“Where’s the rest of your men?” Dad demanded of Officer Burns. “Surely you don’t expect to handle this gang single-handed?”
“Aren’t you a bit mixed up?” the policeman drawled.
“Mixed up?”
“I’m here on a routine inspection. This is winter cold storage for local fruit growers, or didn’t you know?”
“Fruit?” Dad said.
“Those crates may claim to contain fruit,” I announced as I emerged from the shadows with Jack at my elbow, “but I don’t for one minute believe it. I’d bet my life on those crates being full of bootleg whiskey.”
“It’s a fruit distribution hub for the whole region,” Officer Burns said. “A few weeks ago, a couple of truckloads of pears were hauled away by thieves, so the warehouse owner requested that we make routine nightly checks.”
“Guess we’ve been tricked,” Dad muttered. “We were told this place is a distribution hub, but not for fruit. We heard from a reliable source that it’s a front for a major bootleg liquor operation.”
“That’s a laugh,” Officer Burns said. “Who told you that yarn?”
“I can’t divulge my source.”
“Well, you sure were taken for a ride,” the policeman said derisively. “Mr. Fielding, why not let the police handle the crooks while you look after your newspaper business? You’ve not been yourself since you were in that auto accident.”
I resented the implication that Dad wasn’t in full command of his mental faculties—although Officer Burns wasn’t far off the mark—but I allowed the remark to pass without protest. There seemed nothing left to do but bid Carl Burns a chilly goodbye and return to the iceboat.
“We’ve made ourselves ridiculous,” Dad commented bitterly as we shoved off downriver. “Taken in by Seth Bates.”
“He probably lied to get rid of us and buy himself some time,” Jack said. “By now he’s probably removed every trace of liquor from Matilda’s garage.”
I was far less convinced that Mr. Bates had been lying, but there seemed little point in saying so. I wasn’t for one second buying Officer Burns’ insistence that we’d been standing haplessly investigating a warehouse full of fruit.
My father lapsed into a moody silence.
I handled the Icicle without much thought. We flew over the ice, our runners throwing up a powdery dusting of snow.
Then, without warning, the Icicle struck something frozen into the surface of the ice. Before I could make a move, the runners leaped from the surface. The boat tilted to a sharp angle and went over.
I felt myself sliding. Snow filled my mouth and packed the sleeves of my coat. I just managed to retain possession of my cap, which now hung over one ear. Laughing shakily, I scrambled to my feet.
Jack was on his feet, brushing down his snow-crusted overcoat.
Dad had not been so lucky. He was sprawled flat on the ice a few yards away, completely still. Terrified, I ran to him and grasped his arm.
“Dad! Speak to me!”
My father stirred slightly. He raised a hand and rubbed his head. Slowly he pulled himself to a sitting position.
“Jane—” he mumbled, staring at me.
“Yes, Dad.”
“It’s come to me—in a flash.”
“What has, Dad?” I asked, wondering how badly my father had been stunned.
“I still can’t remember any of the evidence I had in my portfolio, but I remember where I hid a second copy of the evidence. It’s down in the basement at home, wrapped up in an old feed sack under that heap of old milk bottles next to the boiler.
“If we find the copy,” said Jack, “We’ll know every man who was mixed up in the bootleg scheme. You told me so yourself, on the day of your accident.”
Gripping my hand, Dad pulled himself to his feet. Still giddy, he staggered and caught the iceboat for support.
Then recovering, he exclaimed: “We’ve got to go back there right away.”
“Where have we got to go back to, Dad?”
“To the warehouse. I can’t remember how or why, but I’m certain we’ve been tricked. It’s all a bit hazy, but I’m overcome with a strong conviction that it’s not Seth Bates who has pulled the wool over our eyes. I have a niggling suspicion that Officer Burns was one of the men I intended to expose.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
We had no definite plan as we raced back to the warehouse in the iceboat. Our only thought was to return and somehow prevent the escape of the bootleggers.
I slowed the Icicle to a standstill near the warehouse. We leaped out and climbed the slippery bank. Just as we reached the top, a loaded truck started to pull away from the building.
“We never can stop those men now,” I gasped.
“Yes, we can,” my father cried. “A police car is coming, and this time I doubt it’s being driven by Officer Burns.”
As he spoke, a police car skidded into the driveway. Detective Dalton was at the wheel, and four other policemen were with him.
“Stop that truck,” Jack yelled.
“Don’t let it get away,” shouted Dad.
“It’s got bootleg liquor on board,” I added, although I couldn’t be certain I spoke the truth.
Detective Dalton and his four companions leaped from the police car. As the loaded truck started off with a roar, another police car rounded the corner of the warehouse, blocking the truck’s remaining avenue of escape, unless the driver fancied going off the road and attempting to plow through waist-high snowdrifts.
“Halt!” shouted Detective Dalton.
The patrol cars had engaged both their sirens and their lights. There was no chance that the driver of the truck had simply failed to notice the presence of the police.
Detective Dalton raised his gun and fired twice. The bullets pierced the rear tires of the truck. Air whistled out and the rubber slowly flattened.
For a few yards, the truck wobbled on, then stopped. Two detectives leaped for the cab.
“All right, get out!” ordered Detective Dalton, covering the men.
The truck driver and two others slouched sullenly out of the cab. As flashlights swept their faces, I recognized one of the men.
“That’s Horace Franklin,” I identified the driver.
“And this man is Ham Mollinberg, a brother of Ropes,” said Jack, indicating a red-faced fellow in a leather jacket.
“The man beside him is Al Brancomb, wanted for skipping parole,” one of the detectives added.
“Any others in the warehouse?” demanded Detective Dalton.
“There should be,” I said. “Where’s Officer Burns?”
“Burns?” questioned one of the detectives. “He’s had the whole week off to care for his mother who’s ill.”
Burns’ mother certainly would be ill when she found out what her upstanding officer-of-the-law son had been up to, but I seriously doubted that was the reason Burns had taken leave that week.
“We have very good reason to believe that Carl Burns is in league with the bootleggers,” I said.
“I planned to consult the prosecutor before I spread the story on the Examiner’s front page,” Dad added. “You boys have done good work in Greenville, and I didn’t want to make the department look bad.”
“Burns, eh?” Detective Dalton repeated. “We’ll find out what he has to say.”
The policeman, however, was not to be apprehended so easily. Four men, including Ropes Mollinberg, were captured inside the warehouse. Burns had left the building some minutes earlier.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get him,” Detective Dalton promised Dad. “How about these other eggs? Can you identify them?”
“They’re all members of the same outfit,” Dad said without hesitation, although I was certain he was operating on pure instinct, rather than knowledge. “I spent weeks watching these men and getting wise to their methods.”
I was certainly looking forward to reviewing the contents of those papers my father had hidden in our basement, and Dad must be
doubly anxious to regain his command of the details surrounding the case.
“Are you willing to testify against them?”
“I certainly am,” Dad said firmly.
We remained at the warehouse until the handcuffed prisoners had been taken away. We were jubilant over the capture. Not only would the gang of bootleggers be broken up, but the Examiner had achieved another exclusive front-page story.
We returned home, and within an hour, a call came through that Officer Burns had been taken into custody. Evidence piled up rapidly against the policeman. Later on, it definitely was established that he had accepted money from Ropes Mollinberg. He was stripped of his badge and put behind bars.
Police were not compelled to search the Mortimer garage. Before they could act, Seth Bates came voluntarily to Central Station, offering to make a clean breast of his part in dealing liquor in violation of the Volstead Act. Both he and Matilda were held as witnesses against the higher-ups in the gang of bootleggers.
“Will Matilda be kept in jail long?” I asked my father.
“I doubt it,” he replied. “Apparently, all evidence suggests that Seth acted alone in smuggling liquor. Since he’s showing a disposition to cooperate with police, he’ll probably escape with only a heavy fine.”
As if pleasant surprises never would end, still another came my way. The team of mechanics ministering to Bouncing Betsy notified me that my beloved car was once again roadworthy.
“You’re much better off than I,” Dad teased me. “Your car now is in running order again. Mine will be in the garage for at least another week. I’m stuck with the repair bill, too, even though the police ruled that I was not at fault for the accident.”
“Perhaps a visit to Lester Jones is in order,” I suggested. “The real Lester Jones, I mean. You were thinking of buying a new coupe anyway before all this happened.”
“I hate to spend the money,” said my father.
“Won’t you have some compensation coming to you?” I asked.
“Not unless the hit-and-run driver is found, and I’m afraid he never will be,” my father said. “I’ll always believe the men who crowded me off the road were hired by the bootleggers. No way to prove it, though.”
“What about Mrs. Rigley? Have you decided what you’ll do about her?”
“Mrs. Rigley?”
“Yes, so far you’ve placed no formal charge against her.”
Dad smiled as he reached for the night edition of the Examiner. The paper carried not only an account of the roundup at Jones’s Warehouse but a full confession from Mrs. Rigley.
“I bear the woman no ill will,” he said. “She’s already lost her position as caretaker at the Deming estate. That’s punishment enough, as far as I’m concerned.”
“What about Mr. Pim?” I asked. “Was he in league with the bootleggers? The papers you intended to take to the prosecutor didn’t even mention him.”
The evening of the warehouse raid, we’d gone straight home and unearthed the papers my father had hidden next to the boiler. They’d proved to be fascinating reading, but nary a word about Pim.
“Pim? He had nothing to do with the bootleggers,” my father said. “Pim’s a natural-born coward. He likes to snoop and throw his weight around, that’s all. Let’s forget him.”
Mrs. Timms entered the living room with a glass of milk. When she tried to compel Dad to drink it, he complained that he no longer was an invalid.
“Now drink your milk like a good lad,” I scolded. “You know you’re still as thin as a ghost.”
With a wry face, Dad gulped down the drink.
“Let’s not speak of ghosts,” he pleaded. “I’m well now, and I don’t like to be reminded of those disgraceful night-shirt parades.”
“Are you sure you’re perfectly well?” I teased.
“Of course, I am. My memory is as good as it ever was.”
“Haven’t you forgotten a rather important personal matter which needs to be resolved?” I asked.
Dad looked puzzled.
I looked pointedly over at Mrs. Timms, who had turned the color of a ripe tomato.
Then light broke over my father’s face.
“Don’t tell me we’d set a date for the wedding, and I’ve forgotten all about it? I wasn’t supposed to have shown up at the church last Saturday complete with rings and boutonniere, surely?”
“No, Dad,” I said soothingly. “But don’t you think it’s high time you center-aisled it with the woman who’s stuck by your side through sickness and health?”
The End
The Jane Carter Historical Cozies Box Set 2 Page 60