The Detroit Electric Scheme

by D. E. Johnson

  “Could I see the letter?”

  “I threw it out. I like Frank. I don’t love him.” She looked out the window and gave a quiet laugh. “He said he would come back for me in his merry Oldsmobile. His words.”

  When she said “his merry Oldsmobile,” alarms sounded in my head. That niggling thought that had been bothering me for so long finally coalesced, hitting me like a lightning bolt. At the train station, one of the twins had been standing next to a red Oldsmobile touring car—a red Oldsmobile Palace touring car. I cursed.

  “What?”

  “Frank’s red Oldsmobile! It was at the train station when the Doyles got killed and it was gone when I went back. Frank was involved in the bribery. He’s on the run. Son of a bitch. It’s Frank. Frank’s the killer.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Elizabeth looked bewildered. “Train station? Doyles? What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind that.” I grabbed hold of her arm. “It was Frank who killed John. I’m certain of it.”

  Her mouth tightened. “That’s crazy. Frank wouldn’t have killed John.”

  “He was involved in the bribery, too, wasn’t he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Elizabeth!”

  “I don’t know.” She shook my hand off her and looked out the window. “No one ever said.”

  “I’m betting he was. And that’s why he killed John. Frank is a violent man. You have to stay away from him.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “If he loves you, wouldn’t he do anything to be with you?”

  The cab jerked to a stop. A trolley was crossing the road in front of us. “Well . . . No. Not Frank. They were friends. He looked up to John.”

  “But John had you. And maybe John was going to testify against him. Frank couldn’t be with you if he was spending five to ten in the penitentiary. Elizabeth, you need to wake up. Frank’s a killer.”

  Her brow furrowed. The cab started up again. After the clacking of the trolley’s metal wheels had faded into the distance, she said, “I don’t know. Perhaps you’re right.” She looked uncertain and young, too young to have to deal with this nightmare.

  “I am right. If you hear from him again, you’ve got to tell me.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Promise me.”

  She tapped her ash into the ashtray and took another pull on the cigarette. The ember was almost touching her fingers.

  “Elizabeth, you’ve got to promise me. I just want what’s best for you.”

  She opened her window a crack and flicked her cigarette butt onto the street. “All right. If I hear from him again, I’ll let you know.”

  “But why would Frank frame . . .” Then it hit me. “Elizabeth, did you tell Frank about . . . your situation?”

  She looked back at me, her eyes dull, blank, dead. “Whatever are you talking about, Will?”

  “You know.”

  She stared at me for at least ten seconds before turning away and looking out the window. “Not that I remember. But there’s a lot I don’t remember.” She was quiet for a moment. “And a lot more I wish I didn’t.”

  We rode the rest of the way in silence.

  After leaving Elizabeth outside her home, I directed the cabdriver to my apartment, fantasizing about a hot bath and a change of clothes. When he turned onto Peterboro Street, I was happy to see an empty lawn in front of my building. Whether it was because of Thanksgiving or not, the reporters had given up, at least for now.

  The fare came to $2.20. The cabbie waited at the curb while I ran inside to grab some more money.

  Two steps in, my throat collided with a solid object. My feet flew out from under me, and I landed hard on my back. That same fat policeman leaned over me, a stupid grin underneath his bottlebrush mustache. My throat was on fire.

  “That’s called a clothesline, chorus boy. Remember that the next time you want to run.” He cuffed me, and he and his muscular, slack-jawed partner dragged me to a horse-drawn paddy wagon parked off Second Street. I only now realized that I hadn’t seen one of Sutton’s men at the door of my building.

  The cabdriver followed us, protesting all the way that I owed him money. At the back of the wagon, Bottlebrush pulled out his truncheon and tapped it against his palm while staring at the cabbie, who wisely decided to retreat. When I climbed in the back of the wagon, Slack Jaw shoved me, and I fell to the floor of the stench-ridden cage.

  “Asshole,” I muttered, and pushed myself up into a seated position. The wagon rocked as the cops climbed on. The reins snapped, and the horses clopped along, moving the wagon in a hypnotic rhythm—forward, pause, forward, pause.

  The rhythm didn’t calm me. The longer I sat in the back of the wagon, the more enraged I became. I was innocent, yet I was headed back to jail, almost certainly because of Judge Hume. It seemed unlikely I’d be leaving again before I was sent to prison for the rest of my life. And I just kept taking it, a lamb to slaughter.

  Why? Why did I accept this treatment? I wasn’t afraid to die, but I continued to let Wesley, the Doyles, Mr. Sutton, fight my battle for me. Wesley had been shit on all his life and still had more fight in his pinkie than I had in my entire body. He didn’t even have a stake in this game, other than his friendship with me, yet he was a samurai while I cowered in the dark, afraid of getting hurt.

  I screamed out an animal roar, and another, and shook the bars at the back of the cage with all my might. I was through being everyone’s patsy.

  At the Bethune Street station, the policemen handed me over to a guard, who shoved me back into the jail and down a darkened redbrick corridor. I tried to shake his hand off me and was rewarded with a smack to the side of my head.

  Unlike the last time I was here, the criminals in the cells we passed didn’t harass me. To all appearances, I belonged here, not a swell, an easy mark. That was a start.

  The guard stopped at a large cell near the beginning of the hallway, uncuffed me, and unlocked the door. Three men lay on a matching number of benches, four others on the filthy concrete floor. Two toughs stood by the door, arms crossed over their chests, menace in their eyes.

  The guard pushed me into the cell and slammed the door shut.

  I ignored the men and walked toward an unclaimed section of brick wall, trying to look mean.

  “Hey,” a voice called from behind me. “Mary Ann.”

  I turned slowly and gave the man Wesley’s dead-eyes look.

  He had a week’s growth of beard over a narrow face, eyes close together. His small mouth turned up in a grin, exposing a number of dark spaces where teeth should have been. He glanced at his partner, eyes wide. “Eww, he’s a scary one, ain’t he?” Neither of the men were particularly big, but they had the look of predators—grim sets to their mouths, tendons taut in the forearms, an unmistakable animal gleam in their eyes.

  The first man looked down at my feet. “Them’s some nice boots you got there. I could use some nice boots.”

  I said nothing, just kept giving him the dead eyes, as I got angrier and angrier.

  The man sauntered over to me, his face now inches from mine. “I bet you’d like to give me them boots for a Thanksgiving present, wouldn’t you?” His breath reeked of rotting teeth.

  A white-hot ball of rage rose from my gut. I kneed the man in the groin as hard as I could. His body jackknifed toward me. I grabbed hold of his greasy hair with both hands and jerked his head down as my knee thrust up again, catching him squarely in the face. He fell to the floor, groaning and cupping his genitals in his hands. I kicked him in the stomach, twice, before I was able to get control of myself.

  Barely breathing hard, I stared at the other tough, eyes dead again. He looked away. I kept staring at him. “You want my boots?” I really wanted him to want them.

  He didn’t look at me. “Uh, no, no, my shoes is fine.”

  I turned and walked over to the bench, adrenaline pumping through my veins, and sat next to a man who had managed to stay aslee
p through the ruckus. I looked around the cell, blank face topped by dead eyes. No one returned my gaze. I wasn’t happy or exultant over my victory, but I felt a satisfaction I never had before—pleasure derived from hurting someone.

  Maybe I had a chance for survival in a place like this after all.

  The rest of the prisoners left me alone. I sat on the bench and thought. I had to have been arrested because of Elizabeth. As soon as she talked to the police, they would let me go. Between now and then I had to keep myself in one piece.

  My hands began to tremble. This time it wasn’t from fear, I was sure. Even though the cell was cold, I was sweating profusely, and my stomach had an ache that could only be assuaged by one thing. I needed a drink.

  Sometime past dawn a guard walked down the corridor toward us, carrying chains that clanked louder and louder with each step. He unlocked the cell door and pulled me out into the dim hallway. After cuffing my hands in front of me and locking metal bands with a short chain between them onto my ankles, he pushed me down the corridor. I shuffled along, trying not to fall.

  Detective Riordan awaited me in an interrogation room, another featureless ivory box with a heavy oak table and two matching chairs in the center. He was sitting facing the door. With a snide smile, he said, “Nice to see you again, Will.”

  “I wish I could say the same.”

  “That nose looks pretty bad. What happened?”

  “I fell down the stairs.”

  “Must have been a long fall.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He sat back. “Judge Hume has made some serious allegations against you, Will. Kidnapping and drugs, among other things. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Wow, I’ve been busy, huh?”

  This time it was Riordan who didn’t respond.

  “Look, Elizabeth was with me of her own free will. She’s home now and fine. Besides, you know Judge Hume’s a crook. Why would you believe him?”

  “Yeah, I’ll have to concede that one. But still, Miss Hume was missing for more than a week, you were missing almost as long, and now you’re both back and everyone’s fine and dandy?”

  “Talk to Elizabeth.”

  “I’ll do that, Will. But she’s in isolation right now.” He leaned forward and stared at me. “She’s too traumatized to speak with anyone.”

  I shook my head. “That’s bunk. Is her father out?”

  Riordan probed the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “Yup. Never set foot in jail. The wheels turn fast when you’re a circuit court judge.”

  “The judge is the one who’s traumatized. She’s fine. Look, do you have any interest in catching the real killer?”

  “The way I see it, he’s already caught.”

  This was crazy. I was innocent. Anyone ought to be able to see that. I leaned toward him and spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “Frank Van Dam killed John Cooper.”

  I thought I saw a flicker of uncertainty in Riordan’s eyes before he frowned at me and said, “Haven’t we talked about this?”

  “His car was at the train station the night the Doyles were killed, and it was gone a few hours later. Frank was one of the few men who could have gotten close enough to John to surprise him. He moved west, you were right about that—to Denver, by the way. But not until he killed John.” I didn’t know for sure about Frank’s involvement in Judge Hume’s bribery, but I put it out there anyway. “John and Frank were paying off Judge Hume. I’ll bet John was talking to the state police, and Frank had to keep him quiet.”

  While I was talking, Riordan pulled a cigar from his coat pocket and studied it, rolling it in his fingers, a picture of boredom. When I was done, he glanced up and said, “Finished?”

  I was furious. “Riordan, even you can’t be this stupid. You know I didn’t—”

  His right hand shot out and caught me in the mouth, knocking me straight over backward. I tried to jump to my feet, but I got caught up in the manacles and went down again. I took my time getting up, glaring at him as I did. He just sat back in his chair and smiled at me. “You will treat me with respect, Mr. Anderson.”

  My mouth tasted of blood, and one of my front teeth was loose, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how badly it hurt. I spat on the floor, picked up the chair, and sat again.

  He gestured for me to continue, but the punch had knocked the conversation out of my head. I stared at him until he said in a monotone, “Riordan, even you can’t be this stupid. You know I didn’t . . .”

  Right. “You know I didn’t kill John,” I finished. “If I was going to do that, I’d have cozied up to him for quite a while before luring him away to somewhere quiet. You’d never have found the body.”

  He tilted his head to the side, smiling. “So you thought about it, did you?”

  “No, and it doesn’t matter anyway. I didn’t do it.”

  “Oh, by the way,” Riordan said. “I got your clothing. Thanks.”

  “What?” I was totally blank.

  “Your clothing. Thanks for sending it over.”

  Oh, shit. “You . . . got my clothing?”

  Riordan shook his head and sighed. “Do we really need to play charades anymore? Just give it up, Will.”

  “You think I sent you the clothes? It was Frank. He’s the blackmailer and the killer!”

  “I’d agree with you on part of that. I think the man who sent me those clothes killed John Cooper.”

  “You can’t possibly believe that’s me. I gave you the blackmail notes. He threatened to send you the clothes if I didn’t follow his instructions.”

  “Yeah, funny thing about those notes.”

  “What about them?”

  He made a big production out of pulling them from his coat pocket and tossing them on the table, then gestured for me to pick them up. “Go on,” he said when I hesitated. “They’re yours.”

  I picked up the notes and, with both hands, began sliding them into my coat pocket.

  “No, leave them out. Look at them carefully.”

  I glanced at the notes. “I’ve seen them before.”

  He stood and came around to my side of the table. “See there?” He pointed to a word on the first note, then pointed to another one on the second. “And there?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  Riordan bent down and squinted at me. “The s’s are lighter on the top than the bottom.”

  I looked more carefully. It was true. I shrugged but was beginning to get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

  “Now look closely at the m’s. The bottom of the middle line is darker than the other ones.”

  While I looked, he strolled over to his chair, flipped it around, and straddled it, his arms resting on the back, a Cheshire grin plastered on his face. “We found a typewriter that has the same problems. In fact, it was an exact match.”

  “It wasn’t mine.”

  “Well, you’re right about that. The letters didn’t come from the Underwood in your apartment. But they did come from an Underwood. At the Anderson Carriage Company.”

  “What?”

  “Detroit Electric division.” He was taking pleasure in dragging this out. “Managers’ office.”

  “That can’t be.”

  “Oh, but it could. A typewriter in that office matched.” Riordan shook his head, another one of his damned sardonic smiles on his face. “You’ll never guess whose desk it was on.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I still had my boots the next morning when Mr. Sutton arranged to have me moved to solitary for the weekend. I spent most of Saturday sweating, with tiny tremors in my hands, but that night I was able to buy a quart of homemade whiskey from a guard for ten dollars. I was to pay him Monday after I saw Sutton, or I’d be back in the holding pen where he’d make sure I got the complete treatment. It was worth the risk. I nursed the bottle, saving almost half of it for Sunday. It got me by.

  Much of my time was spent thinking of Frank Van Dam sitting in my office at the f
actory, at my typewriter, writing letters to me. Was he pensive, sorry to be killing his best friend and framing me for it? Or had he smirked at his cleverness, congratulating himself for planning a perfect crime? If so, the anticipation must have been delicious—framing me, taking my money, toying with me—a cat playing with a mouse before it bites off the head. What fun.

  No matter what it took, he was going to pay.

  Elizabeth filled my thoughts the rest of the time. I had risked my life for her and spent a week in a filthy hovel nursing her back to humanity, yet three days after I brought her home I was still locked away—three more days of deprivation and degradation. Her father almost certainly was keeping her from getting hold of Riordan, but he couldn’t watch her twenty-four hours a day. They had a telephone, a car, neighbors. Surely—if she cared at all—she could have gotten me out of here.

  Whether I’d repaid my debt or not, I was through with her.

  The next morning my father and Mr. Sutton met me at the courthouse in a small musty room that smelled of delousing powder. Cobwebs obscured the tops of the two tall windows that looked out from our slightly elevated position onto the street. Like the interrogation rooms with which I’d become all too familiar, a sturdy oak table and a pair of matching chairs were the only furnishings.

  The guard waited to unlock my chains until we were all in the room. While he did, my father looked at the floor instead of me, his face craggy, full of worry lines. A dark suit and a white shirt dangled over one of his arms. In the other he held a pair of black dress shoes.

  Sutton folded his arms across his chest. “It was nice of you to show up for the preliminary hearing, Will.”

  I had totally forgotten about it. I shrugged. “I was busy.”

  My father handed me the clothes. “Here. Put these on.”