I checked the load of my pistol and headed toward the other Detroit, the city with which I’d only just become acquainted. First I looped around to Hastings Street, perhaps a quarter mile north of the Bucket, where I saw the first cracks in the facade. Street followed street with unintelligible store signs in Hebrew and Cyrillic script, and dozens of buildings of dark, cramped apartments. Their stoops were occupied by bands of young toughs, like armies holding territories. Near as I could tell, none of them was the boy who had taken the blackmail money.
I continued toward the river, walking through a section of Greektown, though I skirted the area in which Sapphira lived. From there I plunged into an unfamiliar area east of downtown. The buildings were crumbling, the streets reeking of shit and piss and rotting garbage, and crammed with humanity. Children huddled together over garbage can fires. Couples hurried past the entrances to alleyways with fearful glances over their shoulders. Rough-looking men with derbies pulled down over their brows leaned against walls and in doorways, appraising passersby. I looked them in the eye. The confidence given me by the gun must have shown on my face, because they let me pass.
My hands and feet were numb, but I continued toward the river, into Black Bottom, the city’s small enclave of Negroes. The buildings here were mostly rickety wood, starting with two-story houses only a few feet apart, many with lean-tos attached haphazardly to their fronts and backs. Next came one-story shotgun shacks jammed together in a line, which led finally to the thrown-together wood and tin shanties abutting the coal yards next to the river.
Blinded by the magnificence and grandeur of the city I knew, I had thought Detroit was different than this. But to these people—Russians, Greeks, and Blacks, as well as the Italians, Irish, Poles, Flemings, Hungarians, Turks, Chinese, and all the rest—this was the reality. Nothing more or less than the nightmare result of a dream smashed against the shores of the Promised Land. Detroit hadn’t yet gained the opulence or sunk to the depths of New York, but only because it hadn’t had time.
I wanted to sink into an ocean of bourbon.
Around ten I walked up to the front door of the Detroit Electric garage and rapped on the window, my movements spastic from nervousness. I took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to build some enthusiasm.
Ben Carr looked through the window. He hesitated before opening the door, probably remembering what had happened the last time I showed up here at night. “We’ve got the 601 ready to go,” he said, not quite meeting my eyes. He gestured vaguely over his shoulder at the boxy black truck, which stood in front of the closed garage door. The electric lights in the room were bright, sparkling off the shiny finishes of the automobiles arrayed around the outside walls. I was taken, as I always was, by the fresh-air ozone scent of the building.
I extended my hand to him, and he took it. “I’m so sorry, Ben,” I said. “No matter what happens to me, it was wrong to get you involved in this mess.”
His face relaxed a little. “Thank you, sir. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you, but I . . . I just couldn’t.”
“I understand. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when Detective Riordan said he wasn’t pressing charges against you.”
Ben looked at his feet. “You know I got to testify.”
“Of course you do. But don’t worry. I’m going to get out of this,” I said, with a great deal more confidence than I felt.
His eyes darted to mine and then away again. “I left the logbook on the front seat of the truck. Don’t forget to fill it out.”
“Sure, thanks.”
He began to turn around, hesitated, then spun and marched toward the back of the garage. “Just leave it on that stool by the tool crib,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll get it later.”
I watched him until he turned the corner into the office. He wanted my handwriting in the logbook. I couldn’t blame him. I walked over to the truck, wrote the details in the book, and set it atop the stool.
The truck was nothing fancy, just a twelve-foot-long box with a cutout in the front for a bench seat over the white Motz cushion tires. The only thing in front of the driver other than the steering wheel—which I thought awkward in comparison to the steering lever on our automobiles—was a one-inch wood panel that held the headlights.
I walked around to the back and swung the doors open. A tool kit and spare tire were inside, but nothing else. There was plenty of room for a body—for a number of bodies. With its one-ton capacity, I reckoned I could get eight or nine more Judge Hume–sized corpses inside without taxing the suspension or motor. And the way my life was going, that could come in handy.
After I opened the garage door, I climbed in the truck and checked the voltmeter. The batteries were fully charged. That gave me a range of at least fifty miles—much more than I needed. I pulled onto the street and parked just long enough to close the door and get cursed by the driver of a black Locomobile roadster. Turning left onto Woodward, I headed north, back to my apartment for some supplies. The street had begun to quiet, tomorrow a workday.
I pulled up to the curb opposite my building and climbed the stairs. I was unlocking my door when Wesley popped out of his apartment.
“Hi, Will,” he said. “Thought that sounded like you.” He did a double take. “What happened to you now?”
“Nothing. Just a little misunderstanding with the Dodge brothers.”
He shook his head slowly. “Why don’t you come in for a drink and tell me about it?”
“No, thanks. I’ve quit, actually.”
“Drinking?”
I nodded.
“Good for you.” He smiled. “Well, you want to come in for a ginger ale?”
“I’m going to have to take a rain check. I’ve got to take care of something tonight, just some work I’m catching up on. My father’s put me in charge of our booth for the Detroit Auto Show.”
His smile widened. “Congratulations. I’m really happy for you.”
“Thanks.” I looked to the inside of my apartment. “I should get to it. See you.”
“Okay. But let’s have that ginger ale soon.”
I turned back to him. “Absolutely. Thanks, Wes.”
He nodded and slipped back inside his apartment. There were a few things I wasn’t going to do any longer. One was drink. Another was involve Wesley in my problems.
I changed into a black shirt, trousers, and boots, and fit a black fedora on my head. Then I gathered my supplies—a shovel, a lantern with a black cowl, a clothesline, and a huge plaid blanket I never used, similar to dozens I’d seen at picnics or warming spectators at spring and autumn sporting events. I shrugged on my black greatcoat and tried to decide what to do with the next few hours.
I considered taking a drive but realized I couldn’t risk using any more of the batteries’ charge than necessary. Nor did I want to leave the truck parked in front of my building. I drove to the end of a dark street, parked, and began steeling myself for the gruesome task ahead.
It was after midnight when I drove to the cornfield.
Snow crunched under the tires as I eased my foot onto the brake in front of the field. The truck rolled to a stop with a shudder and a squeak of the springs. I sat still, listening. In the distance, a gasoline engine revved. Other than that, it was unnaturally quiet. Snow fell on snow in a silent ballet.
I looked out at the field, and my heart sank. Streetlights lit the area just enough to illuminate a smooth white sea, only occasional stalks rising far enough to break the surface and give any indication of rows. Having only a vague memory of the body’s location before the snow, I thought this might well be an impossible task.
But I had to move the body. I stepped down from the cab and crept around to the back of the truck. Taking care to be quiet, I opened the doors, climbed inside, and lit the lantern with my lighter before closing the cowl far enough to allow only a sliver of light to escape. I opened the door and climbed back out onto the snow.
The huge oak tree stood to my left. I tried
to triangulate the position of the grave, using the tree and the road, but without the rows to guide me it was impossible. When I walked onto the field, my boots sank through the snow, and I could feel the U-shaped depressions between the rows. Still, everything looked the same.
I took my best guess and pushed the shovel down through the snow. Given that the judge was covered by only a bit of dirt, it was a tentative attempt, but even so, the shovel stopped after a few inches. I was certain the ground around the grave would be softer, so I moved ahead a few feet and tried again. That spot was just as hard. I stepped over to the next row and pushed the blade of the shovel into the earth again with the same result.
Half an hour later, I was frantic, slashing the shovel into the hard ground. The falling snow had hidden my earlier footprints, and I couldn’t remember where I’d dug and where I hadn’t. I started over, working methodically down one row and then another, until finally the shovel chunked into a softer piece of ground. Digging carefully now, I found the handle of the bag containing Judge Hume’s clothing and the rope used to kill him. I shut off my brain and dug out the body.
When I’d removed most of the dirt, I could see Judge Hume’s form inside the sheet—body rigid, knees slightly bent, hips twisted a little to the right. I pushed my hands into the dirt underneath his shoulders, took hold of him under the arms, and tugged him out. His body didn’t change position, either frozen or in rigor mortis. After I stripped off the sheet and tucked it inside the bag, I hesitated. Seeing the corpse in the sliver of light from the lantern filled me with pity. Now simply a pale blue figure with bulging eyes, open mouth, and swollen tongue, the judge had been just a man, a father, not some loathsome devil bent on ruining my life. Everyone deserved to die with dignity, not be violated like this.
I dropped to my knees next to him. “Judge Hume?” I whispered. “Your Honor? I know you only wanted the best for Elizabeth. I’m sorry I wasn’t the man you thought I should be. You were right. I wasn’t good enough for her. And I’m sorry beyond measure for this.” I wrapped him in the blanket and secured it with the clothesline.
Even though the temperature was in the twenties, sweat dripped from my face. I threw the strap of the bag over my shoulder, dragged the body to the truck, and hoisted it into the back along with the bag. Then I returned to the field, filled in the hole, and stomped down the earth. By the time I finished, snow was beginning to erase my footprints. I took one last look around, climbed behind the wheel, and eased the truck back onto the road.
Heading southwest, I cut through neighborhoods as I worked my way down to Jefferson, keeping my speed at a safe eight miles per hour. Had I been driving a gasoline motorcar, I don’t think I’d have been able to regulate my speed at all, but I was fortunate electrics stayed consistent.
I had a plan. When I reached the island, I would hide Judge Hume’s body and bury the sheet, the rope, and the clothing in different places. Then I’d return and bury the body. It was risky carrying everything together, but the longer I had the body or any of the bag’s contents in my possession, the more likely it was I’d be caught.
When I turned off Jefferson onto West End, I stopped and watched the buildings to the sides and in front of me. A deep dark sound, like the mumbling of a lunatic, carried on the air from Zug’s gigantic blast furnace.
An open door in the warehouse brightened. A night watchman carrying a lantern hurried out, took a quick look around, and hurried back inside. I waited another five minutes. Seeing no movement, I put the truck into first and rolled forward, leaving the headlights off. The floodlights on the buildings and the faint white glow from the foundry provided all the light I needed.
I pulled the truck into the shadows at the side of the road and stood next to it for a moment, looking around and listening, before I opened the back doors, grabbed the bag, and pulled the body partway out. It didn’t seem likely I’d be able to balance both the judge and the shovel, so I decided to get the judge to the island first.
I threw the bag over my shoulder, squatted down, and slid the blanket-wrapped corpse out over the other shoulder, thinking I’d carry him like a wood plank. When the balance felt about right, I tightened my grip over his waist and stood. The body tipped over my back and hit the ground with a thud. I fell backward over the top of it, making just as much noise.
Cursing inwardly, I squatted in the shadows for a moment. It didn’t seem anyone had heard. I struggled to lift the body onto my shoulder, but it was impossible. When I carried Judge Hume the night he’d been murdered, his body had formed to the contours of my neck and shoulders.
Now he was a two-hundred-pound rock lying on the ground.
I started dragging him toward the tracks. Pain sprung anew from a dozen spots on my body. I was wringing with sweat before I’d even reached the back of the warehouse. There, I stopped, leaned against the wall, and slid down to a seated position next to the body. My breath shot out in great plumes of steam. I wouldn’t be able to stop again until I reached the bridge, four times as far as I’d already come. And I couldn’t sit here any longer, either.
I stripped off my greatcoat and left it next to the building before I again slung the bag over my shoulder and dragged Judge Hume’s body to the tracks and then alongside them. The body dug up and pushed aside odd bits of trash and the few chunks of coal not already scavenged by the poor, and left a rut in the snow as if I’d run a toboggan over it. Though I could still smell the island, the falling snow tamped down the stench to a tolerable level. The foundry’s roar was loud, insistent, and its white light flared and ebbed like a gigantic welder’s torch, casting an unearthly glow on the riverfront.
My fingers were cramping, and I ached everywhere, but I kept pulling. The light from the foundry was brighter here, but I was cloaked in the elongated shadows reaching out from the island.
I finally reached the bridge and collapsed on the ground next to the judge’s body. This was going to be a trickier business. The bridge was perhaps a hundred feet long and no wider than a train. Even though the canal was only forty feet across, the ground fell away quickly underneath the bridge, which was elevated thirty feet above the water. All but ten feet on either end had the potential for a dangerous fall. A four-inch gap lay between the slats under the tracks, and there were no side rails to keep a person from pitching over into the canal.
Apparently the bridge hadn’t been designed for dragging bodies to the island.
I looked both ways down the track and felt the rails, checking for trains. Though it seemed likely the security guard was right and no trains were running, I couldn’t take chances. Satisfied, I pulled the judge’s corpse up over the metal rails and began dragging it across the bridge. The snow made the wooden slats slippery, and I stepped carefully from one to the next, keeping my eyes on my feet. This was taking much longer than I had expected. My pace was of step, tug, step, tug, and the judge’s feet bumped over every slat with a pattern of rhythmic thumps I felt more than heard, what with the low thunder of the foundry behind me.
When I was about halfway across, the bridge began to vibrate. I glanced up in front of me and saw nothing, then dropped the body and turned around.
A headlight, only a few hundred feet away, raced toward me, getting larger by the second.
I froze. There was no time to run back across. The train was nearly on the bridge now. I stepped to the side of the body and rolled it over the edge. The train’s horn blared a deafening blast. I leaped from the bridge a split second before the train would have hit me, and the wind from its passing spun me in the air. The pitch of the horn changed from high to low as the train rocketed by and I plummeted toward the canal.
When I hit the frigid water, the shock ripped the air from my lungs. Reflexively, I tried to take a breath and began choking, coughing, and sucking in even more water. I flailed my arms and legs, reaching for the surface. The bag’s handle slipped off my shoulder. I grabbed for it and found only water. The strong current swirled away from River Rouge, pulling me t
oward the Detroit River. I fought it and thrashed with numbing limbs, barely able to breathe through racking coughs. Somehow I made it far enough that my hands hit bottom, and I pulled myself up to the shore. I vomited onto the snow, the spasms continuing long after the water had been purged from my lungs.
The feeling wasn’t returning to my body. Still coughing like a consumptive, I sat up and rubbed my legs, shivering uncontrollably, trying to get enough friction to regain some feeling, some warmth, before hypothermia claimed me.
The bag was gone. I looked through the falling snow to the water, expecting to see Judge Hume’s blanket-clad corpse bobbing out from the mouth of the canal into the river. Nothing was visible other than the tops of the swells, sparking with the flares of the foundry’s blast furnace.
I stumbled back toward the warehouse, hugging myself in a vain attempt to stave off the cold. When I was almost there, light from a lantern bobbed around the front corner of the building. I dropped to the ground, trying to stifle my coughs, shivering so hard my teeth felt like they were being jarred loose. The lantern didn’t move for a moment, then disappeared around the corner again. As quickly as caution would allow, I hurried to the building, stripped off my clothing, and wrapped my greatcoat around me. When I dropped my pants, the pistol fell with them. I’d forgotten I had it. I scooped it up and tottered on numb legs to the truck. After a quick look around, I climbed in and drove to my apartment. I soaked in a hot bath for a long while, then drove back to the Detroit Electric garage, still wheezing.
I had compounded my problem. Judge Hume’s body would surface, ensuring he would be found. But worse, I had lost the bag containing his clothing, the murder weapon, and my sheet—in one neat little package. If someone found that bag and turned it over to the police, Riordan would have all the evidence he needed to put me away forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I spent most of the next day on the couch with a cup of hot tea. My head was stuffy, I had a low fever, and I was still coughing, though with less force and frequency. To distract myself, I went out to the corner and bought a stack of newspapers.
The Detroit Electric Scheme Page 27