Escape Artist efm-2

by Ed Ifkovic

  Chapter Nine

  Appleton had one big story: the awful murder of the young German girl Frana Lempke. It was everywhere, friends dropping in at the Ferber household and lingering over coffee and cherry-studded Schaumtorte, neighbors talking over back fences, customers at My Store shaking their heads. My wonderful Houdini interview, for a moment the talk of the town, was immediately eclipsed by the gripping account of Frana’s murder. Even the back-to-Jesus street-corner evangelist Mad Otto the Prophet (his name was Hosea Thigpen but long ago someone called him the odd nickname, and it stuck) talked of nothing else. That morning I spotted him standing in a vacant lot on Washington. By noontime, he’d be on College by the Masonic Hall. Most days, and some evenings, he stood on the corner of Lawrence and Cherry, back by the breweries and the railroad tracks, standing on a cabbage crate and screaming Biblical passages at the workers headed to and from their jobs. “Predestination and damnation,” he boomed…“fire and brimstone…the yawning maw of hell…a young innocent taken at the flood…the Doomsday book…the hand of the devil palpable and gripping…God in his awful wrath…”

  People always rushed by him, a little nervous. But I filled my reporter’s pad with descriptions of the crazed man. I once suggested I interview him for the Crescent. Sam had grimaced. “Really now, Miss Ferber. The Crescent a soapbox for a madman?”

  On Tuesday morning I fielded calls from out-of-town papers, talking with the Milwaukee Journal, even the Chicago Tribune. I told the same practiced story, rote now, succinct; but the calls kept coming. Sharp-eyed journalists, spotting my name in the telegraphed stories, asked for in-person interviews with me and Esther, but Esther’s father, bothered by the attention, had made it clear his daughter was to be left alone.

  Yet once her initial squeamishness passed, Esther was eager to talk to anyone. At one point, late in the morning, she unexpectedly appeared at the Crescent office where she had never visited before. She stood at the bottom of those five cement steps, looking around the room as though she’d discovered some new and even lower rung out of Dante’s inferno. “This is where you work?”

  “What did you expect?”

  “It’s so small. So cluttered.” She squinted. “So dim.”

  Sam Ryan grinned. “My theory is that an unpleasant office makes my reporters want to go outside and get the news.”

  His sister Ivy laughed. “Except for the bookkeeper, condemned to darkness visible and infernal chicken wire.”

  I was happy with their remarks, taken as they were with Esther. Boon was not there, thank God, and Esther conveniently perched herself on the edge of his desk. Earlier, Boon had left on the 7:52 for Milwaukee, one hundred miles away. Through Caleb Stone he’d learned that the Milwaukee police had detained the three drummers who’d left Appleton the afternoon Frana was murdered. Boon, Sam said, was convinced one of these itinerant gentlemen was the killer. All three were seasoned travelers, men in their forties or fifties, each one unmarried and, at least in one case, notorious for idle flirtations with the harried waitresses at the Sherman House dining room. Matthias Boon was convinced one of the three would confess that afternoon, and he wanted to be there. Sam told me it was a wild goose chase.

  “What do you think?” I asked Sam when he finished telling Esther about Boon’s hasty trip to Milwaukee.

  Sam’s instincts were solid. A reporter’s heart to the core, though a publisher who couldn’t scribe a decent paragraph himself, Sam sighed. “The murderer is still among us.” A twinkle in his eye. “Matthias Boon has a favorite restaurant in Milwaukee, and perhaps a lady friend.”

  I mumbled to the rapt Esther, sitting nearby. “Obviously a woman in need of being institutionalized.”

  Byron Beveridge walked in and circled around Esther as if she were Eve in the garden, grinning foolishly and bowing. He mentioned that Caleb Stone and Amos Moss were meeting at the high school at noon to “review” the evidence.

  “What evidence?” I sat up.

  “Well, now that it’s officially a murder, Stone has to go back to the beginning. This isn’t just a runaway girl now.” He waved a copy of yesterday’s Crescent. “The Post is sending a reporter, I hear.”

  “Be there.” Sam gestured to me. “You’re already deep into the story. Maybe you’ll see things others won’t.”

  Just before noon, I headed to Ryan High School, trailed by an excited Esther. “Do you think they’ll mind if I tag along?”

  “I’m assuming the men would demand your presence.”

  Once there I learned Caleb Stone had already interviewed the frightened young students who had classes in that hallway and learned nothing he didn’t already know. No student, gazing dreamily through the small glass of the classroom door, bored perhaps with math or Christopher Marlow or a parsed sentence, had spotted Frana Lempke walking past. Then Chief Stone, with the imprimatur of the principal, sent the students home for the afternoon. While Esther and I stood in the hallway, hordes of excited, gabby students rushed out over the lawns, headed away from the school. They buzzed about Frana, the police, the murder. I nodded to Titus Sharpe, the craggy reporter from Appleton’s other paper, the morning Post, slouching in a chair in Miss Hepplewhyte’s office, gazing into the hallway. He’d never said a complete sentence to me. He had a skinny reedy upper torso, with a giraffe neck under a freckled, blotchy face, all resting on an enormous bottom that shook like a bowl of unpleasant aspic when he walked. Like Sam, he was a Civil War veteran, and claimed to have been in Washington D.C. when Lincoln was shot.

  “Yes?” he said to me as I walked into Miss Hepplewhyte’s office. It was a dismissive word.

  I focused my eyes on his Adam’s apple, the most delicately inoffensive of his many questionable features. “No,” I answered flatly. His eyes grew wide. I shuttled by him, Esther close behind me.

  Chief Stone walked into the small room, nodded at me and Titus, but looked askance at the presence of Esther, who, nervous, stood so close to me we kept bumping into each other. Still, he said nothing. When Deputy Amos Moss, clearing his throat and deciding to become officious, pointed at her accusingly, Caleb Stone gave him a look, and the deputy shut up. Chief Stone led everyone into the deserted corridor, a small group of teachers and staff huddling around him, and announced that he wanted to reenact the time sequence, if only, he said brusquely, “to give me a sense of what in tarnation happened that afternoon.”

  “I’ve told you…” Miss Hepplewhyte began, but the principal’s stare made her keep still.

  Principal Jones looked drained and I felt sorry for the man. When he lifted his chubby hand, it was trembling. Homer Timm stood there with a pad and pencil, his eyes following Caleb’s every turn, and I wondered whether he’d been appointed recording secretary.

  Miss Hepplewhyte, severe in a slate-gray smock, her hair drawn into an awesome bun at the back, seemed ready to do battle. Doubtless she felt accused. She was a collector of slights, I realized; of accusations, real or imagined. That important note had been placed on her desk, and she’d informed Miss Hosley of Frana’s intended premature departure. She was a featured player in this tragedy.

  Standing as far from her as possible, Mr. McCaslin, an English primer gripped between his fingers, looked miserable, and kept glancing at Miss Hepplewhyte as if she were to blame for everything. Mildred Dunne was absent.

  The diplomatic Caleb Stone announced that no one-staff, teachers, even (his quick glance suggested) Esther and me-was to blame. He wanted information. “Frana had to leave the building somehow.” He even mustered a chilly smile. “This is a reconstruction”-he stretched out the word, deliciously-“like, say, Sherlock Holmes would do.”

  Homer Timm grumbled and tapped his foot, then regretted the move when heads turned toward him. His sheepish look suggested an apology.

  Everyone stood in front of Miss Hosley’s classroom.

  Amos Moss, directed by Caleb Stone, played Frana, leaving class at two o’clock and waving to a friend in Mr. McCaslin’s classroom. He started to
mimic girlish gestures, but a cutting look from Chief Stone stopped that indelicacy. Everyone trooped into the notoriously unlocked classroom. Caleb pointed out a cloakroom where, he said, Frana could have hidden. Everyone breathed a sigh, as though the answer was in front of us.

  “Impossible!” Miss Hepplewhyte preened herself like a peacock. “As I told you before.” When Christ Lempke appeared and did not find Frana waiting, and she knew Frana had not left with other students, she thought Frana might still be in the building. She noticed the unlocked classroom. “And, of course, having dealt with students for many, many years, I immediately opened the cloakroom door. After all, I knew Frana was not happy with her uncle’s guardianship. Frana wasn’t hiding there.”

  Everyone looked at everyone else.

  Caleb Stone wanted to know about the empty locked classroom. It was still locked, Principal Jones announced. Then the chief wanted to know about another door at the other end of the corridor. “It’s an unused storage room,” the principal said. “It’s never been used, so far as I know. Not in all the time I’ve been here.” Everyone gathered by the sealed door. The principal turned the knob, which didn’t move. “It’s locked, of course. I doubt if there’s a key.” The windowless door suddenly seemed ominous to me.

  “Of course there’s a key,” Caleb Stone grumbled.

  Homer Timm shrugged his shoulders. “This is an old building. There are a few closets and storage rooms not in use. With no keys.”

  “That makes no sense,” Caleb Stone insisted. “Frana could have hidden inside the storeroom.”

  “Impossible!” Homer Timm used the same word Miss Hepplewhyte just used. “How? The door is locked.” He snorted. “Or maybe you haven’t noticed.”

  Caleb Stone ignored him. He tried the door again. Not only was it locked, it seemed frozen to the frame. “Where are the keys kept?”

  Everyone looked at Miss Hepplewhyte, who raised her eyebrows and shook her head. A little grumpily, “I’m not in charge of keys.” A pause. “I’m sure Frana Lempke never paid it any attention either.”

  True, in my four years at Ryan High School, I’d barely been aware of storerooms, locked or otherwise.

  Mr. McCaslin babbled something about this being a waste of his time-he had work to do on the Senior Play-but stopped, suppressed a belch. Miss Hepplewhyte rolled her eyes. Even Mr. Jones frowned, ready to say something.

  “Find Mr. Schmidt,” Principal Jones ordered Homer Timm, who seemed loath to move, his expression suggesting that he was not an errand boy. He shuffled off while we waited.

  Homer Timm returned with August Schmidt, the school janitor and Kathe’s father. He looked nervous and frightened, his head flicking left and right. I knew him, of course-everyone did. He’d been the janitor at Ryan for years, ever since he’d emigrated from Germany years back. Now a beefy man in his forties, with balding head and large droopy ears, with saucer eyes and a bushy white moustache on a round face, August Schmidt spent his days cleaning the hallways, taking out the trash, and nodding repeatedly to passing students, who baffled him. I knew he spoke very little English-unable to master the new language, according to Kathe-and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible in the noisy school hallways. When students filled the hallways between classes, he stood with his back to the cement wall, eyes half-closed. Sometimes, passing by, I heard him singing in German, some soft lieder that sounded sad.

  No, he said, in a garbled blur of German and fragmented English, he’d never opened the door. No need to because all his supplies were around the corner. In that storeroom. Yes, there was a key, he assumed. Maybe. He didn’t know. Yes. No. In the other storeroom, next to where he hung his coat, he said, there was a bracket loaded with old keys. He rushed off, bowing first to everyone, very Prussian, I thought, and returned with a dozen wrought-iron keys, several looking rusted and ancient. Methodically he inserted one after the other, so jittery that at one point he dropped the keys to the floor. He inserted the same key more than once and lost track of which was which. Impatient, Amos Moss shoved him aside, grabbed the key ring, and started over. At last everyone heard the hesitant click. The deputy tugged at the door, gripping the knob with both hands. The door sprang open as though freshly oiled, and everyone stared into a large storeroom filled with pieces of furniture.

  Light from the hallway barely illuminated the shadowy space.

  The principal located a kerosene lantern and Caleb Stone took it and stepped inside. Sidling near, I saw shafts of dust particles in the air. A stale smell, old wood and moldy books. An oak desk was pushed against a back wall. A glass-front bookcase occupied the left wall. Old desks were stacked alongside it. Some chairs were pushed against a wall. Caleb Stone motioned to his deputy, who joined him. When Homer Timm went to enter, the chief waved him back. I spotted what Caleb Stone was studying. There was a thick layer of decades-old dust covering the desk. But in the flickering glare of the lantern I saw a clear area, a stretch of exposed wood where something-a leg? an arm? — had either rested on the desk or slid across it. As Caleb Stone lowered the lantern, I saw a confusion of smudged footprints everywhere. Stubs of burnt candles were bunched on the desk.

  Someone had been inside recently. Amos Moss, in a burst of discovery, exclaimed, “Someone was in here, I ain’t kidding.” Caleb Stone, angry, yanked him back.

  The chief directed everyone to stand away as he walked out, eyeing all of us. He held something up to the light. It was an embroidered ribbon, a young girl’s bit of frippery from a dress or bonnet. I gasped, recognizing Frana’s embroidery. Frana, adroit with a needle, often decorated her bonnets and dresses with ribbons. Sometimes she wore them in her hair. She favored blue and gold. I once cruelly remarked to Esther that Frana was readying herself to be the Hester Prynne of Appleton.

  He turned to me. “Could this be Frana’s?”

  “It is hers.” I was emphatic.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.” Behind me, Esther nodded.

  “So now we know where Frana was hiding,” Caleb Stone concluded.

  Rumbling in the hallway, everyone talking at once.

  The principal spoke in a tinny, hesitant voice. “But how could she get inside? She had no key. Why would she even think to do so?” He looked flustered. “The door was locked. You’d have to have a key.”

  Everyone turned to look at the quiet German. August Schmidt had been trying to follow the events, his head swiveling back and forth. baffled by most of it; but his gaze had become more and more agitated as time passed.

  In German, Caleb Stone asked August Schmidt who else had access to a key. Schmidt mumbled something incoherent but suggested the only key he knew of was in his storeroom and never left the wall.

  Amos Moss bellowed, “No way Frana Lempke couldn’t have had no key.” He turned to the janitor. “August Schmidt, did you grab Frana Lempke and drag her here?”

  The man squirmed. “Frana Lempke?”

  Caleb Stone asked him, “Did you know her?”

  The man nodded. “Ja, ja. Yes. She come to house with Kathe. Yes. Frana.”

  Amos Moss was beside himself. “Somebody let that girl in this here room.”

  Schmidt clearly did not understand what was happening, except that every eye was on him, accusing. He started to blubber, and for some reason reached for the jangling key, still in the lock, and the deputy put out his hand, stopping him. Schmidt started to cry inconsolably, twisting his body as though looking for escape; and he whispered a torrent of rambling German. What I gleaned, in bits and pieces: Mein Gott…Ich…in himmel…bitte…nicht…mein Gott…zufiel ist…bitte…Sorry… I…So sorry… ” Sorry sorry sorry. On and on, pleading, apologetic; confessional. He crumpled, wrapped his arms around his chest and shook.

  “But,” I remarked, “Frana had that fake note. She planned to sneak out at two. She planned it. I don’t think anyone grabbed her. She…”

  “Please, Miss Ferber,” Caleb interrupted. “Not now.”

  Staring at the whimperi
ng man, lost in the tense hallway, I knew in my heart of hearts that August Schmidt had nothing to do with Frana’s murder.

  Not so with Amos Moss, who boomed out, “Clear to me this here man lay in wait and he abducted her, the pretty young girl he probably watched every day, seen his chance, she alone in the hallway, maybe she was planning to sneak out of school, yes, maybe he saw her alone in the hallway, maybe tied her up, strangled her, left her there till darkness when he was the only one here, and then dragged her body back of the school to Lovers Lane.” As he spoke, he punctuated his fast declaration with angry glances at Schmidt. “Nobody around, late at night. Seems simple to me…”

  Caleb Stone was not happy with his deputy’s declaration. He turned to August Schmidt and said in a surprisingly kind voice, “Mr. Schmidt, I’m afraid you have to come with me to the station. Just a little more conversation, where it’s quiet…” His voice trailed off.

  Good Lord. That was the gentlest, most unthreatening arrest I could imagine. But to August Schmidt, shaking back and forth, the words spelled doom. He bellowed like a wounded animal, “Is wrong, is wrong. I begs you.”

  Amos Moss kept yelling, “Admit it, admit it,” approaching the shaking man who kept muttering in German. When the deputy touched his sleeve, August Schmidt caught my eye and held it, a desperate stare that rattled me. The look said: Help me.

  I couldn’t turn away. Help me.

  The craziness of the hallway was shattered by the slamming of the front door. Christ Lempke lumbered in, dragging the dead leg against the hard marble floor. It made an echoey sound, eerie as nightmare, and I got chilled staring at the gnarled, bitter man moving toward us. No one said a word. When he drew closer, he stopped, tried to balance himself by leaning on a wall.

  “Mr. Lempke,” Caleb Stone greeted him.

  But the man exploded. “You no waits for me.”

  “I just assumed you couldn’t make it…”

  Lempke tried to straighten himself up, full-size, but he wobbled. “You see this leg that dies in that stupid war? You sees that?”