Amerikan Eagle (18 page)

“That’s perfect.”

Sam waited, took out his notebook. Lowengard said, “Heard there was a corpse found two nights ago near our tracks. I hope you don’t think we hit him, Sam. Even though the express goes through here pretty fast, our engineers would notice something like that.”

Sam said nothing. Lowengard wet his lips with his tongue, as if he couldn’t stand having his mouth being dry.

There was a knock at the door. Lowengard called out, “Come in!” and a man about Sam’s age came in, wearing greasy overalls and a denim cap. His skin was soiled as well, especially his big hands, and when he entered the office, he took off his hat. There was a white stretch of clean skin on his forehead, making it look like an errant paintbrush had struck him.

Lowengard told Sam, “This is Peter Hughes. Peter, this is Sam Miller. He’s an inspector from the Portsmouth P.D. He’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Hughes blinked and looked at Sam. “Is … Am I in some kind of trouble? Sir?”

Sam said, “No, not at all. I’m conducting an investigation, and I have some questions about the Portland express.”

Hughes was twisting his hat in his big greasy hands. “An investigation, sir?”

“A police investigation,” Sam said, flipping open his notebook. “You were on the express two nights ago, from Boston to Portland?”

“Yep.”

“Did the train hit anything when it came through town?”

“No, sir. Not at all.”

“You sure?”

“ ’Course I’m sure. When we got to Portsmouth, hell, even if we did hit somebody, it probably wouldn’t’ve hurt ’em bad, anyway.”

Sam lowered his fountain pen. “I’m sorry, say that again.”

Hughes looked to Lowengard as if for reassurance, but Lowengard’s face had paled and Hughes found no reassurance there. He said, “Well, we were coming through town at a crawl.”

“You were? How fast was the train going?”

“Oh, crap, who knows. Three—maybe four—miles an hour. A nice slow pace.”

Lowengard said, “What the hell do you mean, four miles or hour? You’re supposed to be traveling much faster through there. Was the engine having problems?”

“No, the engine was fine, Mr. Lowengard. It’s just that, well, there was an auto on the tracks. On Market Street. Damnedest thing you ever saw. An auto, just sitting there pretty as you please. A yellow Rambler. Stan Tompkins, he’s the lead engineer, he hit the brakes and we slowed damn fast, and then the car drove off the tracks and headed downtown. Damn thing slowed us down right, that’s for sure. We had to pour on the steam somethin’ awful so we’d make our schedule to Portland.”

Sam looked at Lowengard. “And you didn’t know this?”

“No, I didn’t,” he said, indignation in his voice.

“Really? Station manager for Portsmouth and a train
is forced to slow way down by a conveniently parked car, and this is the first you know of it?”

“If the train hit the car, fine,” Lowengard said. “Then I’d know. But a train slowed down by a car? Christ, Sam, every day something slows down the train. Kids playing on the tracks. A stuck truck. I don’t know everything about every damn train that comes through. This is the first I heard of it. Honest to Christ.”

Sam knew what both men were thinking: In these days, companies had no patience with anyone getting noticed by the law. If you caused a problem, any problem at all, you were out. Plenty of talented people were out there in the dole lines, begging for a job.

He said, “Mr. Hughes, thanks for the information. You can go.”

In an instant, the railroad worker was out the door. Sam said, “Pat …”

“Yes?” The station manager’s face was still pale.

“I want the passenger manifest for that express train.”

“That might be hard to get.” Lowengard frowned. “Lots of paperwork. Ever since the new law about internal transportation records kicked in a couple of years back, you wouldn’t believe the stacks of paper—”

“How long?”

A shrug. “Lots of paper. A week. Maybe two.”

“All right,” Sam said. “Two it is.”

The station manager grinned with relief. “Thanks for understanding.”

“Sorry, maybe you didn’t understand me. When I said two, I meant two days.”

“Days? Two days? That’s impossible!”

“Well, it’s going to have to be possible. Or there’re
going to be lots of parking tickets around this station in the future. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Lowengard said, and Sam noted his forehead was shiny with sweat. The phone on the desk rang, and Lowengard grabbed it before the second ring. After listening for a few moments, he grunted a “yeah” and tossed the receiver back into the cradle. “There’s a train here that’s not on the schedule, that needs to be watered up. You wouldn’t believe the crap I have to put up with, Sam. Would not believe it … and then you waltz in here and add to it.”

“I’m investigating a homicide, Pat,” Sam said.

Lowengard picked up the phone again. “And I’m trying to run a train station and trying to keep my ass out of said train. Grace? Get me dispatch right away.”

* * *

Outside, Sam spotted some cars parked at the other end of the station, blocking the entrance. People were running away from the cars, heading to the tracks. A few of them were yelling, raising their arms, as other cars braked, two with steam spewing from their radiators.

He followed the noise to a fence blocking off the tracks. The men and women and some children were up against the chain-link fence, holding on to it with their hands, looking out to the train yard, to a parked locomotive, eight boxcars trailing and—

Sam saw National Guardsmen standing outside the train, carrying rifles with fixed bayonets. No wonder Lowengard had been so upset. A labor camp train, stopping here for coal or water before going out west or up
north or someplace where the communists, the labor leaders, the strikers, any and all enemies, foreign and especially domestic, were dumped. Something cold tickled at the back of his neck. Those people in that train … they were heading to a labor camp for choices they had made, people they had associated with, organizations they had supported.

Choices. The cold feeling increased. And what kind of choices was he making now?

“Saul Rothstein!”

“Hugh! Hugh Toland!”

“Sue! Sue Godin! Are you in there?”

One heavyset woman with a blue scarf tied about her head turned to Sam, tears in her eyes. “Sir? Can you help? Can you?” She gestured at the train. “That train … it left Brooklyn two days ago. We followed it, best we can, they no tell us where it’s going. Now we just want to bring food and drink. That all.”

Brown paper grocery sacks lay on the cracked sidewalk. There were barred windows at each end of the boxcar, and hands were poking out between the bars, waving. Sam looked up and down the fence, spotted a gate. A B&M railroad detective, dressed in a brown suit, with a badge clipped to the coat pocket, was standing on the other side.

“Hey,” Sam said. “How about opening the gate, let these folks bring some food over to the train?”

The detective shifted the toothpick in his mouth. “Hey. How about you leave me the hell alone?”

Sam pulled out his badge, pressed it up against the fence. “Name’s Miller. I’m the inspector for the Portsmouth Police Department. What’s your name?”

“Collins,” he grudgingly replied.

“Look, Collins, let these people go in there. And tell you what: For the rest of the month, you can park anywhere you want, speed anywhere you want, and no Portsmouth cop will ever bother you. How does that sound?”

Collins said, “Boss’ll get pissed at me.”

“I can handle Lowengard. C’mon, let these folks go over, drop off the food, be a nice guy for a change.”

Collins shifted the toothpick again. “What’s it to you, then?”

“Guess I like being a nice guy sometimes.”

Collins scowled and spat out the toothpick, but stepped back. The crowd watched silently as he unlocked the gate. In a brusque voice, he said, “You folks go up there, pass over the stuff, then leave. Any funny business, you’ll be thrown in the boxcar with those slugs, and you’ll be in a labor camp tonight!”

Sam felt the crowd swirl about him like water parting around a rock, and there was a touch on his arm, the woman with the scarf, who whispered something foreign—Yiddish, perhaps?—and said, “God bless.” She joined the other family members streaming to the parked train, rushing over the railroad tracks. Within moments grocery sacks, bottles of Coke and Pepsi, and sandwiches were being passed up to the barred openings, the eager hands reaching down, grasping for life.

Sam walked away. Maybe Walter was right. Maybe one man could make a difference. But for how long?

He stopped and looked back at the train, thinking again of the train that had sped through late one night, the one that was sometimes in his dreams. It was similar to this one but different—there were no openings allowing
air and sunlight to come in. Those boxcars had been shuttered closed, as if those in charge didn’t want anyone to see what was inside.

But they couldn’t hide the voices, couldn’t hide the screams.

And one more thing. The train that night, speeding through the darkness, had gone past a streetlight, illuminating the shuttered boxcars and …

And what else?

The paint scheme. The cars in front of him were dark red. The special train from that night was a dark color as well, but there was a difference.

Yellow stripes had been painted on the sides of those special trains.

What the hell did that mean?

Nothing, that’s what, and nothing that was going to solve this murder for him.

* * *

He went to his desk, ignored Mrs. Walton, and when she got up to powder her nose, he picked up his phone, got an operator, and made a call to Concord again, this time to the motor vehicle division of the Department of Safety. He quickly found out it would take a week to get him a listing of all yellow Ramblers registered in the state. A week … well, what the hell. Make it thorough. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was deliberate, but the train slowing down in Portsmouth was a question mark, and he wanted that question answered. Was the train slowed on purpose so the body could be dumped?

After the phone call, he was going through his old case files when a familiar voice spoke up.

“Inspector,” said the man. “You look like you could use some hooch. And since this department is officially dry, how about a cup of joe instead?”

Sam swung about in his chair, saw a smiling Sean Donovan before him, holding two white mugs of coffee. Sean limped over and pulled a chair closer to Sam’s desk. “I understand you’ve had quite the busy day.”

“I have,” Sam said, sipping the coffee. Sean had made it the way he liked it: black, with two sugars.

Sean nodded. “No doubt dealing with the forces of darkness. I’m surprised you didn’t go home and take a bath after spending time with those two G-men.”

“Only one was a G-man,” Sam said. “The other was— Oh, I get it. A joke. FBI guy and Gestapo guy. Both G-men.”

Sean raised his mug to his lips. “So now we both have something in common, having spent time with these G-men.”

Sam swung around in his chair, glad Mrs. Walton wasn’t back yet. “They’ve talked to you, too?”

“I’m not sure if ‘talk’ is the right word,” Sean answered. “This was more like requests made, requests complied with. The FBI man wanted some files, which I happily passed over to him. And he seemed pretty eager to share what he had with his goose-stepping friend.”

Sam said, “What kind of files?”

“Hmmm,” Sean said, sipping. “Anybody else in this building, I would say none of your business. But since you’re more than the average cop, I will tell you this. Personnel files.”

“I thought the FBI would be looking into active cases. Not personnel files.”

Sean laughed. “That’s a good one. Sam, why would the FBI give a shit about criminal cases at the Portsmouth Police Department? Drunk driving? Hookers? Break-ins? Oh, I know they’ve taken away your homicide, but the real crimes the FBI and their German friends are interested in are the new ones: disloyalty, lack of enthusiasm for the new order, thought crimes like that.”

Sam heard footsteps, saw Mrs. Walton ambling her way back. He leaned over to Sean. “So. Whose personnel files were they asking for?”

“You really want to know?”

“Of course.”

Sean smiled. “Yours.”

That night Sam and Sarah went out to the movies. He was eager to slip into a make-believe world for a while, a world without the FBI or Gestapo or the Underground Railroad or rats or the Party. Sarah had tsk-tsked over the slash the knife had made in his coat sleeve, and had promised to mend it later. Still, Jesus, what a day.

Though a small city, Portsmouth boasted three movie theaters, and tonight they went to the Colonial, up on Congress Street. Throughout Sarah’s pre-movie dinner—fish stew—he kept up a steady patter of conversation,
playing the good husband, playing the good father (definitely not playing the rat!), though he had hardly any appetite at all. He had a cold feeling about the meeting with the FBI earlier today, about how close he had seemed to losing it all because of Tony. If that wasn’t enough, another Underground Railroad passenger was going to spend the night in their basement. Talk about living dangerously.

And then there was that train, ready to depart Portsmouth, to drop off another load of prisoners, where there was always room in other trains for one more dissident, one more family.

During dinner Sarah had seemed more cheerful, as though determined to gloss over what was going to happen in their home later that night. And when he had mentioned the visit by the FBI and the Gestapo, Sarah paused at that, ladle held in the air. “Gestapo? Here?”

“That’s right,” he had said, buttering a piece of bread. “Assigned to the consulate in Boston. It seems my dead man was from Germany, here illegally. So it’s not my case anymore. The feds took it away.”

Sarah glanced at Toby and dipped the ladle in the stew. “It’s impossible to believe the Gestapo are here in Portsmouth. It’s bad enough to have Long’s Legionnaires here, but the Gestapo …”

“That’s what the papers and newsreels say. But this German didn’t look that evil to me. More like a paper shuffler, a cop like me.”