Desert Run

by Betty Webb

Her beautiful face looked haunted. “No. Nothing ever does.”

  ***

  From MaryEllen’s house, I struggled through the height of the evening rush hour to Shady Rest Care Home, where Chess Bollinger was living out the last of his days. Once I arrived at Shady Rest, which was located in Mesa not far from the Ethiopians’ apartment, I realized what she had meant when she’d said it was just as well that her father was barely lucid. If, for any reason, I ever needed to spend some time in such a place, I’d want to be unaware of my surroundings, too. In a flat-out coma if possible.

  On the exterior, the immense Shady Rest looked little worse than other care homes I’d seen before, with a plain, four-story brick facade uncluttered by too many windows and “landscaping” consisting of nothing more than stained concrete. But it was worse—much worse—on the inside. When I walked through the double doors and onto the stained brown carpet, I was enveloped by a funereal silence. The stench of near-cremated food, overlaid with a hint of human waste and Pine-Sol, filled the muggy air but it didn’t appear to bother the gum-chewing receptionist, who was busy painting her nails a silver-sparkled fuchsia.

  I approached her desk and cleared my throat. “I’m here to see Chess Bollinger.”

  She didn’t bother to raise her dirty, black-rooted blond hair, just kept slathering on the gaudy polish. “Go on back.”

  “Back where?”

  “Where the patients are.” Still no meeting of the eyes.

  Her rudeness, as well as the funky smells, annoyed me, so I leaned over her desk and spoke to the top of her head. “Health Department been by to inspect your kitchen lately?”

  Brown eyes finally gazed insolently into mine. “Last month. We passed.” For emphasis, she cracked her gum.

  If the Health Department had passed this place, Shady Rest’s management had probably been tipped off ahead of time that they were coming and so hurriedly cleaned up. Or maybe money had passed hands. “How wonderful for you. But I haven’t been here before and I have no idea ‘where the patients are’ is or what Mr. Bollinger looks like, so if you could give me some directions to his room I’d sure appreciate it. And if you don’t, I just might dump that ugly nail polish on your ugly, unwashed head.”

  I had her attention now. “You don’t have to get nasty.”

  “Nice didn’t work. Where’s Mr. Bollinger?”

  With a put-upon sigh, she opened a drawer and took out a chart. “Bollinger, Bollinger, Bollinger. Yeah. Here it is. He’s in room 1173A.” She put the chart back in the drawer and started polishing her nails again.

  “How do I find 1173A?”

  Polish, polish. Then, as I reached for the bottle of sparkly goo, she quickly drew it back and vented another sigh. “Take the first left down that hall, then the first right, then another left at the ‘T.’ Second room down, on the left. Somebody let you out of your cage too early or something?”

  I didn’t bother to reply, but as I walked down the dimly lit corridor, I wondered if the receptionist’s disinterest in the home’s residents was echoed by the rest of the staff, if there was any. I hadn’t seen a nurse yet, just elderly residents in dirty dressing gowns tottering along behind their walkers, and a few even less lucky souls who sat slumped in tarnished wheelchairs. To my dismay, I saw a puddle of urine under the wheelchair of one elderly woman who was parked along the corridor wall, but when I called out, no one rushed to clean either it or the woman.

  By the time I found room 1173A, my mood was as glum as the surroundings. The door was open so I walked in. No paintings or drawings decorated the room’s walls, no cards or photographs from loved ones sat on the tiny table separating the beds. It was as anonymous as Motel 6 but much less lush. There were two men in the room, one in a bed near the window, the other—who appeared to be much smaller than his roommate—in the bed closest to the door. Both lay amid yellowed sheets, hovering somewhere between sleep and insensibility. This didn’t seem to bother the stringy, middle-aged woman sitting in a chair next to the smaller of the two men.

  “Are you Mrs. Bollinger?”

  She gave me a broad, unsettling smile. “Sure am. Judith. Don’t like Judy. If you come to see Chess, you’re outta luck. He don’t know who he is today.” She bore no resemblance to her daughter. Unlike MaryEllen’s perfect face, this woman’s features were so irregular they could have belonged to two different people. One side of her jaw was higher than the other, and her flat, wide nose tilted unevenly to one side, overshadowing a thin, blurry mouth. She’d taken a few hits in her time.

  “That’s too bad. I’d hoped to talk to him.”

  “Chess never did much talkin’ even before he got sick.” Still that unsettling smile.

  What was there to smile about? If that had been my husband lying there in this filthy place, I would be howling with grief. Then I reminded myself that family dynamics could be misleading, and maybe Judith-not-Judy Bollinger couldn’t afford better than Shady Rest. Anyway, who was I to judge how a wife should act toward a husband who from what I’d heard had been less than ideal.

  Keeping my voice as neutral as possible, I introduced myself and gave her my card. “Maybe you could help. I’m working on a case that may involve the murder of Mr. Bollinger’s family back in 1944.”

  Incredibly, she laughed. “I sure don’t know nothing about that! And Chess, he ain’t gonna be able to tell you anything, either. His brain’s nothin’ but mush. Like I was telling you, he don’t know who he is on a good day and today sure ain’t one of those.”

  Mush. Or, as MaryEllen had more charitably described his condition, Alzheimer’s. “That’s okay, Judith. I’ll visit with you, then.” There was no other chair in the room, so I went back into the hall, found one, and carried it back, carefully wiping the seat before I sat down across from her. “Did your husband ever talk to you about his family?”

  “Only to say he didn’t kill ’em.”

  While Judith Bollinger appeared to hold little affection for her husband—and considering his many domestic assault arrests, why should she—that didn’t mean she would be willing to air the family’s dirty laundry. “Do you believe him?”

  Her face reflected total disinterest in her husband’s past. “Can’t say. Who knows what Chess might a done when he was a kid. He sure wasn’t no saint.”

  Remembering Chess Bollinger’s long rap sheet, I figured Judith must have known what she was getting into when she married him, but I refrained from pointing that out. What little remained of the original structure of her face made me suspect that she’d never been a pretty woman, so who knew how lonely she’d been at the time or how desperate?

  “Judith, did Chess continue to deny his involvement when he got, ah, sick? Sometimes people like to get things off their chest when they’re diagnosed with a serious illness.”

  “Nope. Only the same old same old, that he didn’t do it.”

  We’d been talking about Chess as if he weren’t in the room, but a sound from the bed reminded me that he was still very much there. “Ah…ah…Jen…Jen…”

  Judith looked over at him, her smile gone. “That’s Jenny, his little sister. He’s always callin’ for her. Don’t know why. You’d think he’d say my name. Or MaryEllen’s. But no, it’s Jen, Jen, nothin’ but Jen. Kinda make me wonder, ya know?”

  I didn’t answer. As far as I was concerned, that particular piece of dirty laundry could stay in the family hamper. In the silence that followed, I studied the ruin that remained of Chess Bollinger. The shrunken old felon had the caved-in look of the near-terminal, with cheekbones jutting out so sharply from his cadaverous face that it was a wonder they didn’t pierce his skin. His eyes, milky with cataracts, stared at the ceiling without really seeing it. If it weren’t for the rhythmic rise and fall of the sheet covering his chest, anyone passing by might think the old man already dead.

  But I was encouraged by his brief words. “Judith, is it all right if I ask your husband a few questions?”

  For a moment she looked like she�
�d say no, but then she gave a little wave of acquiescence. “Ask whatever but don’t get your hopes up. He ain’t made sense in years.”

  When I leaned over him, a musty odor, as if he hadn’t been bathed in days, rose to meet me. More for his wife’s sake than his, I tried not to show my disgust even though I doubted if he could tell whether he was in a nursing home or on Mars. “Mr. Bollinger? Chess? I’m Lena Jones, a private detective who’s investigating the murder of a Kapitan Erik Ernst, one of those escaped POWs from old Camp Papago. I’m also looking at the murder of your family because I think the Germans might be connected. Do you know anything you never told the police?”

  A hitch in his breathing. A blink, then his eyes seemed to focus on my face. “Jen. Jenny Jenny Jen.”

  “Yes, Mr. Bollinger. Your sister Jenny died that night, along with your brothers Rob and Scott. And your parents.”

  His hand, no more substantial than a dried collection of sticks, fluttered toward mine. “Jen.”

  Judith gave me a frown. “Maybe he can see your hair. Jenny was blond, like you. But in her face she looked like Mary Ellen. I got her picture back at the house. Ain’t leavin’ it here. People steal things.”

  I took Chess Bollinger’s hand and gave it a slight squeeze. “Yes, Chess, it’s Jen. Do you know who hurt me?” In the background, I heard his wife gasp at my lie. Well, private detectives seldom get confused with George Washington.

  “Jenny Jen?” His voice was no louder than leaves on pavement. “Daddy hurt.”

  Was he saying that his daddy was hurt? Or that his own daddy had hurt his family, tied them to the kitchen chairs, beaten them to death, then went outside and blew off his own head with the shotgun? Such personal family massacres had happened many times before, even in Scottsdale, but even allowing for the less sophisticated state of forensics during the Forties, how could such an appalling scenario have passed the detectives by? I squeezed Bollinger’s hand again. “Did Daddy kill me?”

  When his eyes closed I thought I’d lost him. Then they opened again. “Spilt milk. The gas said it. Mama cried.”

  The gas said it?

  Judith tsked-tsked. “Told ya. That’s word salad. The Alzheimer’s, it makes them put words together that don’t belong, ’specially late in the day like this when they get tired. Sundowning, the doctor calls it, because these Alzheimer’s people, their minds is gone by sundown.”

  I ignored her. “Chess, what exactly did the gas say?”

  “Ran ran ran ran ran.”

  “The gas ran?”

  “Me. I ran. After the gas said.”

  “You ran because the gas said something?”

  “It told on me.”

  “Told what on you, Chess?”

  He didn’t answer. Perhaps it was only my hopeful imagination, but I thought he was trying his best to answer my questions. As with stroke victims, though, there was a big gulf between intent and performance. Gas talking, Chess running. They might have been connected to that bloody day in 1944, but they could also be pieces of disparate memory jumbled together by the ravages of his disease. I decided to start again, from the beginning.

  “Chess, it’s Jen. Your sister. Who killed me?”

  He began to speak but only wet grunts came out, and a thin trail of saliva leaked from his gaping mouth. Using the corner of the bed sheet, I wiped him dry as his wife sat motionless beside me, that discomfiting smile back on her face. Chess remained silent for the next few minutes, then started the word salad all over again. “Gas. Christmas killed me and Mama cried.”

  Christmas. His family was killed on Christmas Day. Something happened with the gas that upset his mother.

  He wasn’t through. “Daddy hate hate Daddy hate hate hate the gas hit Mama when she cried.”

  Judith Bollinger spoke up again. “You ain’t getting nothin’ more. Once he starts that gas stuff he’s over for the day.”

  Maybe. But I was intrigued by his linking “Daddy” and “hate.” Not to mention “hit.”

  Trying once more, I said in his ear, “You hated Daddy, Chess?”

  “Oooooh, hated!” He twisted his head toward me and for a brief moment, less than a second, the eyes that met mine were clear. “Poor Jenny Jen. All my fault.”

  “What was your fault, Chess? Did you kill Daddy?”

  Suddenly his hand gripped mine with the strength of a much younger man. Using me for leverage, he pulled himself up and let loose a banshee wail. “Not me not me not me not meeeeeeeeeeeee!”

  Chapter Twelve

  As I drove away from the misery of Shady Rest, I realized I either had to get drunk or see Warren again. Since I didn’t drink, Warren won. There was a chance he was still at the set, but the light was fading and already ribbons of purple, pink, and orange streaked the sky. If I didn’t catch him there, I could probably find him at the Chinese buffet near the Best Western where the film crew usually ate dinner. But I’d timed my arrival well. Warren was still in Papago Park, standing beside a cameraman, listening to Frank Oberle—who sounded pretty rough at this point—describe the aftermath of the POWs’ escape. Oberle was sitting next to the reconstructed bathhouse that hid the Germans’ tunnel. To his right, a bank of lights glared through a mesquite tree, casting eerie shadows across the ground in front of him. Lit like this, Papago Park looked more like a setting for a Wes Craven horror flick than a World War II documentary.

  “We didn’t find the tunnel ’til several days after the Germans flew the coop,” Oberle croaked, trying hard to ignore the boom mike hovering over his head. “They’d hid the entrance between this here bathhouse and a coal bin, then camouflaged it with dirt and weeds so you couldn’t tell it from the rest of the ground. Same with the tunnel’s exit over there by the Cross Cut Canal. Smart sonsabitches, they was. Hell. I’m done, Warren. It’s been fun and all that, but my voice is shot.”

  “Cut!” Warren showed no annoyance as the old guard spit on the ground and limped out of camera range. He turned to me with a smile, but it disappeared quickly. “What’s wrong?”

  I remembered Rada Tesema’s desperation, the stench of Shady Rest, and Chess Bollinger’s screams. The looming loss of Jimmy and Kryzinski. “Just a hard day at the office.”

  Oblivious to everyone’s stares, he put his arms around me and held me close. It felt so right. “What can I do to make you feel better?”

  Now there was a leading question. “I’m fine, really,” I said into his chest.

  “You always are.” When he released me and drew back, his face was filled with concern. “I have an idea. Why don’t we take a ride in the Golden Hawk and have dinner in some place far away from all this? How about that place you were telling the cameraman about, the Horny Toad, in Cave Creek? Or was it Carefree?”

  Burgers at the Horny Toad sounded great, but even better was the idea of being out on the open road with Warren. The neighboring villages of Cave Creek/Carefree lay about twenty-five miles north of Papago Park, the perfect distance for an evening drive. I looked toward the halogen-lit parking lot and saw the Golden Hawk parked next to Warren’s leased Land Rover. “You already bought it?”

  He grinned. “Not yet. But watch this.” He called over to Mark Schank, who was talking film with Lindsey. “Hey, Mark, you mind if I take the Golden Hawk out for a spin?”

  Schank’s smile dwarfed his thin face. It was the opposite of Lindsey’s glare. “Anywhere you want, but bring it back in one piece or you’ve bought it.”

  Warren gave me a squeeze. “Told you. Mark’s desperate to sell the thing to someone from the film community. He sees us as his next big market.”

  Shank gave a dry laugh. “Oh, I’ve sold to the film community before. And writers. Clive Cussler bought two of my cars.”

  The idea of going for a spin in the Golden Hawk lightened my mood. Modern cars, which in my opinion all looked alike, bore me, which is why I drive a ’45 Jeep. Show me something with a bit of style and I get all gushy. “Are you still thinking about the ’57?” The ’57, a tail-f
inned version of the Golden Hawk, was owned by a rival dealer at the same autoplex as Schank Classic Cars. “I think that one’s prettier.” I preferred the ’57’s two-tone fawn-and-doeskin color scheme to the ’56’s gold-and-white.

  “Prettier, maybe, but it’s an automatic, which I’m not crazy about. I like the ’56, a three-speed stick with overdrive, very rare. There were only 786 of them made, so it’s more collectible.”

  More expensive, too, I bet.

  As Warren and I climbed into the Golden Hawk (retrofitted with three-point safety harness), Schank asked, “Could you give me a lift back to the autoplex? I’ve been so caught up in the filming that I’m late, and I’m supposed to call Tokyo in a half-hour.”

  Although the autoplex was less than a half-mile away in a straight line over Papago Park’s rocky ground, Warren happily assented. I offered to sit in the rear seat, but Mark refused. “No problemo. In those days, they made two-doors a lot easier to maneuver in, especially for small-statured people like me, so I’ll slip in the back. Getting out won’t be a big deal.”

  The night was warm and soft so Warren kept the windows down. As we cruised along Sixty-Fourth Street toward the autoplex, the scents of sage and gasoline combined in an odd potpourri. A true salesman, Mark chattered the entire way. “I hear your pretty detective friend is working for that Tesema fellow, Ernst’s caretaker. That must be something.”

  Warren uh-huhed.

  “I wasn’t that surprised to hear that Tesema’d been arrested. He seemed pleasant enough, but you know these immigrants.” Sensing that his comment might not be too politic, Mark switched to a safer topic. “My family’s lived here since Arizona was a territory. They used to trade with the Pimas.”

  “Is that so?” From the tone of his voice, I could tell Warren wasn’t interested.

  “Yeah. Beads for beans. Maybe the Pimas are best known for their cotton, but they raised great beans. The canals around here? Those were originally Pima irrigation canals. For their crops. Great farmers, those Pimas.”

  “That’s what I hear.”