A Spark of Death

by Bernadette Pajer

  It unfolded as if before his eyes. The trap had been set for President McKinley. But McKinley’s visit was canceled and so Oglethorpe had been convinced to play the part of the President, to sit in the chair before the Machine holding the bulb aloft. Then the trap had been sprung, the line energized and released, falling down toward Oglethorpe. He’d reflexively thrust up his hand as protection and dropped the bulb. His palm had touched the wire, and the high voltage had burned him and caused every muscle in his body to contract, to make him leap away.

  The live wire hit the floor, and the high voltage spilling from the shattered inked end of the wire did what power line current always does—it went to ground. It sought the earth in order to complete the path back to its source. The concrete floors were unable to provide protection under such conditions. The voltage was greatest where the wire touched the floor, growing weaker in concentric circles, creating something lethal called step-potential. Like the ripples on a pond when a rock is dropped into its center, the electric ripples spread upon the floor, and Oglethorpe standing with his feet apart—well, those ripples would move through him, pushing current through his flesh, up one leg and down the other. A current strong enough to stop his heart, but not strong enough to scorch his shoes or leave any other trace of evidence.

  Bradshaw took a deep breath.

  There had been two parallel human circuits after all. A harmless one involving Henry Pratt and Artimus Lowe and oil stock. Marion Oglethorpe, by pointing out the newspaper article, and by her unusual relations with Dr. Swenson, had been a part of that harmless circuit, distracting Bradshaw from seeing the truth.

  ***

  Bradshaw climbed the stairs two at a time to his office, pulled his grade-book from his desk drawer, and ran an unsteady finger down the names.

  Daulton, Oscar. Weekly Exam: A.

  He closed his eyes and put himself back in his chair at home with Daulton’s exam paper. He concentrated until he could see Daulton’s spidery handwriting, the neat diagrams, and then the final answer to the final question circled in pencil. A circle the same shade of black as the rest of the exam. And below, the words inscribed by every student at the completion of the exam, swearing his honesty. This oath, however, was of a darker shade, for Oscar Daulton had been using Bradshaw’s own pencil. This was the only writing Daulton had put on the paper after he snapped his pencil in two.

  ***

  He found Sara Trout studying in the attic library, Glen Reeves in an English class, mangling Shakespeare. He brought them both back to his office where they sat like frightened grammar school children on the edge of their chairs.

  “Oscar Daulton intentionally stalled while taking his test last Thursday. He finished his exam on time, yet he pretended he had not. He was so nervous, he broke his pencil. He waited until the building lights fluctuated, until I was sure to become curious enough to go down to the lab. Why?”

  “We’ve no idea,” said Reeves unconvincingly. Miss Trout kept her head down. “Why are you asking us?”

  “Why did Miss Trout faint on Monday, in Oglethorpe’s office, when I mentioned the idea of an accomplice to his murder?”

  Reeves looked helplessly at Miss Trout.

  “Is there some medical condition which is making you prone to fainting, Miss Trout?”

  She shook her head and turned that mottled red he’d witnessed the other day.

  “Are you in the family way?”

  She made a squeaking gasp.

  Reeves jumped to his feet. “Really, sir. There’s no call for you to be so rude.”

  Bradshaw waved him back into the chair. “I’m merely trying to determine the truth. You both led me to believe you’d had a rendezvous in the woods last Thursday, what else am I to think? And if you weren’t having a dalliance in the woods, then where were you? Oscar Daulton had help framing me for Oglethorpe’s death.”

  “No, Professor Bradshaw, we didn’t mean to frame you, we thought we were saving you—”

  “Sara!”

  “Mr. Reeves, let her speak.”

  Miss Trout rushed on anxiously. “I never went to the hut with Glen, Professor. I’ve never been to any hut with any boy, you must believe me. It was the only thing we could think of that would stop you from asking more questions. It was Glen’s idea and I never should have agreed, it wasn’t his reputation at stake.”

  “Where were you then?”

  “In the lab. We’d gone down to get supplies for our exhibit projects. When we saw Oglethorpe on the floor of the lab, such a short time after he’d gotten that note from you, we thought you’d killed him. We could understand why, of course, Oglethorpe was so evil, especially toward you. We didn’t want you to go to jail! We still don’t!”

  “But I didn’t kill him.”

  Miss Trout didn’t look as if she believed him. She said, “Oscar was there, too, when we found Oglethorpe and so we came up with the plan of putting Oglethorpe in the cage and turning on the Machine so it would look like an accident, only we couldn’t find a safety key to turn it on.”

  “Oscar was with you? Do you mean he arrived with you?”

  “No, Glen and I arrived together, and then Oscar was there. I don’t remember exactly how it all happened, we were too shocked at seeing Oglethorpe dead on the floor. We were so afraid you’d done it. We told Oscar to go on to your class and to not let you leave until he saw the lights flicker and he knew the Machine was on and then you’d have a witness to your whereabouts. It never occurred to us the police would be involved or that there’d be a coroner’s inquest.”

  Reeves said, “It was my fault it took so long. I had to get into Oglethorpe’s office when no one was looking, and then when I finally got in, I searched everywhere but couldn’t find the key to the Machine.”

  Miss Trout said, “I thought I’d die, waiting down in the lab. And then Glen came back without the key and we realized where it must be. We had to go through Oglethorpe’s pockets. It was so horrible. And then Artimus Lowe came in before we could get the Machine turned on, and we had to hide. We thought he might ruin everything by saying he saw Professor Oglethorpe dead before the Machine was on, but he wasn’t even called to testify. Poor Glen was. I don’t think I could’ve survived that witness chair. But I’d testify in a heartbeat, Professor Bradshaw, to save you from prison.”

  “I thank you for your loyalty, Miss Trout, but in every possible way your plan has only made things worse. Why did you suppose I was investigating the matter?”

  She said earnestly, “So you would look innocent. And we, Glen and I, thought you must have been going crazy trying to figure out who moved the body, but we couldn’t tell you.”

  He looked at their earnest faces, oddly flattered that they thought him capable of murder and warmed by their loyalty.

  “You both must immediately go to the police.”

  He listened patiently as they argued, tripping over each other’s pleadings for him to not be foolish, to not abandon them and their fellow students, to have a mind toward his future and their own.

  “Mr. Reeves, Miss Trout, for the last time, I promise you, I did not kill Professor Oglethorpe. But I know who did, and I need you to go to the police and withhold nothing. I’m not sure what sort of crime you have committed, but your voluntary admission will surely help toward leniency.” He took a sheet of paper from his desk and wrote quickly, then sealed the note in an envelope.

  “Ask to see Detective O’Brien, and give him this note. I can trust you both to do as I ask?”

  Miserable but defeated, they nodded, and Bradshaw let them go.

  He sat for a quarter hour in his office in silence, until he could put it off no longer. It was time to face a young man brilliant enough to invent a revolutionary electrical device, and disturbed enough to use that device to kill.

  ***

  “Thank yo
u.” Bradshaw gave a polite but dismissive nod to the resident custodian, an elderly gentlemen, who’d let him into Oscar Daulton’s dorm room.

  The custodian shuffled in place. “Maybe you should wait downstairs, Professor.”

  “Here will be best, thank you.”

  “He’s a good boy, that Oscar. Well-mannered. Doesn’t cause a lot of nonsense like most of them do.”

  Bradshaw didn’t comment.

  “He served in the war, in the Philippines.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Made a man of him, in my opinion. His freshman year, before he went off to fight, he was sulky, kept to himself, angry with the world if you ask me. Well, life’s been hard on him, often is on the weak. I don’t think he gets much attention from his family. Never seen one of them here.”

  “No?”

  “You’d think at least one of them would stop by, wouldn’t you? Mom or Dad, one of the brothers. He’s the middle of seven. But he doesn’t seem to mind. Like I said, since he came back from the war, he’s got a new pride about him. Like he’s found his place in the world. And he’s got his books and his motors. He’s awful smart, that Oscar. Awful smart.”

  “The cleverest of his class.”

  “Is he now? I believe it. Well, I’ll leave you to wait. It’s not about a new job, is it?”

  “I just need to speak with him.”

  The steward scratched an ear. “He was counting on that money he was earning to go to Buffalo this summer.”

  “Buffalo?”

  “He was hoping to get to see the Pan-American Exhibition. He was disappointed when President McKinley canceled his plans to come here. Oscar hopes to see him in Buffalo. But after that fire at the tent factory last night, he’s out of work until he can find something else. But he’s a bright boy. He’ll find something.” The custodian left then, keeping the door open.

  Bradshaw put his hands in his trouser pockets and stood in the center of the braided rug, in the center of the room. The narrow bed against the wall was neatly made. Above it was a Seattle Sundodgers’ pennant and a framed military certificate. Beneath the window was a desk, textbooks piled to one side, a writing blotter in the center. Against the other wall was a dresser upon which stood a shaving set, mug, brush, and razor folded into its celluloid handle. The razor strop hung from a hook on the side of the dresser. Beside the shaving set was a model ship with three sails.

  Bradshaw’s stomach did a nauseating flip. How ordinary the room looked. It could belong to any boy going to college, any boy who had hopes and dreams. And fears. It could be, in a few year’s time, Justin’s room.

  Bradshaw crossed the room to the door and quietly closed it. Then he began a slow, methodical search.

  On the floor, lined against the wall, sat a disassembled electric fan, a working model Ferris wheel, and a few chem lab glass vessels. He looked into the dresser drawers, under the bed, inside the wardrobe. He found nothing out of the ordinary, nothing incriminating. Oscar’s exhibition project, the baffling, revolutionary cigar box that, perhaps, stepped up D.C. voltage was missing. Where else would the boy store it?

  By the window, a framed quotation caught his eye: “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.” No source was given, but Bradshaw recognized those famous words. They were the last spoken by anarchist August Spies before his hanging.

  No, never Justin’s room.

  He moved to the nightstand and picked up the small book resting there, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Not the sort of book one found easily. Bradshaw had seen only portions of it; passages of sensual poetry and provoking irony that were hand-copied and handed secretly around when he was in school. The leather was worn from use, and the book fell open to a marked page.

  Respondez! Respondez!

  (The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled beyond recall;)

  Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade!

  Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking?

  Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles;

  Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions!

  Let the old propositions be postponed!

  Let faces and theories be turn’d inside out! let meanings be freely criminal, as well as results!

  Such bold, radical prose. What appeal did it have to a brilliant young man like Oscar Daulton? A boy weak in body and nerve, as the custodian said, yet so very strong of mind? A boy who had put on a uniform to fight for his country and seen death and brutality Bradshaw knew he could not, and would not let himself, imagine? Oscar had been changed by his war experience. The custodian had seen it. Bradshaw had seen the change but not truly noted it until after the boy’s stunning Exhibition presentation. Whitman’s appeal had been power. His writing inspired the notion that the weak need not accept being bullied by the strong. That physical strength did not equate to moral justice. It would be but a short step to the precepts of anarchism. Oscar had taken that step with religious zeal. Bullied all his life, traumatized by war, he’d found an ideology that at last gave him control.

  He’d turned his genius against McKinley, then used his foiled trap to kill Oglethorpe. It took no stretch of the imagination to understand why Oscar had hated Oglethorpe. Next he’d used his lethal device on the Pinkerton guard who’d come to Seattle to protect those with money and power, and yesterday, he’d killed his own employer at the tent factory, who’d refused to let the workers organize for fair wages. All of them had been typical anarchist targets—and, except for McKinley, all personal enemies of Oscar.

  But he had forgotten a victim. He’d forgotten himself. He was not Oscar’s enemy. He’d considered himself rather a mentor. Oscar had always come to him for help. So why had Oscar tried to send him over the falls? Because the police had considered him a suspect. His death would have been considered a suicide, and thus an admission of guilt. And the investigation into Oglethorpe’s death would have been closed.

  Bradshaw had not died, but no more attempts had been made on his life. Why? Because the police, as far as the public was concerned, had another suspect. Artimus Lowe. This morning, Lowe had been set free on bail. It had been in the papers.

  A wave of fear as cold as the Snoqualmie River flooded Bradshaw. He threw open the door and shouted for the custodian. The elderly gentlemen came at a slow trot down the hall.

  “What time did Oscar go out today? Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know, rightly. I didn’t see.”

  “Where’s your telephone?”

  “Down in the first floor hall.”

  Bradshaw was already running down the stairs; the palm of his hand burned and squealed on the newel post as he used it to fling himself around the corner. He grabbed the phone’s receiver, fumbled it, then pressed it to his ear.

  “What number please?”

  “I don’t know. The Lincoln Hotel. It’s urgent. Please hurry.”

  “Yes, sir. Just a moment please. Yes, here you are.”

  It seemed an eternity before the line was picked up. “Lincoln Hotel Apartments, Mr. Randall speak—”

  “I need to speak to Artimus Lowe. Is he in?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you know where he is? Has another student been to see him? By the name of Oscar Daulton? Thin, nervous type, hair falling into his eyes?”

  “I know nothing, sir. Even if I did know, I couldn’t say. We have strict privacy policies at the Lincoln. You can sit outside the hotel with the other reporters and wait.”

  “I’m not a reporter! This is urgent, a matter of life or death.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Mr. Randall sounded bored. “Do you wish to leave a message?”

  Bradshaw s
lammed down the receiver. A waft of cool air came down the hall from the open front door. The custodian came through, pulling another man from the porch with him. This middle-aged man wore a soiled white cook’s apron and was smoking a cigarette. He waved the cigarette at Bradshaw. “You looking for young Daulton?”

  “Have you seen him? Where? When?”

  “Oh, ‘bout half an hour ago. He came to the kitchen over in the women’s hall, borrowed a picnic basket and made a few sandwiches.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “West Seattle. Going on a picnic to cheer up a friend.”

  West Seattle. The ferry. Another drowning.

  Bradshaw ran out the door, leaped off the porch without slowing to take the stairs, and sprinted across the expanse of lawn toward the Administration Building that glinted in the sunlight. He grabbed his bicycle from the rack and stood on the pedals to race toward 15th Avenue.

  For the next four and a half miles, Bradshaw was aware of nothing but his goal and defeating the obstacles in his way. He plunged down the center of the roads, evading traffic in both directions. He snubbed the warning sign giving streetcars the right of way across the wooden trestle of the Latona Bridge and escaped collision by a mere three yards. His bones jolted over cobblestones, his muscles flamed up the hills, and his lungs exulted on stretches of fresh asphalt. He dodged horses and wagons, carriages and pedestrians. At intersections he said a prayer but didn’t slow down, despite policemen blowing whistles or clanking streetcars screeching their warnings. On the blessedly steep hills of the city, he flew down toward the waterfront, both wheels airborne for seconds at time as he crested the avenues. As he descended, the traffic grew heavier, the intersections riskier. He scattered screaming pedestrians on Third Avenue, toppled another bicyclist on Second, was nearly flattened on First, and caused a minor wreck on Western that he didn’t turn around to inspect. When he hit Railroad Avenue, the final major obstacle, he skidded to a halt, unable to penetrate the tangle of delivery wagons and freight trains. He abandoned his bicycle to finish the race on foot, ignoring the shouts and curses from those he pushed out of his way. The noise was deafening—the traffic, the construction—and the smell ripe with oil and creosote and the rank tide flats.