A Killing in Zion (33 page)

“The dead man was a hell of a mess, scorched by the flames,” said Wit. “He still had his billfold on him, with his ID. The sheriff of Kane County was kind enough to courier us copies of Frost's photographs. It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that this is being treated as foul play.”

“You look as though you've seen a ghost,” said Pace.

“Why would the polygamists chance it like that?” I asked. “With all of those CCC firefighters in the area?”

“This is the first summer the feds have trucked the CCC men out to combat the wildfires,” said Wit. “In past years, if some remote part of southern Utah went up in flames, they just let it burn.”

“They probably didn't know there were CCCers in the area,” said Pace. “With all of that smoke in the sky, I'm sure visibility was limited.”

“We think this is all tied to the double homicide we're investigating,” said Wit. “That's why we need to see the girl. She was there the night of the shootings and her fingerprints are all over the murder weapon.”

“She's a key suspect,” said Pace. “We'd like to have her back, if that's not too much to ask, Oveson.”

“Like I told you earlier, she's camping,” I said.

Pace smacked the table with his palm, startling me. “I'm tired of your stalling, Oveson! I want some answers!”

“Or what? You're going to lock me up?” I snapped back. “Is it curtains for me, Pace? Huh? Is it the firing squad for old Oveson?”

I lurched out of my chair and walked over to the door and, as expected, Pace spoke up. “Where do you think you're going?”

“Are you planning to arrest me?” I asked.

“C'mon, Art, sit down,” said Wit. “Let's talk some more, like civilized men.”

“If I'm not under arrest, I'm leaving,” I said.

Pace leaned toward Wit and spoke in a hushed tone. “Let's arrest him. An overnighter in a cell oughta set him straight.”

Wit tilted closer to his partner and whispered, but I could still hear him. “We've got nothing on him, and he knows it. That malarkey about obstructing a homicide investigation won't stick. He can plead ignorance to her whereabouts, and no judge in his right mind is about to throw the book at a police detective for that.”

“Tell you what, Pace,” I taunted, “when your bite finally catches up with your bark, come back and pinch me. Until then, leave me alone, because I've had it with you.” I gave a friendly nod to Wit. “You have a good evening, Wit.”

“Yeah, you too, Art,” he said, sighing.

Oddly enough, my comment made Pace laugh as he leaned back in his chair and knitted his fingers behind his head for support with elbows pointing outward. On my way out the door, I overheard him say, “
Pinch me.
This clown is on the radio once and he thinks he's Sam Spade.”

*   *   *

The telephone rang in the middle of the night.

I switched on my bedside lamp and looked at the alarm clock: 2:41
A
.
M
. I rubbed cinders out of my eyes, kicked my legs off the bed, and pushed my feet into my slippers. The shrill ring continued, coming from outside my door, and still in a daze, I crossed my room and stepped into the hallway. I picked up the candlestick telephone and raised the receiver out of the cradle, holding it up to my ear.

“Hello?”

“This is the operator,” said a woman's voice. “I have a person-to-person collect call for Arthur Oveson from Mr. Orville Babcock.”

I instantly recalled the frumpy man at the used car lot in the Dixieland outfit. I wondered for a silent second why on earth he would be calling me.

“I'm Arthur Oveson.”

“Will you accept the charges?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

There were a few clicks, followed by a lot of crackling and hissing.

“Hello?” I said.

The static continued. I stayed on the line, repeating “hello” several times. After two minutes of this, the line went dead. I gave the earpiece hook on the telephone a good shaking up and down and waited for the operator to return to the line.

“Operator, this is Arthur Oveson at Wasatch one-four-eight-four.”

“This is the operator. Go ahead.”

“Yes, a man named Orville Babcock just tried to call me a minute or two ago,” I said. “Unfortunately, he didn't ever connect, and I'm wondering if there's any way of finding out where the phone call originated from?”

“Sorry, sir, but we have no way of determining that.”

“Okay,” I said, closing my burning dry eyes tightly and blinking a few times. “Thank you for your assistance.”

“You're welcome.”

She disconnected and I placed the earpiece in the cradle and lowered the telephone to its home on the little wooden table.

No use in going back to bed
, I thought.
I'm awake now
. I sauntered into the kitchen, poured milk in a saucepan, and placed it on the stove. I turned on a simmering flame, went over to the table, and sat down on one of the chairs to wait for my milk to heat up.

The telephone rang again. I rushed over to the wall phone in the kitchen and raised the receiver to my ear. “Hello,” I said eagerly into the transmitter horn.

“This is the operator,” said a woman's voice, the same nasally voice as the one that had called earlier. “I have a person-to-person collect call for…”

“Go ahead and put Mr. Babcock through,” I said. “I'm expecting his call.”

A click sounded, and I waited for a few seconds, only to be greeted once again by the popping and a few ghostly, barely audible party lines.

“Hello,” I said. Nothing. “Hello, this is Arthur Oveson. Who's there?”

The receiver emitted a sound like bacon fat crackling in the pan.

“Hello, is this Orville Babcock?” I asked. “This is Art Oveson. Can you hear me?”

The noise from the telephone was starting to hurt my ear, and once again, I pulled the earpiece away from me to hang it up. That's when I heard the desperate voice bursting through the wall of static.

“Hello! Oveson! Can you hear me now?”

I raised the telephone again. “Babcock? Is that you?”

His voice sounded distant, and it kept getting drowned out by the endless hissing and popping. I could make out only certain words before he'd get cut off, but then he would return again. This back and forth continued the entire time I had him on the line.

“Oveson … you?”

“Yeah, it's me! You're going to have to speak up, Babcock!”

Static, and then: “… call … night, but I couldn't…” Static.

“Babcock! Please, talk louder!”

“… because he was my first cousin!”

“Who is your cousin?” I asked. “I didn't hear the first part!”

“Jeppson! He … cousin and closest friend … broken up about…”

His voice cut out again.

“Babcock, are you there?” I asked.

“Can you hear me now?”

“I can, yes,” I said. “Go ahead. You were saying that Carl Jeppson was your cousin?”

“I never thought it'd come to this.”

“I take it you've heard about what happened to him?”

“Yes. His wife, Arla Gwen, told me!”

“Where are you now?”

“What? Speak up?”

I yelled into the phone: “I said where are you now, Babcock?”

“I'm…” He cut out again. A few seconds later, he came back: “… kill me if they find…” Gone again. Then back: “… don't want to take that risk…”

“Is there somewhere we can meet?” I asked.

“If there's a way you…”

Static cut him off. Waiting for his return, my heart beat fiercely and my hands shook. I felt beads of sweat forming on my brow.

“I can't hear you,” I finally said. “You're going to have to talk louder, Babcock!”

“… the entire time, Carl was worried sick about the four banished boys! He helped … all kinds of ways, and right now they're holed up in…”

Babcock gone. Static back.

“Holed up where?” I asked. “Where are they?”

“… Floyd!” he shouted. A moment later, his voice broke through the static again: “Fairfield.”

“Floyd Fairfield?” I asked. “Hello? Hello? Babcock, can you hear me? Hello?”

The line went dead. Both the static and Babcock were gone.

*   *   *

I parked in front of Roscoe's apartment. The lights in the windows glowed orange behind pulled-down roller blinds. I shut off the engine and second-guessed myself once again, wondering whether I was doing the right thing. My first instinct was not to bother Roscoe, especially at this ungodly hour. Yet I knew him to be a night owl, a man every bit as plagued by insomnia as I'd been my whole life. I entered the building and went up a flight of stairs, taking a deep breath before knocking on his door. When I finally worked up the nerve, I gave three hard raps and waited. In the dimly lit hall, I wondered if Roscoe was scoping me through the little peephole. When he finally opened the door, he had on a familiar dark blue bathrobe that I'd seen him wearing on a few other occasions when I'd come to pick him up.

“Art,” he said. “Hold on, will ya?”

“Sure.”

The door slammed abruptly. I turned around and inspected the grimy walls, desperately in need of a fresh coat of paint. I stuck my hands in my pockets and whistled the theme song to
Footlight Parade
, still fresh in my mind. The door opened again, wider this time, and Roscoe stepped back and with a wave of his hand invited me in.

“I hope I'm not interrupting,” I said, stepping inside.

“It ain't every day you show up at half past three in the morning,” he said, closing the door. “But you're welcome here any old time. Make yourself at home.”

I strolled into his living room and sat down on the sofa, and his two cats—the orange tabby Barney and the tortoiseshell Millicent—came charging out and the faster of the two, “Millie” (as Roscoe called her), leaped onto my lap, in pursuit of chin rubs and back scratches.

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked. “I know you don't like the hard stuff, but I have … well … tap water.”

“No thanks,” I said.

Clopping high heels of women's shoes approached, and seconds later a striking-looking Chinese woman emerged from the darkened hallway wearing nothing but a garter belt, thigh-high hosiery, and exotic sparkling shoes. She froze when she saw me, and made no attempt to cover her breasts or the black bush between her legs. I dipped my head in embarrassment.

“Xing Li miss Roscoe,” she said. “Come in. I tickle you more.”

Roscoe situated himself between her and me. “Go back in the bedroom, my little Mandarin flower,” he said. “Papa will join you soon. I want to talk to my friend first.”

“Bye, friend!”

I looked up at Xing Li waving, and her little breasts jiggled along with her fingers. I waved while I blushed. Xing Li left, her footsteps echoing until the door closed, and Roscoe sat in a chair nearby.

“Sorry,” he said. “Modesty has never been one of her strong suits.”

“It looks to me like she doesn't have any suits, period,” I said. “Friend of yours?”

“Yeah. I help her a little. She helps me. If you get my drift.”

I nodded. “Drift gotten.”

“You're as bald as I am. That's a nasty gash you got there. What the hell happened to your head?”

“Funny you should I ask,” I said.

I spent the next hour filling Roscoe in on everything that had happened to me since we received our suspensions on Monday. He listened intently to my every word, letting me know from time to time that it was okay for me to push his cats off if they were bothering me. They weren't. I liked having Barney and Millicent around. I found their purring presence comforting, and I stroked them the entire time I talked to Roscoe. He grimaced when I told him about the photographs of Carl Jeppson falling out of the airplane, and he seemed troubled to hear about my late-night phone call from Orville Babcock. I also let Roscoe know that before coming over here tonight, I'd driven past Babcock's used-car lot, but the place was pitch-black, with no signs of life. Since Babcock wasn't listed in the city directory, I had no idea where he lived, which ruled out a late-night visit to his house.

“Listen, thanks for hearing me out,” I said, toward the end of my long talk. “I guess I'm more tired than I thought. I haven't been sleeping well. I've got the jitters. These polygamists spook me. And I worry about Nelpha. I still don't know anything about her. It's like Wit said last night: Maybe she's the one who pulled the trigger on those two men.”

“You've been through a lot, Art,” said Roscoe. “Why don't you stay here? You can sleep on the couch. Xing Li and I will keep it down in the next room.”

“That's a swell offer,” I said. “But I won't stay. I just needed someone to talk to, after that creepy telephone call.”

I stood up, and he got up and circled the chair to get to the front door. On my way out, I stopped at the table when I saw that picture of the dark-haired girl with the toothy smile. I found her cheery face comforting, a nice way to bring to a close such a troubling night. Roscoe noticed me looking at the picture, so I smiled at him and gave him a wink.

“Nona,” I said. “Don't worry, I won't ask.”

“She's my daughter,” he said.

I wasn't expecting that. I swallowed hard and managed to say, “I didn't know…”

“It's a long story,” he said. “Maybe some other time I'll tell it to you.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. I wanted to know now.

I squatted to pet his cats, and they both brushed up against my legs, purring like a couple of automobile engines. I reached for the knob to open the door, and as I did, Roscoe pointed to Barney and Millicent.