The door started to open again, so I braced myself, cocked the gun while working to keep the jiggling muzzle from pointing at me, then shot again. I was so far away it would have been hard to drop a squirrel with a .22, from what I remembered of squirrel hunting with my brother.
I listened for a second, my ears needing to recover from the shock of the noise. I heard screaming. It sounded like Kitty.
There was one more tree motte between me and the truck. I took a deep breath and took off for it, making it before my chest caught fire. I coughed so hard I thought a lung would come out when I got to the cover.
I couldn't hear anything but Kitty yelling. I hollered at her to see what she could tell me.
"Kitty! What's happening?"
"Larry! There's two of them and—” Her voice cut short.
I held my breath. I didn't hear a shot or anything, but there was plenty of quiet ways to be violent. I decided to get to the front of the truck. If they were all still in the back, I would have the drop on them. I took a deep breath, said a prayer, and ran for the front seat of the truck. It was still running, and the lights were on. Part of the prayer included that the boys would get there soon.
I hopped into the seat and peered into the back of the truck. There was a small lantern burning, and I could see Kitty's feet below me, she must have had her back to the wall behind the driver’s seat. The two fellows were over by the door, crouching down and cracking it open to peer out.
"Pete’ll be here any minute, and when he gets here, boy you'll be sorry," Kitty was saying. Marvin lunged for her, slapping at her face.
"Shut up! I've already told you to shut up! Pete won't get here in time for anything.”
Mayhew stepped in. "Here now, no need for that. We know how this is going to end for her, no need to make it worse." He was talking to Marvin. He turned to Kitty and smiled. "Sorry m'dear. His nerves aren't made to take this. Mine either.”
I ducked my head down. We needed to get as far away from here as possible. Whatever they were planning, it wasn’t good. I looked at the truck’s steering wheel with the keys in and the engine running, and decided to give it a try.
I'd driven a truck before. Once. They're all the same anyway.
I stomped on one of the pedals, what I hoped was the clutch, and pushed with all of my might. I stood up on it before it even budged, then grabbed the stick shift and moved it until it was in a gear. I heard the men in the back making confused sounds, accusing each other of not putting the truck in park.
As the truck lurched forward, I stomped again and tried shifting. It didn't seem to work. We were moving, but very slowly. Slower than I thought possible, I turned the truck toward where we’d come from, listening to the men holler and deciding whether to bail.
I put my head near the window and hollered, "Hold on, Kitty! I’m getting us out of here!”
The back door of the truck opened, and I saw two figures take off toward the fence. I honked the horn at them, trying to figure out how to give chase. I couldn't do very much, not in first gear. I couldn't even run them over very well. They'd have to lie down and hold still for me to do any damage with the truck, but I couldn't let them get away, could I?
Then I saw more figures in the headlights. I was trying to brake, unsuccessfully, when I saw a familiar face. It was Major Goodall, waving his arms at me as I rumbled up.
"Stop the truck, Larry! Stop the truck!"
I beeped the little horn at him and helplessly tried to stomp on the brake. It slowed the truck down some, but the engine started to make a terrible noise. Gears grinding, then mercifully, it died. Major Goodall looked at me.
“You okay?”
I ignored him and hollered over my shoulder.
“Kitty? You okay?”
I heard a muffled “Yes,” and breathed a sigh of relief. We had gotten clean away for now. Tom and Pete ran up, Pete sprinting to the back of the truck.
“Larry! What happened?” Tom was out of breath but still loud.
“What do you mean what happened? I don’t know, I got chloroformed, woke up in the back of a truck headed for God knows where! How’d that happen?” He looked at the ground and breathed deeply.
“Don’t rightly know. That Dr. Auger blustered on and on about how this was blackmail, and he didn’t think it was the right thing to do to a grieving widow, and then we heard a shot fired. Then I didn’t see you anywhere.”
“You didn’t even know I was gone?” He ducked his head down, sheepishly. I couldn’t believe it.
“Well, I thought you were being a mite quiet, for you, but we was so focused on the doctor… Did they shoot at you or did you shoot at them?”
I rested my head on the steering wheel.
“I shot at them, and it didn’t go that great. I might as well have thrown rocks at them.” Major Goodall chuckled.
“The idea is to scare them with what you can do with a gun. Rocks won’t do.” Tom frowned at me, trying to get me to take this all seriously. Of all the times.
“Did you see who took you?” It was Pete, holding Kitty in his arms, on the passenger side. I nodded.
“It was Mayhew, the lawyer, and Gerald’s stepson, Marvin. They were working together.” Pete swore to himself and looked off in the direction that they had run.
“No use going after them now. We know who they are,” Major Goodall said easily.
“Mayhew you say? I know him. He does some stuff for Mr. Franklin. What’s he got to do with all this?” Pete didn’t look convinced one bit.
“He was Gerald’s lawyer. From what they said in the van, Gerald wanted papers for all his accounts. Sounds like Mayhew was skimming off the top, and convinced Marvin to poison Gerald so things could stay the same.”
“You mean I got him killed?” Kitty interrupted, tearing up. I felt guilty for talking so openly in front of her. I’d forgotten he was her long-lost father.
“No, nothing like that. Gerald would have found out he was being stolen from sometime. Mayhew would have done something anyway. Your sins always come back to find you.” I winced a bit, I wish Pastor Bob’s pronouncements didn’t pour out at times like this. My Baptist showed when under stress. She didn’t look quite convinced, but it was the best I could do.
Major Goodall looked at Pete.
“Satisfied?”
Pete frowned.
“Can we collect Mr. Eymann’s body so he can get a proper burial?” Major Goodall pressed on. I nodded my head. We needed to bury that man. Pete shrugged.
“I guess. Weren’t no help to prove nothing.”
“No, it wasn’t. But now we know what happened. Maybe the justice of the peace will find something in the autopsy.” I sounded more hopeful than I felt about that. It wasn’t like someone bashed him on the head. He couldn't have been in that great of shape to find evidence. I shivered at the thought. Lord, I hope they hadn’t buried him somewhere.
Kitty looked up at Pete, silently pleading. Pete finally nodded.
“I’ll take you to the body.”
19
We drove up behind Pete’s work truck, up to a little wooden building in the middle of West Dallas. I didn’t care for the neighborhood. It was past the middle of the night, and there were still plenty of people out and about, doing things that could not be respectable this late. There were little shacks and dirt streets, and it was not to my liking.
I didn’t know what it meant about my respectability that I was there, I reminded myself, but the fact remained. We pulled up to a good-sized building on stilts and waited for Pete.
He stepped out and then waved us over. He gestured vaguely at the building.
“He’s in here.”
“What is this place?”
“Ice house.”
“You put him in an ice house?” I couldn’t believe it. That’s not exactly an out-of-the-way place. The ice men go in and out all morning for their deliveries, the plant brings the ice in, what was he thinking?
“Yup. Thought it’d be a good pl
ace to keep him safe where he didn’t start to smell.”
That was actually a good idea, I thought grudgingly.
“Where’s he at in there?” Tom was curious.
“Back wall, far left corner. Packed some sawdust around him, and one block of ice on top.”
I must have looked appalled, because he got defensive.
“Kitty didn’t see, and she didn’t have nothing to do with it. Wanted to preserve the evidence.”
“Next time, let’s do things a bit differently, okay?” I’m not sure why I thought there’d be a next time. He looked at me defiantly.
“I did what I had to do.” Kitty nodded and stayed nestled in his shoulder. She looked exhausted. Poor kid, she’d found out she had a father, seen him dead as a result of that, helped steal his body, then been kidnapped briefly herself. That had to make for a rough week. All, right before Thanksgiving too.
I looked at the door of the ice house. It was late enough at night to be considered early in the morning, and there was a truck pulling up to the front, waiting to unload its blocks of ice. I looked at the side. It said Eymann Ice.
“You put him in one of his own ice houses?” I couldn’t keep my shock to myself. I’m sure at some point I will cease to be surprised by anything, like Major Goodall seemed to have achieved, but I wasn’t there yet. Pete shrugged.
“Seemed like a good place,” he repeated. I shook my head and looked back at the door. We had to do something, but I was so tired my mind was in molasses. Major Goodall stepped in.
“Well, here now. Tom, let’s you and me go confirm his location, and Larry, you locate a phone if you can. When we find him, you can telephone the funeral home, and they’ll fetch him and take care of the rest.”
I sighed in relief. That was the most sensible thing I’d heard in a bit. The boys went into a side door, Tom getting his flashlight out. I hoped I wasn’t keeping them too long from their job at the rail yard. Surely there couldn’t be that many hobos that needed kicking out.
I turned to look for phone lines in the air and was surprised that one led to the front of the ice house. I went around to see where it connected and saw a small office with the light on and a window open, letting in the cold. I got closer and noticed there were some little sandwiches and coffee on the desk behind the window and a sign selling them for a nickel each. This was quite enterprising. I approached the window and a sweet-faced woman smiled at me.
“What can I get you sweetie? Coffee? I have some biscuits on the way if you want to wait.”
“No, thank you, ma’am. I’m looking to see if I can use your phone for a moment. Is it available?”
She wrinkled her brow a bit, but decided that I didn’t look like I was going to make a long-distance call, and then said, “Certainly, ma’am. If you like, I can let you come in the office to make your call. I would like a donation of a nickel, to cover our costs, you understand.”
I nodded, and she went to the little side door and let me in. There was a fire going in a stove in the corner, and the warmth cheered me up considerably.
“Are you here all night?”
“Yes, ma’am. Someone has to make note of the trucks and the deliveries, and there’s always people about. I thought, why not sell a few things on the side? I always have coffee going anyway, it’s a must.”
I nodded, impressed by her business acumen. I heard a little noise, a rustling, and looked into the corner. A little boy and girl were asleep on a bed, huddled in the corner nearest the stove. The woman smiled at them.
“It’s a wonderful job to have with a family. No one has to watch them, and I can rest when they’re in school during the day. Off the clock, you understand,” she added a bit anxiously.
“Of course,” I said, reassuringly. We sat for another moment, and then Kitty came to the window, peering in uncertainly.
“Larry?”
“Yes, I’m back here, Kitty.”
“Mr. Tom says to make the call.”
“Thank you. I shall.”
I nodded at the friendly mother and went to the phone, asking for Mr. Prescott’s home number. When the connection finally went through, he was grumpy.
“Who is this?”
“Mr. Prescott, this is Mrs. Laurel Robertson. I met you earlier today on the matter of Mr. Gerald Eymann.” That woke him up.
“Yes, yes! Did you find him?”
“Indeed. Could you send someone to the Eymann Ice House.” I gave him the cross streets. He fussed a bit about the address, but promised to send some people right away. I hung up, sure that it would take another hour before anyone could appear. Unless he had people who lived on the property of the cemetery, I didn’t see how they could be here that fast.
I bought a coffee from the lovely mother, who I learned was named Sarah, and commenced to waiting. Kitty came in and joined us at the fire, and the menfolk showed up as well.
We sat and chatted; it felt more like a family get-together than what I was expecting to occur in Mississippi. Sarah’s husband drove one of the ice trucks, we learned, and Pete let it slip that he was planning on a Christmas wedding to a certain someone. Major Goodall produced a small flask that was passed around in celebration, and everyone sipped. The night seemed much warmer than it had before.
Eventually, the body truck showed up, with a discreet Prescott crest on the side. Pete and Tom led the men into the building, and the rest of us became more subdued. Sarah was brought in on the secret of Mr. Eymann passing away, although nothing further about surrounding events. She expressed regret about his death. She had met him several times, she said, and he was a nice man. Kitty seemed to take comfort in that.
I looked around at the faces, and said, “Well, now what?”
Goodall shifted in his chair, then spoke.
“Maybe the Doctor will run some tests, maybe he won’t. Not much else we can do.”
“So they’ll get away with it?” Kitty looked sad.
“I’ll see what I can do to catch Marvin. Mayhew said it was cough syrup that did it. I saw some of that in Gerald’s room this afternoon. Maybe it will still be there.” It was the best I could come up with.
“And Mayhew?” Poor kid, I thought. After all she’d been through, she still believed in justice. Might as well be Santa.
“That rat. He works for Mr. Fr— my boss. I bet he won’t anymore if he knows he’s a cheat.” Pete’s jaw was working back and forth like there was a rock in there. Kitty looked at him.
“What does he care if Mayhew cheated Gerald?”
“If he cheated one customer, he’d cheat them all. That’s how people work, honey. You know this,” he ended softly. She looked down at the ground. “I’ll tell one of the higher ups about it, then Mayhew’ll have a heck of a time convincing anyone he didn’t swindle them.”
It was an unsatisfying answer, but the best we could do. We broke up, us dropping Goodall off at his little house with strict instructions that I was to collect my fee immediately. We stopped by the house to freshen up and pack for the long drive to Mississippi.
Kitty and Pete went to who knows where; although, I did have a way to contact Kitty now.
20
The sun warmed my back as I rang the doorbell at the Eymann house, and I was feeling just about cheerful. Mr. Eymann had been found, Marvin had been found… the thought of Marvin made me sober up quickly. I had to tell Mrs. Eymann that her son had been involved in her husband’s death. Or did I?
Persephone answered the door, and she actually smiled at me this time, even though it was early.
“Good morning, is the lady of the house up?” I asked as I stepped in and handed her my coat.
“Yes, she is. She’s taking a vitamin to pep up, but she should be down directly,” Persephone said, motioning me to the sitting room. I shook my head, and headed to Gerald’s room.
“Thanks, I’m going to look around in here again. Let me know when I can expect her,” I said over my shoulder. I saw her shrug out of the corner of my eye. I was lo
oking for evidence.
The room looked almost exactly as it had when I left it the day before, a bit haphazard and bare. The night stand, however, had a conspicuous difference. The cough syrup was gone.
I stuck my head out the door and hollered for Persephone.
“Persephone, can you come here a minute?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Has anybody been in this room?”
“Not since you were here with that lot yesterday, no ma’am.”
“Hmmmm. Thank you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Did you find something?” She tried to peek around me. I pulled the door closer to me.
“No, as a matter of fact. The problem is I didn’t. Something’s missing,” I said to myself as I turned back to look at the room, pulling the door shut. I walked over to the bed and sat down on it, trying to think of what I was going to do now.
The cough syrup had been right there; I was sure of it. Maybe someone had come in the night to take it, or? I remembered Mayhew, lollygagging behind the doctor and me as we left the room.
He must have put it inside that newspaper. Or had he hidden it? I leaned toward the wall, putting my hand down on the pillow for support as I went to look down the crack between the bed and the wall. If he had stashed it, instead of smuggling it out.He hadn't had time to stuff it much anywhere else.
The pillow made a crinkling noise, like paper.
I stopped and picked the pillow up. Underneath it was a newspaper, and underneath that was several pages of handwritten papers. The top one was titled Last Will and Testament and went on for several pages. The last page was a letter addressed to Kitty, and I couldn’t bear to read it past the first line.
I straightened up and put the bed back as it had been, glancing through the will. Gerald must have been working on it when the cough syrup started to take hold, then hidden it until he could talk to Eugenia when he felt better. It almost took my breath away, the amount of money talked about.
The gist was that Gerald Eymann, of sound mind and body, was hereby changing his will to leave his wife Eugenia $50,000 in cash, the home they shared, and all its contents. To his daughter, Katherine Minnie Schumer, he left his ice plant and ice houses, valued at $100,000 in a recent offer from the Southland Company. He hoped that it would be some small payback for the harm he caused her and her mother by not being there for them in their time of need. It named Katherine as the executor of the will, until such time that a more appropriate one could be appointed.
The Case of the Ice Man Page 7