The Case of the Murdered Muckraker (22 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: The Case of the Murdered Muckraker
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Down went the road into a valley wide enough for what looked like a farm and a few fields. But ahead rose a great ridge and more, higher peaks. The road climbed again, and they climbed with it, until it disappeared into the shadow of a sheer cliff.
This time there didn't seem to be much choice about where to go. A few minutes later the road reappeared, still with those tyre tracks without which it would have been invisible. To follow it between the rocky buttresses and near vertical slopes, Bessie flew at an angle, one wing up and one wing down. Only a stunt pilot could have done it, Daisy was sure.
At intervals the road vanished, but somehow they always found it after a minute or two. Daisy's heart was beating nineteen to the dozen, and breathing was difficult. She didn't know if it was the altitude or sheer terror.
She must have been stark raving mad to think catching Wilbur Pitt was worth the risk of crashing in this frozen white wilderness.
T
he snowy peaks seemed to go on forever, yet when Bessie shouted to Daisy that they had passed the worst, the sun had not yet cleared the mountains behind them. As long as the weather remained fine, she said, as predicted by the radio forecast, and no mechanical failure forced a landing in the desert …
“Desert!” Daisy shouted back. “I didn't know there was desert ahead.”
Bessie nodded. “Most of the way to Salt Lake. Desert and sagebrush.”
Picturing hundreds of miles of rolling sand dunes, Daisy was stunned by the stark beauty of cliffs and canyons and mesas. The colours ranged from almost white through greys, near black, buff and brown, pale pink to brick red. The rock formations were extraordinary. One rust-red massif stretched for miles like a fortified castle, with curtain walls, battlements, bastions, turrets, and buttresses.
There were long miles of dull, flat or rolling sagebrush where the road and railway ran straight as an arrow. Then both would disappear into a wooded gorge carved into the
plateau by the Colorado River. There the aeroplane followed the winding gash in the land, with glimpses of the river at the bottom.
Whenever Daisy was not too busy looking out for road, rail, or river, and working out which was best to follow, she and Bessie talked, shouting in abbreviated sentences. She heard about Bessie's childhood in Texas, her half-Negro, half-Indian father who had left his wife and thirteen children when Bessie was seven.
In spite of helping pick cotton and do the laundry her mother took in, Bessie had finished high school and even gone on to a term of college, though she could not afford more. Determined to better herself, she had then headed north to Chicago. Working as a waitress and manicurist, she had saved every penny and then, her heart set on flying, she applied to aviation schools, only to be turned down.
“Ah want to open a school anyone can attend,” she said. “Ah'm saving up every penny Ah can spare again. And every chance Ah get, Ah talk to people about what a coloured girl can do.”
In return, Daisy described growing up on her father's country estate, with all the privileges of a viscount's daughter—and all the restrictions.
“Girls just didn't go to university,” she explained. “And they didn't work, either.”
The War had enabled her to avoid finishing school and the social season, but it had also killed her brother, so that when her father died, the estate had gone to a distant cousin.
“No one left to stop me working,” she shouted. “Mother tried! Tried to stop me marrying Alec, too. He's a policeman, a detective.”
Naturally Bessie wanted to know what had brought them to America and how they found themselves chasing an air pirate across the country. By the time Daisy had satisfied her curiosity, they were both hoarse.
“Sounds like you're just 'bout as crazy as I am,” Bessie croaked with a grin.
There was another mountain range to cross, but they were able to fly round to the south of the highest peaks. They descended over a vast, flat, fertile plain surrounded by barren mountains. The blue waters of the Great Salt Lake sparkled in the distance. Shortly before noon, they landed in Salt Lake City.
From the air, the great city looked deserted. The airfield was one of the regular stops on the coast-to-coast air mail route, but it too was oddly quiet.
“Sunday,” Bessie said curtly, when Dipper asked where everyone was. “This is the Mormon capital. They'll all be in church.”
Alec groaned. “I suppose it's no use trying to find out what's going on, then, or conversely to tell anyone what we
think
is going on.”
“Let's refuel as quick as we can and get moving,” said Dipper cheerfully. He claimed to have been unable to close his eyes for fear of his life, but both he and Alec were much restored. He left a bank draft for the petrol, made out to the City Fathers, and they took off again.
Dipper was pilot, with Bessie beside him to navigate, so Daisy and Alec were together. Since his comment about “what we
think
is going on,” all her doubts had returned.
What if Pitt wasn't heading for Eugene City, and she had dragged everyone across the country for nothing? Was
it really Pitt she had seen in the Flatiron Building? If so, was he the murderer? If not, was it fear of the murderer that had made him run and hide? If so, was it her pursuit that had driven him to steal an aeroplane and kidnap the pilot?
If he reached Eugene City safely, that meant the pilot was unhurt. What harm had been done, apart from a minor disruption of the air mail service? Ought she to persuade Alec and Dipper to give up the chase and let Pitt escape in peace?
But what if he
was
his cousin's murderer?
In normal circumstances, she would have nerved herself to discuss these questions with Alec, whatever he thought of her vacillations. She couldn't bring herself to shout about it.
He held her hand as they took off. “Not scared?”
“Not after those mountains. Scared me half to death! Not you?”
“I slept through them,” he confessed.
“Oh, darling, what you missed. Utterly spectacular as well as utterly terrifying.”
“More ahead, I gather, though not so high. I'll stay awake now.”
He may have, but Daisy did not. She woke several hours later to find herself leaning against his shoulder, even colder and stiffer than before, and with a pain at her waist where the safety belt had cut into her. She groaned as she straightened.
Alec couldn't hear her groan, of course. He smiled and shouted at her, “Sleep well? We're going down.”
Ahead, the sun was low over white topped mountains.
The peaks were widely spaced, Daisy noted hopefully. With luck, crossing the range would not require stunt flying.
After a low pass to inspect the ground, they made a bumpy landing in a field on the outskirts of the little logging town of Bend. Several horse-drawn carts—buckboards, Bessie called them—which had been headed out of town altered course to come and inspect the aeroplane. Each carried several men, and not a one wore a fedora or a trilby. Those not in caps or cowboy hats—Stetsons—had on bowler hats. Daisy felt vindicated.
They were loggers returning to the forests after spending their Sunday off in town. With Dipper promising largesse, they willingly agreed to transport gasoline.
“Will a little place like this have enough to spare?” Daisy wondered.
“We don't need a full tank. Only eighty miles to go, as the crow flies,” Bessie told her.
Alec went off to the railway depot, determined to find a telegraph operator and let the authorities in Eugene know they were coming, and why. “Helpful chap,” he reported when he came back. “I signed off with my full title, including ‘Scotland Yard,' which isn't exactly correct but is more likely to be recognized than ‘C.I.D. Metropolitan Police.' I hope it will get someone's attention.”
As soon as they took off, to a great cheer from the loggers and townspeople, Daisy's worries returned. The fact that bowlers like Pitt's were common here did not actually mean anything, she realized. The one thing she had no doubts about was that Eugene was his home.
“Darling, what if Pitt's already got there and disappeared?”
Alec shrugged, grinning. “Whole trip makes no practical sense,” he shouted back. “We should have stayed in New York and started a hue and cry. Not my job to chase American crooks.”
“If it was, you'd have done it the practical way. You did send off those telegrams before we left.”
“I asked someone to send them. Dipper says his friends aren't keen on paper-work, so who knows?”
“Lambert will have reported what happened.”
Shaking his head, Alec said, “My guess is Lambert will have done a bunk. He'll send in his resignation from home.”
Daisy had to admit it wouldn't surprise her.
The last of a glorious sunset reflected rosily off the river as they landed at the Eugene airfield. Though the town had looked quite small from the air, it had a proper aerodrome, with well-kept grass, a hangar with a wind sleeve, tarmac, and a petrol pump. There was a small building, from which a man in uniform emerged as they taxied towards it. He stood with hands on hips, watching.
Bessie had been flying the aeroplane. She stopped on the tarmac and blissful silence fell as she switched off the engines. The man came over.
“Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher?” he called up to Dipper.
Alec had folded back the cabin's hood as they rolled across the grass. Standing up, he said, “I'm Fletcher.”
“Judkins, Chief of Eugene City Police. You send a cable?”
“I did. I'm glad it reached you.” Alec started to climb down.
“You got identification?” the police chief asked, rather
truculently. Though he could have had no way of knowing if Alec's credentials were genuine, he studied them carefully. “O.K.” he said, handing them back, apparently satisfied, “so what's the story, Chief Inspector?”
Alec explained that the previous day they had witnessed the theft of a U.S. Post Office aeroplane and the kidnapping of its pilot. “We have reason to believe the pirate intended to make his way to Eugene City.”
“Oh yeah?”
“My wife recognized him as someone known to her to have come from here.” Alec glossed over the fact that Daisy hadn't remembered the name of the place until they reached Denver. “I take it the plane hasn't landed here yet?”
“Nah. Only person to land here last coupla days is our local aviator, Mr. Simmons, back from a business trip to Portland. I'da heard for sure if an air mail plane came in. I ought to've heard it was expected.”
“We did our best to notify the proper authorities,” Alec assured him, “but we thought it best to come ourselves to make sure he would be apprehended.”
“The proper authorities, huh? Well now, this here's a federal offence. We got two federal agents in town, but they're Prohibition men. I don't know that they'd have the authority to arrest this here … . You didn't give me a name in your cable, Chief Inspector.”
“Pitt,” Alec told him. “Wilbur Pitt.”
“Can't call him to mind,” said Judkins, shaking his head.
“He's Otis Carmody's cousin,” said Daisy.
Suddenly alert, Judkins exclaimed, “Mr. Carmody's boy? He was shot in New York City.”
“I saw him shot. Wilbur Pitt was there and he ran away.”
“Pitt shot his cousin?”
“I didn't say that,” Daisy protested, suddenly exhausted and certain she had misinterpreted everything, from Pitt's presence at the Flatiron to his intended destination.
“So you didn't, ma'am. But I guess that's enough for me to hold him on, pending New York State requesting extradition. I'll need you to take a look at him when he lands and make a statement.”
“He's not likely to land in the dark,” said Alec. “My wife's had a tiring two days, Mr. Judkins. If you don't mind, we'll go and find a hotel for the night.”
“I'd like for you to stick around for a bit, Mr. Fletcher, talk 'bout how we're gonna do this without everything going up in flames.”
“I'll take the ladies to a hotel, old man,” said Dipper, returning with Bessie from hauling the plane into a hangar, with the aid of a mechanic.
“Streetcar's over that way,” said Judkins.
“I'll call for a cab,” said the mechanic disapprovingly. Daisy guessed Dipper, whose funds seemed inexhaustible, had rewarded his help with a lavish tip. “It's the Osburn you want, sir.”
The taxi took them to the Hotel Osburn. As they entered, it dawned on Daisy that, dressed in flying suits and with no luggage, they would not appear to the management as desirable guests. She relied on Dipper to cope.
Dipper might have succeeded if it hadn't been for Bessie.
“No coloureds,” said the desk clerk, stony-faced. “There's a rooming house the other side of the river.”
Tired as she was, Daisy wasn't going to stand for that. “If Miss Coleman can't stay here,” she snapped, “I shan't. Come on.” And she marched out to the pavement.
The others followed. They stood in a cold, weary, disconsolate group under the winking hotel sign. Somewhere a train whistled mournfully.
“There's bound to be another hotel in the town,” said Dipper with forced cheeriness.
“It'll be the same, honey,” said Bessie dispiritedly. “Ah'll go find the rooming house and y'all go on back in there.”
“Never!” Daisy and Dipper declared as one.

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