A Killing in Zion (20 page)

“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 gonna 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.”

“Is this Roscoe's idea? It sounds like the kind of crazy thing he'd cook up.”

“No. I have a feeling there are things happening down there.…”

“Things? What kind of things? What are you talking about?”

I closed my eyes in an effort to piece my thoughts together. “I'm trying to figure how it all fits.”

“How what all fits?”

I blinked open my eyes. “The girl who's not saying a word, who we found at the murder scene, I think she's somehow tied in with the polygamists who've taken over an entire town down on the Arizona strip. I can't help but believe that this business with the homestead land and the boys who went missing in May—”

“Whoa! Back up a second. Homestead land? Missing boys? What on earth are you talking about?”

“I don't know exactly,” I said. “I'm still trying to make sense of it all myself, and not having a whole lot of luck. Look, all I know is that by pushing these polygamists out of Salt Lake City, we're sending them to a place where they can do the things they do away from public view. You know, out of sight, out of mind.”

Buddy smirked. “Oh, so now you're having second thoughts? You want us to roll out the red carpet and hand them the key to the city?”

“C'mon, Buddy, you're oversimplifying things.”

“The polygamists are giving our church a bad name,” said Buddy in a voice tense with exasperation. “People who aren't Mormons look at these crazy nuts and all of their wives and get the wrong idea. They start thinking all Mormons are a bunch of crackpot polygamists. That's why Mayor Cummings gave the go-ahead to get the Anti-Polygamy Squad back off the ground. He thought—as do I, as does Chief Cowley—that pushing the plural-marriage zealots out of the city limits could only be a positive thing, not just for Salt Lake, but for the future well-being of our faith. Now, after three months of heading said squad, you march into my office and tell me you don't think this is a good idea? It's a little late in the day for that, Art. Don't you think?”

“I know there is something bad going on in that community, and if we don't do something about it—”

“Where's your proof?”

It took me a few seconds to consider his question. “Proof?”

“Yeah. Show it to me and I'll consider your request.”

“All I have are bits and pieces, little fragments that are troubling, but taken together…”

“That won't cut it.”

“What
would
cut it? A couple more homicides?”

Buddy squinted with contempt. “Don't do this.”

“Don't do what?”

“You come in my office, you tell me something
bad
is going on, but you can't even say what it is. What am I supposed to do?”

“I want to go to Dixie City, and I'd appreciate your support.”

“As what?”

“What do you mean, as what?”

“How many times do I have to tell you? You have no authority down there. What're you gonna do, start arresting people? You can't even issue traffic tickets in Dixie City!”

“Some boys, I found out, went missing there in May. Give me permission to go to Dixie City to look into it. That's all I ask.”

“We're going around in circles.” Buddy paused to sigh. “I'm not going to give you my blessing on this one.”

It occurred to me, then and there, that Buddy's number one priority was his own future. I'd always known Buddy was a political animal with his sights set on elected office, yet I'd forgiven him for this in the past because I believed that deep down inside, he shared my abiding commitment to doing right.

He said, “Now that I have addressed your foolish request to go to Dixie City with an emphatic no, will there be anything else?”

“No.” I shook my head. “No, nothing else.”

We said our good-byes and I put on my hat as I left. I followed the corridor lined with oil paintings of past police chiefs out to the bustling lobby, where Roscoe leaned against a marble column, chewing on a matchstick. His fedora was tilted on his head, and Lord in Heaven could he use a shave.

“The answer's no,” I said glumly.

“So when do we leave?”

I cracked a crooked smile. “I'm not going.”

“You mean you're actually going to listen to that prick?”

“I'm not going to disrespect my superior, and that's all there is to it.”

“All right,” he said slowly, as if he thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life. “But don't say I didn't offer.”

“I appreciate it, old friend. I think I'm gonna call it a day. Want a ride home?”

He smiled and shook his head. “That's all right. I'll catch the interurban. See you tomorrow, Art.”