The Devil's Dime (The Samaritan Files)

by Bailey Bristol

  “I was going to run for help and then I saw the gun. He always told me he had a gun down here. And it was there in his hand. So, I don’t know why, but I picked it up. And it was heavy. And I had this crazy thought that maybe the bullets made it heavy, so I opened the cylinder and...you know...spun it around. All the slots had a bullet.”

  “All six? Gus, you’re sure about that?”

  “Yeah. All six. So I figured he was trying to frighten someone off and they killed him. I ran to get the police and they came in poking all around and wouldn’t let us near ‘til they were done.”

  Jess felt a curious wave of anger and relief when Gus confirmed what he knew had to be true. Ollie hadn’t killed himself.

  “Then they started asking me questions. And I told how I’d found him. And they asked if Ollie had been upset or worried about something. Or if he’d been acting strange lately. And, well, I laughed, ‘cuz you know Ollie. He’s always acting strange.”

  Jess smiled his agreement.

  “So I asked if they knew who killed him, and they said he did it himself. Suicide. And I said that can’t be, because I’d found all six bullets in his gun.”

  “You told the detectives that?” Jess could tell Gus was giving an accurate account, but he needed to be sure.

  “Mm-hm. Then they said I must have been scared or shocked or something, because there were only five bullets in the gun. I argued but they showed me the gun. There were only five.”

  Gus shifted and straightened his shoulders. “Jess, I swear there were six. But then they showed me five, and I—”

  “Whoa, there, Gus. If you say you saw six, then I know there were six. I think...I think they were bending the story to suit their purpose.”

  “But why?”

  “Who knows, Gus. But for now, let’s keep it under our hat, ok?”

  Gus agreed.

  “Do you...can you give me the names of the investigators or police, whoever might have been here first?”

  Gus nodded. “Three of them, Jess. Got here right away. Maupin, Conroy and Trumbull.”

  “Trumbull was here? You’re sure?”

  Again Gus nodded.

  It made no sense. No sense at all. Why would the Chief want folks to think it was suicide, not murder?

  Although it grieved him to have Ollie’s name sullied with the suggestion of suicide, Jess knew he’d keep quiet about it. He needed evidence before he could claim otherwise.

  But his time belonged to the living, not to the dead. He needed to get to his office and make some notes, then focus on Ford’s situation.

  The quiet murmurs of the investigating team faded behind him as he reached the stair top. It might be a while before he could return to the morgue. But when he did, he knew he would come to avenge Ollie Twickenham’s murder.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Papa?”

  Addie squinted through the small barred opening of the cell door and tried to make out the form of her father.

  “Ford Magee?”

  A slow drip worked its weary rhythm somewhere behind her, its sound echoing from the stone walls and dying away just before the next drop fell. Something on the other side of the door moved.

  “Papa, please say something.” Addie punctuated her plea with a soft tap on the heavy door.

  But even as she begged him to speak, she was afraid of what he might say. Or what he might not say.

  Just being near to him, though, brought the first calm she’d felt since she’d watched the paddy wagon door close behind her father the night before. When he was ready to speak, she’d be ready to listen.

  Addie welcomed the silence of the deserted hall, with its cold, fortressed stone that stood between her and the city. Here was a place she found she could think for the first time today.

  Her legs were weary from walking the streets and climbing stairs to look at sixth floor rat infested rooms. How had she managed to find the Grayburn Arms so easily less than two months ago? There was nothing remotely close to it available now.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  Her mother’s words had tumbled in her head all afternoon. Even this week she had contemplated the earliest possible moment that she could afford to leave her dismal room behind and find something better. Something with running water.

  Now that desperate circumstances had befallen her, she knew how wrong she was not to have appreciated her clean, safe haven.

  Addie dropped her weight onto a low stool and stretched her legs in front of her. She lifted her violin case into her lap and sat with both hands clasping it as she rocked her head against the wall to work out the kinks in her neck.

  Images of the squalid neighborhoods she’d passed through earlier in the day blurred into scenes from a childhood tale of horror she’d once read. As her mind began to lose the boundary between truth and fiction, her agitated fingers worked the latches on her case open.

  Addie responded out of instinct to the sweet resin smell that wafted from the case, and before she realized it, the violin was tucked beneath her chin.

  She drew the bow across the strings and let her fingers wander until they fell into a familiar tune. Her mother’s favorite hymn.

  The Old Rugged Cross melted into It is Well With My Soul. The sounds bounced back to her, delayed, like a choir at the back of the church that couldn’t quite keep up with the organ at the front.

  The long echoes should have been disconcerting, but they were not. And by the time she modulated into Nearer My God to Thee Addie was off the stool and pacing the narrow hall, as was her nature when she fell into the music.

  The final notes spun out, rich, warm, comforting, and Addie rocked to a stop and lifted her bow from the strings. Eyes closed, she felt the haunting overtones recede into the quiet darkness. And with them went some of her sadness.

  She opened her eyes a languid crack, and sensed her father’s nearness. With the violin clasped to her chest, Addie leaned her shoulder against the door to his cell and rested her head against the iron grill.

  Minutes passed before she became aware that her father’s hand had quietly grasped another of the iron bars. And just as he had when she was a child, the backs of his rough fingers began to stroke her cheek, and Addie wept. Her music had spoken to him, too.

  . . .

  Tad Morton and his father had carried the last of Addie’s belongings into her father’s apartment and were moving things around to make space for her two steamer trunks. Addie stood by the door, at odds with making herself at home. But her father had insisted, and when she realized the comfort it gave him to provide a place for her, she’d accepted and loved him for it.

  “I’ve wondered why I kept the place. Too nice for the likes of me m’self. But now I know, Addie girl. I kept it for this. For you.”

  Even with the heavy door between them Addie had felt overwhelmingly soothed by his voice and presence. But when their conversation had run its course and silence fell in the bleak stone hallway, Addie found it nearly unbearable to leave him.

  Now, gleeful sounds from the far corner of the apartment brought her sharply back to the moment at hand.

  “Golly, Miss Magee. You got runnin’ water!”

  Tad ran out of the curtained alcove where a large iron tub and commode could be used in private. “Did you know that?”

  Addie smiled and ruffled the boy’s hair. “No, Tad, I didn’t know. But it’s a most pleasant surprise.”

  “There ya be, Miss. All set now.” Tad’s father walked past her and moved his son toward the door. “You need any help at all, you just give us a holler, ma’am.”

  The two smiled and turned to leave just as Addie remembered she’d promised Tad a quarter.

  “Oh! Wait a moment, please, just one minute, I—” Addie turned a full circle looking for the desk her father had described. Seeing it, she opened the hinged top and found the metal box he’d insisted belonged to her now. The key was right where he’d said it would be, and though Addie knew the box contained cash,
she was in no way prepared for what she saw when she opened the lid.

  Neat stacks of cash were evenly bundled and tied with string and layered several bundles deep around the sides of the box. In the center was a pile of silver dollars as deep as her longest finger.

  Addie sucked in her surprise and selected two silver coins from the pile.

  “Here, now. You two have saved my life tonight.” Addie took first the son and then the father’s hands and laid a shiny dollar in each palm.

  “Miss Magee, we can’t—” Tad’s father began to protest and took Addie’s hand to return the coin.

  “No! Please! I want to thank you.”

  “Pa’s right, Miss Magee. It wouldn’t be right to take money for helpin’ out a friend.” With a solemn air, Tad took his father’s coin and walked to the desk and placed both coins on the corner.

  “You’ll be safe here, Miss,” his father said, and tipped his hat as he swung it onto his head. “Let’s go, boy.”

  “’Night, Miss Magee!” Tad darted from the desk toward the door, and at the last moment he stopped and turned toward Addie. “Your cycle is behind the hollyhocks by the alley. No one’ll see it there. I rode it all the way up here, followin’ my pa.” He turned to go, then stopped again and looked back at Addie. “D’ya think...”

  “Tad.” His father’s voice carried a kind but unmistakable reprimand.

  “Sorry.” Tad hung his head and moved to his father’s side.

  Suddenly, Addie realized what he was going to ask.

  “Tad! You have my permission to ride the pennyfarthing any time you want, so long as you let me know first, all right?”

  The boy’s eager smile proved to Addie she’d guessed correctly. “Some day, ma’am, some day I’m gonna have a real bicycle.”

  Addie chuckled. A real cycle, as opposed to a mere women’s three-wheeler.

  “I’m sure you will, Tad.”

  Tad plowed out the door and his father threw Addie a grateful grin and hurried after him.

  “Keep that door bolted, now,” he called back to her as the two disappeared down the stairs.

  Addie waved and slowly closed the door. The long talk with her father and the kindness of this good father and son had succeeded in pulling her out of the dark state she’d been mired in all day.

  She turned and surveyed the comfortable apartment. Today she’d been forced from her home only to find a better one. She’d been forced from her job only to find a nest egg her father had prepared for her.

  Nest and nest egg. With those two worries taken care of she was free to put her mind to solving her father’s dilemma. This night and the next were her two nights off from Avalon Strings. She’d make the most of them, and by the time she was to play again she’d have her life back in order.

  But something nagged at her as she carried her small satchel into the bathing room. Addie went through a mental list of her belongings and, with the exception of the diary the police had confiscated, she was certain she had everything. So what was it that she was forgetting?

  Addie arranged her combs on the side of the vanity opposite her father’s razor and brush. In the mirror she saw behind her the large iron tub. It had been ages since she’d indulged in a long, luxurious bath. One without neighboring tenants pounding on the door to hurry her along.

  Without hesitation, Addie stepped to the tub and turned the porcelain knobs. She undressed as the tub filled, never taking her eyes off the rising surface. Her clothes lay where they fell and she stepped into the welcoming waters. The moment she sank into the warm depths, her eyelids closed heavily, and Addie let her worries drift away with the steam.

  This day had turned out far better than she’d ever expected.

  . . .

  Nothing had gone right today.

  Jess left the small delicatessen where he and Addie had agreed to meet for an early supper and tried to reason away his worry.

  She hadn’t come.

  He covered the few blocks to the Grayburn Arms, trying to convince himself she wasn’t angry with him, but her failure to appear seemed to tell him otherwise.

  The lobby doors were still unlocked and Jess strode through without stopping until he reached the elevator. He pushed impatiently on the button and was about to search for a staircase to the fourth floor when the pulleys began to whine and he heard the elevator lurch to a stop on the first floor.

  The bellman pulled the cage open and turned a disinterested eye toward Jess before recognition dawned.

  “G’d evenin’, Doc.”

  Jess recovered his confusion quickly and nodded. The only other time the night bellman had seen him was the night he’d masqueraded as Addie’s doctor.

  “If yer lookin’ fer Miss Magee, she ain’t here,” he offered with a scowl.

  “Oh...well, thanks. Perhaps I’ll wait in the parlor.”

  “Suit yerself, Doc. But she won’t be comin’.”

  “May I ask why not?” An angry vein began to throb in Jess’s temple. His temper was on a short fuse tonight, and this man was doing his best to be obtuse.

  “Moved out, I hear.”

  Of all the things Jess might have expected, this was not one of them. “You must be mistaken,” he said, and shoved his way past the bellman and into the small cage. “Take me to the fourth floor.”

  The old fellow stood with his hands in his pockets.

  “Now!”

  Jess hadn’t meant to make the man jump, but at least it got some action. The bellman shoved the door shut and moved the lever to the fourth slot.

  Within minutes Jess was pounding on Addie’s door. He dropped his hand to the door knob and called her name, and realized the knob turned freely in his hand.

  “Addie?”

  Jess opened the door a crack and knew immediately the room would be empty. The small floral mat she kept just inside the door was gone. And at least one of her cloaks should still be hanging on the peg. She couldn’t wear both at the same time.

  He pushed the door open and stood staring at the empty room. The small cheerful touches she’d added to make it her home were gone. And so was she.

  Jess backtracked to the elevator and ignored the snide remarks of the gloating bellman.

  Where could she be?

  If she intended to move, why hadn’t she said something? Or at least sent him a note.

  He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d spent the day looking for a job, but moving from her apartment made no sense. No sense at all.

  Jess stood on the street looking up and down, wondering what had taken her away from here. And where she might be at this moment. Even if she’d moved, she could still have met him for dinner.

  But she hadn’t.

  Guilt rose as Jess contemplated her actions. She’d moved without telling him where he could find her. She’d failed to meet him for dinner without sending a message. She was either in trouble. Or she didn’t want to see him.

  Didn’t want to see him.

  The lead weight of realization sat uncomfortably on his chest as he turned toward home. It was bad enough that he’d wasted the day on a wild goose chase for clues that seemed to vanish the moment he got near.

  Yes, he’d been nervous about seeing Addie, worried that she wouldn’t understand why he didn’t have any answers yet, that it was all a part of tracking down the right clues. But he’d rather face her with bad news than not face her at all.

  She’d taken that choice away from him with that first kiss.

  Jess climbed the stairs to his apartment. The rush of warm air that greeted him when he opened the door made his homecoming even more desolate. He crossed the stuffy room to the balcony doors and propped them open, letting the evening breeze calm his mind and flush the stale air from the room.

  Jess took the notes from his pocket and dropped his coat over the arm chair. The pages were wilted and worn from having been handled all day. Their corners rolled tiredly back.

  He’d purposely encrypted the notes he’d combined
from the pages Ollie had given him and the tidbits he’d gleaned from the Union Hall and Julia’s diary. The originals were still safe in the bank box. Except, of course, for the diary.

  Anyone reading his notes might think they were the rantings of a senile old man. But Jess knew what each symbol and abbreviation meant. As he studied the page, the logical connection between two of his scribblings began to form in his mind, and he stepped out onto the moonlit balcony to see the words more clearly.

  The Union Hall was a critical piece of the puzzle, he was sure of that. The times of the attacks all coincided with the ends of meetings and shifts. Most of them, anyway.

  And the dots on the map that marked the scenes of the attacks could all be reached on foot from the Union Hall in less than twenty minutes.

  It wasn’t much, but perhaps it was enough to get Ford talking. He’d get the list of union workers’ names out of the safety deposit box tomorrow and confront Ford with it. If Ford thought it was just a matter of time before Jess figured out which name to pursue, perhaps he’d spill what he knew.

  Jess turned around and tucked the page into his shirt pocket. He leaned back against the corner post and shoved his hands into his hair. He had to do better than this. He had to work his clues more effectively if he was ever going to get Ford out of...

  Jess had just rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and was blinking them clear when he registered what it was that had caught his eye a moment earlier. A light glimmered in the window next to the balcony opposite his, just one floor higher.

  Ford’s apartment.

  Was he out of jail? Or had Deacon Trumbull sent his goons on a midnight search.

  Jess covered the distance to his door in four leaping strides and cracked the door open to listen. No voices floated down from the floor above.

  He opened the third drawer of the highboy and slid his revolver from its holster. With an unconscious stealth he’d perfected over the years, Jess slipped out onto the landing. He flattened himself against the wall and looked for shadows above.