Death of a Rainmaker

by Laurie Loewenstein

  It was past midnight when the dark shapes of the camp buildings appeared up ahead. Skirting the gravel entrance road, Ed trotted along a beaten shortcut. It circled around the wood-framed mess hall and latrine, their tar-paper roofs one with the night sky. Four barracks, lined up side by side, faced the flagpole. Ed kept to their backs, his trouser cuffs brushing the dried grass. His old bunkhouse was third from the right. He still had a couple of buddies there. Johnny and Al would know who’d been with Coombs at the bar. Ed stopped at a window, its shutter, hinged at the top, propped open with a long pole. The uneven exhalations of forty fellows sprawled in camp beds met his ears. The revelry grounds were submerged in shadows—no one stirred. The door on the bunkhouse creaked if opened too fast, but Ed knew how to finesse it. Inside it smelled of pine boards and the canine stink of young men in an enclosed space. Johnny’s bunk was third on the left. He was sleeping on his back, mouth wide open and legs splayed, as if he’d collapsed from exhaustion in midsentence. Ed crouched beside his ear.

  “Johnny,” he whispered. When he got no response, he shook his friend’s shoulder. “Johnny.”

  Johnny’s left eye cracked open, then shut.

  “Hey, it’s Ed.”

  Both lids rose slightly. Johnny wiped spit from the corner of his mouth. “What you want?” His voice was thick with sleep.

  “It’s Ed. I need to ask you something.”

  The words penetrated. Johnny pulled back. “What are you doing here?”

  “Working a case.”

  Johnny pushed himself up. “A case? For real?”

  “Quiet down, fellow. This is on the hush-hush for now.”

  “Okay, okay. Gotcha.”

  “I need to ask you something. Saturday night, one of the CCCers got in a fistfight at the Idle Hour. Do you know who it was?”

  “One of our guys?”

  “You haven’t heard anything?” Ed asked, his voice sinking.

  “I was on KP. Stuck in the kitchen washing dishes. Sorry. Say, what’s this about? I heard a body was found in an alley. Is it true? Hot damn! You’re tracking a cold-blooded killer, aren’t you?”

  “I can’t say.” Ed cocked a finger at Johnny. “But you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Is Al still bunking at the end?”

  Johnny nodded.

  “Get some sleep. And keep this quiet,” Ed said, rising.

  As wide awake as Johnny now appeared, he flopped back onto the mattress without protest. Ed could swear he was snoring before he himself was halfway down the aisle.

  Al would be different. While Johnny was an eager farm boy who followed directions, Al was a smart aleck from St. Louie. Ed would have to impress on him the importance of secrecy. If Temple got wind that Ed was pursuing the case on his own, he’d likely be fired on the spot. Ed found Al on his back in his bunk, arms crossed behind his head, staring at the open rafters. He was wearing a sleeveless undershirt, displaying bushy hair in his armpits.

  “I heard you talking to Johnny,” Al said without a glance Ed’s way.

  “Guess I wasn’t being as quiet as I thought.”

  “Guess not.”

  “I need the lowdown on something.”

  Al turned on his side toward Ed, who crouched beside the bunk. Al’s curly hair, greased back with pomade, released its sweetness. “What can I do for you?”

  “Any idea who got in a scrap last night at the Idle Hour?”

  Al drew a toothpick from above his ear and chewed on it reflectively. “Not directly. I was involved in a serious poker game. Went all night,” he said slowly. “But my bet would be on Carmine. A hotheaded kid. Someone said he and his buddies went to town last night to see the fireworks. Haven’t seen him around here since.”

  “Where’s he bunk?”

  “Over in Four. So you got yourself a real job, huh? Has the sheriff got you doing his dirty work—still smashing and bum running?” Al’s brown eyes flicked over Ed’s uniform.

  “There’s some of that. But other stuff too.”

  “You always was a hustler. That’s good. But I myself can’t see staying out here in this hick town for any longer than I have to. I need to get back to St. Louie.” Al yawned. “Anyways, good to see you.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  Ed stepped into the night. Number Four was dark and quiet, same as the others. Problem was, Ed had no idea what Carmine looked like or which bunk was his. And what will I do when I find him? he thought. Maybe the kid would raise a stink and wake up the whole camp. Then Ed would be out of a job for sure. But saving the CCC from a black eye was worth the risk. And Ed felt deep in his gut that a CCCer wouldn’t kill a man. Not when life was looking so much better for him.

  All this cogitation was wasted, however, because Ed didn’t get two steps inside before a heavy hand clamped on his shoulder and a low voice muttered in his ear, “No unauthorized persons permitted in the barracks, McCance.”

  Ed turned. Senior Leader Don Davies loomed above him, his face as pale as cheese. Ed and Davies had never gotten along and the deputy knew there was no use arguing. Davies, twenty-eight, had worked in logging camps and freight yards before the hard times set in. He was the oldest CCCer in camp. Ed decided it was best to leave with speed and silence. Raising his hands in a you win gesture, the deputy turned and strode out. Davies stood in the doorway until Ed reached the road. The deputy had come a long way with nothing to show for it.

  The hike back to town was misery. It felt as if he was toting a knapsack—one of those hand-me-down canvas packs from the soldiers in the Great War. And its leather straps were rotten. And it stank of sweat. And it was packed with rocks.

  Chapter nine

  Right above the toilet, at eye level, was a nail hole from Sheriff Wright’s days. Temple often speculated as to what had hung there. Wright’s razor strop? His wife’s shower cap? Recently, as late middle age exerted its pull, Temple had more time to speculate as he waited for his bladder, or whatever was causing the slowdown, to release. On this morning, the process was particularly protracted and Temple contemplated asking Etha to hang a picture there. His mind moved on to consider his body’s small treacheries as it inched toward sixty. When he slept too long on one side his hip ached the next morning. Taking a wrench to a stubborn bolt left his hand trembling for an hour or so afterward. And when had he fallen into the habit of grunting whenever he rose from a chair? His inner workings awoke at last and Temple finished his morning ablutions.

  Etha, her church dress covered with a clean apron, was in the kitchen scrambling eggs. Normally Sundays found her humming a favorite hymn as she whisked, but this morning she was quiet.

  Temple parked himself at the kitchen table. “I’ll be sorry to miss the service, but Ed and I need to stay on top of this murder.”

  Etha slid a plate of eggs and buttered toast in front of him. “I’ll explain to Reverend Coxey. He’ll understand.” She sat down opposite him with only a cup of coffee.

  “No breakfast? You seem sort of down-at-the-mouth,” Temple said, his own mouth full of egg and toast. “Feeling poorly?”

  Etha waved a hand. “Nothing to worry about. No zip, I guess.”

  “Yeah, we’re not getting any younger. I was thinking on that just now.”

  “Home for supper?”

  “Doubt it.”

  He finished the eggs and put the plate and coffee cup in the sink.

  “You still my old sweetie pie?” he asked, bending down to kiss her powered cheek.

  “’Spect so,” she said, smiling.

  Ten minutes later, as the courthouse clock struck nine, Temple walked through the Maid-Rite’s door. Ed was seated at the counter in wrinkled trousers and with a crease across his cheek. Slept in his clothes and just got up, Temple thought.

  Ernie shoved a brimming coffee cup across the counter. “’Morning. Etha feed you?”

  “Yes indeed. That woman can cook almost as good as you,” Temple said.

  The tw
o older men laughed. Ed stared into his cup.

  “Up late?” Temple asked, turning to his deputy.

  “Sort of.”

  “Finish your coffee, that’ll help. And get your notepad out.”

  “The boy ain’t eaten yet,” Ernie said, his back to them as he worked the grill. He made up a plate of ham and eggs. Then, drawing up a corner of his grease-mottled apron to grip the dish, he plunked it down in front of Ed. As an afterthought, the cook swiped his thumb around the plate’s rim, removing some errant yolk and licking it off.

  Ed glanced at Temple, who nodded. Five minutes later Ed pushed the empty plate aside, belched, excused himself, and opened the notebook. This was another reason Temple had hired Ed straight from the CCC, besides the fact that the kid had gotten his application in so quick. At the interview, Ed had displayed both deference to Temple’s authority and an undercurrent of eagerness.

  Temple began: “All right, Ernie, I think we’re all set. Regarding that body found—”

  “Rainmaker, right?” Ernie interrupted.

  “It’ll be in tomorrow’s paper, so, yes, Mr. Coombs met with foul play. Tell us about the last couple of days here. Beginning Friday night. Who came in, what your routine was. All of it.”

  Ernie rested his arms across the bib of his apron and studied a twist of fly paper and its deceased cargo hanging from the ceiling. “Friday night. Let’s see. Had a good supper crowd. The special was roast beef hash. I ran out by five thirty. Didn’t see Coombs, if that’s what you’re getting at. Undoubtedly ate with the Commercial Club fellows over at the Crystal. Things trickled off by closing time. I cleaned up and was home by eight.”

  Home for Ernie was a three-room apartment over Model Apparel. His proximity to fancy duds, however, had no effect on him. Underneath the tent-size apron, he wore a once-white shirt, brown trousers, and black brogans whose sticky soles emitted ripping noises as he plodded from grill to counter and back.

  Temple sipped his coffee. “Did you get to Coombs’s fireworks?”

  “Nope. And I didn’t put any money up, neither. Rattling every window in town ain’t going to make it rain. Told that to Doll too. He’d come around late Friday afternoon passing the hat.”

  “What time did you open Saturday?”

  “Opened at the usual—six. But got here at five to prep.” A fat fly dived toward the grill. “’Scuse me,” Ernie said, snatching a swatter tucked beside the register and taking aim. The fly dropped to the counter, legs up. The cook pinged it into oblivion with thumb and forefinger.

  “When you opened,” Temple continued, “did you see anyone lurking out back?”

  “Nope. No one later either, besides Chester checking the fire exit.”

  “You sure?”

  Ernie nodded. “My garbage cans are out in the alley. I’m in and out of there at least half a dozen times before lunch. That’s how . . .” He paused and snatched the swatter. “That’s how . . .” Thwack! “Got you,” Ernie bragged to the smashed fly. “That’s how I get so many durn insects in here.”

  Temple laughed. “Point made. Good breakfast crowd?”

  “The regulars. And Coombs showed at maybe . . .” Ernie pursed his lips, twisting them to one side, “maybe ten? Around then. He sat two stools down from where your deputy is planted. Ordered eggs and bacon. Started right in gabbing with the Johnson boys.”

  The Johnsons were brothers who farmed off Route 16. Bachelors in their forties, with morose expressions and sun-bleached blue eyes, they ate breakfast at the Maid-Rite seven days a week. No one knew their first names.

  “Of course, they didn’t say much, but that didn’t faze him. Then Darnell came in and Coombs dropped the Johnsons like they were a sack of alfalfa overrun with weevils. He sweet-talked the money man and then, when Darnell left, he asked if there was an early matinee and I said—”

  Ed broke in, “Did anyone hear him ask about the movie?” Then he caught himself. “Sorry, sheriff. Got excited.” He lowered his head over his notepad.

  Temple grinned. “That’s okay. You’re on track.” He turned to Ernie. “Who might have overheard Coombs? We need to know everyone who was in here then.”

  Ernie scratched his chin. “The Johnson boys for sure. Two teacher ladies from the high school were sitting at the end of the counter. Bill Owens and his kid. A CCCer. I think he was still here then. It’s hard to remember. I know I had two or three farmers come in sometime that morning. No one I knew by name. A couple of them might have been here the same time as Coombs. And, oh yeah, John Hodge and Reverend Coxey. They took up two stools for at least an hour arguing scripture. I normally tell lingerers to move on. But, you know, can’t do that with a lawyer and a clergyman!” Ernie laughed raucously.

  Temple smiled. “Anyone else? Think hard. It’s important.”

  Ernie pressed his lips together and, after a couple of seconds, shook his head. “Can’t think of a one.”

  Temple turned to Ed. “Did you get all those folks?”

  “Yep.”

  “So what did you tell Coombs?”

  “That there was an early-bird matinee every Saturday at quarter to noon. Then I peeped at the clock and said, You’ve got ten minutes.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then he tossed two bits on the counter and left. That was it.”

  “Anyone else leave at the same time?”

  “Don’t think so. I remember putting the money in the register. Clearing away the dirty dishes. Scraping down the griddle for lunch. Then the duster hit. Came out of nowhere. The plates rattled on the shelves and—boom—it was on us. Everyone cleared out straightaway. Throwing change at me on their way out the door. I hustled to fasten the shutters. By the time I got to the last one it was pitch black. I hunkered down behind the counter, just praying the roof would hold. Only tarpaper up there. You know, this was nothing but a lunch wagon when I bought it. Took the wheels off, set it on a foundation, and plumbed it up. Not all that sturdy. When the blowing was over I shook off the dust and checked for damage. Everything held except some porch lattice covering the crawl space. It pulled off on the alley side, but I tacked it up, no problem . . .”

  As Ernie talked, Temple leaned over and rolled a toothpick from the metal dispenser. Picking your teeth was vulgar in Etha’s household. Temple indulged when he was out and about. He pointed the pick at Ernie. “So, I need you to think. Did you take notice of anything out of the ordinary during the storm?”

  The cook snorted. “Hell no! With all that sand and wind? I thought a freight train was busting through town. Clanking, howling, and dark as pitch. There was no way to hear or see anything. Why, if Eleanor Roosevelt herself had blown through the door I’d never had knowed it.”

  Temple smiled again. “All righty. I think that’s all for now.” But something Ernie said jabbed at the back of his mind. An image floated up. His grandmother’s porch. Rocking chairs, ferns—and a skirt of crisscrossing lattice. The crawl space under the porch floor concealed by lattice had made an irresistible hidey-hole for little boys. He asked, “Mind if I take a gander at that lattice you tacked up?”

  “Fine by me. But I’m a cook, not a carpenter. Just so’s you know.”

  The three tramped out the back. Ernie pointed to where the skirting had pulled away. Temple saw some cracks in the wood. He kneeled. “Mind?” he asked Ernie, pulling out a jackknife.

  “Be my guest. Just put it back when you’re done, otherwise there’ll be rabbits nesting there for sure.”

  The three nails eased out and Temple drew back the framework. He stretched out on his belly, knowing Etha would pitch a fit about the dirt on his clothes, and peered into the crawl space. It was surprisingly clean. A low pile of bricks and a couple of stray tin cans were all Temple saw. Then, farther back, he caught a glimpse of something else.

  “Ed, I need your eyes,” Temple said, and the deputy promptly dropped down beside him. “See that there?”

  “What, those bricks?” Ed replied.

  “No. To the
side of them.”

  “Yeah. I see something. Can’t tell what.”

  Temple called over his shoulder to Ernie, “We need a broom.”

  After a couple minutes of unsuccessful fishing with the broom, Ed shoved it aside and wriggled halfway into the cramped underbelly of the Maid-Rite. When he squirmed back out, he was dragging a long wooden handle.

  “Familiar?” Temple asked. And Ernie, wiping his own brow after observing so much exertion, said, “Nope.”

  “We’ll let you get back to your customers, then.”

  “Suits me.” Ernie disappeared inside.

  The lawmen examined the find.

  “Might be the murder weapon. It’s pretty clean. Not been under there long,” Temple said. “Definitely a tool handle. Oak, I’d say.”

  There was a square metal grip at one end. The other was snapped off by a fresh break, with a rust-colored stain on the splintered edges.

  “Could be blood,” Temple said, squinting at the tip.

  Ed’s stomach dropped. He’d clutched many a handle like it in the corps. It was an army entrenching tool, another Great War castoff that the CCC inherited. He recognized it right off, despite the missing shovel blade.

  “From a pick or a hoe, maybe,” Temple was saying. “What do you think?”

  Ed shrugged, not trusting his voice and dodging an outright lie.

  Temple used Ed’s handkerchief to lift it by the steel grip, dark with age. He knew a few things about tools. His grandfather had owned a hardware store in Johnstown, at the base of Pennsylvania’s share of the Allegheny Mountains. As a kid, he spent Saturdays roaming its cluttered aisles, learning the trade. Each week, he’d been drilled by Grandpa Jennings on its sprawling inventory. The first lesson had been memorizing the types and sizes of shovels—the narrow post-hole spades, the general-use shovels with their broad blades, and the short-handled scoops for grain. By the time he was eleven, Temple had worked his way up to the saws. And then came the great flood, the roiling wave of water, silt, uprooted trees, and drowned cattle that crashed down the mountain and into the valley. As the first alarms had sounded, Temple, his ma, and his little sister Nan had scrambled up the attic stairs of their house on Green Hill, above the city proper. He’d crept to the gable window and caught glimpses of the Little Conemaugh River bucking and roaring out beyond the railroad tracks. A torrent of muddy water inundated the shops, churches, and his school. Grandpa’s store, with its red tin roof, began to list. The flood swept away Johnstown’s houses, schools, and churches. And Grandpa’s store. And Grandpa himself.