VIABLE (13 page)

He arrived at the Utah State Penitentiary just before two that afternoon. The facility was an imposing structure, set on over seven hundred acres twenty miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Its concrete walls housed over four thousand inmates as well as the state’s only supermax facility and the execution chamber for those on death row. The maximum security unit had been designed in response to a spate of riots at similar institutions across the country, and procedures had been developed to minimize inmate-staff contact. Communal dining rooms and exercise yards had been dispensed with and instead prisoners spent twenty-three hours a day in concrete seven-by-eleven cells, one wall of which was made of perforated steel, allowing the inmates to squint out through the holes. Not that there was anything to see. The cells were arranged in lines radiating out like spokes from a central control hub, meaning that no prisoner could see another human being from their cell. Most of the inmates served their time in near-total isolation.

Lars had phoned ahead, explaining to the warden that he needed to speak with one of the prisoners in connection with an ongoing investigation. He had no authority in Utah; hell, strictly speaking his jurisdiction ended at the Mineral County line just after Garfield Flats Road out on US-95. But thankfully the warden hadn’t called him on it. After reviewing Brandt’s file in the governor’s office he was shown to the visiting area, where he took a seat at a small booth. A thick perspex pane separated the visitors from the inmates, a telephone handset attached to the wall in each booth allowing communication. He waited while the guard brought Brandt from his cell.

Joseph Brandt looked older than the fifty-five years his file indicated. He shuffled into the visitors’ area, his head down, hands and feet shackled, a chain connecting the ’cuffs around his wrists and ankles to a belt around his waist. At first he seemed uncertain of his surroundings and the guard who had brought him from his cell had to guide him to the booth where Lars was waiting. Brandt had been married at the time of his conviction but Lars had read from his file that he hadn’t had a single visitor in the three decades he had been at the facility. The guard unhooked the telephone handset from the wall and placed it in the prisoner’s hands, signaling that he could go ahead. Lars waited a moment for Brandt to get used to his new surroundings before he began.

‘Mr. Brandt, I am Sheriff Lars Henrikssen from Hawthorne County.’

He held his badge to the perspex but Brandt barely looked up.

‘I’m hoping you can help me. I’m investigating a crime that might be related to the disappearance of Robin Taft.’

Lars had hoped that the mention of Taft’s name might trigger a reaction but Brandt continued to look down, cradling the handset to the side of his head with both hands.

‘You may remember that Cindy Rowe had travelled to St. George to donate blood to Mr. Taft immediately before her disappearance.’

The mention of Cindy Rowe’s name at last seemed to prompt a response. Brandt looked up briefly, staring blankly through the perspex pane, before looking down again. His lips were moving. The man was repeating something over and over but it was hard to make it out. Lars pressed his ear to the headset to hear what he was saying.

‘No. Didn’t do it. No. Didn’t do it. No.
Didn’t
do it.’

It was no use. Lars had read that the sensory deprivation in facilities like this frequently led otherwise healthy inmates to develop manifestations of psychosis – fits of rage, paranoia, catatonic depression, even hallucinations. After thirty years the man’s mind had gone. He nodded to the guard that he was finished. It had been a wasted trip.

As he replaced the handset Brandt looked up, fixing him with a stare. The guard had placed his hand on Brandt’s shoulders and was about to escort him away from the booth but something about the way the man was looking at him caused Lars to signal the guard to wait. He put the handset back to his ear, nodding at Brandt to go on.

‘She made it back to her house. Somebody must have seen. Somebody must have seen.
Somebody must have seen
.’

There was nothing else. Brandt kept on repeating the sentence even as the guard lifted him out of the seat. He kept his eyes on Lars all the way to the door, his lips silently forming the words over and over. Then he was gone. 

Lars signed himself out and returned to the car park. He sat in the cruiser for a long time. The one thing that Brandt’s mind had held on to was that he was innocent. Was that normal? Could a person who was actually guilty convince themselves of their innocence to such an extent that that would be all that would remain after the rest of their faculties had gone? He had no idea.

Somebody must have seen
.

Was that what Brandt had been tormenting himself with all these years? That somebody out there must know that Cindy Rowe had arrived back at her home safely? Even if it were true it didn’t prove that Brandt hadn’t subsequently abducted her. But if he had intended to kill her, why would he have driven her back to her home, why would he have allowed her to leave the car?

He checked his watch. It was just after three. Pleasant Grove was only a few miles away. He could make a few discreet inquiries; see whether any of Cindy Rowe’s neighbors remembered seeing anything. After thirty years it was a long shot but there was something about his interview with Brandt that made him want to believe the man. He turned the key in the ignition, pulled out of the facility car park and headed north on I-15.

The house where Cindy Rowe had lived was at the end of a small cul de sac. The woman who answered the door had never heard of the Rowes. Lars was a little relieved. From the newspaper reports on Cindy Rowe’s murder her husband had been at work on the day his wife had been abducted. There was nothing he could have seen that might help and the news that an investigation might still be ongoing was only likely to cause him distress. The woman told him that most of the current residents of the street had moved in over the last ten years. As far as she was aware only Mrs. Mortimer, a retired schoolteacher that lived directly opposite, had been around for longer. She liked to keep to herself but maybe she could help him.

Lars walked across the street and rang the doorbell. For a long time there was no answer. It was already dusk and there were no lights on in the house, but nevertheless he could have sworn he had seen one of the upstairs curtains twitch as he had made his way up the drive. He rang the doorbell again, longer this time. Finally a light came on in the hallway, followed a moment later by the porch light above his head. He heard the sound of latches being released and bolts being pulled back. The door opened a crack to reveal an elderly woman, tall and thin, her grey hair pulled back in a tight bun. She regarded him suspiciously over the top of a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles. The door was still on its chain. Lars held his badge up so that she could see, taking half a step backwards so that his face was directly under the porch light.

‘Sheriff Lars Henrikssen, ma’am. I apologies for calling so late but I wonder if I might have a moment of your time to ask a few questions about the disappearance of Cindy Rowe.’

The old woman looked at the badge for a long moment, then at him, and then at the badge again. She made no move to unclip the chain from the door.

‘It was a long time ago, that business with the Rowe woman. Why are you back here now?’

He explained what had happened in Hawthorne, and how Carl Gant shared the same rare blood group as Cindy Rowe and Robin Taft.

‘Yes, yes, I remember the stories in the newspaper. The young man who was in the car accident. His uncle was the governor, organized some sort of appeal on the television. Mrs. Rowe flew up there to donate blood. They said it was the driver that was hired to pick her up from the airport that did it.’

‘Yes.’

For the first time he thought that Mrs. Mortimer looked uncomfortable.

‘Is…is he still in prison?’

‘Yes he is. I visited with him not more than an hour ago at the penitentiary up in Draper.’ He paused before adding ‘He’s not doing so well.’

Mrs. Mortimer looked down. Through the crack in the door he could see her wringing her hands.

‘Mrs. Mortimer, is there anything you can tell me about Cindy Rowe’s disappearance?’

The old woman looked up. She appeared undecided for a moment then finally she seemed to make up her mind, removing the chain from the door and indicating that he should follow her in. He sat at the kitchen table while she put the kettle on. Five minutes later she was sitting opposite him, stirring sugar into her tea.

‘It was a Tuesday morning, the day Mrs. Rowe disappeared. I remember because Tuesdays used to be the day when I did my shopping. Anyway, the night before I hadn’t slept well. Truth be told I’ve always been a light sleeper but that was the year my Harold passed on,’ - she nodded to a picture on the kitchen window sill - ‘and I guess I was still not used to him not being around. We were married twenty-nine years you know.’

She looked up, and Lars got the impression that after thirty years she still felt aggrieved to have been left alone.

‘Anyway, as I said, I’d had trouble sleeping and by about five-thirty I figured this just wasn’t going to be my night and there was no point in lollygagging around in bed anymore. So I got up, came down here and made myself a pot of tea. You know to this day I still make a pot, even though I’m by myself now. A cup would be plenty of course, but I just can’t seem to break the habit. I keep meaning to, but then I find myself getting out the pot again.’

She trailed off, as if remembering something. Lars sat quietly, not wanting to rush her.

‘Anyway, where were we? Yes, I had gotten up and made some tea, and then I brought it into the front room. I like sitting in there; you can see the street. Not that I’m in the habit of spying on people, mind you. But sometimes it’s nice to sit and watch the world go by outside your window. Harold and I used to do that a lot after we both retired.’

She paused again.

‘Well, not long after I’d sat down I saw Mr. Rowe heading off for work. He was store manager at the K-Mart up Orem way you know. He had to get up early most mornings to take deliveries. It was still dark and the street was quiet and I was just sitting there minding my own business when not five minutes after Mr. Rowe had left I saw this van pull up outside their house. It had some markings on the side but I couldn’t make them out, least not at that point. Anyway the back door opens and two men climb out and head up the Rowe’s driveway. Not rushing mind you, just as cool and calm as you like. Well at this point I think maybe it’s a delivery or something, even though it’s still early. But then they don’t head for the front door, like you’d expect, they walk straight around the side and I lose sight of them. Well maybe half a minute later the van pulls off, turns at the end of the road here and then heads back out onto Victoria Street. I didn’t see which way it went after that.’

Mrs. Mortimer stopped to take a sip of her tea.

‘Anyway, later that morning I’m back in the front room having a rest after doing the shopping and I see a car pull up. This young man gets out of the driver’s side and opens the back door and out gets Mrs. Rowe. She walks up her driveway and goes in her front door. A moment later the car pulls off, going down to the end of the street to turn, just like the van had that morning.’

‘Do you remember what time that was?’

‘Well, not exactly. But it would have been after I got back from my shopping but before I’d set about fixing myself some lunch. Probably eleven, or eleven-thirty, not much later.’

‘And do you remember anything about the car?’

‘Why yes, it was a grey Cadillac, a late model back then, if I’m not mistaken. I remember because Harold had bought Cadillacs for us all his life. He loved them. He’d been thinking of trading ours in for that very model and had come back from the dealer up in Provo with a stack of brochures, literally not a month before he died. I remember thinking that he would have liked the car that Mrs. Rowe had come back in. Just the color he would have chosen as well.’

She waited while Lars scribbled a few details in his notepad before indicating to her to continue.

‘Well, I remember thinking that it was very unusual for Mrs. Rowe to be climbing out of a chauffeur-driven car. I didn’t know it at the time but I read later in the
Tribune
– that’s the
Salt Lake Tribune
by the way – that that was the car that the governor had booked to bring her back from the airfield out at Lehi. Anyway, I was just getting up to put something on for my lunch when I see the van from that morning pulling up in front of the Rowe’s place again. But this time no-one gets out. So I watch it for a while. It’s brighter now and I can read the writing on the side – it’s the name of some television cable company. I remember thinking that Harold would have gotten a kick out of that. He’d been hoping for years that they were going to finally get around to installing cable in our street – he liked his TV programs you see. Anyway, a few minutes later two men come out the front door, carrying something between them, like a roll of carpet. They’re dressed in overalls and they’re wearing those baseball caps so don’t ask me to describe what they looked like. They’re not rushing, but not hanging around either if you know what I mean. As soon as they get to the back of the van the door opens and they push in whatever they’re carrying and climb in after it. Then the doors close and the van pulls away again. And that was the last I saw of it.’

Lars had been taking notes as the old lady had talked. Now he put down the pen and looked across the table at her.

‘Well, Sheriff, I expect you’re wondering why I didn’t call the police. I’ve asked myself the same question a lot these past thirty years, so I have an answer for you, of sorts. I should have been suspicious when I saw that van first thing that morning and those men going around the side of the Rowes’ house. But it was dark, and I hadn’t slept well, and as the morning wore on I began to doubt myself. I thought maybe my eyes had been playing tricks on me. Maybe the men hadn’t gone around the side of the house after all. Maybe they had rung the front door bell first and I just hadn’t seen it. Maybe they had come back out from the side of the house and climbed back into the van on the other side and I hadn’t seen that either. Then the next day when I saw the piece in the
Tribune
about Mrs. Rowe helping out that man, the nephew of the governor of Utah, well I just thought that maybe those men were there on his behalf. Like some sort of security detail, you know, checking out the place. I almost put the whole thing out of my mind. Then a few days later I hear that Mrs. Rowe has disappeared. Well that’s when I should have come forward, I know that now. But truth be told I didn’t want to get involved and I thought the police would just figure it out, with or without me putting in my two cents’ worth. So I did nothing. And then a week or so later I read in the
Tribune
that they’ve picked up the driver of the car and they’re charging him with Mrs. Rowe’s murder on account of the blood they found on the back seat.’