Mrs. Hume huffed out a breath in exasperation. “Go away. Now.”
I raised my arms, imploring her to listen. “I know what’s wrong with her. She’s a drug addict. She needs help.”
Mrs. Hume slowly shook her head. “It’s very sad, what’s become of you, Will. Get some help.”
“I followed her to the Bucket today! Would she go there if she didn’t have a big problem?”
“My Elizabeth is a drug addict who frequents the Bucket.” Sarcasm dripped off her words.
“But it’s true! Dr. Miller just examined her and—”
“Don’t lie to me. Now leave before I call the police.” She slammed the window shut.
I stood on the porch for a few seconds and then shuffled down the walk. The driver of the red Model T bent down in front of his car and cranked the engine, which started with a putt-putt-putt that carried over the sound of the traffic. He jumped into the car, and without a look back, pulled out directly in front of a farmer in a hay wagon. The farmer jerked his reins to the left, into the path of a carriage coming from the other direction. That driver pulled his horses hard to the right, only just avoiding a collision with the wagon. I watched the Model T disappear into the heavy traffic down Jefferson, leaving the shouted oaths from the other drivers in its dust.
Something about the car nagged at me. Something I should remember. No matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t find it, the memory like a fractured image from a forgotten dream.
Dr. Miller climbed out of the car and walked toward me. “Let me talk to her.”
Alberts answered the door and stood aside for Dr. Miller. As soon as he’d gone in, Alberts closed the door. I stood on the sidewalk, waiting, hoping I would be invited in to explain.
Dr. Miller had been inside for only a few minutes when the door opened again and he hurried out. The door slammed behind him. He skipped down the steps and marched me to the car. “Mrs. Hume is not in a receptive mood. We’d better leave.”
“She didn’t listen to you?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head solemnly, then glanced back at me. “Home?”
I nodded. He drove down Jefferson. The road was packed with bicycles and cars and trucks and wagons and carriages, each one on the tail of the vehicle in front if it, every driver in a hurry. Each cross street was a game of Chicken, the victor not the biggest vehicle, but the most courageous driver. The only consistent winners were the streetcars. They continued on regardless of traffic, the motormen confident their cowcatchers were sufficient to push other vehicles out of the way.
The rapid starts and stops only occasionally brought my awareness out of my head. Elizabeth was a drug addict, desperate enough to go to the Bucket. I had driven her to it with my selfishness and stupidity. I’d known her life would never be the same, never be what she wanted, but as I wallowed in my guilt I’d had no idea of the depth of her sadness. In a year, she’d changed from a vivacious, intelligent woman to an emaciated specter, barely alive.
I had to save her, yet I couldn’t find her. And if by some miracle I found her again, I had no idea how I would save her. I was out of ideas. “Dr. Miller?”
He glanced at me for a second before returning his gaze to the road. “Yes?”
“What do I do?”
He was quiet for a moment. “Do you still love her?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have to try. But you might get someone to help you.” He reached over and gripped my shoulder. “These burdens are easier when shared.”
He dropped me off in front of my building. I thanked him for his help and hurried inside. After I poured myself a drink, I chipped some ice off the block, wrapped it in a towel, and lay on the sofa, taking sips of bourbon while trying to keep the ice balanced on my nose.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Elizabeth had disappeared. It was inconceivable she would have gone back to the Bucket after what had transpired there, and in her condition it was unlikely she would go see any of her friends. She didn’t want my help; that much was clear. But I wouldn’t abandon her. I’d go back to her house, camp out if necessary. When she came home I’d drag her to the hospital. I took a long swallow from my drink.
A door slammed below me and then footsteps pounded up the stairway and ran down the hall. A second later, my apartment door crashed open.
I jumped up and spun toward the door. Two policemen, one of them the rookie with the bottlebrush mustache, ran in from the foyer. Bottlebrush tackled me and flipped me over onto my stomach.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
“Shuddup, asshole,” was his reply. Blood dripped from my nose onto the carpet. He cuffed me, jerked me to my feet, and searched me, before pulling me down the stairs and out of the building to a horse-drawn paddy wagon on the street. The other cop, a powerful-looking man with a two-day beard, large, wide-set brown eyes, and a slack jaw, opened the barred door on the back, and Bottlebrush pushed me in.
The padded walls at one time had been white, but were now an amalgam of sweat and blood and shit and piss. Even through my injured nose, it stunk like a slaughterhouse, the smell of fear permeating everything inside the cage. I was dazed, but kept my head down, so I couldn’t be seen through the barred windows on the back and sides, all the while imagining every one of my neighbors looking at the wagon.
My nose continued to drip blood as we made slow progress up Woodward. We were heading toward the Bethune Street police station—Detective Riordan’s station.
Fear shot through me. Given the way the police had burst into my apartment, I didn’t think I’d been arrested for harassing Mrs. Hume. It seemed more likely the killer, now that he’d gotten his money, had come forward with the clothing. Only slightly less chilling was the possibility the police had gone back to see Ben Carr.
If either of those had happened, my life was over.
When the wagon stopped, Bottlebrush pulled me out of the back.
“Why am I here?” I said, trying to sound indignant.
“I told you to shut up.” He pushed me toward the station so hard that I nearly fell on my face. He and his partner marched me to the jail in the back and shoved me down the corridor of cells through a gauntlet of criminals, who described in intimate detail how they would enjoy buggering me, killing me, or both. Their taunts echoed off the brick walls of the jail. I kept my eyes on the floor and put one foot in front of the other, trying not to show my fear. I’d heard plenty of stories about what happens behind prison walls. I would be a target—for humiliation, beatings . . . rape. I struggled to tamp down the panic coursing through me, but it was impossible.
We stopped at an empty cell. Bottlebrush unlocked my cuffs and said, “Gimme your belt and shoelaces.”
“What?”
He glared at me. “Now.”
I unbuckled my belt and pulled it off, then unlaced my shoes. When I gave them to him, Bottlebrush pushed me into the cell, slammed the door shut, and locked it. The stench of body odor and shit filled the six-by-eight cell, the only contents a moldy cot and a crusted metal pail lying on its side in a corner.
I silently gave thanks that I had no cellmates.
I pushed the cot against the back wall and sat on the end, as far away from the door as I could get. As the hours passed, I got more and more afraid. Though it seemed obvious I’d been arrested for John Cooper’s murder, I didn’t know for certain.
The criminals in the other cells shouted and cursed, each time ripping all other thought from my head. The night lasted forever. I couldn’t breathe, and the lack of alcohol made it virtually impossible to sleep. I caught short snatches, each time waking with a start to noises, real or imagined.
When I woke for the last time, it was still dark, other than a feeble yellow light from a gas lamp somewhere down the corridor. My breath puffed out in swirling white clouds. My hands were numb. My mouth was dry. One of my shoes lay on the floor. Shivering uncontrollably, I pulled my arms and legs in close to my body.
I needed a drink. Many drinks.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Footsteps echoed down the hallway, louder by the second. I sat up, trying to still the tremors in my hands. A pair of cops I hadn’t seen before unlocked my door, clapped handcuffs and leg irons onto me, and pushed me down the hall to the back door of the station.
“Where are we going?” I said. My swollen nose made my voice unrecognizable.
One of the cops pushed me out the door. “We’re gonna take a little ride.”
“I want to talk to my lawyer.”
He sneered at me. “Fuck your lawyer.”
“Listen. This isn’t right. I should be—”
He gave me a hard slap to the side of my head and together they threw me into the back of the wagon. The horses started off in a slow but steady gait.
A shiver ran up my spine. Where could they be taking me? It couldn’t be anywhere good. Shivering, teeth chattering, I wrapped my arms tight around myself, trying to get control, having no success.
Half an hour later, the cops pulled me out of the wagon and brought me into the back entrance of another building. One step inside, I saw the cells—a jail. They handed me over to the jailer, who locked me in a filthy cell, much the same as my previous accommodations, again by myself.
As he turned the key in the lock, I grabbed hold of the bars and tried to stifle the sound of fear in my voice. “I demand to see my lawyer.”
His hand dropped to the gun on his belt.
“You can’t do this to me,” I said. “Do you know who my father is?”
He grunted out a laugh. “I don’t care if he’s the czar of Russia. You’re staying here today.”
“At least tell my why.”
“They don’t share their plans with me, pal.”
“Come on,” I said. “You must know what’s going on.”
If he did, he wasn’t talking. As the day progressed, the tremors in my hands increased in intensity, and I broke out in a sweat, soaking my clothes. The cell was cold, and my wet clothing stuck to me, making me colder still. My nose throbbed, and intense pains stabbed behind my eyes.
At some point in the evening, the jailer brought me a plate of food, sliding it under the barred door. “Dinner time,” he said.
I jumped up from the cot and rushed to the front of the cell. “I need a drink. Could you bring me something? I’ve got plenty of money.”
He stepped back and appraised me. At that moment I could see myself through his eyes—rich kid, good for nothing, shaking and sweating, desperate for a drink. Still, in a tone that wasn’t unsympathetic, he said, “Sorry. No can do, pal.” He moved on to the next cell.
“Please?” I called after him. “Please?”
He didn’t come back. Again, I lay awake virtually all night. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d really slept without at least half a bottle of bourbon in my system. That, and the noise from the other prisoners, kept me awake thinking about my predicament.
The next day was a repeat—up early, a ride to another jail, a day by myself wanting to die. It was excruciating. Not only did I feel terrible, no one would answer my questions. All I could do was sit on the cot or pace the floor. This couldn’t be legal. My stomach felt like it had been ripped up. My head pounded. My clothing was soaked through, and my mouth felt like it had been stuffed with cotton.
The following morning another policeman delivered me to the back entrance of the Bethune Street station just in time for lunch—if you can call a plate of beans and a piece of stale bread a lunch.
I was back in Detective Riordan’s house. I was in about as bad shape as I could be, on a day that could decide the course of my life.
Whether I liked it or not, it was pretty clear things were coming to a head.
Detective Riordan pulled a cigar from his coat pocket and swept it under his nose, inhaling the tobacco aroma. “You are a real hard case, aren’t you?”
I was shaking so much there was no chance of keeping my voice steady. “What? No. What are you talking about?”
“That poor Ben Carr fella. Didn’t hardly do anything, and yet he’s an accessory to murder. With three little kiddies at home. That’s going to be tough on them.”
“He didn’t do anything. And neither did I.”
Riordan chuckled. “You took the Detroit Electric Victoria from the garage half an hour before our men found it in front of the factory. It would have taken you fifteen minutes to get there. You work fast, don’t you? I’d have thought Cooper would have been a bigger task than that. Or did Ben help you kill him, too?”
“He didn’t do anything. I changed the book.”
Riordan just stared at me, a sour look on his face.
God damn it. “All right, I was there! Happy?”
He lit the cigar, puffing at it until his face was hazy behind the gray cloud. “Why’d you do it?”
“Why’d I . . . I didn’t kill him, Riordan! It had to be the unions.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it before.” He shook out the match. “Okay, I’ll humor you. What were you doing there?”
“Cooper called me. At eleven. He said his fiancée was in trouble, and he needed to talk to me about it. I got the car and went. When I got there, he was already in the press.”
“You told me before you always take the streetcar to work. Why’d you get the automobile?”
“Well . . . I thought I might have to leave quickly.”
“You were afraid of your friend?” he said with a smirk.
“Yes,” I muttered.
“Why?”
He clearly knew the answer, which startled me. I tried not to show it. “He wasn’t my friend.”
“And why is that?”
My head dropped. I stared at the table and mumbled, “His fiancée used to be my fiancée.”
“What’s that, Will? Could you speak up?”
I glared at him. “Elizabeth Hume and I were going to be married.”
Riordan rolled the cigar around in his fingers, looking idly at the lit end. “I had me a talk with Judge Hume, Will. He says you threatened to kill Cooper.”
I glared at Riordan. “If I did, I didn’t mean it. It’s just something you say when you’re drunk.”
“Oh, I don’t say that, Will. You could say, ‘It’s something I say,’ or ‘It’s something one says.’ But not me. I don’t say that.”
“Look, Hume hates me. He’d do anything to get me life for this.”
“You didn’t tell me about this little love triangle before, Will. Why is that?”
“You know why, Detective. Because it makes me look guilty. But I swear I had nothing to do with John’s murder.”
He bit his lip, tightening the scar across his face. “Nothing to do with the murder.” He chuckled. “The man who is going to marry your ex-fiancée is murdered at your father’s factory, in your department, and you’re the only one there when he dies, but you had nothing to do with it.” He laughed again. “Old Mother Goose has nothing on you, Will Anderson.”
“Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to kill John at the factory?” That sounded bad. I quickly added, “If I was going to kill him, which I wasn’t. Someone is trying to frame me.”
“Then why’d you run?”
“I panicked. I knew how it would look, and I just panicked. I’d been drinking.”
“People say that’s a problem for you, Will. The drinking, I mean.”
I shrugged. “Look. You have to talk to Frank Van Dam. He doesn’t work at the Employers Association anymore, and they won’t say why. His mother says he’s not at home but won’t say where he is. I think he’s running from whoever killed John.”
Riordan blew a cloud of smoke in my face. “You’re going to prison until you die. And there’s not a single thing your daddy can do about it. For the first time in your silver-spoon life, you’re on your own.”
“Listen to me!” I was yelling now. “Find Frank! He’s the key to this.”
“That may be so,” Riordan said with a smile, “but Mr. Van Dam
moved somewhere out west before Cooper was murdered.”
“He did?” I tried to regroup. “Well, you’ve still got to talk to him. He’ll know why John was killed.”
“I’ve already got that one figured out, Will.”
I only had one arrow left in the quiver. “Well, then, whoever the real killer is, is trying to blackmail me.”
“Blackmail now, is it?”
“Yes. He says he’s got my clothes. When . . . when I got back from the factory I had blood on my shoes and trousers. I threw them away.”
“Should have burned them.”
“The next day I got a note saying someone had taken my clothes from the garbage and was holding them.”
“Holding your trousers ransom, was he? And how much was he charging you for their safekeeping?”
“I gave him a thousand dollars. And I didn’t get the clothes back.”
“That wasn’t very smart, was it?”
“No,” I admitted. I wavered on telling him about the Doyles’ murders and Wesley’s beating. Wesley was the only one who could corroborate my story about the blackmailer, but I had to talk to him first. And I couldn’t involve him in the Doyles’ deaths. I wasn’t sure it was in my best interest to tell Riordan about the Doyles. I had to think this through.
Riordan ground out his cigar in the filthy ashtray. He looked up at me and spoke, his voice lilting like a gentle stream. “Enough fairy tales, Will. Really. No matter what you say, and what strings your father tries to pull, you’re going up the river. You need to think of your dear, sweet mother. What will it do to her if you drag this out? And what about your father’s company? How long will this have to be out of the news before people forget? Would you buy an automobile from the father of a cold-blooded killer?” He sat back in his chair, pulled a Detroit Herald from his coat pocket, and looked at the front. “Hmm, the Electric Executioner.” He rolled the words around in his mouth. “The Electric Executioner. Got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” He turned the paper toward me. Stretched across the entire top of the page was ELECTRIC EXECUTIONER APPREHENDED.
I stared at the paper, not able to react. Riordan set it on the table and leaned forward. “We haven’t released your name yet, but wait until we do. The newspapers haven’t seen anything this juicy for years. Cooper was a big football star, and you picked such a nasty way to kill him. And it doesn’t hurt that Elizabeth Hume is a real looker.”
The Detroit Electric Scheme Page 11