The Detroit Electric Scheme (25 page)

“No. I'll do it.” I took his arm and led him to the door. “And Doctor, could you call my father and let him know I'm not up to any trouble? Please don't tell him what I'm doing or where I am. Just assure him I'll be in contact as soon as I can.”

“Certainly.” He smiled at me. “It's a noble thing you're doing, Will. I just hope you know what you've gotten yourself into.” Before he left, Dr. Miller made me promise to have Wesley phone him at least once a day to apprise him of Elizabeth's condition.

As he and Wesley were leaving, I said, “Be careful out there. This isn't the best of neighborhoods.”

Wesley grinned and gave me a thumbs-up. It seemed an ironic gesture,
given that his thumbs were the only digits protruding fully from the bandages.

They left. I walked into the bedroom and sat on the floor next to Elizabeth. She was quiet now. The light from the candle on the wall danced, shadowing the hollows on her face and washing out what little color she had left. She could have been a corpse. I checked her pulse to make sure she wasn't.

Occasionally she murmured in her sleep but seemed to be resting comfortably. I brought the bottle of whiskey into the bedroom and resumed my watch. As the night wore on, she became more agitated, but settled down again with her next dose of medicine. Exhausted, I blew out the candles and walked to the only window in the room. Elizabeth couldn't escape through the locked apartment door. I was going to make sure she didn't leave via a third-story window. I laid down underneath it and fell asleep the second my head hit the floor.

Sometime in the night it became cold enough that I woke shivering. I lit a candle, and was in the other room loading coal into the stove when Elizabeth began babbling, her words slurred by the belladonna.

“John?” She sounded alarmed. “I can't believe you would . . . Who is she?”

I walked into the bedroom. Elizabeth was standing facing the doorway. The candle was guttering in the sconce, throwing exaggerated shadows that danced behind her. She buried her face in her hands and wept.

I took hold of her arm and tried to coax her to the mattress. “Come with me, Elizabeth.”

She resisted and turned to me. “No. I can't go with you, Frank. It's wrong.” Her eyes looked right through me. “I don't love you.”

“Frank? Van Dam?”

She was quiet for a moment. “That's sweet, Frank,” she slurred. “But I can't. I'm so sorry.”

I improvised. “Come away with me, Elizabeth,” I said, trying to impersonate Frank.

“No, I can't. You have to understand.”

“Where am I, Elizabeth?”

She began to babble nonsense words. After another minute she allowed me to lay her down on the mattress.

I didn't think she knew any Franks other than Frank Van Dam. She said she couldn't go with Frank because she didn't love him. Interesting, as Detective Riordan was so fond of saying. Was this a random hallucination, or was there some basis in fact for this conversation? I was going to have to talk with Dr. Miller about the effects of belladonna.

 

Wesley returned in the morning. “You've got a problem, Will,” he said, hurrying inside. He set a pile of clean clothing and blankets on the table. “The papers are full of hysterical ravings from Judge Hume about Elizabeth being kidnapped.”

I cursed. “Of course they are. I need to phone him. Can you watch her for a while?”

“Sure. Oh, that reminds me. I tried phoning Edsel, but he wasn't in. I left a message for him to cease and desist.”

“Thanks. Keep trying, will you? I want to be absolutely certain he stops.”

Wesley nodded.

I checked my pockets and found almost three dollars. A phone call, some food, another bag of coal, and two more bottles of cheap whiskey would cost about half that, and I'd still have some emergency money. “Thanks, Wes. Okay, well, I should leave now. You ought to get into the bedroom in case Elizabeth's awake.”

“Sure.”

As soon as the bedroom door closed behind him, I took the three remaining whiskey bottles from my duster and, as quietly as I could, hid them under the pile of trash in the corner of the room.

I ran down to the general store around the corner. It was a small
shop, and shabby, with half-empty shelves, but the Italian shopkeeper kept it swept and clean. The telephone sat on the counter toward the back, offering little privacy, but I wasn't going out on a search for another one. I dropped a nickel into the coin box, and when the receiver unlocked, I raised it to my ear and asked the operator for the Hume residence.

Alberts answered and nearly hung up before I could tell him I was calling about Elizabeth. I asked for the judge. Only a few seconds later, he was on the phone. I told him Elizabeth was with me now and was safe. He demanded I bring her home immediately. I told him she was a heroin addict. He didn't sound as surprised as I thought he would, but he was no less insistent that I bring her home. I explained why I couldn't, that she had to beat the addiction on her own terms. He continued to argue with me. I had to hang up on him.

Instead of solving the problem, I had made it worse. Now the police would know for certain she was with me.

Next, I phoned Dr. Miller and asked him whether the experiences in Elizabeth's hallucinations could actually have happened. He waffled. It was possible, but there was no way to know. That wasn't helpful. Elizabeth's conversation with Frank may have been provoked by a real-life experience. Then again, it may not have. I needed to find out.

I decided to buy three bottles of whiskey. We had enough food to last the week. Neither of us was eating much.

 

When I got back to the apartment, I threw the coal next to the stove before hanging my duster on the chair and cracking open the bedroom door. Wesley was leaning against the wall, looking out the window. Elizabeth lay curled up on the mattress with the blankets tucked around her. Wesley saw me and came out to the main room.

I told him about my conversation with Judge Hume. We decided I needed to stay inside the apartment for the duration, though Wesley volunteered to come back at night and watch Elizabeth while I got some rest. I thanked him but told him no. I was responsible for her.

After a moment, he nodded. “Do you need anything else?”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Well, yeah. A couple bottles of Old Tub would help pass the time.”

He appraised me for a moment. “Sure. Tomorrow soon enough?”

I scratched a fleabite on my forearm, looking down at it like I'd just been bitten. “Yeah, sure. That would be fine.”

Before he left with our stinking clothing and blankets, Wesley checked our supplies and refilled our water pail from the well down the street. He even emptied the chamber pot. He was a
good
friend.

When I gave Elizabeth her next dose of medicine, I decided to wash her. I worked around the nightgown, keeping her covered as well as I could, and didn't look at any more of her body than I absolutely had to. Still, it was impossible not to notice her condition—hipbones and ribs standing out in sharp detail, breasts flattened against her chest as if punctured, arms and legs like sticks. It made me want to cry.

Keeping my eyes averted, I dressed her in a clean nightgown, then changed the sheet and tucked her into two of the new blankets. For the rest of the day I kept spooning out the medicine. At times, Elizabeth had vivid hallucinations—talking to unseen people, fleeing from demons, drifting around the room with her arms outstretched as though flying. Other times she lay sleeping, as still as the dead. During her few lucid moments, I fed her and forced her to drink as much water as I could.

And, of course, I spent much of the day and night fortifying myself with the whiskey. Even with the bourbon Wesley was bringing, the liquor wasn't going to last the week.

I dozed when possible, always sitting or lying under the window to be sure Elizabeth didn't try to jump. Wesley came back Sunday morning with more clean clothing, another stack of blankets, and most important, two glistening bottles of Old Tub. I asked him to get another bottle of belladonna from Dr. Miller. He did me one better. A few hours later he returned with the doctor.

After he examined Elizabeth, Dr. Miller came back into the main room and said, “You're doing a fine job, Will.” He set his medical bag on the table and brought out another bottle of the drug. “This is more than enough to last until Tuesday night. Her withdrawal symptoms are decreasing, though she will continue to cramp for another day or two.”
He set his hand on my shoulder. “Make sure she gets plenty of water. Discontinue the belladonna Wednesday morning, but continue to give her the pills and start her up on the sedative. Same dosage. Bring her to my office Thursday afternoon.”

I thanked him again for his help. Wesley led the doctor to the door, and they padded down the hall—the only quiet walking I'd heard since I'd been here. I spent the day staying just sober enough to keep an eye on Elizabeth. The first bottle of Old Tub emptied quickly. I blended the second one with the rotgut, making it a little more palatable, before refilling the first bottle halfway. I left both bourbon bottles on the tabletop.

I kept myself sedated during the day and slept the sleep of the dead under the bedroom window, though I woke hours before the sun rose. Elizabeth was sleeping Monday morning when a fist pounded on the apartment door. I was groggy and still a little drunk.

Wesley called, “Will? Will?” He sounded excited or afraid, I couldn't tell which.

I jumped up and hurried to the door. When I opened it, Wesley thrust a
Detroit Journal
into my hand and pointed at the headline—front-page center. My mouth fell open.

Plastered across the top of the page was this:

JUDGE HUME ARRESTED IN EAD BRIBERY SCANDAL

 

I read the beginning of the article.

Circuit Court Judge Reginald Hume was arrested today by the Michigan State Police on multiple felony charges of receiving rewards for official misconduct. It is alleged that the judge accepted large sums of money in exchange for decisions favorable to the Employers Association of Detroit. Also implicated were a number of EAD officials, although police are not releasing any names at this time.

I looked up at Wesley. “This is the connection to John. This is why someone killed him. He had to have been involved.”

“Do you think Elizabeth knew about this?”

I frowned. “With her father and fiancé both involved? She must have.”

Wesley reached back into the hallway and pulled in a small bag of coal. “So what are you going to do?”

I thought for a moment. “I'm going to get her to tell me about it.” I threw the newspaper onto the table. “Say, have you spoken with Edsel yet?”

He shook his head. “I've left several messages.”

“I'm sure there's a good reason he hasn't called back. But keep trying, okay? I don't want him to get hurt.”

Wesley nodded. He kept me company for another hour, then left for Crowley Milner to sing. Even though he still couldn't play piano, he was a hot commodity. When he left I settled in for the day.

The more I thought about Elizabeth, the angrier I got. Her father and John were involved in an ongoing criminal activity. She had to know about it, but didn't tell anyone even though John was murdered. She could have added two and two—John and her father were committing a high-profile crime, John was murdered, therefore that crime was the basis for John's murder.

Could she have been complicit in his death? It didn't seem possible. Elizabeth was no killer. But she had to know something.

The rest of that day and the next, I asked her questions each time the belladonna started to wear off. There seemed to be a brief window during which I could direct her thoughts, and I quizzed her repeatedly about John and Frank and her father, but I got no answers, coherent ones anyway. I thought my luck would change on Wednesday when the belladonna wore off, but the sedative kept her sleeping twenty-two hours a day, and dazed and unfocused the rest of the time. By Thursday morning, my frustration had reached a boiling point.

One way or another, today she would tell me about her father and John.

 

Eight hours had passed since Elizabeth's last dose of sedative. She had been stirring for the past hour, but with normal movements, not the
jerks and twitches that accompanied her withdrawals. Her face even showed a touch of color.

It was time she found out what had happened to her father. I woke her and propped her against the wall.

“More medicine?” Her voice was still lazy, but she looked alert.

“No, we're done with that.” I knelt down on the floor next to her and had her drink a glass of water, then I fed her some bread with slivers of meat. After she ate, I gave her the newspaper with the article about her father's arrest. “Read this.”

She blinked a few times, trying to focus on the print. “Arrested?”

“You knew your father was taking bribes from the Employers Association, didn't you?”

“What?” She rubbed her face, stalling.

“John was paying off your father, wasn't he?”

“They didn't talk to me about things like that.”

“But you knew it, didn't you?”

She was quiet for a moment. “Yes.”

“Did it ever occur to you John might have been killed because of this?”

“I don't know.” She lay down on the mattress and curled into a ball, tucking her arms and legs in close to her.

“Your fiancé is murdered, and you know he's participating in an illegal activity. And you don't know if you thought he might have been killed because of it.”

“I've been sick, and it's your fault. Leave me alone.”

“All right then, tell me this. Was John an informant? Was he talking to the state police?”

“I don't know.”