling around the Arizona Strip looking for glowing rocks.”

  “Did Jane go up against him?”

  “I guess she would have. I bet that she was pushing hard for the uranium ban. All those little creeks that are getting polluted with radioactive mining waste are draining straight into the Grand Canyon. I bet if we riffle through the rest of these files, we’d find something, or maybe on her computer.”

  “Well, the FBI has that.”

  Hayduke scanned the piles of paper. “What’s that pile?” He pointed to a stack that was three inches high.

  “Important, but not a threat.” Silas tapped it.

  Hayduke pulled a letter off the top. “Look, it’s your old friend, Senior Senator for Utah C. Thorn Smith. He’s writing as the Chair of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources.”

  “I read it. It’s about a mine approval on the North Rim. Something called Patriot One. In the letter Smith is reminding Jane that the Patriot One was approved before the ban, and that she should stop complaining about it. This was just months before Jane disappeared. You know, Hayduke, if we knew for sure that Jane was fighting for the uranium ban on the North Rim, it would make a lot of sense that she ended up in a uranium mine waste site.”

  “Would this do?” Hayduke had gotten up and was standing next to a bulletin board covered in newspaper clippings, memos, news releases, and photos. He pulled the front-page clipping from the Salt Lake Tribune from the board and handed it to Silas.

  “Conservationists applaud mining ban,” the headline read. Beneath it was a picture of people smiling, shaking hands. The Grand Canyon was in the background.

  “Dude in the cowboy hat is the Secretary of the Interior,” Hayduke pointed out.

  “And this is Jane Vaughn,” said Silas, “shaking the Secretary’s hand.”

  SILAS PEARSON WAS WOKEN BY a sharp knock on his door.

  “Hold on,” he croaked.

  The knocking continued.

  He reached for his pants and pulled on a shirt. When he opened the door he saw Special Agent Eugene Nielsen. With him was a Latino man who wore a crisp suit and had a toothpick in his mouth.

  “I’m sorry to have woken you,” said Nielsen. Silas was patting down the quills of his hair. “This is Special Agent Manuel Ortiz. He’s with the Flagstaff office of the FBI.”

  Silas was silent for a long moment, regarding the men. “We have some questions for you,” Ortiz said.

  “You want to come in?” Silas looked behind himself at the room. It was small and there was no place to sit.

  “That’s very generous of you, Dr. Pearson,” Ortiz continued. “But we think it would be better if you came to visit us at our offices.”

  IT WAS AGREED that Silas could shower, change, have breakfast, and meet the FBI at ten that morning. He picked up a newspaper from the corner and had a sit-down breakfast at an upscale café on San Francisco Street. There was no sign of Hayduke. The pair had agreed to meet that morning but the young man was nowhere to be seen. Maybe the FBI had found him first and arranged for him to be questioned.

  That thought made Silas think that he should place a call to Ken Hollyoak. When he was finished his breakfast he stepped out of the diner and dialed Ken on his cell.

  “You can’t talk with them,” was Ken’s blunt response.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Sit tight. Tell them I’ll be there by four and we can talk then.”

  “I can handle this. I think Jane Vaughn was on to something that might lead me to Penny, Ken.”

  “Amigo, the FBI is not trying to help you find your beautiful wife. They are investigating a murder, and you, my wayward friend, are among their suspects.”

  “Ken, I’ve got a list of names of people who sent threats to Vaughn. Maybe the FBI can help me—”

  “Silas, listen to yourself.” Silas closed his eyes. “Just take a moment and listen to yourself,” Ken continued. “Do you really think that if you present this information to the FBI—this list of names—they will run out and start investigating these people for the death of Jane Vaughn? Do you really think that they will start searching for your wife again? They won’t. They will take all of this as the raving of a delusional madman who leads them to bodies based on dreams of his dead wife reciting Edward Abbey!”

  There was a long silence. “She’s not dead, Ken.”

  “I’m sorry, Silas. I shouldn’t have said that. Your missing wife.” He paused. “I’ll get the commuter flight from Grand Junction to Flag. I can be there … two and a half hours. By lunch. Sit tight, Silas.”

  “Ken, thank you, but I got this. I’m just going to go and talk with them.”

  “You do that, Silas, and I can’t protect you.”

  “I don’t need protection, Ken. I need to find my wife.” He hung up the phone.

  THE FBI’S FLAGSTAFF Field Office was in an industrial park near the city’s airport. Silas parked, went to the front door, and stepped inside. He was greeted by a man in uniform and asked to wait while Special Agent Ortiz was paged. A moment later, Ortiz appeared. “Good morning again, Dr. Pearson, please come in.”

  They walked to a conference room and Eugene Nielsen stood and nodded at Silas. “Good morning again, Dr. Pearson. Please, have a seat.” Silas sat down. The two agents sat down across from him.

  Ortiz started. “Okay, so, you are probably wondering why you are here. It’s simple. We know that you were in Jane Vaughn’s office last night. We know that Dallas Vaughn gave you the key. There is no problem with this. We hadn’t sealed the office, so you aren’t in any trouble, Dr. Pearson.” The Flagstaff agent’s demeanor was refreshing after the treatment Silas had received from the Monticello office over the last four and a half years. Where were you when Penelope went missing? he thought.

  Ortiz continued. “We are curious about your interest in Ms. Vaughn, and what you might be able to tell us about her activities before her death. As you might imagine, we are curious about what motive her killer might have had for her murder.”

  Silas looked at Nielsen as if to say, See, this is how you people in Utah should behave. Nielsen just looked blankly back at him. Silas took a sip of water and cleared his throat.

  “So you’re admitting that this was murder?”

  “Not admitting. The medical examiner’s office has released their report and concluded that Ms. Vaughn’s death was murder,” said Ortiz.

  “How was she killed?”

  “We can’t talk about that.”

  “But she was dead when she went into the ground at the

  Atlas Mill?”

  “She didn’t die of suffocation, from being buried, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I think that’s what I’m asking.” Silas shifted uncomfortably at the thought of such a gruesome death.

  “As for motive?” Agent Nielsen interrupted.

  “Well, to start with, I didn’t know Jane personally. Agent Nielsen here may recall me telling his boss that in Moab. But my wife knew her. And the circumstances around my finding her, well, you might know …”

  Ortiz smiled. “Yes, you have dreams. I understand. This isn’t a problem for me to comprehend, Dr. Pearson. The Bureau sometimes uses intermediaries and psychics to help in the resolution of crimes. It’s not so hard for me to believe.” Silas thought maybe Ortiz was taking a dig at his colleagues across the border in Utah.

  “I have no idea why Jane Vaughn was in that reclamation pit or why I dreamt of her.”

  “You say that you didn’t know her, but your wife did. What did they work on together?”

  “The only time I remember Jane and Penny together was for a meeting at our home here in Flag about Wilderness along the river corridor in Grand Canyon National Park. There were a few other folks in the room, people that Penny must have known and volunteered with, and there was the superintendent of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.”

  “Chas Hinkley.”

  “Yes, you know him?”

  “Only in so much a
s his name appears in Ms. Vaughn’s computer a number of times.”

  “Did he write her threatening emails?”

  “No. Nothing like that. But she wrote him a great number of times.”

  “What did she say?”

  Nielsen straightened up. “Dr. Pearson, let us ask the questions.”

  Silas looked at him. “No, Special Agent, I won’t let you ask the questions. We’re having a conversation. If this is an interrogation, then I’m leaving.”

  Nielsen nodded his head. Ortiz smiled warmly. “Ms. Vaughn seemed to be petitioning Mr. Hinkley for support for her proposal for legislated Wilderness in the Grand Canyon. In her last email she indicated that she was willing to concede that there would be no such designation in Glen Canyon—the part below the dam—but that what she called ‘capital-W’ wilderness was necessary to ensure the protection of the Grand Canyon.”

  “Did Hinkley respond?”

  “Not that we can see.”

  “Is he a suspect?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you think that the two of them had a particularly acrimonious relationship?”

  “I wouldn’t describe them as friends, but no, there was nothing there to indicate motive.”

  “Did you review her paper files?”

  “Yes.”

  Silas rubbed his face. “You don’t think that the notes found there were more than casual banter?”

  Ortiz smiled again. “Dr. Pearson, what else can you tell us about Ms. Vaughn that we might not already know?”

  Silas remained silent. He weighed his conversation with Dallas Vaughn in his head, and considered the threats against her by Slim Jim Zahn. If they weren’t taking the Hinkley threats seriously, what would they think about these hunches that he was developing? Finally he said, “Nothing. I can’t think of anything more to tell you.”

  Ortiz pulled a heavy file from his briefcase on the floor and put it down on the table. He tapped his pencil on it a moment before opening it. Silas could see that there were neatly organized stacks of paper in it. The whole thing was an inch and a half thick. Ortiz sifted through them. Nielsen smiled at Silas.

  “Did you know that Ms. Vaughn had made comments in the past that she wanted to blow up Glen Canyon Dam?” Silas looked from one agent to the other. “Yes, that’s right. She had said so publicly. Eight years ago. And again just five years ago. She said that the best thing we could do for the Colorado River was blow up Glen Canyon Dam and let the river run free through Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon.”