“Uh huh. Didn’t I say I’d been around the block once or twice? It was never me that told you I’d been down here six months, and none of these C & I dimwits knows if I’ve been here a day or a year. Nope, you were reading my file somewhere in a Secret Service office before you came down here to play the homespun old bluecoat. And anyway, ‘Inspector,’ I’m sorry to have to reveal this deep trade secret to an opponent, but you’ve got the Stanton smell on you—there isn’t the lowliest dollar-a-day dip back in the big city that couldn’t spot you coming a mile away.”
Exasperated by Liam’s facetious wink, the Inspector turned his attention to their surroundings, sweeping them slowly with the policeman’s habitual scan for suspicious movement. As he turned, curtains fell closed at his look and the scattered strollers along Main Street’s board sidewalks dropped their eyes or pretended they’d been looking somewhere else.
“They shut the diggings down this morning,” Barlow said in a conversational tone, “and it looks like they’ll stay that way till we collar the boys that dynamited Henderson’s house.”
“Going to starve them into submission, are you?” Liam shook his head in mock admiration. “I guess old Stanton could teach a thing or two to those serf owners over in Little Russia. Say, have you ever heard of a nagaika? That’s a whip the Cossacks use on Sioux Indians and bullheaded Russian peasants, strip a man’s skin right off his bones. You tell Secretary Stanton about that trick, I expect he’ll give you a shiny new silver dollar.”
“That smart mouth is going to get you in big trouble one day, sonny. The orders to close down the diggings came from Mr. Gowen, and I’d say him owning the Reading Railroad and the Philadelphia and Reading Coal & Iron Company gives him about all the pull he needs to make Henderson or anybody else close their diggings, wouldn’t you?”
He leaned forward and stabbed Liam’s chest with his forefinger: “As for Secretary Stanton, he likes smartmouths like you. He’ll take all of you he can get, there’s such a heap of rocks need breaking up down at Andersonville Prison.”
Satisfied with his riposte, Barlow started down the street again. Liam followed along at his side, looking amused.
“No need to get your dander up, old man, I like Secretary Stanton right back. As my dear old dad used to say about Boss Tweed—‘sure and he’s a darlin’ man.’ Of course, there’s those that think Stanton’s a little too much of a good thing, you know? Secretary of War was one thing, but the war’s been over a dozen years, and here’s Stanton still at the helm, running some new-fangled Department of Public Safety and Lincoln still President under the Emergency Act, and nobody’s seen hide nor hair of a voting box since ’61.”
He grinned satirically at Barlow, whose head had sunk down between his shoulders so far that he looked like a sort of angry turtle.
“Not that I’m complaining, mind you,” Liam added in an innocent tone, “I wouldn’t dream of it! Every night when I go to sleep I kneel by my bed and and thank the Lord for Mom and Dad and my little dog Spot and Secretary Stanton, who protects us from the evil Russians across the Mississippi and the wicked Brits across the ocean and the dastardly French Communists in Mexico and … and …” Liam pretended to reel and clutch his forehead in desperation: “Why it fair boggles the mind how many terrible evils that kind old man Stanton is defending us from!”
“All right, McCool,” growled the Inspector, “either shut up or I’ll break your head with my stick.”
They were just approaching the corner of Maggie’s street and Liam could hear a hubbub of strange voices coming from the direction of her house. His face darkened as he registered the sounds and he felt his cheerful mood melting away.
“Ah, to hell with Stanton and with you and your phony playacting too—in fact, all you Department of Public Safety shysters can go piss up a rope as far as I’m concerned. You’re just down here sucking up to Mister Franklin B. Gowen for his great patriotic feat railroading ten Mollies into rope neckties—you don’t care a plugged nickel for my girl Maggie or justice for whoever killed her either, she wasn’t rich enough for that.”
Barlow gave Liam a long, searching look; then he nodded slowly as he reached some private conclusion. A few hundred yards ahead of them Maggie’s house sat just at the end of the dirt road where the street petered out into the woods. The house itself was painted a sparkling white with light blue trim, the picket fence an equally pristine white barrier between the dirt of the road and a thick green lawn. It was easy to see that Maggie had put a lot of love and elbow grease into making it pretty, and somehow that made it twice as sad to see the herd of policemen tramping it into a sea of mud.
“You’re dead wrong, boy,” the Inspector said, “about why I’m here, anyway. Secretary Stanton takes it mighty seriously when something happens to any of his people, and though I’m pretty sure now that you didn’t know it, Maggie O’Shea was one of ours.”
For once, Liam was totally speechless. He shook his head, stunned.
“That’s right,” Barlow continued. “She wasn’t a sworn agent, but she was working as an auxiliary. Your Maggie was one of Secretary Stanton’s Eyes.”
Chapter Five
The Schuylkill County Coroner’s wagon was sitting in front of Maggie’s gate and as they approached—Liam with his face as black as thunder, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his chin sunk on his chest, Barlow appraising him out of the corner of his eye. Before they reached him, the driver flicked his horses’ flanks with his reins and the wagon moved towards them, clanking and squeaking.
Liam couldn’t bear watching it go. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could and after a moment a couple of tears ran down his cheeks as the wagon moved past. Abruptly, he opened his eyes wide and turned on Barlow in a fury:
“What the hell do you mean, Maggie was an Eye?”
Inspector Barlow took Liam by the shoulder and gave him a little shake.
“Easy, lad,” he said in a kindly voice. “Back in the city you may be the King of the Silk-Stocking Cracksmen and the flyest bird in Mulberry Bend but down here in Henderson’s Patch, after six months out of the swim, you’re about as fly as a great big lump of coal.”
“You can skip the poetry,” Liam grated. “Just answer my question.”
“Let’s start with this,” Barlow said, “like it or not you’re an Eye yourself.”
For a moment it looked like the Inspector might have gone too far—Liam’s face turned absolutely white, then red as a beet, then Liam growled low in his throat and moved towards Barlow with a look that made the older man raise both hands like a copper stopping traffic:
“Whoa there, Sonny Jim,” Barlow said sharply, “put your brain back in charge!” Liam halted, still mad but listening, and Barlow continued: “You’re down here working as an agent for Mr. Pilkington, aren’t you?”
Liam had figured that Barlow knew all about him, but hearing it said out loud was like a faceful of cold water; he looked around sharply, but thank God nobody was near enough to have heard it. Barlow shook his head exasperatedly:
“Don’t be a jackass, McCool! You think I’d give you away to the Mollies and see six months’ good work wasted and you with a bullet in your brain? I’m just trying to give you some idea which end is up, and I mean why working for the Old Man, for Mr. P., is no different from working for Stanton himself!”
Despite Liam’s ominous glare Barlow moved closer and lowered his voice: “I know you were nabbed trying to break into the safe at the Union Square office of Pilkington’s International Detective Agency. Doing a favor for a pal, sez you, but still Breaking & Entering any way you slice it. And I know you were sent to Sing Sing to do a five spot for B & E, from where Mr. Pilkington got you out on his own personal say-so, so’s you could join the Mollies and blow the gaff if they tried to stop the hangings. The only thing I don’t know is just why he picked on you out of all the fly birds that’s stuffed in the Big House …”
Barlow raised his eyebrows expectantly, letting Liam know i
t was his turn to tell what he knew. After a moment Liam shrugged and made a wry face:
“You can put that down to your Boss, old-timer—and I mean dear old Eddie Stanton as runs the Federal Department of Public Safety, not some hick that runs the Coal and Iron coppers. Last I heard, old Mr. Pilkington’s boy Willie was the big cheese in the DPS’s Secret Service.”
“So they say,” Barlow said, looking thoughtful. “Don’t stop now, you’ve got my attention.”
“Well, the thing is, Willie Pilkington and me happen to go back a long ways.” Liam laughed without much humor: “Back in ’63 I had a sudden urgent need to leave the city, and anyway—I was going to be fourteen pretty soon and like the fella says, I wanted to See The Elephant. Willie on the other hand, didn’t much care to do his Army service, thank you—as I recall, his exact words were: ‘I have other priorities.’ So I took his $300 and ended up on Little Round Top charging the 15th Alabama with nothing but my pig-sticker.”
The 20th Maine’s bayonet charge was famous enough to send both men into a moment of remembrance. Then Barlow shook his head:
“I guess you Saw The Elephant.”
“Yep. And the India Rubber Man and the Fat Lady into the bargain.”
“Funny thing, though,” Barlow said. “I heard that at the time, Willie Pilkington was all broken up and tragical because the doctors had told him he had a heart murmur that would keep him from serving in the war.”
“Is that so?” Liam said. “Well, I heard there’s a Tooth Fairy that comes to good little children at night and puts a penny under their pillows.”
Barlow nodded slowly, thinking it over. “You’re a smart lad, McCool, so I expect I don’t have to beat this dead horse too hard. You know that Daddy Pilkington, Old Mr. P., ran the spy service against the Confederacy when Stanton was Secretary of War. So when Mr. P. needed an ancient moss-back that looked like a C & I inspector to see how his operation was doing down here, he just got on the voicewire to his pal Eddie in Washington and borrowed me from the Secret Service.”
He cocked his head for a moment and grinned sardonically at Liam. “And likewise, when Franklin Gowen called the Old Man to say he’d heard rumors the Mollies were going to make sure the hangings never happened, Mr. P. decided he needed someone dependable who looked like a right young thug to go undercover with the other young thugs so he got on the voicewire to Son Willie, who obligingly came up with his old comrade-in-arms Liam McCool.”
Liam folded his arms on his chest and gave Barlow a long-suffering look: “Are we through yet, Inspector?”
Barlow just grinned and shook his head. “I’m not sure the penny’s dropped yet, young McCool, not to where you really get it that you’re working for Secretary Stanon just like me. That little bulletin from Frank Gowen set Eddie Stanton to thinking. What if all this worker unrest and the hangings of the Iroquois seditionists and the Molly Magees and all the rest of it has put a dent in the Public Safety? So just to be safe, Secretary Stanton took the hint and put all his Eyes on alert in case the Little Russians decided to take advantage and send their airships across the Mississippi, or the Communist Frenchies in Mexico took a notion to visit their comrades in Florida with troops and gunboats. It’s all wheels within wheels, young fella, wheels within wheels within wheels …” he paused dramatically, “and these are dangerous times and anybody that’s called on is going to end up doing their duty with the Department of Public Safety, like it or not.”
Liam made a face. “OK, that’s what you say makes me an Eye. But how about Maggie?”
“She had a little trouble once, too,” Barlow said, “something she needed to make amends for. It was back in her New York days, something to do with the labor unions. Now, you know the DPS doesn’t have a very high opinion of unions …” he spread his hands and left Liam to fill in the blanks.
Liam shook his head tiredly and pulled open the gate into Maggie’s front yard.
“Let’s go,” he said. “That’s about all of that I can stomach right now.”
The Coal & Iron bluecoat standing at Maggie’s front door threw Inspector Barlow a salute as he approached and stepped aside as Barlow and Liam climbed the front steps.
“Everything OK?” Barlow asked. “No snoops? No gawkers?”
The man grinned. “Some, sir, ’specially when the Coroner’s van showed up. But I just mentioned as how there was lots of Spring vacancies in the Pottsville clink and they cleared out spry-like.”
“Well done, Billy. You keep a weather eye out, now, and I’ll see to it somebody relieves you for lunch.”
The guard touched the peak of his uniform cap and opened the door for them. Liam made a face as he saw the chaos of muddy footprints in the hallway:
“Maggie would have killed you if she saw that mess.”
He looked down the hallway that ran past the front parlor to the dividing door, the one that Maggie had always kept firmly locked. It was cracked open now, an inch or two of light showing in the gap.
“Did they run that stampede through the back, too?”
They walked down the hall with Barlow in front. As he reached the door to Maggie’s quarters he halted for a moment with his hand on the knob and gave Liam another reproving look:
“Billy’s no thinking-machine, but he got here in time to keep everybody away from Miss O’Shea’s personal quarters till I arrived. Except the Coroner, of course.”
He opened the door the rest of the way and went on into Maggie’s parlor, Liam following with his feet dragging.
The curtains had were wide open now and the room was flooded with light, brighter than he had ever seen it—somehow it put a distance between Liam and what had happened here, and he felt a welcome sense of relief.
Barlow gestured towards the spreading patch of blood on the carpet, dried black now.
“You all right to talk about it?”
“Depends. What is it you want to talk about?”
“Miss O’Shea came aboard as an auxiliary back in ’73 but we hadn’t asked her to do much until the Mollies started terrorizing the coalfields. That was when we decided to ask Mr. P. to put McPherson in as a spy with Boylan’s lodge and we sent Miss O’Shea down to Henderson’s Patch to open this boarding house and give McPherson a safe place to use as a post office. Once he broke the case and we rounded up the terrorists his life wasn’t worth a plugged nickel around here so we pulled him out—but we left Miss O’Shea behind to keep an eye on things.”
Liam squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead hard with his fingertips. It seemed like Barlow had driven every word in through the top of his head with a sledgehammer and Liam was beginning to feel dangerously like knocking the old man down and kicking him till he shut up. Barlow nodded sympathetically:
“I know all that is making you pretty sore, but nobody knows better than you that the DPS and our helpers like Mr. Pilkington don’t offer any choices about where we send you and what we need you to do. On the bright side, though, we don’t usually interfere with an auxiliary’s private life and we didn’t with Miss O’Shea’s either. Of course we kept a bit of an Eye on her …” Barlow smiled blandly. “No pun intended.”
“Get … to … the … point,” Liam said through gritted teeth.
“I’m just saying that once I had a good look around the scene of the crime I was pretty sure the murder didn’t have anything to do with politics. That’s why I wanted to take a good look at you since you were Miss O’Shea’s current sweetheart. Now I’m just as sure it was somebody else, someone she’d thrown aside but who was still sweet on her.”
Liam examined the Inspector thoughtfully; maybe he wouldn’t kick the old bastard’s slats in after all:
“How do you figure it?”
“I noticed when I turned her over that the way the blood had stained her gown the fabric must have been pushed up from below and pulled down at the top after she was shot and the blood was pooling. Was it you that straightened it out? I like to know these things if I can find them out.”
Liam gave him a wry smile. “Why don’t you just ask me right out, was I here? Yes I was here, dammit, I came calling and found Maggie like that.” He hung up for a moment on the memory, then pushed it away and continued: “I don’t know what the lousy rat was up to, doing that with her gown; maybe just making her look like a bad woman, somebody that was asking to be violated. But Maggie … Maggie would have really hated having any stranger see her like that.”
Barlow nodded. “I’m thinking the murderer had a real grudge against her.” He gestured towards the bloody footprints leading back through the door to the hall. “I followed those out to the backyard, and I’d be willing to bet the second set I saw going around next to them was yours.” A small smile: “Do I need to have you stand in them so I can make sure?”
Liam shook his head: he hadn’t been wrong, the old boy was sharp.
“I pondered on the footprints all the way through half a bottle of bad rye, I expect even Billy could have put it together sooner or later. It had to be somebody dressed up for a visit, somebody that knew Maggie well enough to know you had to come in through the back if you were calling on her because the front way was for boarders, and somebody that surely didn’t want anybody seeing him coming or going. And he either had a copy of the key, or she let him in once he said who he was.” He screwed up his face as if the words had tasted bad.
“Which you figured because …?”
Liam shrugged. “She kept the place locked up tight, ever since some drunks bothered her a while back.”
“I guess she must have let him in,” Barlow said carefully, his eyes drifting towards a tabouret behind the desk. On it sat a bottle of French brandy with a few fingers out of it and two empty glasses. Liam made a face.
“Yeah,” he said, “I saw that last night. I hate hard liquor and Maggie never took more than a sip of anything. Must have been some she used to keep for the rat that killed her.” His voice hardened. “But get this, Barlow, I don’t give a damn about any of that, what she did with some other bird ‘once upon a time.’ Both of us had been around plenty on our own, but once the two of us got together we started a whole new page.”
King of the Cracksmen Page 4