A Killing in Zion (25 page)

*   *   *

This airplane bounced more than the last one I'd flown on, which was turbulent as all get-out. Unlike the last plane, this had no armrests—too cramped a cabin—so I spent the entire time squeezing my knees. The flight's only redeeming quality was its brevity. We were up in the sky for a half hour. Odd how much slower thirty minutes passes in a flying tin can than it does when you want a little extra shut-eye on a Monday morning.

Our hosts tied a mean blindfold. Not a ray of light got in, adding to my sense of vulnerability. Our landing caught me off guard. I felt the airplane slowing to a halt, followed by the sound of a door opening and a warm wall of air rushing in. Hands pulled me out of the craft, and once on terra firma, I felt a sense of relief. I also found that my inability to see anything heightened my other senses. I could, for example, feel dirt under my shoes as we crossed the runway. I heard the soft whispers of women and children, but I couldn't tell what they were saying.

We entered darkness. The sun no longer throbbed down on us. A heavy door closed. The air turned chilly and our footsteps echoed. Hands stopped me, like a brake. Men spoke to one another in hushed tones, a little above a whisper, yet in words indecipherable. We resumed walking, turning several times before reaching our destination. The blindfolds got peeled off. We stood inside of a gated elevator. We shared the narrow car with Eldon and the bearded bodyguard. Behind us, the gate rattled shut, humming started, and mild nausea hit me when the elevator began going down. It halted and the bodyguard maneuvered to let us out.

We entered a long, mausoleum-like room, all marble except for the carpeting on the floor. Art deco light fixtures on the ceiling bathed the room in a golden light. Eldon Black led us to a wide desk unlike any I'd seen, consisting of marble columns holding up a glass surface, lit by a mysterious source. He gestured to a pair of marble benches in front of the desk. Roscoe and I sat on one while Eldon circled the table and sat down on a high-backed chair on wheels. His bodyguard loomed behind him. My eyes moved up to a puzzling sight. For reasons I did not understand, directly above the desk were four big, black theatrical spotlights mounted to the ceiling. They were shut off. They made me wonder if this place had once been a theater where plays were performed. When the talking started, I quickly forgot about them.

“Thank you for coming all the way out here, Detective Oveson,” Eldon said. He glanced over his shoulder at the bearded bodyguard behind him. “The bag, please.”

“Yes, sir.” The man moved aside his Rip van Winkle beard to pull a set of keys out of his pocket. He unlocked and opened a sliding steel door in the corner of the room and went inside. He was gone a minute or so. He returned with a leather bag, which he placed on the table near Eldon. Eldon unzipped the bag and lifted out a stack of bills, one of many in there, bound by a currency strap. He flung it across the table and it skidded to the edge, teetering briefly before dropping. I leaned forward and scooped it off the floor. When I straightened, I bent the stack and ran my thumb over the edge. There must've been a thousand dollars in my hands. I placed it on the edge of the table and slid it back. It smacked into the case that'd been its home.

“There are ninety-nine more of those in the bag,” said Eldon. “It's all yours if you bring the girl back here alive.”

“What girl?” I asked.

“I believe you know who I'm talking about,” said Eldon.

I propped my right ankle on my left knee, making myself as comfortable as possible on that hard, cold surface. “I'd like to make sure we have the same girl in mind.”

“What girl do
you
think I'm referring to?”

“You tell me,” I said. “Then I'll let you know if we're talking about the same girl.”

“Don't you know her name?” he asked.

“You're the one who brought her up,” I said. “We can do this all day if you want.”

“Nelpha Black,” he said. “What do you say to my proposal?”

“You're offering money in exchange for her?”

“A hundred thousand dollars,” he said, leaning back in his chair, knitting his fingers together, as if in prayer.

Roscoe chimed in: “A hundred grand buys a lotta clean skivvies where I come from. This Nelpha must mean something to you people.”

“She's Father's youngest wife,” said Eldon. “Father is protective of her.”

“Your old man's got what? Twenty, thirty wives?” asked Roscoe. “What difference is one wife more or less gonna make? The prick already has a harem the size of Cleveland, while a handsome gent like me is doing well to get a date with Rosy Palm.”

Eldon glared at Roscoe, then looked at me. “Is he always like this?”

“Only when he's in a good mood,” I said. “What he's trying to say, in his own crude way, is that we don't think you're leveling with us about why you want to see Nelpha Black returned.”

“Hours before he was slain, the prophet told his apostles he was planning to meet with her that night. Maybe she witnessed something that would shed light on why this tragedy occurred. We believe in blood atonement, Detective Oveson, and we intend to carry it out against the fiend responsible for murdering Uncle Grand. Since the police aren't able to do their job…”

“Ouch,” said Roscoe. “Now you've gone and hurt my feelings.”

“Some cooperation would help,” I said. “So far we've come up against a wall of silence from your camp. I wonder who's spooking your people into clamming up.”

“Members of our church exercise free will, Detective,” said Eldon. “We've nothing to hide from the police.”

“In that case, you won't mind me asking a few questions,” I said.

“Go ahead.”

“Let's start with Nelpha Black,” I said. “Why'd she leave here and go to Salt Lake City?”

“I don't know. I'll ask her that very question when she returns.”

“Do you want to know my theory?” I asked.

“If you have one percolating in that policeman's brain of yours, yes, by all means.”

“I think she went there looking for someone. Boyd Johnston, maybe?”

Again, I detected no change of expression. He was icy, this one. “What do you know about him, Detective Oveson?”

“What I need to know.”

“Which is?”

“Enough.”

He dropped his hands in his lap. “So that's your theory? She went to Salt Lake City to find Boyd Johnston?”

“It's one theory.”

“What's another?”

“She went to Salt Lake City to relay a message to Uncle Grand about Boyd's disappearance. And maybe—
just maybe
—she mentioned something about the other boys who went missing. It's possible the news upset the prophet, but my guess is he already knew it, along with all of the other shady things that happen down here.”

“Oh? What sorts of things?”

“You know, the usual,” said Roscoe. “Girls being forced to marry at age twelve. Adolescent boys banished from the community. Throw in some unscrupulous business dealings, and it stinks like a fish market in Death Valley.”

“I won't dignify these absurd charges with a response.” Eldon patted the leather bag. “My offer still stands.”

“Do you honestly think,” I said, “that we'd trade her for money?”

Eldon stared coldly at me. “Everybody has a price.”

“I don't,” I said. I gestured to Roscoe. “Neither does he.”

“Oh yes, you do,” said Eldon. “You just don't know it. A price comes in many forms. It can be a bribe. But it can also mean something unpleasant happening to you, or someone you love, if you decide not to cooperate.”

“Sounds like a threat,” I told him.

“It's not,” he said. “I'm merely trying to define ‘price
.
' As a Mormon, you ought to know what the word means.”

“Sure I do,” I said. “Trading Nelpha for a hundred thousand dollars is a price I'm not willing to pay.”

“So be it. You'll be flown back to Dixie City. Blindfolded, of course.”

Ten minutes later, I was back aboard that little airplane with Roscoe, lifting off into the sky, unable to see anything and silently praying for a safe flight.

 

Twenty-one

Leaving Dixie City after settling up our bill with Oscar Larsen, I experienced a wave of relief, eager to get home to my family. We drove north on an uphill grade, and I was glad to see Dixie City and the mesa that overlooked it getting smaller in my rearview mirror. The sun made me squint while I drove, and I did not even bother turning on the radio, because it wouldn't pick up anything. The highway hugged a rising slope, and to our right the ground dropped precipitously into a ravine. Roscoe and I didn't say a word while I drove, both too exhausted to speak. We rounded a corner so that Dixie City was out of sight, and that's when we came upon a pair of dark blue Model A's with gold stars painted on the doors. I knew them to be law enforcement autos. They were parked on a gravel shoulder at the edge of the cliff near an area where the guardrail had been torn apart. Roscoe and I exchanged a quick look, and he motioned for me to pull over. As I steered onto the gravel, three familiar-looking men came into view, standing near the spot where the green-painted wooden barrier had been reduced to smashed splinters.

I shut off the car, and the two of us got out and walked toward the men, our shoe soles crunching gravel. The Kunz brothers watched us with their fiercest glares, and Ferron Steed remained motionless, blank eyed and openmouthed, as if drugged or in a trance. I peered over the edge. Two hundred feet or so below us, the remains of a crumpled car were smoldering in the shadows of the cliff. Roscoe and I set off in search of a way down. About ten yards to the south, we found a sloping embankment that led to a trail snaking to the bottom of the steep face. Roscoe and I hiked down a narrow path to the base of the cliff, sliding on the pebble-covered ground, and at one point, I nearly went over the edge. Roscoe grabbed my arm and helped me avoid that unfortunate fate. We ventured on, watching every step, until we reached level earth and walked another thirty yards or so to the wreckage of what had once been a green Plymouth, I guessed a '28 or '29 model. It was on its side, the engine hissing steam and dark smoke, and every inch of it was broken and smashed and twisted. Through the shattered windshield glass I saw the lacerated face of Talena Steed, as lifeless as could be.

“Stay back,” Roscoe said. He gestured to a puddle of gas on the ground near one of the tires, widening as it drained out of the tank.

I overheard the Kunz brothers giving Steed directions to the bottom of the hill and telling him to watch his step. I turned toward them and watched as they reached the bottom of the path and approached the car. Steed, who'd been strangely catatonic when we got here, deliberately slammed his shoulder into me as he walked by, and I could finally see a hint of bitterness in his previously blank expression.

“Can't you see that's my wife in there?” he mumbled.

One of the Kunz brothers—I couldn't tell them apart, so I wasn't sure which one—came right up to me so his face was a few inches from mine, and his features quivered with rage. “You don't belong here,” he said menacingly. “This is the scene of an accident. We'll attend to it. Go back to Salt Lake City. Leave us be.”

“This isn't an accident,” I said.

He moved closer to me, nose to nose, so I could see the pores on his face and a crumb in his moustache bristles. “Maybe
you
killed her by coming down here, sticking your nose where it don't belong, stirring up trouble. Poor gal might still be alive if it weren't for you.”

My heart thumped hard in my chest, and a rage like I'd never experienced before bubbled up in me. I eased away from him and took a breath, fooling him into thinking I was surrendering. He never saw that punch coming. A flash of pain shot down my knuckles when they connected with his chin, sending him tumbling backward into the dirt.

“Come on, you bastard!” I shouted. “You want to take on somebody, you take on me!”

He moved in a flash, and his haymaker to my chin made me see stars. Now I was the one on the ground, my face numb with shock. He took out his revolver and aimed at me and I swear I saw his trigger finger wiggle, but the sound of a clicking gun hammer stopped him. Roscoe came over with his .38 pressed at Kunz's head, and he was as cool as a mountain stream in November. One more revolver hammer got pulled back, and the other Kunz now had his gun pointed at Roscoe in a grim deadlock.

“Looks like we're all fucked,” said Roscoe. “Unless, of course, cool heads prevail. I say we all lower our pieces, and my friend and I will clear on outta here.”

All three men lowered their guns at the same time. I managed to stand up on my feet and I dusted myself off. I shook my sore hand, and the weight of the Kunz brothers' fury-filled stares proved almost more than I could bear. Steed was still strangely emotionless, as if not entirely present, like his wife's death meant nothing to him. We hiked back up to the road, with Roscoe coming up behind me, keeping a vigilant eye on the marshal and his deputies below. Back in the car, Roscoe reached over and gently patted my knee.

“Let's go home,” he said.

*   *   *

After stopping to fill my tank in St. George I motored across a succession of dry valleys, with the late afternoon turning to evening, and the shadows of hills growing taller by the minute. For part of the drive, Roscoe slept with his hat pulled down over his face and his head dipping so his chin touched his chest. Sometimes his snoring was louder than the car's engine. Twilight brought a welcome drop in the temperature, and a cool breeze blew through the open window, ruffling my hair. I regarded it as a gift after enduring the heat of Dixie City. Somewhere in central Utah, Roscoe sat up straight, tilted his hat back, and looked out at the scenery—what there was of it—shaded by a darkening sky still splashed with hues of orange, purple, and indigo. He wiped drool off his mouth with his sleeve and he let out a sigh.