A Killing in Zion (10 page)

“Gentlemen,” he said. “Thank you for taking part in this operation at such short notice. We are about to conduct raids on the homes and businesses of the heads of the largest polygamist sect in the United States. I can promise you the press will be watching us. Our purpose in carrying out today's arrests is to interrogate these men until one or more of them breaks and coughs up information that will enable us to solve last night's double homicide. As such, we need to carry out this operation with the highest level of professionalism. There is much at stake today. Whatever your views on polygamy happen to be, that's of no concern to me. What matters is that a series of murders has taken place inside of their tight little circle, and the perpetrator of this heinous act must be brought to justice, with no delay.” He paused and scanned their faces. “I have obtained warrants from Judge Bringhurst to conduct searches of the polygamist-owned residences and businesses. If you happen to find anything tying a particular individual to last night's homicides, you are to report directly to me. Do I make myself clear?”

In almost perfect unison, they responded, “Yes, sir!”

“Good.” Wit walked over to Captain Becker, who handed him a clipboard. Wit skimmed the assignment roster and nodded, then returned to his place in front of the men. “Squad A will be led by myself, Squad B by Detective Newbold, Squad C by Detective Oveson, and Squad D by Detective J. Weeks.” Wit lowered the clipboard and looked out at the men. “Any questions?”

There weren't any, a good sign. Wit handed the clipboard to Becker. “Fellas,” said Wit. “I don't believe in luck, but I'm wishing it to you anyhow. Now, what are you standing around for? Get moving!”

The formation broke. Patrolmen scattered in all directions. Paddy wagon engines roared, and men filed out the doors to get in black-and-whites. Roscoe chose that moment to show up. His cut and bruised face was still recovering from the beating he'd taken. About the best that could be said is that it looked better than it did yesterday. Wit gave him the evil eye as he walked past. I handed Jared his warrant and patted him on the shoulder, then I reluctantly approached Roscoe to have a word with him about his lack of punctuality. He saw me coming and gave me his best
what now?
face.

“You're late.”

“Can we do this some other time?” he pleaded.

“I need you here at work each day on time.”

“What can I say? It was one of those mornings.” Up closer, he appeared even more disheveled, and not merely due to his roughed-up face. Unshaven, shirt untucked. I caught a whiff of booze. He noticed me studying him. “What?”

“Like I said the other day, I can't keep covering for you.”

“Then don't. Cowley and Hawkins can go to hell. They can't stand me 'cause I ain't Mormon and I don't play their games.”

“For crying out loud, Roscoe, all you have to do is show up on time and do your bit—”

Shaking his head in frustration, Roscoe left while I was in mid-sentence, heading off in the direction of the open entrance, only to be swallowed up by the brightness of the morning sun.

“What's his problem?”

Myron stood by my side, watching Roscoe head out into the light.

“Wrong side of the bed,” I said.

“Too bad you have to put up with that guy. To call him a big, dumb ape would be an insult to big, dumb apes the world over.”

Jared came over with a grim expression. “Wit's making a big mistake, boss,” said Jared. “If you ask me, this is overkill, using all of these lawmen for just eleven arrests. This is only gonna make things worse.”

“It's what Wit wants,” I said. “It's his investigation now.”

Wit strolled over and gave us the
something wrong?
glare, the one you get when your superiors do not actually want to know if something is wrong. I smiled and shook my head and we all went our separate ways. I nabbed Roscoe outside and he rode along with me, while Myron joined Jared in Squad D, prepared to assist in the arrests. Roscoe and I ended up riding along with a pockmarked, bristly-headed young officer named Kimball. Roscoe sat in back and I took the passenger-side front seat. None of us said a word as Kimball turned out of the parking lot, part of a long police convoy dispersing to all parts of the valley.

*   *   *

Under smoky skies, a line of police cars and a paddy wagon slowed in front of a redbrick building near the intersection of 200 South and 200 East.
SUNSHINE FLORAL
said a long sign spanning the entrance and display windows. A smaller sign read
GREENHOUSE IN REAR
. In a corner of the front window, owner Carl Jeppson had hung a poster of the ubiquitous National Recovery Administration (NRA) blue eagle, showing the mighty New Deal thunderbird with a gear in its right talon and lightning bolts in its left.
WE DO OUR PART
, it said. A star-spangled sandwich board sign out front announced,
ASK ABOUT OUR PATRIOTIC FOURTH OF JULY SPECIALS!
Kimball killed the engine and the three of us got out of the car. On my way to the entrance, I stopped and whirled around toward the men behind me.

“Follow me. I'll do the talking.”

I turned the knob and pushed the door open. A brass bell rang. Inside, my eyes adjusted as I moved forward between shelves of flowers on either side in all shapes and colors. The temperature plunged thirty degrees, thanks to a walk-in refrigerator with its door wide open. I could see that it housed a huge supply of roses. Roscoe came in after me and assumed a tough-guy pose near the entrance. At least he'd tucked in his shirt and appeared more presentable. In the rear of the store, four women sat at a long wooden table, wrapping bouquets in paper, taping them closed, and cutting ribbons with scissors. They ranged in age—I guessed—from twenties to fifties, with their braided hair pinned back in buns, wearing pale blue home-sewn dresses that reached their ankles. Behind them, a door opened and I recognized Carl Jeppson, an apostle in the fundamentalist sect. You couldn't mistake him for anybody else, thanks to a receding widow's peak, high cheekbones, and a scar that formed a fault from his nostril to his mouth where he once had a cleft lip. He was sweating profusely, as if he'd emerged from a steam bath, and the whites of his eyes had gone pink.

“Hello,” I greeted him.

“May I help you?”

“Are you Carl Jeppson?”

“Yes. Is something the matter?”

I took out a black leather wallet and showed the badge inside. “Lieutenant Arthur Oveson, Salt Lake City Police Department. You're under arrest.”

His face lost all color. “What on earth for?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Roscoe, who now stood by my side, beat me to it.

“Polygamy, which is a violation of state laws,” he said. “We have a warrant from Judge Nestor Bringhurst to search—”

“How dare you come inside my shop and disrupt my business!”

I motioned to Kimball, who moved past me, maneuvered behind Jeppson, and began to cuff his wrists. Jeppson started flailing before Kimball could finish. “See here, you can't do this!”

“Give me your hand.” Kimball lunged for Jeppson's arm and twisted it downward, causing Jeppson to groan in dismay. Metal rattled and snapped and then the handcuffs were on securely. Jeppson looked like he was about to start sobbing.

“This is an outrage!” he shouted, his voice cracking. “My attorney is Granville Sondrup! He's in the McCornick Block on First and Main. Fifth floor. Telephone Wasatch one-zero-seven-nine. What are your names again?”

“Lieutenant Arthur Oveson.”

“Detective Roscoe Lund.”

He growled between clenched teeth. “This time tomorrow, you two will be picking up litter, if you're still employed at all!”

I blinked at him and said nothing, yet I felt the hatred—toward him and his entire way of life—welling up in me. Roscoe stayed quiet, too—a rare show of restraint for someone usually so quick with a snide comeback.

Kimball motioned for two officers to escort Jeppson to the paddy wagon. Jeppson bucked and writhed as the men led him past me. “This is a calamity!” he cried. “I have a reputation in this community! This place has been in business since 1910! How dare you! My attorney is Sondrup! S-O-N-D-R-U-P. First name, Granville. G-R-A-N-V-I-double L-E.”

It took two patrolmen to load the twisting, hollering Jeppson into the back of the idling wagon. I followed them out to the curb and watched them carry out the grim task with quiet determination. Even after they closed the rear doors, I could still hear muffled shouts. “You'll hear from my attorney! You'll rue this day! So help me…” The wagon roared off on the short drive to Public Safety.

Reluctantly, I went back inside to the four women seated at the table at the back of the room. Roscoe was already leaning against the counter, scrutinizing their every move. They had stopped wrapping bouquets and were frozen like statues, doing their best to avoid eye contact with me. They shared the same forlorn expression, and they seemed to stare blankly down at the work awaiting them. I'm sure I was the last person they wanted to see at that moment. Still, some part of me yearned to make nice with them, to assure them that I did not mean any harm. When I reached up to tip my hat, I startled the youngest of the four, who was probably in her twenties and already trembling.

“Ladies,” I said. “I'll let you get back to your work.”

One of the older women, round-faced with sunken eyes and dark gray hair, raised her head, frowning, resisting tears.

“It's not enough that he was excommunicated,” she said. “Now you come in here and drag him out of his place of business, like he's a … a … a common criminal.”

“Quit your bellyaching. He's a suspect in a homicide investigation,” said Roscoe.

I glared at Roscoe and gave a little headshake to show my disapproval of his “bellyaching” comment.

“He has children!” she yelled, rising to her feet. “He didn't harm anybody!”

The woman beside her, young and frail in appearance, rose and squeezed the gray-haired woman's arm and pulled her back. “Please, Hilda. It won't do any good.”

Hilda's shoulders drooped and she began convulsing with sobs. She sat back down, followed by her petite coworker.

“Are you his wives?” I asked the women.

“Don't answer him,” cautioned Hilda through a veil of tears.

The women stayed silent. I had no desire to remain in that shop a second longer. My conflicted feelings of guilt and hostility—the former for disrupting their lives, the latter from my dislike of polygamy—jousted in my mind and my heart as I watched those women resuming work, cutting strips of brown paper with scissors, taping the wrapping around bouquets, tying shiny colored ribbon around the packages, and not a single one acknowledging my presence.

Nothing left for me to say or do here. I faced Kimball. “His office is in back,” I said. “I presume your men have been briefed about what to look for?”

“Yes, sir,” said Kimball. “The captain informed us.”

“Good. Put a couple of men on it and let's get out of here.”

“Yes, sir.”

I gave the women at the long table a backward glance on my way out, with Roscoe tailing close behind. I sensed they were pleased to see us leaving, although they couldn't have been half as relieved as I was when I walked out of that shop. From a young age, I'd been taught that polygamists were deviants and not true to the current church. At that moment, I felt overwhelming feelings of hostility toward these people churning inside of me. Roscoe grinned at me as he stuffed a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. He didn't care. Cynicism with two cubes of apathy was more his cup of tea. Unlike me, he was not saddled with the burden of being a true believer.

*   *   *

“This is it. Slow down.”

Officer Kimball swerved to the curb and into the shadow of an enormous old tree near the corner of Third Avenue and T Street. Behind us, the police cars and the paddy wagon that had barely deposited Jeppson at the jail imitated our move. The vehicles halted in front of a two-story bungalow, brick on the first floor and shingles on the second, with a long columned porch surrounded by low-trimmed shrubs. I picked up the newspaper on the seat between Kimball and me and unfolded it. The banner at the top said
TRUTH
in old English calligraphy, and below it were the words
THE ORGAN OF THE FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCH OF SAINTS
.

“That's their birdcage liner,” said Roscoe from the backseat. “Puts even the most alert parakeet to sleep.”

“Let's go, fellas,” I said.

The three of us got out of the car and formed a semicircle with officers from the other vehicles. I advised them to enter the house if we weren't out in five minutes. Roscoe and I trotted up concrete porch steps. The screen door was closed but the front door open. I pressed the doorbell button and a buzzer went off inside. I waited half a minute. Nothing. A wind chime rang softly in the breeze. I pressed the button and waited once more. Nothing again. I opened the screen door and, holding the warrant in my left hand and taking out my .38 with my right, moved into the front entrance hall. Roscoe eased the door closed quietly and followed me. A forlorn symphony played somewhere in the distance. We went from room to room. All the blinds were drawn. It was dark in each place we checked. The furnishings came with that fresh smell of something recently carted out of a Sears and Roebuck freight. I opened a hallway door and the music suddenly got louder. Roscoe looked at me with a nod, as if acknowledging this was the place to go.

The door opened up to a set of stairs descending to the basement. I started down, taking each step slowly, and the wood moaned under my heels. Roscoe kept pace behind. Halfway down I caught my first glimpse of a small army of women, all dressed in the same type of heavy homespun, working away at newspaper production. The long basement room housed what appeared to be a professional linotype machine used for making newspapers and other printed items. Beyond it, like the great Sphinx of Egypt, sat a printing press, dark and metallic and full of intricate parts, with rolls of newsprint nearby. The symphony had grown louder, now rising to a string instrument crescendo, and I realized it was being played on a phonograph. Seven, no, eight women I counted, probably ranging in age from twenty to sixty. They stole looks at the two of us, never stopping what they were doing.