“One thing leads to another,” I said, deadpan. “I didn’t really have a choice.”
He nodded. “Point taken.”
I was scraping into bone, but I kept working my wrists against the tank. “How could you have thought you’d get away with killing Frank?”
“The plan was perfect,” John said. “I talked him into leaving town with me, running west, getting new identities.”
“But he was your friend. Why would you kill him?”
“I didn’t want to kill him any more than I want to kill you, but I needed a body to take my place, and I couldn’t let him talk.”
“You killed your friend, John. Now you’re killing your fiancée. This isn’t you. You need help.”
John just shrugged and continued his thought. “And I guess what was left of Frank passed as me. It’s funny, in a way. He always wanted to be like me. I suppose that’s why he went after Elizabeth, even though the drugs had already made her perfectly pathetic.”
“Why take the clothes and blackmail me?” Blood dripped from my hands to the floor.
He frowned. “I needed the money. I think I did pretty well with only two days to plan. But I couldn’t make a large withdrawal from my bank account without raising suspicion.” He glanced at the gauge again.
I scraped the rope, scraped my wrist, against the tank. The rope felt like it had loosened a bit.
“But you.” He grunted out a laugh. “The one guy I knew who would take a kick in the ass and turn the other cheek. You have to understand. It would have been easier to just kill you and plant enough evidence to ensure there’d be no investigation. I didn’t want to do that. We were friends, after all. So I set you up perfectly, and now it looks like you’re going to get off.” He glanced down at Elizabeth. “Well, you were, anyway.” He shook his head sadly and looked back to me. “But it’s too late now. I can’t leave anything to chance. Sorry.” He bent down again and looked at the gauge.
“John! Don’t do it,” I begged. “He didn’t do anything. Neither did Elizabeth. Kill me!”
He straightened and looked at me, expressionless. “Turn around, Will.”
Wesley’s body contorted as he bucked and pulled against the ropes. Elizabeth was quiet.
I scraped the rope harder and harder. “John, I swear he won’t say anything. Let him go!”
He sighed. “Turn around, Will.”
“No, John. You don’t have to do this. Please!”
“Suit yourself.” He flipped the mask down over his face and walked around the press to the operator’s position, standing behind the metal barricade.
“John!” I screamed. “No!”
A switch clicked. Almost faster than the eye could see, the massive top plate of the press crashed down toward Wesley’s body.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Elizabeth screamed. I squeezed my eyes shut, but not quickly enough to miss the huge steel plate slamming into Wesley. Only my tears kept me from seeing the impact clearly.
I shouted, screamed, swore. “John, I’m going to kill you!” I scraped harder against the tank, ignoring the pain. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”
The top plate lifted off Wesley. His arms and legs hung limply against the sides of the roof press. The rest of him was gone, puddles on the floor, debris on the other machines.
“I swear, John. I’m going to kill you.” I screamed again, an animal scream, as I twisted my wrists, pulling against the rope. “You son of a bitch!”
He walked back around the machine, the mask pulled up from his face. I could just see him through the hair and sweat and tears in my eyes. “Will, I told you to turn around. And if you keep up that racket, I’m going to gag you again.”
“You fucker. You fucker. You’re a dead man, Cooper.” I jerked my head to the side, flipping the hair out of my face. Now I spoke slowly, staring into his eyes. “You are a dead man.” I kept scraping my wrists back and forth. The rope was definitely looser. I had to be close.
He chuckled. “I suppose you’re right about that. I could probably come up with a death certificate to prove it.” He walked around the press, careful to keep his feet out of the blood, freeing the ropes, now loose, that had bound Wesley’s neck, wrists, and ankles to the machine.
I was scraping against raw nerves, cutting into bone, but I kept working the rope against the tank.
Cooper cleared Wesley’s remains from the press with the sweep of one huge arm before effortlessly picking up Elizabeth and placing her on top of it. She squirmed and twisted and screamed while he secured her neck and ankles, then untied the knots on her wrists and bound them to the side of the machine.
I was drenched with sweat, crying from the pain, straining as hard as I could to pull my hands apart.
John finished with the ropes and took a step to the end of the press, looking down into Elizabeth’s face. With a hand caressing her cheek, he said, “Elizabeth, I’m truly sorry. If it helps any, this won’t hurt a bit. I touch a button, and you go to sleep.”
I twisted my wrists again. The rope snapped, and the chain clanked to the floor. John didn’t react. He was leaning over Elizabeth, murmuring softly and stroking her cheek.
I bent down and began to untie my legs. Both my hands were covered in blood. The white of bone showed through the back of my right wrist. I tried to blink away the tears so I could see the knot.
“You shouldn’t have betrayed me, honey,” John said. “And certainly not with Frank.”
She cursed him, shouting strangled epithets into the gag.
The knot fell away. I bolted from the battery room, grabbed an iron rod, and ran at John. When I pulled the rod from the bin, it pinged off another. He looked up, surprised, just in time to see me swinging it at his head.
He got a hand up and tried to duck. The rod glanced off his hand, barely slowing. It caught him above the ear. His head snapped down, and he staggered back a few steps, but somehow kept his feet. Blood poured from a gash on the side of his head. He stood blinking, dazed. I drew the rod back, took a step toward him, and swung again, as hard as I could.
He ducked. The rod whistled over his head. My momentum spun me around, and I slipped on the wet floor. The rod slid out of my bloody hands and clanged away, skittering down the aisle. I caught my balance and ran back to the bin of iron rods. Before I could pull one out, a big fist crashed against my skull.
I fell into the battery room and slid across the floor. John walked through the doorway, an automaton, one slow step after another. I scrabbled to my feet, picked up the chain, and swung it in a circle over my head, faster and faster. John kept coming. When he was close enough, I swung the chain at him with all my strength. He caught it in one massive fist and jerked it away from me.
My eyes darted around the room. A weapon. I needed a weapon.
John advanced on me, backing me into the corner. I feinted one way and went the other, trying to escape from the room, but his hand caught my shirt. He pulled me toward him. I grabbed the edge of the acid tank and held on, kicking at him. He lost his grip and stumbled back a step.
I only had one chance. I shoved back the top of the acid tank, cupped my right hand and dipped it into the acid, then flung it toward John’s head.
The acid splattered against his face, and he bellowed like a wounded bear. My hand felt like it was on fire. John rubbed his face, already becoming red, blistering. I tried to duck around him, but he caught my arm and threw me into the back corner. My head bounced off the wall, and I collapsed. Before I could get up, John grabbed the front of my shirt and lifted me from the floor.
He wrapped both hands around my throat and squeezed while he pushed me back against the wall. I punched him, kicked him in the groin, and ground the acid on my right hand into his eyes. He shook his head and bellowed again, but his grip didn’t slacken. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to pry his fingers off. He squeezed harder. I reached out behind me, hoping to find enough leverage to push him away. My right hand glanced off a charging cable. I began
seeing points of light.
Raw blisters were bubbling up on John’s cheeks and forehead, but his face showed no pain. His mouth was tight but only from the effort of choking the life out of me.
I felt around behind me for the charging board—above me, to the right. My hand searched the board and found the power lever. I switched it on, then reached up with both hands, groping for the cables. I found one and then the other. With my last bit of consciousness, I pulled the cables forward and jammed them against his temples.
Liquid fire poured into my neck. A split second later, a thunderclap hit the room. I flew away from the wall and bounced across the floor. Lines of sparks arced through the air. Smoke poured from the charging board.
I lay on the floor, every muscle in my body snapped taut from the electric shock. Finally they relaxed enough that I could push myself up on an elbow. John lay sprawled on his back against the legs of the acid tank, one arm bent underneath him. He was drenched in blood. I hobbled out of the room to the bin of iron rods, grabbed one, and turned back to John. He hadn’t moved. Smoke drifted up from his hair.
I ran to the roof press and began untying Elizabeth, her eyes wide, tears rolling down the sides of her face. Her dress was dark in spots, wet. I tried to concentrate on the knots. I could barely touch them, blisters popping from the pressure. My hand burned as if inside a blast furnace. Once I’d managed to free her neck and hands, she untied the knots binding her ankles, and we hurried away from the press. When we reached the machining room’s doorway, I dunked my hand in a bucket of water and glanced back, looking for John. The wall blocked my view of most of his body. All that was visible through the door of the old battery room was half of one of his arms, elbow to hand, lying on the floor, fingers splayed out. If he was alive, I saw no evidence of it.
Elizabeth helped me through the factory and out into the cold night.
It was my third day at Grace Hospital when Detective Riordan finally came to see me. I’d tried phoning him several times, desperate to learn the fate of Cooper’s accomplices, but I couldn’t get him on the telephone. The other policemen gave me no information. Of course the newspapers were packed with the Electric Executioner story, but there was no mention of any criminals other than John Cooper. Every article contained the word “irony.” I finally killed the man I’d been accused of murdering.
Elizabeth had been in to see me the day before, to wish me well before she and her mother took an extended recuperative trip to Europe. She didn’t know when they would be back, and I got the impression she didn’t look forward to the return. Her eyes never met mine. In fact she was barely able to look away from my hand, or what was left of it, encased in a thick coating of white paraffin wax.
Shortly after the factory disappeared in the veil of fog, I’d plunged my hand into a wet snowbank until it was numb, though I couldn’t get up the courage to scrub off the acid. That was done an hour later by a doctor who filled me with morphine before cleaning my wounds with a wire brush, amputating what was left of the last knuckle of my fourth and fifth fingers, and finally, to prevent infection, pouring melted wax over the raw, red chancres and exposed bone of my hand and wrist. I had been in and out of a morphine haze ever since, my hand still burning as if on fire.
The raw nerves reminded me of my sins, a reminder Dr. Miller said would be with me twenty-four hours a day for the rest of my life. There was a chance, if I worked hard enough, that I could regain partial use of my hand. Otherwise, it would be little more than a claw.
Detective Riordan stuck his head through the door of my room, an antiseptic white box barely big enough for him to fit. “Good,” he said, “you’re awake.” In the dim light, his scar was almost black.
I shifted in the bed so I could see him more clearly. “Did you catch Sapphira?”
He folded his long winter coat, draped it over the chair back, and leaned against the wall. “No.”
“Did you at least get Vito Adamo and Big Boy?”
He shook his head.
My stomach roiled. “You must be joking.” I could feel my face turning red with anger.
Grimacing, Riordan shrugged. “They went to ground. I doubt Adamo’s even in the country now. But he’ll be back. I’ll find him. And I’ll get that big ape, too.”
“Why didn’t the cops show up at the Bucket?”
“The uniforms don’t go to the Bucket. Adamo pays too much. And they could get hurt.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to calm myself. “That’s quite an organization you work for, Riordan.”
He spread his hands in front of him. “I’m just telling you how it is.”
“What about the Employers Association? John said he was ordered to bribe Judge Hume.”
“That may be. But I doubt they were involved with the killing. Murder isn’t good for business.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Speaking of murder, someone turned in a bag yesterday. Found it frozen into the ice on the river. I’d say you are one lucky guy.”
I hadn’t been thinking of myself in those terms. I cocked my head at Riordan. “Yeah?”
“Sheet, rope, clothes—nice sheet. Looked familiar. I don’t know about thread counts and such, but it’s an expensive one. The kind you might find in the apartment of a swell.”
I just looked at him.
He smiled with the right side of his mouth. The scar side stayed where it was. “But I lost it. Well, actually, somehow it got burned—like you should have done with those clothes of yours. Too bad, huh?”
“That is too bad.”
“No sense confusing things now, right?”
I squinted at him for a second. “No. No sense confusing things.”
Now he smiled with his whole mouth. “I’ve been wrong before.”
“Is that an apology?”
“No,” he said, “just a statement of fact. I’ve got a job to do. I do it as best I can.” He picked up his coat and turned for the door, then hesitated and looked back at me. “You asked me a question before.” He pointed at his scar. “I got this from a Knights of Labor thug when I was a rookie. Just about cut off my head.”
“A union man.”
He nodded. “I was doing my job. Helping out the EAD, you know. But I don’t have any love for them. Or what they do.” He walked to the door, put a calloused hand against the jamb, and said, “We’ve all got secrets, Will. Remember what I said—everyone’s guilty of something.”
I turned over his words in my mind as I watched him walk out the door. Riordan was right. Everyone was guilty of something.
But not everyone had been punished.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While there are many genuine historical characters in this book, it is a work of fiction. I have done my best to make the actions and personalities of the characters consistent with the historical record, but have taken liberties with the particular events that occur in this book. (Note: Detroit Electric was a real and thriving electric car company in 1910, and the mileage records are real, which makes one wonder about the advancements, or lack thereof, in battery technology over the past hundred years.)
Many people are responsible for the good things in The Detroit Electric Scheme. First and foremost, I’d like to thank my early readers—the people who gave me good suggestions and much needed support throughout the writing of this book—Shelly, Nicole, Grace, and Hannah Johnson, and Yvonne Cooper. I can’t thank you enough for the help you’ve given me.
Thanks to the UICA Writers Workshop, the crucible that molded the book to its current form—with particular thanks to Steve Beckwith, who has no qualms about beating my ideas into submission, Albert Bell, whose support and guidance over the past four years has been crucial to whatever success I can claim, and also to Christine Ansorge, Patrick Cook, Greg Dunn, Vic Foerster, Jane Griffioen, Fred Johnson, Norma Lewis, Karen Lubbers, Roger Meyer, Paul Robinson, Dawn Schout, and Nathan TerMolen, as well as the others who orbit the strange planet that is our writers group.
Thanks to M
arc Schupan, who gave me a nudge in the right direction at a crucial time in my life, Galen Handy, the last vestige of Detroit Electric, who so unselfishly shared his time and a wealth of information about the company (and gave me the idea that led to the opening scene), Greg Rapp, for vetting the legal aspects of the story, Emilie Savas and Yvonne Cooper, for medical advice, the Benson Ford Research Center at the Henry Ford Museum, the Detroit Public Library and their National Automotive History Collection, the Michigan State Library, the Detroit Historical Museum, and the Gilmore Car Museum. The information given to me by these people and organizations was priceless. All mistakes are mine.
Thanks to Cherry Weiner for believing the book had potential, and to Daniela Rapp—first of all for liking the book, but also for making the editing process so painless.
Finally, I’d like to thank Loren Estleman, without whose help this book may not have been noticed.
The Detroit Electric Scheme Page 32