by Andrew Hunt
“What?” asked Roscoe.
“He’s deep in some crevice somewhere nobody’s ever gonna find him.”
“What year did this happen?” I asked.
He closed his eyes and thought it over. “Mmm, nineteen and twenty-six.”
“Maybe he had some sort of accident,” I suggested.
He opened his eyes and laughed. “Sure. Right. Uh-huh. An accident. Just like Caldwell Black, Rulon’s younger brother. He started getting funny ideas, too. He went around telling anybody who’d listen that the fundamentalists were up to no good, sinning with young girls and making dirty money hand over fist. He went missing, too.”
“When?” I asked.
“Four years ago,” said Babcock. “His house burned to the ground, killing his wife and three of his children. Caldwell’s body was never found. That happened in Dixie City, too. Town marshal chalked it up to a faulty furnace. That’s a laugh.”
“What do you think happened to him?” I asked.
“I don’t think anything, Mr. Detective. I know darn well what happened to him. He’s in the same slot canyon as Len Orton. They’ve tried to kill me, too, a couple of times. Fired shots into my lot here a few years back. I’m pretty sure they’re trying to poison me now. They regard me as a threat.”
Roscoe chuckled. “You’re starting to sound paranoid, Babcock. Maybe we oughta be making rubber room reservations for you.”
Babcock sneered. “Mock me all you want. God knows I speak the truth. Just wait until we find out what happened to those boys who went missing in May.”
“What boys?” I asked.
Babcock swallowed hard and got nervous. “You mean … you don’t know?”
“Know what?” asked Roscoe.
Babcock shook his head. “I need to get back to work. I’m a busy man.”
“Bullshit!” snapped Roscoe. “You can’t go jackassing like that and then just drop it. What do you mean missing boys?”
“I see what you’re trying to do,” he said, taking a few steps backward. “Sniffing around here, asking all of these questions. Well, it won’t work. You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to fool this old catfish.”
“These boys you mentioned,” I said. “Who are they and when did they go missing?”
He waved a hand in the direction of State Street. “I’m going to have to ask you both to leave. I won’t answer any more questions unless I have my lawyer present.”
Nodding, I took one of my business cards from a holder I kept in my pocket, placed it on the hood of a car, and looked at Roscoe. “Got a pencil on you?”
He plucked one out of his pocket, all the while glowering at Babcock, and handed it to me. I jotted my telephone number on the back of my card and returned to the pencil to Roscoe. I handed Babcock the card and he arched his eyebrows at it.
“If you happen to think of something you think I should know, call me,” I said. “Day or night, it doesn’t matter. I’ve written my home telephone number on the back of the card just in case.”
He pocketed the card and we set off, back toward our car. We were halfway across the lot, passing rattletraps with new sets of tires, rusted areas painted over, and dents pounded out, before Roscoe spoke. “You let him off easy, Art. I was prepared to beat the shit out of him until he coughed up more information.”
“You don’t understand,” I whispered out the side of my mouth. “This is the most information anybody’s given us since the murders. If we push him too hard, he’s gonna go cold on us. If we bend a little, give him some elbow room, we can come back for more. We don’t want him thinking we’re the enemy, Roscoe.”
We’d almost reached 800 South when I heard Babcock call my name. “Oveson!” I turned around to see him standing in the middle of all those autos.
“I noticed you were ogling at the Oakland!”
“She’s a beaut!” I shouted back.
“You can’t beat that price! Want to take her for a spin?”
“Let me talk to the missus and I’ll get back to you!”
“Tell the little lady that for twenty extra bucks, I’ll throw in a car radio!”
“I will! Thanks!”
Roscoe and I started again in the direction to the car.
“All right, we’ll back off for now,” conceded Roscoe. “But please tell me you’re not going to buy a car from that weasel.”
“Just humoring him,” I said, winking as we crossed the piping-hot pavement.
Fifteen
The bitty bell jingled when I closed the flower shop door. The strong scent of roses greeted my nose. A familiar-looking group of four women on the other side of the counter in the rear of the store briefly stopped assembling and wrapping bouquets to watch me. One leaned to another and whispered, and both—like all of the others—stared at me as I walked in with Roscoe following me. Something about the combination of the chilled air, dim light, and bright, fragrant blooms comforted me, enough to make me consider how pleasant it would be to take a nap in here. I reached the counter, a little higher than my waist, and rested my palms on the surface near the brass cash register.
“Mr. Jeppson?” I asked.
“He’s not here,” said a black-haired, olive-complected woman in a pale blue dress. She was probably around my age.
“Where is he?” asked Roscoe, scanning the place.
“We don’t know,” answered a similarly dressed redhead. “He didn’t tell us where he was going.”
“We have no idea when he’s going to be back,” said another.
Roscoe bowed to admire orchids in a vase. “We’ll wait.”
“We aren’t sure when he’ll return,” the redhead reiterated. “He’ll probably be gone a long time.”
Roscoe shrugged. “We haven’t got any pressing engagements.”
“Don’t let us interrupt you,” I said.
“He’s right,” said Roscoe. “Go on doing what you were doing.”
We waited. And waited. Five minutes ticked by, then ten. I leaned against the counter for support. Roscoe strolled up and down the center of the store, examining prearranged bouquets in vases behind sliding glass doors. The women went about their business, trimming flowers, arranging them with baby’s breath or assorted greens, trying their hardest not to look at us. I was starting to fear that we might be there all day long. After a half hour of this, one of the women, young and big boned, with ruddy cheeks and auburn hair, stood so abruptly that she sent her chair skidding backward. She opened the door to the back room, slipped inside, and slammed it behind her, startling a couple of her coworkers. Roscoe and I looked at each other for a second, then returned our attention to the women still slaving away behind the counter.
“Got any Dr Pepper?” Roscoe asked.
The women ignored him, but one—the redhead in blue—gave him a forlorn eye and shook her head.
“I didn’t think so,” he said, with a sly grin.
The big-boned woman emerged from the back room with Carl Jeppson in tow, fancied up in his three-piece Sunday finest and bringing with him a palpable sense of dread. He approached the counter and puffed his cheeks and shook his head disdainfully.
“It’s bad enough that you fellows tore me away from my shop on one of the busiest days of the year and kept me languishing in a jail cell for hours, even though I committed no crime.” One could not miss the bitterness in his voice. “Now you’re back for more, I see. You can’t leave me well enough alone, can you?”
“What can we say?” asked Roscoe. “We’ve taken a shine to you.”
“Please be brief,” he said. “I’ve had it up to here with these disruptions.”
“We don’t intend to stay long,” I said. “The reason we’re here is you weren’t entirely forthcoming with us the other day, Jeppson.”
“Oh?”
“You left something out,” I said.
“What?”
“You never mentioned those boys who went missing in May.”
His face lost all color. His
mouth moved for a few seconds, but at first no words came out. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I mean,” I said. “Same way you knew who that girl was in the picture I showed you the other day, even though you said you didn’t. You know more than you let on.”
He glanced over his shoulder, then he sized me up. “Outside?”
I nodded. He took a second or so to jot something on a slip of paper, then dropped the pencil on the counter and placed the paper in his pocket. He rounded the counter and led the way to the exit. A moment later, Jeppson, Roscoe, and I stood in triangle formation in the late-afternoon heat, where the traffic made my eardrums throb. At first when Jeppson spoke, I couldn’t hear him above the steady roar of automobile engines. I lifted my finger to my earlobe and pleaded with him to talk a little louder. He cleared his throat and raised his voice so it was barely loud enough for me to hear him.
“Please mind your own business,” he said.
“We can provide police protection,” I said. “Whoever it is you’re afraid of…”
“You know my attorney’s name, Detective,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare for a trip out of town.”
“Where to?” asked Roscoe.
He furrowed his brow. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ll be attending LeGrand Johnston’s funeral in Dixie City. I don’t wish to be delayed any further.”
I said, “We have a few questions.…”
He moved right up to me and began shouting at the top of his lungs. “I have nothing to say to either of you! My attorney is listed in the city directory! Leave! Now!” Then he leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t look at the sedan parked across the street. Check your shirt pocket after you go.”
He walked away. Ding ding. The sign in the flower shop door flipped from OPEN to CLOSED. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied the sedan he’d mentioned, a late-model brown Hudson, with a driver and a front-seat passenger. The sun’s glare on the windshield and the brevity of my glance prevented me from getting a good look at the men inside. Carl Jeppson’s yelling had all been for show. I didn’t want to look at the slip of paper he’d given me, for fear that whoever was in that car might notice.
Roscoe and I crossed the street to our unmarked police car, opened the doors, and climbed inside. Pulling the door shut, I reached in my pocket and tugged out a piece of paper slightly larger than a fortune cookie fortune. I opened the folded slip in my hand to see what he gave me.
Neat uppercase print said simply HELP US.
I handed it to Roscoe. He read it, said “Hmm,” and gave it back. I looked at my rearview mirror in time to see the Hudson parked behind us leave the curb, make a U-turn, and speed west on 200 South. Who those two men were and where they were going, I had no idea. I wish I’d seen their faces.
“Did you get a look at the plates?” asked Roscoe.
“No,” I said. “You?”
“Afraid not.”
“Jared’s running a check on Model T trucks,” I said. “I’ll add brown Hudsons to his list.”
* * *
Perched on the swivel chair’s edge, gazing out the window at the smoky skies, I lifted the telephone receiver and tapped the cradle a couple of times. I listened into the ebony earpiece and waited. The line crackled with distant party-line voices coming and going like ghosts waltzing in a ballroom.
“Operator. May I help you?”
“Long distance,” I said. “To the sheriff’s office, Kingman, Arizona.”
“Hold the line, please.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
The other end of the line purred with a trio of rings before somebody answered.
“Sheriff’s office. May I help you?” asked a woman’s throaty voice.
“Is this Kingman?”
“It most certainly is. How may I help you?”
I introduced myself and said, “I’d like to speak to the sheriff, if he’s in.”
“Hold the line.”
I did as she asked. A couple of clicks later, a man came on, sounding even more gravelly than the woman who answered the line. “Sheriff Colborne here.”
Once more, I introduced myself. When I addressed him as Sheriff Colborne, he asked me to call him by his first name, Burke. “Much obliged, Burke,” I said. “I’ve got a few questions. It shouldn’t take long. Is now an okay time?”
“No better time than now,” he said. “Slow day here in Kingman.”
“Dixie City is in your county, isn’t it?”
“Polygamistville. Certainly is. What about it?”
“How often does your job take you out there?”
“I steer clear of the place. They don’t want me there. I don’t want to be there.”
“But you have been there, correct?”
“Couple of times, yeah.”
“Do you know anything about some apostles in the Fundamentalist Church of Saints who went missing a while back? Their names were…” I closed my eyes to recollect. “Len Orton and Caldwell Black.” I opened my eyes again. “Ring any bells?”
“No, sir. They coulda been before my time. You say they disappeared?”
“Some time back. I don’t know any of the details. On a related subject, you didn’t happen to hear anything about some boys from Dixie City who went missing in May, did you?”
He paused again to consider the question. “No. Can’t say I have.”
“We have a girl in custody who’s mute. She’s probably thirteen, I’m guessing. We have reason to believe she’s from a polygamist family, but she hasn’t said a word. She can’t—or won’t—say who she is, and we’re stumped as to her identity. Nobody has claimed her. We’ve more or less reached a dead end with her.”
“If she won’t say who she is, how do you know she’s got polygamist kin?”
I took several minutes to explain to him that I had found her at a murder scene, Le Grand Johnston’s, in fact, and that she was being held somewhere safely. I didn’t tell him she was staying at my house. I figured he didn’t need to know that.
“Sounds like she’s been down a troubled road,” he said. “Too bad. Sorry I can’t help you. I don’t know anything about her.”
“You haven’t heard about a missing girl from Dixie City?” I asked.
“No, sir. No missing boys, no missing girl, nothing like that. Even if there were, I’d have no way of knowing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Dixie City’s got its own law,” he said. “Marshal Ferron Steed. He’s more an enforcer than an officer of the law. Takes orders from his fundamentalist bosses. He can’t stomach me. The feeling is mutual. There are a couple of goons in his employ called the Kunz brothers, Dorland and Devlin, two of the worst bottom-feeders to ever set foot in Arizona. I’m certain they’ve left a trail of bodies out in the desert. I have no way of proving it, mind you, ’cause ain’t no way anybody’s gonna find where them bodies are buried.”
“How’d you come by this information?”
“Let’s just say the rumor mill operates at full capacity around here,” he said. “From what I’ve heard, Steed and the Kunz brothers answer to Rulon Black. He runs the show down here.”
“Why all the secrecy?” I asked.
“They’re racketeers, the polygamists,” said Colborne. “They use their religion as a cover to hide their crimes.”
“When you say crimes…”
“It’s all grapevine.”
“It’d help me if you’d elaborate,” I said.
“I don’t know all the specifics. Put it this way. They’ve got their own empire up there. And, like most empires, parts of it are none too savory. Beyond that, I don’t care to speculate over the telephone with someone I don’t know.”
I felt queasy from this conversation. “These boys who disappeared in May, surely somebody must miss them?”
“Yeah, sure, maybe their loved ones. But Detective, there are a million places in the desert where you can dump a body and nobody’s ever gon
na find it. That goes doubly so for children. It doesn’t help any that the polygamists quit applying for birth certificates for their newborns years ago, so we have no way of knowing how many children live in Dixie City.”
“No birth certificates,” I said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“These folks aren’t like you or me. They live in the shadows. They hide everything. They leave no telltale signs.” There was a long pause. “I feel bad.”
“Why?”
“I’m sure there’s more I could’ve done, and could be doing now. Problem is, these people are always one step ahead of me. They guard their secrets carefully.”
“Thank you for your help, Sheriff,” I said.
“I wasn’t any help, I’m sure. I’m afraid in this instance, nobody can help you. So long, Detective.”
Sixteen
“Permission denied!”
I had only been in Buddy Hawkins’s office for a few minutes before he blew up, and I was already starting to regret my decision to run my idea by him.
“I’m surprised you’d make this request! What’s gotten into you?”
“I’m getting nowhere here,” I said. “My men and I are running around in circles.”
“And what do you think you’re going to find down there that you can’t find here?”
I shrugged. “I won’t know until I go there.”
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the murders? If so, let me remind you that you have no business—”
“I know, I know,” I said. “That’s Wit’s turf.”
“Once you leave the city limits, you’re out of your jurisdiction.”
“The law allows me to question people outside of Salt Lake City, even out of the state, if need be.”
“Let’s not split hairs. You and I know the polygamists own Dixie City. They run everything, from top to bottom. Law enforcement, the courts, municipal politics, the schools, you name it. It’s their town. The last thing we need right now is for you to go down there and raise a ruckus.…”
“Who said anything about a ruckus? All I want to do is talk to a few locals, find out what I can.”
