The Detroit Electric Scheme

by D. E. Johnson

  I nodded and lit another cigarette for each of us. We stood looking out at the backyard but not really seeing it, lost in our thoughts.

  After a few minutes, she rested her elbow in the palm of her other hand, holding the cigarette up near the side of her face. “I think it’s odd,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “Oh, nothing. That people are starting to call their parlors ‘living rooms.’ What does that even mean?”

  That was not what I expected. “I don’t know. It is a stupid name, though.”

  “I’ll tell you why.” She was still looking out at the garden. “These ‘funeral parlors’ springing up everywhere? Death rooms. A parlor is a death room, whether it belongs to you or a professional mourner.” She turned to me. “I’m so very tired of all this, Will. All this death. I just want it done.”

  “I know, honey.” I hesitated but finally asked her a question I’d wanted to ask ever since John was murdered. “Elizabeth, you believe I’m innocent, don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t be talking to you if I didn’t.”

  “Thank you. I couldn’t kill anyone. And I’ve caused you too much pain already. I’d rather you spend your life with another man than have you endure that. We’ll never be together. I’ve accepted that. I just want you to know I wouldn’t hurt you again. Ever.”

  “I know.” She flicked her cigarette butt into the backyard and pulled the veil down over her face. “I should get back to my mother.”

  I nodded.

  When she reached the door, she turned back to me. “I hear you’re working again.”

  “Yes. I’m setting up the booth for the car show next week.”

  “Good.” I saw a tentative smile behind the veil. “I’m glad.”

  For four years Elizabeth had dazzled the crowds at the auto show on Society Night. Surrounded by millionaires and their wives, she turned every head in the building. I smiled to think of it. I’d never been more proud. Of course, I hadn’t understood just how lucky I was, believing it was only my due to have the most beautiful woman in the world on my arm. “Thanks, Lizzie.”

  “Perhaps I’ll see you there,” she said. “At the show. I was thinking of going on Society Night.”

  “Really?”

  “For better or worse, you got me interested in automobiles. And God knows I need something to take my mind off all of this.”

  “I’ll look for you.”

  “Around eight?”

  “That would be fantastic.”

  I hadn’t thought Elizabeth could ever stop hating me, and I had no illusions about the prospect of a second chance. But perhaps we could be friends. Perhaps I could help her forgive herself, repair her life, move on.

  But there was no guarantee I’d still be free next week. The bag with Judge Hume’s clothing, the rope, and my sheet was still out there.

  Somewhere.

  I read at least one newspaper every day and kept my eyes open for the police. I was spending fourteen hours a day on the auto show, not because there was so much work to do, but because it kept me from thinking. Disaster seemed only a moment away. It was unlikely my bag would forever remain at the river’s bottom. Frank and Sapphira had disappeared off the face of the earth. My trial was looming larger every day. And I was finding it increasingly difficult to refrain from drinking. That little voice in the back of my mind kept up the pressure.

  Just one. One drink won’t hurt. Everybody drinks. I can control it.

  Just one.

  But I stood resolute. And I realized that somewhere along the line I had decided not to kill myself if I were convicted. I’d fight, and my family and friends would fight alongside me. By remaining sober, I had even regained a little self-respect. I felt better than I had in a long time. The puffiness had disappeared from my face (from both the alcohol and the beatings), and I felt energetic and alert.

  But the dead man kept tugging.

  The Employers Association continued to insist the bribery was a private matter between Judge Hume and two misguided ex-employees. Mr. Sutton’s men tried to bribe and threaten information out of an EAD manager with a questionable personal life. Even then he wouldn’t talk.

  Meanwhile, District Attorney Higgins crowed to the newspapers that his case against me was sound, and that he would “lock up the heinous murderer, William C. Anderson, Jr., for the rest of his natural-born life.”

  Should I be convicted, I was hoping for the opportunity of an unnatural-born life to follow, though I didn’t have a great deal of confidence in that, either.

  Because of another show at Wayne Gardens, we had only two days for setup. We were scheduled to bring in our cars at 10:00 A.M. on Saturday. At 8:30, I bundled up and walked to Woodward to catch a trolley to the Detroit Electric garage. The oily stench of burning coal was strong, the northerly wind driving in heavy smoke from the factories. Snowflakes seemed to turn gray before my eyes, darkening as they swirled to the ground, not quite covering the sooty clumps already there.

  I glanced around as I walked. Looking for the police and Frank Van Dam had become an unconscious habit. While I waited for the trolley, I reached behind me with both hands in the small of my back and stretched, though I really just wanted the reassurance of touching the gun tucked into my belt.

  Since it was a workday, the crowds had thinned out an hour ago. Only a handful of people stood with me on the curb, hands in pockets, shuffling from foot to foot. A streetcar stopped, and I wedged myself on board. When I arrived at the garage, Elwood and Joe, the men I’d considered my best friends only a few weeks before, mumbled their greetings and then ignored me. I suppose being arrested for murder is as good a test of friendship as any.

  I ferried the roadster alongside the river, splashing through the slush down Jefferson to Wayne Gardens, Detroit’s biggest and swankiest convention center. Three of the chasers from the garage followed me in the other vehicles. Once we were inside and the cars had been cleaned and polished to a high sheen, we pulled them into our booth, between the KRIT Motor Car Company and Overland Motor Sales. I directed the layout.

  The blue roadster went behind and to the side of the green extension brougham, with the maroon coupé in back. The truck had to go behind the booth, in a small annex that had been added to the building. Space at Wayne Gardens for this show was like gold. So many companies had been turned away from the Detroit Automobile Dealers Association show that a second one, under the banner of the United Automobile Dealers Association, was setting up at the Regal Motor Company’s new factory, tripling the space available. It had been filled as well.

  But the real show was at Wayne Gardens. The who’s who of the auto world would be displaying here, with the up-and-comers (at least in their minds) relegated to the Regal factory.

  When our cars were set up, I wandered the pavilion. Ladders and scaffolding were everywhere, with hundreds of workmen swarming the walls and ceilings. Huge panels of white rose bowers adorned with artificial red roses already covered the walls of the first floor, but the second floor and ceiling had a long way to go.

  I went back on Sunday and helped hang our banners and signs. All but a few of the bowers were installed. The effect was extraordinary. I felt as if I had walked into a huge rose garden, filled with the most wonderful toys on earth. Scents of leather, oil, grease, wood, and brass polish wafted through the building, comforting odors I’d always associated with my father. The rest of the booths were being completed, and I strolled through the building, taking in all the new automobiles. Shiny new cars and trucks filled both floors. I paid special attention to the other electrics: Hupp-Yeats, Waverley, Phipps-Grinnell, and Raush & Lang. Even though it was a short trip from Cleveland, Baker was nowhere to be found. That was a good sign.

  We were ready when the show opened on Monday, and by Wednesday we’d already taken more orders than we had during the entire 1910 show. It looked like my father had his work cut out with the roadster, though. We’d only sold one. Thankfully, sales of broughams and coupés more t
han made up for it.

  I spent most of my time by the truck in the annex, keeping a low profile. The focus had to be on the vehicles, not me. I wanted to phone Elizabeth, firm up our meeting for Thursday night, but the show kept me running from before dawn until the early hours of the morning. By the time I got home I was exhausted, and it was too late to call anyway.

  On Wednesday I got my father’s permission to take the next morning off so I could tour the show at the Regal factory. First thing Thursday, I headed out to the trolley stop. The week had been cold, with highs in the teens, but this morning it was already near fifty. Mist rose from the ubiquitous piles of sooty snow to mottled gray clouds hanging low and heavy over the city, and trickles of snowmelt wended their way through cracks between the cobbles to storm sewers at the corners. I stopped at Wayne Gardens and dropped off my tuxedo for Society Night before taking a streetcar to the Regal factory.

  The UADA show was impressive, particularly considering they’d had only ten days to put it together. Red, white, and blue bunting hung from the support pillars and between booths, which packed the cavernous building, giving the factory the ambiance of a county fair. I wandered through the show for three hours, though I could have easily spent the entire day drooling over the displays of cars and accessories—horns, odometers, wheels, taillights, tops—that went on and on.

  The automobile business had certainly arrived.

  The trip back to Wayne Gardens took considerably longer than I expected. Fog was beginning to settle in, adding an ethereal quality to the city. The temperature was at least in the midfifties now, and water from all the melting snow was backing up the storm sewers, with brackish ponds deepening at street corners. Traffic was nearly at a standstill, and the streetcars weren’t faring much better. I had to change cars four times. When I finally arrived at our booth, my father and Mr. Wilkinson were waiting for me. I apologized for being late.

  My father waved it off and clapped me on the back. “The way this show is turning out I wouldn’t mind if you took the rest of it off. That said, I have one more thing for you to do. Henry Leland is going to be speaking with newspapermen in Conference Room A at three o’clock. It’s about the self-starter. I’d like you to take a look at it.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “We’ve got dealer meetings all day. I’d like your opinion.”

  I reached the conference room at two forty-five and could barely squeeze inside. Reporters, photographers, and automobile men packed the smoke-filled room. Henry Leland was bent over the stripped chassis of a Cadillac with another man, who was checking the wiring that connected the car to an electrical contraption about the size of a shoebox. Another wire ran from the other end of the device to a battery.

  Over the sound of a hundred loud voices, I heard, “Will! Hey!”

  Edsel stood about ten feet away from me. I shouldered through the crowd to his side. He smiled and shouted in my ear. “Come to see how the other half lives, eh?”

  “Sort of. My father wants to know what I think of Leland’s baby.”

  Edsel grimaced. “My father doesn’t want anything to do with it. He said he won’t touch it until it’s the same price as a hand crank. It’s all about price to him.”

  “Seems to be working.” Unlike Henry Ford’s two previous efforts, Ford Motor Company’s sales growth was astronomical.

  Henry Leland, a grandfatherly man with wavy silver hair and a long Vandyke beard, cleared his throat a few times, politely asked for everyone’s attention, and finally blew out an ear-splitting whistle. Everyone quieted and turned their attention to him.

  “Like many other men,” he said, “I’ve been working on a self-starter for years. Until now, I’ve never had any better results than anyone else. But,” he held up a finger, “I am intelligent enough to look outside our company when the need presents itself.

  “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce Charles Kettering, the man who not only invented the electric cash register, but also the electricity generator you know as the Delco. He’s got something to show you.”

  Kettering was a thin, hatchet-faced man in his midthirties, with thick black hair, a long chin, and a hooked nose. “The only self-starters that have worked up until now, at least with any regularity,” he said, “are half the size of an automobile. So I started with the size. It was really a short step from the work I’ve done previously. It’s near completion, and it will add less than a hundred dollars to the retail price of an automobile.” After he gave a brief summary of how the starter worked, he turned to Leland. “Should we show them?”

  Leland smiled and looked out at the crowd. “Would you like to see it?”

  A weak chorus of affirmation answered him. One man called out, “Show it already.”

  “Can’t argue with that enthusiasm,” Kettering said. He held up a key before sticking it into a slot and flipping a switch. The engine turned over, and again.

  Then it roared to life.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  When I returned to the booth, my father, Mr. Wilkinson, and Mr. McFarlane were in the annex with a dealer, huddled at the front of the 601 truck. The room was filled with the background rumble of many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of voices. A few minutes later, the other man left, and my father greeted me effusively. His demeanor was jovial, but I could see the concern in the intensity of his eyes and the tightness of his jaw.

  “Well?” he said. “Did it work?”

  I shrugged. “The demos always do. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  Mr. Wilkinson pulled on his beard. “It was Kettering, correct?”

  “Yes. Charles Kettering.”

  Mr. McFarlane grunted. “How big was it?”

  I showed them with my hands. “Shoebox, give or take.”

  They all exchanged looks, but McFarlane waved a hand in front of him. “Ach, an automobile’s not a store, and a self-starter’s no cash register. It’ll shake to pieces, freeze, or short, just like all the rest.”

  “I don’t know,” my father said. “Kettering has impressive credentials. If it works . . .” He glanced at McFarlane with a shrug.

  “Do you really think it’s going to be such a problem?” I asked.

  “Well . . .” My father grimaced. “It’s no secret that our greatest competitive advantage is easy starting. But we’ve got lots more going for us.” He forced a smile onto his face. “We’ll be fine.”

  “Either way,” I said, “we own the high end, right?”

  “Right.” My father clapped me on the back, and I went up front to help the salespeople.

  At five, the general public was herded out of Wayne Gardens so preparations could be made for Society Night. I snuck outside for a break and some fresh air. The river wasn’t fifty feet from me, yet when I opened the door all I could see was a misty white cloud. A heavy blanket of fog had dropped over the city.

  After a smoke, I helped our men straighten up the booth and then changed into black tie for the evening. I checked myself in the mirror half a dozen times, making sure I looked my best for Elizabeth. At seven the orchestra began to play Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” and the society crowd started to trickle in.

  I leaned against a trellis, watching the crowd. This was my first real reintroduction into automotive society since the murder, and I was nervous about what sort of welcome I would receive. Red and green lights peeked through the rose-covered trellises in a soft mimicry of the night sky. Every car shone—brilliant reds, burgundies, greens, blues, and blacks—reflecting the spotlights into the eyes of the spectators, who were now crowding the hall. The men all wore black top hats and tuxedoes with tails, and many of them carried jeweled or gilt canes. The women sported dazzling evening dresses in a rainbow of colors, sparkling with rhinestones. Elaborate chapeaus bedecked with ribbons, jewels, and feathers topped their heads. Though the price of admission had been doubled to a dollar for Society Night, price wasn’t the real barrier to entry. It was clothing that kept out the less fortunate.

 
The royalty of automobiledom strolled past me, unaware of my presence. In scarcely five minutes, I saw Commodore A. L. McLeod of the United States Motor Company, W. V. Macy of Locomobile, Clarence Smith of Stevens-Duryea, and A. W. Shafer of Alco.

  I was thinking about going back to the booth when, behind me, a man said, “Hey, Anderson.”

  I knew that voice. I spun around, fists clenched.

  John Dodge stood next to his brother, both in ill-fitting monkey suits. He smiled at me. “Listen, I’m really sorry about what happened before.” He reached out toward me.

  I almost punched him but held back when all he did was tuck something into the chest pocket of my tuxedo.

  “Sometimes, me and Horace, well . . .” He looked at his brother, then down at the floor, bashful. “Sometimes we get a little carried away, you know?”

  I reached into my pocket to see what he had given me. It was a hundred-dollar bill. I held it out to him. “I don’t want your money.”

  He held up his hands in front of him, a gesture of surrender. A vague smell of grease wafted up to my nose. “Nope. That’s yours. I’m a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong.”

  I slipped the bill into the pocket of his bulging waistcoat. “If you want to make it up to me, give this to charity.”

  His eyes narrowed, and his head tilted a bit to the side while he appraised me. Finally he grinned. “Fair enough.” He held out his hand. “Friends?”

  I smiled back, but left my hand at my side. “Let’s not get carried away.”

  He broke eye contact first.

  I returned to the Detroit Electric booth. An older man with a monocle was leaning forward in the driving seat of the roadster, gripping the steering lever like an oar. Next to him, his wife sat back with her arms crossed. Couples were seated in our other automobiles, these with the wives in the driving seats. The husbands assumed the air of experts, and our salesmen explained the intricacies of driving an electric, such as they were, given that turning a key and pushing a lever forward were all that was needed to make the cars work.