The Big Mitt (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 1) (16 page)

“Dressed in suits and with no fish poles?” The man put down his lunch pail and lifted his shovel menacingly into both hands. “Just ‘cause we live on the flats don’t make us stupid.”

Queen smiled. “What are you going to do with that?”

“There’s a dozen of us and two of you. My wife and children are down there. These fellas too. I want to know if you’re goddamn rent collectors or not.”

Might as well tell them, he thought. He pulled out his badge and held it out to the man. “We’re police detectives. I’m Queen, and this is Norbeck. We’re looking for someone who lives on Mill Street. 102 is the number. At least that’s what we’ve been told. He goes by the name of Ace.”

“Mill, huh?” the man asked, narrowing his eyes. “Should be right up against the Washington bridge column.” He turned to the men behind him. “Ain’t that the old Svoboda place?” Grunts of confirmation rolled through the group and he looked back at Queen, confident of his identification. “There is a man living there, all right. He keeps to himself, and acts all queer and nervous, like he don’t want nothing to do with the rest of us.”

“That’s him,” said Queen. “Another question, if you don’t mind. There is a second man we’re looking for. Give ‘em a description, Norbeck.”

“Looks like a five-and-a-half-foot rat, come to earth especially to screw with us.”

“Christ,” Queen said with a disapproving shake of his head. “A little more detail would be nice.”

A shaky hand shot up from the group of men. “I seen him,” he said. “All shifty-eyed, and with a pointy nose. He had holes all over his face.” He shrugged a little and pointed at Norbeck. “Not like the sores on his—more like pockmarks.”

“And hence the name,” Queen confirmed. “Where was he?”

“By the garbage dump. It sits right in front of the house. Most of the houses. He was darting around a couple of days ago. My kids were picking through it looking for stuff to sell when he popped out and scared them half to death.”

Queen had forgotten about the dump. It was one of the biggest in Minneapolis. Multiple tons of garbage were brought there every day, left in pits by the river’s edge. The stench wasn’t as bad in the winter, of course, but during the summer he remembered how much the levee stank of rot.

“He must be sleeping somewhere,” said Norbeck.

“There’s a few abandoned places around,” offered the black-bearded man. He had grown more relaxed in his stance, and leaned on his shovel. Obviously relieved that we’re not looking for money, Queen thought.

“You can try asking one of the pickers,” the man continued. “They’d likely help you if he’s still nosing around.”

Queen nodded. “How do the garbage carts get down this steep slope with the snow and the ice?”

“When it’s like this they use other dumps. They come every day in fair weather, and even in winter whenever the road is safe. Speaking of this road, I’ve got something for you that might help,” the man said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out some heavy sandpaper. Attach this to the bottom of your shoes. Nail it if you can, but a piece of twine and a tight knot will do in a pinch. It’ll help the walk back up.”

Queen nodded his thanks. “Appreciate your help. If you ever need any favors from the police, come and find me. I’m a man who always returns a good deed for another.”

“Kind of you. My name’s Hare.” He introduced them to the others, and they amicably parted company.

The next bend allowed them an excellent view of the levee. The flats were a ramshackle community, houses of all shapes and sizes. The ones closest to the water were the worst built, shanties barely held together with driftwood and nails. In the houses elevated farther from floodplain and closer to God, the owners could afford stone foundations and chimneys and real plank siding. No one, though, would ever claim this was a well-to-do part of town. While it looked as Bohemian as its popular name “Bohemian Flats” suggested, Queen had heard from the patrolmen who worked this beat that of its twelve hundred or so residents, most weren’t actually from Bohemia. A collection of Czechs, Germans, Poles, Scandinavians and the Irish lived poor and packed-in lives, in special fear every spring that the Mississippi might rise higher than it should. Whenever the thaw sent the river over the levees, it forced them to collect and carry their sparse but precious belongings to higher, dryer ground.

When the detectives reached the bottom of the hill they picked their way through the collection of shacks. Many were shoved so close together there was barely breathing room for the junk wedged between. A few high wooden fences offered the inhabitants some vestige of privacy. On a side street approaching the river, Queen looked up at the campus on the opposite bluff. That is where Maisy had planned to attend school, he thought. And now we’re looking for answers to her murder just a stone’s throw away, in a wretched slum built next to a garbage dump.

“This way,” Norbeck said, as they paused at a slightly wider street. “This is Mill. Should be that one, right there.” The concrete column of the Washington Bridge loomed over the house, casting it into a blurry shadow.

“Any sign of Pock?” Queen asked, looking at piles of trash strewn everywhere. Old shoes, broken bottles, tobacco stems, leather straps and stable refuse littered the riverbank and all the way up to the front doors of the first row of houses. Women’s bustles, high heels and hoops discarded by garbage carts sat next to rotting apples and old rags. A handful of thinly dressed children walked slowly through the waste, carrying ominous-looking sticks with hooks on them. One used his hook to yank up a piece of rotting wood through the film of snow, and together the children lugged it to a wagon. A bent old man tried to help them lift it, but all seemed to struggle in slow motion. It was as if the cold, dull morning was caving in on them and they hadn’t had enough breakfast to spark a scrap of energy.

“Let’s make this fast,” Queen said. They stood at the door of a miserable hovel, with number 109 crudely painted on the front step. Queen noticed smoke coming from a metal pipe on the roof, and rapped on the door. Norbeck cupped his ear and leaned in, listening intently.

“I think I hear ‘em movin’ about.”

“Open up! We’re police detectives,” Queen shouted. “Now, or I toe your door!”

After a moment of arguing and a woman’s stifled half-scream, they heard a lock snap open, and both men instinctively pulled out their guns. Queen felt the nerves in his neck twinge with anticipation, and a sudden barrage of thoughts flooded his head. If Pock is in there, he’s going to be armed to his rodent teeth. Could this be some kind of elaborate ruse that Dander had planned to trap them? He reached for the knob but it turned from the other side, and suddenly the door flew open. A tall bespectacled man in a grimy robe stood before them, with his hands stretched to the sky.

“Egads! Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me! Whatever you do, don’t hurt me!” he cried, and then dropped to his knees and gave a pathetic moan.

“Son of a bitch,” Queen said.

“You know this nervous Nelly?” Norbeck asked with a shake of his head.

“Yeah, I do,” he replied, putting his gun back into his holster. “It’s Harry Hayward’s brother, Adry. This is the far less famous Hayward brother, the one who didn’t swing. Get the hell off the floor, ‘Ace.’ And put some clothes on.”

“Th-th-thank you, Harm,” Adry stuttered, pulling himself up and awkwardly drawing his robe tight over his pale, hairless chest. “Whatever you say. Come in! Come in!”

The inside of the house wasn’t much better than the outside. The rot of wet wood permeated the air, mixed with the odor of burnt bread. Queen noted several pallets on the dirt floor, covered with thin blankets, and a rusty stove in the corner. Adry moved towards a pile of clothes on the floor, and dug around before pulling out a pair of trousers and a shirt, and started clumsily putting them on.

“We heard women in here, Adry,” Queen said. “Where are they?”

“Yes, yes!” Adry exclaimed. He buttoned his shirt and pulled a pair of limp suspenders up over his shoulders. He smoothed what little hair he had back from his tall forehead, finally gesturing to a door along the far wall. “Another room. Girls, come out! The cavalry has arrived!” His eyes bulged as he shouted.

“Damn if we will!” called out an angry, high-pitched voice.

Adry gave a sheepish smile. “You’ll have to excuse them. They may be in a state of undress, as I myself was.” He wiped his fingers over his waxy, pencil-thin mustache, and tapped his toe nervously. “Girls, please, get yourselves presentable and come out at once!”

“I don’t get this,” Norbeck said. He pulled his finger over a layer of grime on a rough-hewn wood table and wiped it on his pants. “You pay hard-earned cush for top-of-the-line whores and you live like a pig in a pen?”

“My needs are few,” Adry said with an embarrassed grin. “But I do like to provide my… shall we say, my libido, with proper nourishment.”

“A nice little arrangement for you, Adry,” Queen said as he stepped through the litter on the floor toward the shut door. “Tell me, are you still paying Emil to use these girls as whim-whams, or is he paying you to keep them safe?” He shook the doorknob. It was locked, of course.

“It’s not like that at all, Harm. They came to me on their own accord. I know you’ve come about Maisy, as well.” He shook his head dolefully. “You’ve probably heard stories about the two of us. I did love her, you know. If you’re considering me as a suspect, search my house. I own no weapons. I could never hurt a hair on the top of any young woman’s head, and especially that poor sweet girl.”

“And you gave her this?” Queen pulled the stickpin out of his pocket and held it into the dusty light. “She had it sewn into the hem of her gown.”

“That was mine,” Adry said with a pathetic nod. “She was carrying it with her when she was shot? How tragic.”

“It was actually your brother’s. He was going to be buried wearing it. Funny how it should end up in your possession.”

Adry swallowed hard. “Yes, I took it. I decided it wouldn’t do anyone any good under six feet of soil. And with his reputation, I assumed that grave robbers would eventually pilfer him of every article of clothing and strand of hair on his head to sell as souvenirs.”

“I remember a lot about the trial, Adry. Harry had tried to enlist you to help him kill Kitty Ging, hadn’t he? He called you a weak-willed coward. You’d considered it, hadn’t you, helping to murder her? Brotherly loyalty? The promise of greenbacks? You were even collared for the crime, if I recall correctly.”

“No!” Adry cried. He’d been anxiously wrapping his hand around his suspenders, and gripped them tight as the accusation touched him. “It was a sweatbox confession they tried to wring from me, but I stood firmly by the truth. It was proven in a court of law that I had nothing to do with it! My brother was a heartless fiend. He used me to try and deflect suspicion from him. He even accused me of being insane!
Off my rocker!”

“But Harry had asked you to help him?”

“He asked me if I was willing to kill a woman for $2,000. I said I was not willing to kill anyone.” Adry pulled up a chair and sat down wearily as he continued. “He said it was easy to do it, and nobody would be suspicious of me. He said it would be easy to kill her while driving in a hack, and if need be the hackman could be killed too. After that he suggested getting her drowned in a lake, but that looked too much like suicide and he gave up. Then he wondered how she would fall if he took her riding in a buggy and it should strike a boulder, whether he could get her body to fall out, or maybe get her tangled up in the lines and have the horses run away.”

“He confided all of this to you, but didn’t push you any harder to help him.”

“I told him it would be an awful thing to kill a woman. Eventually he said he was through with me, that I had no nerve.”

“And you have no nerve,” Queen said.

“I have no nerve,” Adry confirmed. He sighed pitifully. “I’m not a killer.”

“So,” said Queen. “Where were you on New Year’s Eve, Adry? The night that Maisy Anderson was murdered?” He squinted his eyes intently at Hayward. “Don’t flub-dub me, either. The last time you were questioned by detectives you broke down like a three-wheeled wagon.”

Adry hung his head low. “I was with my wife, at home.”

Norbeck threw his head back and guffawed. “You’re a real weasel, ain’t you?”

“If you want to know who killed her, ask them.” Adry pointed to the door behind which the girls were hiding. “They saw everything.”

“And you’re a fool for getting yourself wrapped up in this. You’ve always got a way of bringing trouble to yourself.” After trying the knob again and feeling its empty wobble, Queen felt his temper begin to surface like a freight train from a dark tunnel. “I’ve no damned time to fool,” he said, as he banged on the door. “Come out of there!”

“Screw!” came a voice from inside, shrill and furious.

And then a gun fired, the crack echoing sharply against the bluffs, and the front window splintered. Queen whirled around, saw the sharp hole and the cracks through the glass, and then followed the bullet’s path to the door he’d just tried to open. The bullet had bored into the plank, plowing clean through. Adry dived to the dirt floor, hands clasped over his ears, and crawled frantically under the table on his knees and elbows. He cowered underneath, softly sobbing. Queen and Norbeck crouched low, revolvers in hand. One of the girls was screaming from behind the wall.