A Killing in Zion (32 page)

I reared my head in surprise. “Don't tell me you went to the land offices in all of those places?”

“No. That information came from Harold O'Rourke, that field agent with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration who Jared mentioned. He's been investigating these and a lot of other legally questionable polygamist activities.”

“So you met this guy?”

“Yeah, he got back into Kingman yesterday after being on the road for a while. We sat down in his office and he talked for close to three hours. I learned a lot.”

“Such as?”

“The polygamists are sitting on top of a multimillion-dollar empire,” said Myron, eating a bite of chili. He chewed for a moment. “They've got investments in oil, real estate, construction, radio stations, aviation, and even motion pictures. O'Rourke says these men are racketeers who go about their business under the cover of religious convictions. And on top of all that, they're getting federal relief money coming into Dixie City. All of it is lining the pockets of rich apostles. They're living high on the hog in big fortress homes, with all the luxuries. Meantime, most of the followers live in hovels with dirt floors and no electricity.”

“What's O'Rourke waiting for?” I asked. “Why isn't he nailing the polygamists?”

“He still needs more evidence,” said Myron. “It's like we've said a hundred times: These men are nothing if not careful.”

“If we could somehow get our hands on the financial records of the polygamists…”

Myron shook his head while he ate. “It won't be easy.”

“How did O'Rourke come by all of this information?”

“He has a connection on the inside,” said Myron. “He knows the accountant, who also happens to be one of the apostles. The fellow is feeding O'Rourke all kinds of information.”

“Who's the accountant?” I asked. “Maybe we can talk to him.”

“O'Rourke won't say. My guess is the fellow is disillusioned, probably found out about the investigation and secretly went to O'Rourke.”

I snapped my fingers, and Myron noticed me glowing with excitement. “I bet I know who it is.”

“Who?”

“Carl Jeppson.”

“Do you think so?”

“With his business acumen, it wouldn't surprise me,” I said. “Let me ask you something. How is O'Rourke planning to use this information?”

“He's building a case at the federal level to charge them with fraud. While he's at it, he's going to move to cut off the relief aid going into Dixie City and Vermillion Creek. That's the incorporated community on the Utah side, across the border from Dixie. The rich polygamists keep property on both sides. That way, if there's a raid by state authorities, they can sneak over the state line and lie low until it all blows over.”

“Did you get any sense of where Uncle Grand fits into all this? I mean, he is the head of this church. I expect his hands are dirty.”

Myron shook his head. “I get the impression he was a figurehead, a grandfather type who mostly stayed out of the shady dealings of his church. That's why he preferred Salt Lake to Dixie City. He figured he'd let the young Turks do their own thing with the United Brethren experiment out in the desert while he stayed comfy around here, wooing new converts and visiting his local wives.”

“So maybe—
just maybe
—when Nelpha came all the way up here to tell him about his missing son, it jolted Johnston into the realization that not all was well down Dixie City way.”

“That's one scenario,” said Myron.

“How could Johnston not know, though?” I asked. “I guess the bigger question is: How is it that these men have gotten away with committing so many crimes for so long?”

“It's not hard to understand,” said Myron. “The polygamists use the same tactics as the mob. They operate in secrecy, intimidate their followers, and murder those who get in their way. They bribe judges, law enforcement, elected officials. They keep a low profile and try hard to stay out of the press. I can see why they get away with it.”

I spent the next half hour filling Myron in on everything that had happened while he was gone. I went into detail about the trip to Dixie City, the meeting with Talena Steed, the funeral, Talena's death, and my assault on Dorland Kunz. It made me feel better to talk about it, although I'm not altogether sure that Myron heard a single word I said. He appeared to be in a trance the entire time he was listening. No nodding. No “Uh-huh, uh-huh.” No questions or comments. He simply sat there, taking it all in. After I finished talking, he remained quiet for another minute or so, and I began to wonder if he had gone catatonic on me.

Finally, Myron asked, “So are the newspaper reports true? Is the squad really going to be shut down?”

“Yep.”

“So, am I back in records?”

“It looks that way.”

“What about you?” he asked. “What's next for Arthur Oveson, master sleuth?”

“The Morals Squad,” I said. “This time Monday, I'll be netting hookers and raiding secret slot machine joints.”

“Sounds delightful.”

“We've still got three and a half days,” I said. “A lot can happen in that time.”

“I thought you said you're suspended until Monday,” said Myron. “Doesn't that mean you're off the job?”

I shrugged. “Technically. Yeah. But I've never read the fine print on suspensions.”

“We could ask Buddy,” said Myron. “I'm sure he'd be tickled to clarify the rules.”

“I'd prefer to leave him out of it.” I fished out my wallet, took out a familiar slip of paper, and handed it to Myron.

He unfolded it and read the words
HELP US
.

“I'd rather talk to the man who wrote
that
,” I said.

He returned it to me. “Where did that come from?”

“Carl Jeppson,” I said, putting it back in my wallet.

I suddenly recalled the police file on Nelpha that Roscoe had given me. “You didn't happen to find out anything about a rash of thefts down in Dixie City, did you?”

“Thefts?”

“Yeah. These would've been in the spring. April. May.”

“No. Nothing about any thefts.”

“Listen, I could use your help these next few days.”

“
My
help?” Myron shook his head. “With all due respect, I'm lying low. You should, too. We're lame ducks. We might as well start acting the part.”

We finished our lunch, and when we got up to leave, I plunked a few coins on the table as a tip for the waitress. I could tell Myron wanted no part of this investigation any longer. In fairness to him, he'd already put countless hours of work into this squad. His willingness to drive hundreds of miles to southern Utah and northern Arizona, a long and arduous journey that he made without a single complaint, exhibited a level of commitment that was exceedingly rare in this profession, even among seasoned detectives. To call Myron dedicated would've been an understatement. This quiet and unassuming man had been nothing less than heroic. The news of the squad closing down seemed to hit him hard after all of the work he'd done.

All that is simply to say that I was not about to argue with Myron's “lame ducks” comment. He was probably right, after all. On the way out of Branning's, I thanked him and held out my hand. He stared at it for several seconds and then shook it, and while he did, I felt a touch of sadness. I'd miss Myron Adler, the same way I would be unhappy to part ways with Jared and Roscoe. I wished my little squad had more time. That's all I really wanted, just a little more time.

*   *   *

Half past five in the evening found me sitting on my porch swing, watching the smoke from distant fires. I knew Wit would be on time, and I no longer felt apprehensive as I watched the unmarked police sedan pulling into my driveway. Make no mistake: I had been nervous earlier. The prospect of being arrested for refusing to cooperate with Wit and Pace in their homicide investigation caused me no end of consternation. But at a certain point, I became convinced of the rightness of not cooperating. As Myron pointed out earlier over lunch at Branning's, the polygamists ran a multimillion-dollar empire, and the only way for a David like me to go up against a Goliath like that was to stare my fears down until all that was left standing was a resolve to do the right thing.

A pair of car doors slammed, and the homicide detectives approached me with their toughest tough-guy swaggers.

“I think you know why we're here, Art,” said Wit.

“Where's the girl?” asked Pace, looking around the front yard, as if she'd been out here a second ago planting a sapling.

“She's gone,” I said.

Pace walked up the steps and sat down on the porch swing next to me. My bald head elicited a chuckle from him. “What happened, Oveson? Lose a wrestling match with a lawn mower?”

“Something like that,” I said. “Like I was saying, the girl isn't here.”

“Still camping, huh?” Pace asked.

“What can I say? She likes the outdoors.”

“Jesus Christ, Art, are you really gonna make us do this?” asked Wit.

“Don't even bother,” I said, looking up at his pained face. “You're wasting your time and mine. If you couldn't keep all of those hardened polygamists behind bars last week, what makes you think it's going to go any better with me?”

Pace said, “When Buddy gets wind of this…”

“Tell him,” I said. “Shoot, call him right now and I'll tell him. The only thing he hasn't done yet is fire me. If I lose this job, I'll find another one.”

“When did you suddenly grow some cojones?” asked Pace.

I extended my hands outward, and Wit and Pace looked at each other with exasperation.

“Jesus Christ, I'm not actually going to cuff you,” said Wit. “Let's go.”

They loaded me into the backseat and slammed the door hard, slipped into the front, and started the auto, backing out of the driveway and coasting down our steep road. They were sore at me for calling their bluff. But I maintained my defiance. A few weeks ago, if somebody had predicted the police would be swooping down on my house to arrest me for sheltering an accused murderer who also happened to be the wife of a polygamist, I would've laughed off such a comment as crazy beyond all words. Yet here I was, prepared to accept whatever punishment should befall me for refusing to give up Nelpha Black.

 

Twenty-eight

Pace and Wit kept me waiting over an hour in an interrogation room in the basement of Public Safety. At one point, I asked the uniformed rookie in the hallway to escort me to the restroom for some much-needed relief. Back in the brightly lit box of a room, my behind began to ache on the hard chair, and the hands on the wall clock pointed to six forty-five when the door finally opened and Wit and Pace entered. Pace closed the door behind him and the two men sat across the table from me, neither bothering to apologize for detaining me for so long. Pace was holding a stack of eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs, which he placed on the table and pushed across to me. They must have been freshly developed, because they still smelled of darkroom chemicals. He gestured for me to pick them up.

I lifted the pictures—three in total—and started with the top one, the distinct silhouette of an airplane high in the sky, its wings and tail visible against the haze in the background. The tops of pine trees appeared in the foreground. I placed the top photo on the table and examined the second, a similar shot of the airplane, but this time with a black speck under it. A third photograph zoomed in closer to the airplane—still faraway, but slightly nearer—and the speck from the previous image turned out to be a human figure, arms and legs flailing, plummeting to the earth from hundreds, possibly thousands, of feet in the air. Not a pleasant image to behold.

I pushed the photos back to Pace and awaited an explanation.

“They were taken Sunday by a Civilian Conservation Corps shutterbug named Clifton Frost,” said Pace. “He was photographing a wildfire near Swains Creek in Kane County, down in southern Utah.”

“It's this guy's job to go all over the place snapping pictures of all the good things the CCC is doing,” said Wit. “That way, when President Roosevelt asks Congress to give the agency more money, he can show slides of these fellas planting trees, building dams, and fighting forest fires.”

Pace cut in: “Anyhow, Frost looks up and notices this plane flying about a thousand feet high, directly above the fire. At first he didn't think anything of it, but then he notices it circling and bobbing and flying erratically. So he starts taking pictures of it. He happened to capture this scene of a man getting pushed out of the airplane, right over the blaze.”

“After that, the airplane flew away, according to Frost,” said Wit.

“Who's the victim?” I asked.

“The sheriff's office down in Kanab retrieved the body and they've identified it as Carl Jeppson,” said Pace. “They contacted us this morning to say the body will be shipped up here for a formal autopsy. Tom Livsey will do the honors with the help of Jeppson's dental records.”

My mouth fell open. I could not conceal my shock. I pictured that little note Jeppson had slipped to me on the day Roscoe and I visited his flower shop:
HELP US.
I suspected Jeppson had been the mastermind behind the polygamists' incredible financial success, and I also had reason to believe that he had turned informant to assist with Harold O'Rourke's federal investigation. I knew that he provided crucial financial help to his daughter, who had been sheltering the banished boys and runaway child brides from Dixie City. It made me forlorn, knowing the one apostle with a kind heart, and haunted by remorse, died in such a horrific fashion. This was homicide writ large, carried out by men of power, unlike the seemingly spontaneous shooting that claimed the lives of LeGrand Johnston and Volney Mason. My stunned silence, I'm sure, spoke volumes.