Death of a Rainmaker

by Laurie Loewenstein

  “Maybe.”

  “Let’s run through it again. Watch my fingers and try to match my rhythm.”

  By the time they zipped through the sixth run-through, Carmine was swaying side to side and, Etha noticed, his eyes were clearer.

  “Again!” Etha shouted, and Carmine stomped his foot three times to get them started. They were generating speed and bringing it home—

  “What in the hell is going on?” Temple thundered, striding across the room and grabbing Carmine by the arm. “Are you crazy, Etha? He’s been arrested for murder. Bashed a man’s brains in. He could have done the same to you just now.”

  “He wouldn’t!” The words burst from Etha’s mouth.

  Temple pushed Carmine back toward the kitchen.

  Etha wailed, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  Temple turned, his lips pressed into a tight line. “This kid is accused of murder. I don’t know why you can’t get that through your head.”

  She opened her mouth to reply but no words came out. He gave DiNapoli another shove and the boy stumbled forward into the cell. After locking it, Temple moved to hang the key on its hook, but paused, then pocketed it instead. Slamming the apartment’s outer door, he stomped down the front steps flushed with rage.

  Out on the broad granite steps of the courthouse, he lit a cigarette. His hand shook. Usually in late afternoon, the air softened so that the ever-present dust on the cars and awnings took on a velvety nap. But today the sun reflected harshly off cars and sidewalks. Temple ground out the butt until it was nothing but a mush of tobacco and shredded paper. He lit another. Letting DiNapoli out of the lockup to roam freely in their house. Playing a hootenanny with him, for God’s sake. What was Etha thinking? Temple snorted. He knew exactly what she was thinking. She’d mixed up DiNapoli with Jack somehow. I’ll be damned if I see it, he thought. She’s talking herself into something that isn’t there. DiNapoli’s nothing more than a city tough. And hotheaded to boot.

  Temple’s anger was still at full boil when two black sedans, heavy as tanks, rolled up the street from Route 34. The rangers and their captives had arrived. Temple shouted for Ed to open the cellblock, then hurried to wave the sedans into the courthouse lot. The first car was driven by a lanky ranger in a frayed dress shirt and trousers. There was another lawman in the front passenger seat and, in the back, two more sandwiching a slumped and shackled prisoner. Temple’s first thought was that the convict, who he didn’t recognize, must be sweltering, packed like a steer in a crowding pen—the final stage before the chute and slaughter floor. The second car had an identical set of passengers. Except Temple knew the criminal right off. Alvin “Old Creepy” Karpis was well known to most lawmen. Once the hand brakes were yanked on the sedans, the cars emptied, with the drivers and passengers flexing themselves.

  “Long drive?” Temple asked the lawman who was approaching, hand extended, with a gold Texas Ranger badge glinting on his shirt pocket.

  “You can say that again. I went to spit and it turned to steam before hitting the asphalt. I’m Captain Yarbrough.”

  Temple grinned. “Sheriff Temple Jennings. Welcome to Oklahoma.”

  “Not much different than Texas. So, you all set to show our lodgers to their rooms?”

  The lawmen closed ranks around their prisoners and followed Temple into the courthouse. The drivers stayed in the shade of a cottonwood as the sedans’ radiators cracked and cooled.

  It took awhile to get to the top floor as Yarbrough refused to unshackle the prisoners’ ankles. “Those two,” he said, jabbing a finger toward Old Creepy and Flanagan, “can’t be trusted. If given half a chance, they’ll leg it for sure. Those irons stay put until we turn them over to the feds. Then this pair is their problem.”

  Ed, his face tense, led the prisoners to the two cells at either end of the block. When Creepy was secured, Ed’s eyes darted to Temple, who gave a slight nod of reassurance. Flanagan, just a kid with barely enough whiskers to grow a downy mustache, crumpled in a heap on the bunk, awkwardly drawing his knees up to his chest. Creepy toured his cell as if he was deciding whether to move in or not. He fingered the woolen blanket, flushed the john, and twisted the tap this way and that. Then, with a disturbing grin, from whence his nickname came, he said, “Got a complaint here about the blanket. I’m allergic to wool.”

  Yarbrough, ignoring the remark, directed the four rangers to take the first watch—two inside the jail and two standing in the hallway. As Creepy continued to make a case about the blanket, Yarbrough turned to Temple and Ed, gesturing them toward the outer door.

  “Got a good setup here. I appreciate your cooperation.”

  Temple nodded. “I’ll ask my wife to make some sandwiches for your men. And I’ve arranged for two rooms at the boarding house a couple of blocks from here so you all can rest up between shifts.”

  Yarbrough extended his hand. “Thank you kindly.” He began to turn away when Temple grabbed his arm.

  “One other thing. My wife and I live right here.” He pointed to the apartment door. “I’d appreciate it if you would advise your men of that. It makes me nervous, I’ll admit, to have those two only a wall away from my Etha.”

  Yarbrough grinned. “Don’t you worry. My fellows are as sharp as they come. Handpicked for this detail. You can sleep sound tonight. You’ve got my word on it.” The captain then said to Ed, “Tell the drivers I’m on my way.”

  As Ed hustled down the stairs, Temple chuckled. “This is his first encounter with professional killers. I’m betting he’s happy as a clam that he won’t be sleeping here tonight.”

  * * *

  Earlier, after Temple had roughly deposited Carmine back in the lockup and stomped out, Etha had first retreated to the bathroom. When she finally emerged, blanched and drawn, Carmine was on the bunk facing the wall. Seeing the curls budding at his neckline where his haircut was growing out made her weepy. Oh for goodness sake, she admonished herself. She had come down to the empty courtroom below the apartment to pull herself together. After a good long cry she blew her nose and felt better. It was then she heard Temple talking on the landing outside the courtroom. She opened the door a crack.

  “. . . and I’m sure he’ll get right on it,” Temple was saying to a uniformed man who nodded and jogged down the steps.

  Etha opened the door wider. “We need to talk.”

  Startled, Temple pivoted. “What? What are you doing there?”

  “Needed a quiet place to think. We need to—”

  “This is not a good time. I’m right in the middle of something, and besides that, I’m still mad as hell. I don’t want to say something I’ll regret.” His cheeks reddened.

  “It’s important. You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”

  “Give me five minutes. The Texas Rangers brought in their prisoners and I need to make sure everything’s nailed down.”

  Etha covered her lips with her hand. “I forgot all about that.”

  “So now you can understand why I’m pressed.” He descended the steps, his footfalls echoing heavily down the stairwell.

  It was not five but a full thirty minutes before Temple reappeared. He slid a chair out and sat at the table across from his wife. “Okay. Shoot.”

  “First off, I want to apologize again for letting Carmine out of the cell. That was foolish and—”

  “I don’t give a damn about the foolish part. I care about the danger. You don’t seem to be able to get it through your head that DiNapoli is accused of crushing another man’s skull in, and who’s to say he wouldn’t have done the same to you and then run off?”

  “I know he wouldn’t do that. He’s not a killer.”

  Temple squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s bad enough you put yourself in danger, but when I can’t trust that you will obey the workings of my office, when it is clear you have taken to deciding on your own who is innocent and who is guilty, then I am pushed way past my limit. It is for the judge and jury to decide DiNapoli’s fate. It is my job, not yours
, to gather the evidence and make the case.”

  Etha felt as if she were young child receiving a scolding. “That may be true. But this time, you got it wrong. I’ve been doing some checking and the story you have built up about Carmine has holes in it.”

  Neither spoke. The regulator clock mounted behind the judge’s bench ticked loudly. Etha slapped her hands on the desk. “So,” she began, dropping into a softer tone, “Saturday, when I borrowed the car, I didn’t go where I said. I had got it into my head to take dinner to the tramps out by the tracks. Foolish. I know. But seeing a youngster begging at the back door of Ernie’s got me going. I pulled into the camp with boxes of fried chicken, sugar, and coffee. I almost turned around, I was that scared. But when Carmine and another boy trotted over, eager and hungry, the heebie-jeebies vanished. There must have been twenty tramps, at least half of them just teenagers or even younger, hunkered around a fire. You should have seen them dig into my chicken! I stayed awhile. Carmine tooted on the harmonica and someone else brought out a bottle and I took a sip or two. It felt good to let loose.”

  Temple tilted back in his chair. “Go on.”

  “Anyway, at the end of the night I let slip that my husband was sheriff, and you can guess how that went over. But Carmine didn’t flinch, he walked me to the car and made sure I got on my way without a problem. If he’d been guilty, he would have been shaking in his boots when he found out who I was. But he was as steady as they come. You know how it is when you meet someone for the first time and you see right off they’re good through and through? That’s how it was with Carmine. Knew it in my heart. So when you told me that he’d gotten into a fight with Coombs, that Coombs had turned up dead the next day and that you suspected Carmine, I knew he couldn’t have done it. No matter how bad it seemed. So I set out to prove he didn’t.”

  Temple’s chair slammed onto the floor. “What?”

  Etha focused on his eyes. “Just hear me out. Then you can holler all you want.” She explained how she had found what might have been the shed with the sack of corncobs where Carmine had bedded down after the fight at the Idle Hour. How it was in the Hodges’ backyard and the place fit Carmine’s description to a T. Then she fessed up to sneaking into Hinchie’s office with Minnie to inspect the murder weapon. She described how she’d learned that the hardware store sold the same army shovels that the CCC boys used and discovered Hodge had purchased one last week.

  “So,” she wrapped up, “Carmine was telling the truth about the shed. And he was not the only person with access to those kinds of shovels. In fact, at least a dozen locals plus other CCCers could lay their hands on one without batting an eye.” She folded her hands on the table. “That’s what I’ve found.” She waited.

  Temple ran his tongue over his bottom teeth. “I think that you proved the murder weapon was widely available. But that’s all. DiNapoli still has the strongest motive, access to the victim, blood on his clothing, the man’s lighter stashed in his duffel, and he’s a hothead. So, I heard you out but my mind is unchanged.” He rose, tucking the chair under the table with exaggerated precision. “I’m going back downstairs to finish the paperwork. It’s been a long day.”

  Chapter eighteen

  It might have been five minutes or an hour. Etha lost track of time as she paced the empty courtroom, jerking wayward chairs into place, yanking the long blinds up and down. Temple hadn’t listened to a single thing. Her findings about the shovel had been as tidy as a trimmed seam. Surely they had enough substance to merit at least considering other suspects. And hadn’t she practically groveled? About something as minor as tiptoeing behind his back for the trip to the tracks? She was on a mission of good works, for God’s sake, not committing a federal crime.

  Back in the kitchen, Carmine was softly blowing on the harmonica. He quickly put it down and stood as she walked in.

  “Did the sheriff blow a gasket?” he asked.

  “Yes, but he’s angry with me, not you. And I’m angry with him, so we’re even.”

  Carmine sat on the bunk with a thump.

  Etha slipped her apron over her head. She dipped into the icebox and pulled out a pound of sliced bologna. “It’ll be slim pickings for the lawmen’s lunch. But I think I have enough to make a couple of sandwiches for you too. Tide you over until dinner.”

  * * *

  In the dining room that evening, Temple and Etha ate in silence. Afterward, Temple excused himself. “Going over to make sure the rangers are settled in.”

  “Of course,” Etha said.

  As she washed up, she noticed that Carmine was lost in the final pages of The Maltese Falcon. She had read it and, with a cold feeling in her gut, remembered those last few lines where Sam Spade says, If they hang you I’ll always remember you. She scooped a generous spoonful of cobbler into a bowl and passed it through the bars.

  “Late-night snack.”

  Carmine glanced up with a wisp of a smile, and again, in the tilt of his head, for a quick second, she saw Jack. “Thanks, ma’am. If I wasn’t in so much trouble with the law, I would say being here with you has been the closest I’ve been to home since . . . well, for a long time.”

  Etha hurried into the living room and turned on the radio. It wasn’t going to help Carmine to see her bawling.

  * * *

  She jerked awake near midnight. She was slumped sideways in the armchair with the radio humming. She walked stiffly into the bedroom to change and saw, with surprise, that Temple wasn’t there. Maybe, she thought, he’d gotten an emergency call, but it was more likely he was still fuming. She’d never seen him so angry. But then again, she’d never been this angry at him. She changed into her night clothes, turned on the bedroom’s electric fan, and shuffled into the bathroom where she brushed her teeth and twisted her hair into pin curls. Sliding between the sheets she thought to stay awake until Temple came in, but her eyelids drifted downward and she gave up.

  The stalemate between Etha and Temple continued through Sunday. As dawn broke on Monday, she was sunk in a dream. Shouting, pushing her way through a crowd toward Carmine’s body collapsed in a chair, his arms strapped down with thick black leather belts. Her thumping heart woke her, panicked and disoriented. Then the familiar wooden dresser came into view as did the curtains and the buzzing fan. She turned to see if she had awakened Temple but he must have come and gone. The sheets on his side had been slept in but were now empty.

  All right, mister, she thought, if you’re going to dig your heels in, so will I. She bathed, dressed, and made breakfast while Carmine slept heavily. After slipping a plate of biscuits into the lockup, and delivering trays to a ranger for the cellblock inmates, she marched downstairs. Ed was in the office. Temple, he said, was out answering a call about a stolen heifer. The rangers were due to get on the road with their prisoners in about an hour, he added.

  “If he comes back and asks for me, please let him know I fed the prisoners and I’m out running errands,” she said in a businesslike tone. Temple couldn’t accuse her of forgetting her duties as jailhouse cook.

  In the middle of the night it had occurred to Etha that Roland Coombs might not have been able to bring rain—that it wasn’t really possible. Not a thing he or any other man could call down. Maybe someone from another town, who had paid Coombs good money for nothing, had come after him. A bit of research at the library was in order.

  The first time she had stepped into Vermillion’s library, Etha was crestfallen. The entire one-story wooden structure could fit easily into the vestibule of Peoria’s grand two-story brick-and-granite institution. And the shelves were woefully skimpy, with many of the books hand-me-downs from local families. More than once Etha had eagerly plunged into a novel only to find crucial pages missing. But over the years she had made peace with the place.

  Miss Fisher sat behind the circulation desk, sorting check-out cards into tidy piles. The librarian had an extensive collection of matching earring-and-brooch sets. Today, tiny enameled blue flowers graced her ears an
d bosom. After exchanging greetings, Etha entered the reading room on the right. Dictionaries and almanacs dominated the small reference section tucked in one corner. The Encyclopedia Britannica was missing volumes 5 and 19, but was otherwise complete. Not whole but serviceable, like an old man’s teeth, Etha thought. The rainmaking listing referred Etha to the entry on magic. The subsection of pluviculture yielded a lengthy description of a certain Dieri tribe in Central Australia. The Dieris summoned rain by slashing the arms of young men and dripping their blood onto two elders. The blood represented rain. Other men tossed feathers into the air, signifying clouds.

  “My,” Etha said loudly, before remembering where she was. She glanced around guiltily. Miss Fisher remained bent over the typewriter. The reading room opposite had a single occupant. All Etha could see of the woman were her substantial legs, sturdy enough to support a piano, the remainder being concealed behind the generous sheets of the Oklahoma City Times. Both the librarian and reader seemed oblivious to Etha’s outburst. She returned to her research, but it was soon clear that the encyclopedia wasn’t going to bear fruit. There were a few other mentions of rainmaking ceremonies performed by ancient tribes before the entry ended. Even though she had not been at Coombs’s public event, Etha certainly would have heard if he’d been smearing onlookers with blood or tossing feathers. Disappointed, Etha slid the volumes back onto the shelf.

  Returning to the circulation desk, she asked Miss Fisher about scientific periodicals that might report on modern-day rainmaking methods. The librarian cast her gaze upward. “Of course, my first thought on that is Popular Science, but we don’t subscribe. Too expensive. I may have . . . Just a minute.” She jumped from her seat and raced into the stacks. A few minutes later, she returned empty-handed. “I thought that maybe a chemistry textbook might have something on that, but no go.”

  Etha sighed. She’d have to look elsewhere to find out whether Coombs’s methods were scientific or pure bunkum. However, Miss Fisher beamed when Etha asked about a Hammett mystery.