Twin Cities Noir

by Julie Schaper

  “Can’t say that I do,” Thomas agreed, adding: “The instructions about packaging the ransom are also queer, don’t you think?”

  Rafferty nodded. “Queer as can be.”

  The telephone behind the long mahogany bar rang and Thomas got up to answer it. The operator came on, followed by a weary-sounding man who said in a thick German accent: “This is Johann Kirchmeyer. I need very much to talk with Mr. Rafferty.”

  The Kirchmeyer mansion, its high-hatted brick tower soaring above a broad lawn interspersed with oaks, stood at the end of a circular driveway, which was crowded with carriages by the time Rafferty arrived. Two coppers were standing outside the front door, smoking cigars. Rafferty, once a member of the force himself, stopped to chat. After the usual jovial banter, he quickly learned that there had been no new developments in the investigation despite an intensive search for the kidnap victim.

  “The old man’s in there waiting for the next message,” one of the cops told Rafferty. “Did he send for you, Shad?”

  “He did.”

  “Well, the Bull won’t be happy, I can tell you that.”

  “The chief of detectives is never happy when I’m around,” Rafferty said. “Must be my irritatin’ habit of makin’ a fool of him.”

  Rafferty turned to go inside, pausing first to look at the front screen door where, according to the Dispatch, the ransom note had been left. There were two large windows to either side of the door, both offering a clear view of the open porch. Placing a note beneath the door would certainly have been a risky proposition for the kidnappers.

  A servant met Rafferty in the vestibule and ushered him upstairs to a small study at the rear of the house. There Rafferty found Johann Kirchmeyer, seated in an armchair next to a window that offered sweeping views of the river valley. Kirchmeyer was a short, heavyset man, with a bristly gray beard and small dark eyes behind wire-rim spectacles. Despite the heat, he wore a brown wool suit and vest, and he’d made no accommodation to the weather by loosening his tie, which was knotted with mechanical precision.

  “Ach, it is good of you to come, Mr. Rafferty,” he said. “Come sit down and we will talk.”

  After Rafferty had taken a seat, Kirchmeyer said, “I want my son back, Mr. Rafferty, and you, I believe, are the man who can do that for me.”

  Rafferty was taken aback. “I appreciate your confidence, but the police—”

  Kirchmeyer cut in with surprising fierceness. “No, no, I will not place my trust in the police, Mr. Rafferty, not for a single minute! You know as well as I why that is so.”

  Because half the cops are crooked, Rafferty thought, and the other half are lazy. “Yes, I understand, but—”

  Kirchmeyer interrupted again. “Mr. Rafferty, I wish to hear no more of the police. You see, sir, I can tell you who really kidnapped my son. This Black Hand business, bah, it is nonsense. Do you agree?”

  Rafferty said he did.

  Kirchmeyer smiled for the first time. “I knew you would. You see, there is something that must be kept confidential, something about Michael which I must tell you. I fear he has become involved with gamblers and owes them a great deal of money.”

  “Ah, I see. ’Tis a common thing with young men, unfortunately. And you haven’t mentioned this to the police?”

  “No. It would be scandal and the death of my dear Augusta, if she knew.”

  “And how is Mrs. Kirchmeyer?”

  “Not well. Not well at all. This has been very hard on her.”

  “I’m sure. Now then, do you know which gambler young Michael might owe money to?”

  “I am told it is a man named Banion who operates some sort of gambling establishment downtown. Do you know him?”

  Rafferty knew everybody. “Certainly. John Banion is his name but he goes by Red. He has a place on Hill Street a few doors down from police headquarters. ’Tis a cozy arrangement for all concerned, since the bribe money doesn’t have to travel far. By the way, how did you find out about your son’s involvement with Banion?”

  “One of our housemaids told me. Michael had apparently shared a confidence with her.”

  Rafferty, who wondered what else the lad might have shared with the maid, said, “So you think Banion snatched your boy and wants the $10,000 to pay off what Michael owes him.”

  “Yes. I can only assume this Banion is a ruthless character and would not hesitate to kill my son. Yet I know the police cannot be trusted, and that is why I beg of you to help me. I have already obtained the ransom money and will gladly pay it for my son’s return. But I am worried for this simple reason: What is to keep these kidnappers from murdering Michael once they have the money?”

  “Nothing, if they’re so inclined,” Rafferty agreed. “And you have received no further word from the kidnappers, is that right?”

  “Nothing. All I can do is wait and hope that you might be able to find my son.”

  Rafferty stood up. “That is a tall order, Mr. Kirchmeyer, a tall order. But I will do what I can. In the meantime, let me know as soon as you hear again from the kidnappers.”

  “I will, and I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Rafferty.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Rafferty said, patting Kirchmeyer on the shoulder before leaving.

  O’Connor was striding up the front steps as Rafferty walked out on the porch. A dark scowl spread over the chief’s splotched, unpleasant face and he stopped, blocking Rafferty’s path. The two men might have been twins. Both were well over six feet, barrel-chested, large-bellied, surprisingly light on their feet, and invariably well-armed. Neither was a man to be trifled with under any circumstances.

  “I’ll have no tricks from you,” O’Connor said without preamble, as he fixed his poisonous green eyes on Rafferty. “You’ll not be interfering in this business. Is that understood?”

  “And good afternoon to you,” Rafferty replied, staring back at the chief. “I’m here at Mr. Kirchmeyer’s invitation, John. Apparently the police of this city do not have his full confidence. Imagine that.”

  The provocation was deliberate—Rafferty considered O’Connor to be nothing more than a thug with a badge—but also risky. O’Connor had beaten down many a man who crossed him and struck fear in countless others. Rafferty, however, was not among them.

  “By God, I could arrest you right now,” O’Connor said, moving toward Rafferty.

  Rafferty stood his ground until the two men were eyeball to eyeball. “You could try,” Rafferty replied, “though I’d not give good odds on your chances. Now, if there are no further pleasantries to be exchanged, I think I’ll take a little walk.”

  “You do that,” O’Connor said, glaring at Rafferty as he swung around him. “And don’t come back.”

  Rafferty strolled over to 7th Street, where he found a drugstore at the corner of Randolph Avenue. There was a telephone inside and after favoring the store’s proprietor with a silver dollar, Rafferty placed a call to Thomas at the saloon.

  “Listen, Wash,” he said when he heard Thomas’s familiar voice, “I’ve got a job for you. I want you to track down Red Banion for me. Tell him he’s a suspect in this Kirchmeyer business. Ask him how much the lad owes him and see what he says. And remind Red that he owes me a favor.”

  Thomas laughed. “Several favors, Shad. He’d probably be fertilizing the soil in Calvary today if you hadn’t gotten him out of that mess with the Chicago boys.”

  The “mess” involved certain transactions with a Chicago gaming syndicate led by the notorious “Iron Pipe” McGinnis, so named after the weapon he favored for breaking the knee- caps, or in some cases the skull, of any gambler who failed to pay his debts.

  Thomas said, “So you think Red snatched the kid to get his dad to cough up a debt?”

  “Could be,” Rafferty said. “Let me know what you find out. I’ll call back later.”

  Rafferty left the drugstore after buying a couple of the cheap cigars he liked to smoke and headed back down Osceola Street toward the Kirchmeyer mansion. But h
e didn’t go all the way there. Instead, he turned east on Lee Avenue, following the route Michael Kirchmeyer would have taken on his way to the brewery.

  At Drake Street the “Omaha” shops, as everyone called them, came into view. The shops consisted of a series of low brick structures, including a roundhouse. Men in overalls were working on cars or moving locomotives in and out of the roundhouse on the north end of the property. Across Drake from the shops was a foundry, its wide doors open to dissipate the heat. A group of men inside were pouring molten iron into a sand mold. Other men were working in a small yard outside the foundry, loading finished goods onto drays. Teamsters with their wagons clattered along Drake, carrying supplies to the rail shops. Rafferty was struck by the amount of activity and the openness of the area. With potential eyes everywhere, it would hardly have been a good place to kidnap someone in broad daylight.

  Farther down Lee, however, toward the river, the landscape abruptly changed. The street entered a long steep ravine, well-wooded, and followed it down to the river, where the brewery stood at the base of a low cliff. This rather secluded portion of the street, Rafferty concluded, would have been an ideal spot for the kidnappers to snatch young Kirchmeyer without being seen.

  But where had they taken him and how had they spirited him away? At first Rafferty thought it likely the young man had been forced into a carriage or wagon, probably after being bound and gagged. But this theory had a problem. The street was very steep—Rafferty guessed the grade at twelve percent or better—and also quite muddy after heavy rain a few days earlier. Getting any kind of wheeled vehicle up and down the street under such conditions would have been very difficult.

  As he was pondering this problem, Rafferty noticed something peculiar. A yellow ribbon—neatly tied with a square knot—dangled from a bush to his left where a goat trail led off into the woods. Curious, Rafferty turned up the muddy trail, instantly regretting that he had put on his best new loafers before going to the Kirchmeyer house. Rafferty followed the trail for perhaps a hundred yards, looking for any evidence that Michael Kirchmeyer and his kidnappers might have passed by. Before long, Rafferty saw a shanty, built of scavenged lumber and lodged up against one side of the ravine.

  He scrambled over to take a look, fighting off a cloud of gnats that seemed to have been eagerly awaiting his arrival. The shanty looked as though it had been built by the hoboes who often camped near the railroad tracks. Inside, Rafferty found a fire pit, next to which was a crude plank bench supported by beer barrels. The dirt floor was littered with bottles of cheap whiskey, cans, and other signs of recent habitation. Rafferty sat down on the bench and used a stick to poke at the ashes in the pit, hoping he might find a clue. Almost immediately, he felt a peculiar sensation—at once cold and damp—around his feet. And in that instant, a most curious idea began to form in his mind.

  By early evening, Rafferty was back at the Kirchmeyer mansion, waiting with everyone else for another message from the kidnappers. At around 6 o’clock, Rafferty called Thomas to see if he’d managed to talk to Red Banion. Thomas had, and the upshot of the conversation came as no surprise to Rafferty. The gambler, Thomas reported, was very insistent in stating that he’d had no involvement in Kirchmeyer’s kidnapping and that the young man had never owed him anything close to $10,000.

  “You know Red,” Thomas said. “He’s a very cautious fellow. You won’t get much credit from him unless he’s thoroughly convinced you’re good for it. And when it came to young Kirchmeyer, Red wasn’t convinced. He said $250 was the biggest debt the boy ever had and that he always paid up on time.”

  “How much did he gamble away in all?”

  “About five thousand at most,” Red said. “Anything happening on your end, Shad?”

  “No, I’m just sittin’ around like everybody else. But I have a feelin’, Wash, that it won’t be quiet around here too much longer.”

  Rafferty’s prediction proved accurate. At 10 p.m. a boy arrived at the mansion’s front door bearing an envelope that he said was to be personally delivered to Johann Kirchmeyer. O’Connor, who had returned to the house not long before after spending several fruitless hours trying to pry information out of the local hoodlum community, intercepted the boy at once. A quick grilling revealed that the boy had been given the envelope by a man of vague description who’d stopped him at Seven Corners and offered him a five-dollar gold piece to deliver it, no questions asked.

  O’Connor took the sealed envelope, which seemed to have something heavy inside, and brought it upstairs to Kirchmeyer. The chief was peeved to discover Rafferty in the room, but kept his unhappiness to himself, since Kirchmeyer obviously had placed his faith in the saloonkeeper.

  “This has just come, sir,” O’Connor said. “I would think it is from the kidnappers.”

  “At last,” Kirchmeyer said when O’Connor handed him the envelope. The brewer’s hands were shaking as he opened it. Inside were a note and a gold pocket watch.

  Kirchmeyer turned over the watch to inspect the engraving on the back. “It is Michael’s,” he announced. “I gave it to him on his twenty-first birthday.”

  With Rafferty and O’Connor looking over his shoulder, Kirchmeyer unfolded the note, which read:

  MR. KIRCHMEYER: THE WATCH WILL TELL YOU THAT WE ARE NOT LYING. WE HAVE YOUR SON. IF YOU VALUE HIS LIFE, DO THIS: LEAVE YOUR HOUSE AT MIDNIGHT WITH THE RANSOM PACKAGED AS PER OUR EARLIER INSTRUCTIONS. ALLOW NO POLICE OR ANYONE ELSE TO FOLLOW YOU OR YOU WILL REGRET IT. BRING ALONG A LANTERN. WALK TO LEE AVENUE AND FOLLOW IT UNTIL YOU REACH A POINT APPROXIMATELY 200 YARDS TO THE WEST OF YOUR BREWERY. THERE, ON YOUR LEFT, YOU WILL SEE A PATH MARKED BY A YELLOW RIBBON. FOLLOW THIS PATH FOR APPROXIMATELY 100 YARDS. YOU WILL SEE A SHACK TO YOUR LEFT. GO INSIDE AND PLACE THE MONEY BENEATH A BENCH SUPPORTED BY TWO BARRELS. THEN LEAVE AT ONCE AND RETURN HOME. IF THE RANSOM PROVES SATISFACTORY, YOU WILL RECEIVE INSTRUCTIONS ABOUT WHERE TO FIND YOUR SON. HE WILL NOT BE HARMED IF YOU COMPLY.

  Once again, it was signed, THE BLACK HAND.

  Kirchmeyer stood up and said, “I must do as they say.”

  “Of course,” O’Connor agreed. “But don’t worry. We have time. I will post my men all around the area. These criminals will not get away with their evil deed.”

  These words alarmed Kirchmeyer. “No, no. You have seen what the note says. No police. I cannot risk it. Do you agree, Mr. Rafferty?”

  “I do. We can take no chances with young Michael’s life.”

  “I do not think it would be wise to give up the money so easily,” O’Connor said, shooting a nasty glance at Rafferty before turning to Kirchmeyer. “You have only their word that they will not harm your boy. I assure you that my men will be very discreet—”

  “No,” Kirchmeyer said sharply. “You are to instruct your men to stay well away. Is that clear?”

  “It is,” O’Connor replied, though Rafferty greatly doubted that the chief had any intention of living up to his promise.

  After O’Connor left, Rafferty reread the note and told Kirchmeyer, “As it so happens, I was in that shack earlier today.”

  “In it? But why?”

  Rafferty explained how he had run across the shanty. Then he added, “Now, I don’t want you to worry. Just drop off the money as you were instructed to. I’m confident everything will be all right and you will soon see your son.”

  When Rafferty came downstairs, O’Connor was waiting for him.

  “Kirchmeyer is a fool and so are you,” he said. “That boy will be dead if we allow the kidnappers to get away with the ransom.”

  Rafferty was uncharacteristically silent for a few moments before he responded in a calm voice, “Well, John, I’m sure you’ll do what you must. When Mr. Kirchmeyer returns from droppin’ off the ransom, tell him I’ll see him again in the mornin’.”

  “Tell him yourself,” O’Connor said, and went off to round up his men. It was going to be, he knew, a long night.

  The following morning was to bring two great surprises. The first concern
ed the seemingly unaccountable disappearance of the ransom, a development that left Johann Kirchmeyer in a fury while O’Connor struggled to explain why he had violated the brewer’s express orders. Worst of all, Michael Kirchmeyer remained missing, and as the Dispatch stated, there was great fear for his well-being.

  Not long after the newspaper’s story appeared, however, came a second development far more startling than the first. Just before noon, as Kirchmeyer paced the floor in his study, a servant rushed in.

  “It is Mr. Rafferty,” he said excitedly, “and Michael is with him!”

  The reunion that followed between young Kirchmeyer and his family was the sort of heartfelt occasion that members of the press, who had trailed Rafferty into the house like dogs on the scent of prime sirloin, were more than pleased to report upon. Johann Kirchmeyer fairly bounded down the stairs and wrapped his arms around Michael, a lanky young man who was a good half-foot taller and fifty pounds lighter than his father. Augusta Kirchmeyer, who had been confined to bed since the kidnapping, also made her way downstairs. At the sight of her son, she cried out, “Oh, Michael, my dear Michael, you are back,” and then promptly fell to the floor in a faint. Father and son went to her aid as reporters crowded around, furiously scribbling in their small notebooks.

  Amid all of this commotion, Rafferty slipped away down a hallway to the kitchen, then climbed up the back stairs to the study where he had talked with Johann Kirchmeyer the day before. Rafferty took a seat by the window and gazed out across the green expanse of the river valley. He was not looking forward to the task that lay ahead of him.

  When Johann Kirchmeyer entered the study half an hour later, his face was a study in puzzlement. “Mr. Rafferty, why are you not downstairs? The reporters are asking for you. They want to know how you achieved this miracle. But Michael told me you were here and wished to see me alone.”