Desert Run

by Betty Webb

  More teeth. “Oh, you’re no fun. She’s at The Skin Factory, on Scottsdale Road.”

  Too bad I hadn’t known this before my trip north. The Skin Factory was less than a mile south of my office. A topless bar, it was the latest addition in a long line of so-called gentlemen’s clubs, massage parlors, and outright bordellos that were turning South Scottsdale into a sexual combat zone. The Scottsdale City Council, its tunnel vision focused on the glittering developments of the upscale northern section of the city, appeared content to let the southern end rot, ignoring the pleas of the neighborhood’s hard-working blue-collar families who resented the horny drunks driving down their streets looking for action.

  I thanked MaryEllen’s roommate for her help. As I started down the stairs she called out, “Tell MaryEllen that Clay called right after she left. And to be careful. He might show up.” Before I could ask who Clay was, she closed the door.

  Rush hour was over, so I made good time and pulled into the parking lot of the Skin Factory a mere fifteen minutes later. With its landscaping of Italian poplars and neo-Tuscan facade, the bar was trying for tasteful, but that’s always a losing proposition when the front of your building features a ten-foot-high pink neon sign of a naked woman in a pose similar to those found on the mud flaps of pickup trucks. The name SKIN FACTORY blinking on and off in purple neon did help, either. After parking the Jeep between a rickety Ford pickup and a sun-bleached Nissan, I made my way to the bouncer stationed outside the entrance.

  “You looking for work, honey?” Mr. Bouncer was about the same size as my Jeep and probably every bit as tough, so I didn’t crack wise while his eyes expertly tracked every line of my body. “Jim generally likes them a little younger, but I say, hey, a few miles on a gal can be awful sexy when she’s built like you.”

  Uncertain whether to feel flattered or insulted, I flashed my PI license. “Thanks for the compliment, but I was hoping to have a few words with MaryEllen Bollinger before she…” Before she does what? Clocks in? Goes onstage? Gets down butt-naked?

  Mr. Bouncer narrowed his eyes, not that it took much; they were already at half-mast. “You want to talk to her, you make an appointment.”

  I thought fast. “It’s about, uh, Clay. And the trouble she’s been having with him.”

  He grunted. “That mope. Go on back, then. The dressing room’s on the left side of the stage, behind the pillar that says EMPLOYEES ONLY. Tell her not to worry, that Otto’s got her back.”

  Once through the door, I was stopped by yet another bouncer who—my PI license notwithstanding—made me fork over the twenty-dollar guest admission. Eyes stunned by the dimly lit room, I stumbled through a fug of cigarettes and soured beer toward the brightly lit stage, trying to evade the hands that reached for me. The dancer, a brunette sporting a matched set of double-D’s, gyrated against a pole, her hips out of sync with the beat of a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack. Well, if I were as top-heavy and stoned as her eyes told me she was, I’d probably flub a few dance steps, too. Another bouncer, this one larger than Otto, stood by the dressing room door, but when I flashed my ID and mentioned Clay, he opened the door for me, muttering, “Don’t know why she needs a PI. I’ll take care of the asshole for free.”

  MaryEllen Bollinger sat facing the makeup mirror. When she turned around, I could see why Clay was on a first-name basis with the club’s bouncers. A startlingly beautiful redhead, she sported a shiner almost the same size and color as the maroon aureole around her nipples, although the concealer she’d applied did a masterful job of disguising the damage. “You the new girl?” she asked, her voice as high and soft as a child’s. “You’re not due on for another hour.”

  With her looks, it was hard to understand why she worked in a cheezy South Scottsdale topless bar, not Hollywood. Maybe she couldn’t act. Then again, most starlets not half as beautiful as she couldn’t act, yet they still headed up sit-coms and rode around in limos. But MaryEllen’s career decisions—or lack thereof—were irrelevant to my mission so I handed over my ID and told her why I’d come. “Other than the killer, you were probably the last person to talk to Mr. Ernst the night of the murder.”

  So flat was her affect that at first I thought she hadn’t heard me. She kept staring at my ID card while her foot tapped to the music leaking through the door. Finally she shrugged, making her perfect nipples bounce up and down. “The cops have already checked my alibi. Besides, Ernst is dead now, so what does it matter?”

  An odd remark, considering that Ernst was dead and that was the matter. “What was your connection to Ernst?”

  “None of your business.” With that, she faced the mirror and began applying more concealer to her eye. Her back didn’t bear bra strap marks, but with implants like hers, who needed a bra? The rest of her was real enough.

  “You’re a suspect in a murder case. Wouldn’t you like to clear your name?”

  The mirror reflected her smile. “The name ‘Bollinger’ will never be cleared. The damned Nazi saw to that sixty years ago. Now, you’ll have to excuse me, Miss Jones. My public awaits.” The eye now looked as perfect as the rest of her. She put the concealer away in her makeup kit, then stood up, her almost impossibly long legs lengthened even further by five-inch stiletto pumps. Her matching silver thong was tiny enough to prove that she was a natural redhead.

  It never hurt to appeal to someone’s good nature, even a topless dancer’s. “Please, MaryEllen. An innocent man has been arrested for Ernst’s murder, an Ethiopian immigrant named Rada Tesema. He has a wife and children back home who depend on him for financial support.”

  When she blinked, silver eyeliner sparkled. “Ethiopia?”

  “Border wars, famine, the whole bit. Tesema is his family’s only ticket out.”

  She closed her eyes long enough to give me hope, so I pushed it further. “He has four sons, two daughters. All hungry.”

  Her eyes were a vivid blue, unclouded by drugs. “Does he love his daughters as much as he loves his sons?”

  The question caught me off guard.. “I…I didn’t ask.”

  “Lots of men don’t, you know. Especially in those Third World countries. Women don’t count for much over there.”

  “Judging from that shiner you’re sporting, they don’t always count for much here, either.”

  She surprised me again by leaning forward and gently touching the scar above my own eye. “No, they don’t, do they?”

  The expression on my face must have been all the answer she needed, because she straightened and said, “I’m dancing a four-hour shift tonight. You want to talk, call me sometime Sunday afternoon. That’s my day off. Until then, why don’t you do a little research? If you really are a private detective, it should be a piece of cake. Bollinger. Scottsdale. Christmas Day. 1944.”

  With that, she left me staring at my own scarred face in the dressing room mirror.

  ***

  If there was such a thing as a wasted day, Saturday was it. I picked up a Lexus at Hertz, tucked my blond hair into a brunette wig, and again followed Jack Sherwood back and forth across the city, from shopping center to spa, from business lunch to business dinner. Everywhere he went, he left a trail of smiles and big tips. Yet I couldn’t get over my feeling that something was seriously out of kilter with the man.

  By the time I returned the Lexus and made it to the office, Jimmy, who had dropped in for a while, was gone. A search through the papers he left on my desk revealed no new information on Sherwood’s dealings in Mississippi. But private cases paid less than corporate ones, and Southwest MicroSystems’ background checks paid even more than the usual, so those came first. Still, I put a sticky note on his computer screen, reminding him to run the Sherwood file first thing Monday morning. From the conversation I’d had with Beth Osman on the way back from Hertz, I feared that she—despite her suspicions about Sherwood —was falling more deeply in love with him.

  Women were so crazy.

  My office voice mail was clogged with messages. My own relations
hip anxiety spiked when I came across a message from Warren asking me for another dinner date.

  Should I, or shouldn’t I?

  I considered it carefully before making up my mind, then punched in Warren’s number. He didn’t pick up on his cell, so I left my own message. Dinner sounds great, I purred into his machine. Seven o’clock, too. I’ll be waiting. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to recall them.

  Embarrassed by my own craziness, I didn’t.

  ***

  It was pointless to open Desert Investigations on Sunday morning, especially since I’d worked all day Saturday, so as soon as the sun was up, I put on some running clothes and took my usual six-miler down to Papago Park and around the Buttes. The film set was deserted, with all the camera, sound and light equipment locked securely in the trailers. The only person present was the security guard I’d hired, and he waved to me as I jogged by. A few blocks on, I passed Erik Ernst’s house, where a few pieces of yellow tape still fluttered in the morning breeze. I averted my eyes. Once back at my apartment, I took a long shower, but it didn’t wash my restlessness away. Rada Tesema’s face still haunted me.

  Around ten, I heard a knock at the door, and looked through the peephole to see a delivery man standing there with a huge bouquet of deep red roses. On Sunday? Discarding my usual caution, I opened the door and signed for them. After I’d whisked them inside, I opened the card and read:

  For the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.

  W.

  P.S. Her Jeep’s cool, too.

  I filled an empty Trader Joe’s coffee can with water and arranged the roses as best I could. Then I carried them over to my faux pine coffee table and stared at them, inhaling their sweet aroma as it drifted through my apartment.

  Dusty had never sent me roses.

  Once the novelty of the roses wore off, I flipped through my old blues albums, finally settling on Robert “Washboard Sam” Brown’s Rockin’ My Blues Away. This was one of my favorite anthologies since it included contributions by Memphis Slim and Roosevelt Sykes on piano, and Brown’s half-brother Big Bill Broonzy on guitar. Although one of the best singer/composers in the business, Brown’s recording career was cut short during World War II, when royalty disputes broke out between the American Federation of Musicians, the record labels, and the radio stations that wanted to play their music. By the time the dispute was settled in November 1944, Brown’s career had waned, which made his pre-WWII recordings even more valuable. After making myself as comfortable as possible on my lumpy sofa, I listened to all twenty-two cuts on Rockin’ My Blues Away. As the last cut ended, I realized that at the same time Washboard Sam and his friends were wailing away in Chicago blues bars instead of recording in studios, German POWs were streaming into Camp Papago.

  There it was. Sunday or not, I simply couldn’t keep my mind off the Erik Ernst case.

  Giving up my attempt to celebrate a day of rest, I headed for the Scottsdale Public Library and its impressive periodical files. The library sat behind a swan-filled lagoon on the big Civic Center complex, nestled between City Hall and Scottsdale South Police Station. The doors opened just as I arrived, and I joined the line of patrons streaming through the big glass doors.

  ***

  The Scottsdale Journal had long stopped allowing non-reporters access to their morgue, but the library had archived the entire eighty-eight years of Journal issues onto microfilm. With the aid of a helpful librarian, it didn’t take long for me to find what MaryEllen Bollinger had been hinting at. No Bollinger was listed in the December 25, 1944, edition, but the next day’s issue told me everything I needed to know.

  FAMILY FOUND MURDERED

  Scottsdale——Christmas ushered in tragedy for one Scottsdale family. Late Christmas night, Edward Bollinger, 40, his wife Joyce, 32, daughter Jennifer, 12, and sons Robert and Scott, 10 and 8, were found dead by a relative in their remote farmhouse. Edward Bollinger was shot to death near the barn with his own shotgun. His wife and children were found in the kitchen, beaten about their heads. The house was ransacked and the family’s cream-colored 1939 Oldsmobile convertible was missing.

  “If anyone has any information as to the whereabouts of Chester Bollinger, 15, the family’s oldest son, please let the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office know,” said Sheriff Leroy Jeakins.

  When asked if it was possible if Chester Bollinger himself might have some knowledge about the murders, Sheriff Jeakins refused further comment.

  The killing of the Bollinger family came amid rumors that numerous German POWs, who were stockaded at Papago Park, have somehow managed to escape. At press time, this could not be confirmed, although there have been complaints in the past about Camp Papago’s lax security.

  Neither Sheriff Jeakins nor Camp Papago officials would comment whether there was any connection between the Germans’ reputed escape and the Bollinger murders. However, Scottsdale residents are advised to lock their doors and to report anyone acting suspiciously, especially if he speaks with a German accent.

  I sat back from the microfilm reader and began to think.

  “The name ‘Bollinger’ will never be cleared,” MaryEllen had said. “The damned Nazi saw to that sixty years ago.” Was this what she meant? She was, at the most, in her late twenties, not born when the Bollinger family was slaughtered, although given her last name she was no doubt related to them. Had the escaped POWs been connected to the murders? And if so, why was no mention of the murders being made in Warren’s documentary?

  As I continued to read through the Journal’s old issues, I discovered the answers.

  December 27, 1944

  GERMAN ESCAPEES NOT MURDERERS, FBI SAYS

  Scottsdale——In a meeting held yesterday in downtown Phoenix, FBI Special Agent Ronald Adlow and Maricopa Country Sheriff Leroy Jeakins issued a joint statement saying that the German POWs who escaped on Christmas Eve from the stockade in Papago Park were not involved in the murders of the Bollinger family.

  “While we understand the community’s fears, be assured that none of the twenty-eight men who tunneled out of Camp Papago on Christmas Eve killed the Bollinger family,” said Sheriff Jeakins.

  “The evidence we’ve gathered points away from the Germans. A single pair of bloody footprints leading away from the bodies show that the killer was a small-statured person, perhaps a teenager. We have reliable information that a teenage boy was seen driving a car resembling the Bollingers’ Oldsmobile through the outskirts of Scottsdale during the late hours of Christmas night.

  “Camp Papago has given the Sheriff’s Department complete physical descriptions of the escapees, and all twenty-eight were large men who wore shoe sizes much larger than the footprints we found. I would like to point out that Chester Bollinger is small in stature, and he has not yet come forward to tell us what, if anything, he knows about the murders. If anyone has knowledge of young Mr. Bollinger’s whereabouts, they are urged to contact the police immediately. But do not attempt to apprehend him. According to those who know him, he once attacked his father with a hammer.”

  FBI Special Agent Ronald Adlow said that it was possible the Germans came across the farmhouse either before or after the Bollinger family had been killed, but if so, all the Germans did was remove food, some clothing, and a few blankets.

  “We have assurances from Camp Papago officials that none of the POWs has a reputation for violence,” Adlow said.

  That last quote made me shake my head in disbelief. The Germans didn’t have a reputation for violence? Why in the world did Agent Adlow think that the U-boat crews had been imprisoned at Camp Papago in the first place?

  Another thing about the article bothered me. Sheriff Jeakins had come so close to accusing Chester Bollinger of the murders that it bordered on libel. Same for the Scottsdale Journal itself. Granted, in the past sixty years there had been curbs put on the information law enforcement agencies could release about juveniles, and even more curbs on the way newspapers could report crime. But the infl
ammatory language used in the article still bothered me.

  My eyes tired from the glare of the microfilm reader, I stood up and walked into the ladies’ room to splash some water on them. While I leaned across the sink, a major Scottsdale celebrity came in, clutching a big stack of books on eighteenth-century England. Diana Gabaldon, silk scarf fluttering, hip-length brunette hair swinging as she walked. Her time-travel adventure novels had put her on the New York Times best-seller list several times. I’d read them all. We’d exchanged pleasantries: I’d once helped rid her of a stalker. Eyes refreshed, I returned to the microfilm reader.

  The next few issues of the Scottsdale Journal reported the capture of several Germans, three near the Mexican border, one in Mesa, one in Tempe, and a couple on nearby Indian reservations. But a week after the escape twenty-two of them remained at large, including Kapitan Ernst and two members of his U-boat crew. In one article, the unknown reporter—at the time, newspapers apparently didn’t identify an article’s writer by name—called the search for the POWs “the greatest manhunt in Arizona’s history.” Photographs of the remaining escapees were printed over the fold, with the headline, “$25 reward per Nazi!” I stared at the young Ernst, who was almost unrecognizable from the shrunken, wheelchair-bound man he’d become. He glared at the camera from underneath a thick thatch of pale hair, and the cold look in his eyes made me believe that he was perfectly capable of murder. The Journal reporter seemed to believe so, too, because he included the following paragraphs at the bottom of his article.

  One of the most notorious of the escapees is Kapitan zur See Erik Ernst, who was one of the POWs originally implicated in the murder of fellow POW Werner Dreschler. Dreschler, who had been suspected of giving the Allies information about U-boat deployment, was found hanged in a shower stall March 12 at Camp Papago mere hours after his arrival in the camp. His body bore the marks of more than 100 cigarette burns and knife wounds, all inflicted before death. In the following inquiry, Ernst was cleared of the charges.