The Detroit Electric Scheme (33 page)

I was sure he'd seen me. I pressed myself farther into Judge Hume's soft stomach and loins, intertwined our legs, and pushed my head down to the side of his. The policeman was cutting across the field. I held my breath again. The soft thud of boots into the dirt got louder. The light from his lantern illuminated the sheet next to my face. I laid the gun next to Judge Hume's midsection. No matter what happened to me, I wasn't going to shoot a policeman.

He passed within thirty feet of us. The light dimmed and the sound of footsteps got quieter. He crossed the gravel shoulder and started the motorcycle again. With a loud curse directed at Riordan, he hacked up a wad of phlegm and spit it out before slowly driving away.

My muscles unclenched. I reclaimed my pistol and pulled the judge out of the hole. In another ten minutes, I'd dug deep enough that I could bury him. I rolled him in, threw the bag in after, and used my hands to shovel dirt over the top of his body. Once I'd gotten the ground fairly level, I stood and stomped down on it, getting it packed, trying to forget what was underneath.

I knelt down again and smoothed more dirt over the top, hoping what seemed right in the dark of night would look normal in the morning. After I spread the extra dirt in the field around me, I went back to the oak tree, felt around on the ground for a branch with leaves still on it, and carried one back, dragging it behind me to cover my footprints. When I was as certain as I could be that my path was hidden, I dropped both branches by the tree and lay back, panting, on the ground.

Judge Hume—obviously—wasn't the killer. Regardless of whether he had been involved in the murders of Cooper and the Doyles, someone else was doing the dirty work.

Frank Van Dam
had
to be the killer. Someone else took that train to Denver. The Mr. and Mrs. Van Dam at the hotel were different people. Frank was big and strong and tough, and not afraid of anything, other than perhaps going to prison with the socialists and anarchists he'd helped lock up over the years. Frank's car was at the train station. He'd been implicated in the bribery. No one else could have had as much
motive. John Cooper was probably talking to the police and, if so, would have sent Frank to jail. The Doyles had merely gotten in the way, but the judge was definitely talking to the police. After going so far already, Frank wouldn't have risked that, either.

I may have been just a convenient scapegoat, the easiest person to blame for the murders. Was Frank that cold, to destroy an innocent man?

Not likely. He had found out about Elizabeth. I was certain now. He loved her. Therefore he hated me.

Pushing myself to my feet, I stumbled away from the field back toward my apartment, again cutting through alleyways, staying in the dark. Two streets over, I found a water pump at the back of a house. I stripped down to my undershorts and drenched myself with water, scrubbing at my hands, arms, and face, trying to rid myself of all traces of Judge Hume and the field in which he lay.

I was shivering uncontrollably. I told myself it was only from the freezing water and the cold night, until I felt tears again begin to well up in my eyes. Trying to compose myself, I dried off with my duster and dressed, then hid my gun in a flower bed on the side of the house.

I had to go back to my apartment. The police had obviously been tipped that a body would be found there, and they'd be waiting for me. My alibi expired almost two hours ago. The longer I waited, the guiltier I'd look. Judge Hume's disappearance coinciding with too much unaccounted-for time could equal life in the pen.

That result was too likely already.

 

A uniformed policeman shoved me into my apartment. Detective Riordan was in the parlor, sitting sideways on my sofa, his dirty brown brogans up on the cushion. A cold wind blew into the room through the open window. Four bottles of Old Tub sat on the coffee table.

They'd searched my apartment.

“Hello, Will.” He took his time getting up. “See,” he said, nodding toward the bottles. “Somehow I just knew you were a bourbon man.”

“What are you doing in my apartment, Riordan?” I tried to sound indignant, but I was sure the detective could hear the fear in my voice.

“Oh, I think you know that.” He reached out and smoothed the lapel of my duster. “Looks like somebody beat the hell out of you again.”

“Yeah.” I turned away from him and headed for the bathroom.

Riordan grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. “Tell me about it.”

“It's none of your business.” If I cooperated too easily, he'd know I was lying.

He pushed me against the wall, the front of my shirt bunched in his fist. Leaning down into my face, he growled, “Everything you do is my business.”

“All right, give me a minute.”

He let go of me and stepped back.

I took off my duster and draped it over a chair. “It was John Dodge.” I explained what had happened outside the theater. “There were plenty of witnesses.” This time, if they didn't find the body, I was safe so long as I kept my mouth shut.

“You're just getting home?”

I nodded.

“Then why are your jacket, shirt, and tie on the floor?”

“I . . . wore those yesterday.”

His eyes gave me nothing. “Where are the rest of the clothes you were wearing tonight?”

“Outside the Miles Theater, I guess. If someone hasn't already stolen them.”

Riordan didn't say anything.

I shrugged and tried to sound casual. “Can't fight with all that stuff on, can you?”

He gave me a grudging nod before gesturing toward the window. “Why's the window open?”

“Oh, airing out the place.”

“I'd say it needs it.” He nodded toward the bedroom. “What happened back there?”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean. What were you doing in the bedroom?”

I felt an icy jab in the pit of my stomach. “Nothing.” I tried to think of what I could have left in the room.

Riordan glanced at the policeman who'd brought me in. “Do you suppose this milksop has ever told the truth?”

The cop shrugged.

Riordan shoved me toward the bedroom. When I saw the room I began to search my mind for an explanation, but I was frightened and tired and drunk. I just stared.

The bed looked like it had been torn apart, the blankets and lone sheet scattered across and off it. The rocking chair sat crooked, facing the wall. The wardrobe stood open, doors askew. The reek of shit had diminished, but it was still there.

“What?” I said, looking back to Riordan. I couldn't think of anything else to say.

“ ‘What?' he says.” Riordan grinned. “Looking at this, what would you say happened here?”

I tried to look innocent. “I don't know. I guess I'd say nobody's cleaned my bedroom for a while.”

“I'd say it looks like you had a lover's quarrel with one of your fairy friends. I'd say it got out of control and you killed him.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. My room's messy. So what?”

His lip curled, and he glared at me from under his fedora. “How about the smell?”

“What about it?”

“You know, Will, when a man struggles for his life, it's normal for his bowels to release. Unless you crap in your bed, I'd bet somebody got killed in here. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?”

I shook my head.

“Where's the other sheet?”

“What other sheet?”

He blew out a breath in frustration. “The other sheet from your bed, you simpleton.”

“I just use one. Less to wash that way.”

Riordan ripped the sheet off my bed. “You won't mind if I take this one, then? In case we happen to find another that matches?”

I shrugged. He didn't need my permission. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Yes, there is. What would we have found here this evening if the idiot who answers the telephone at the station had phoned me when he got the call?” He poked me in the chest with a big finger. I stumbled back half a step. “This time tell me the truth.” He advanced on me, jabbing me in the chest again.

I got my balance, braced my legs, and glared back at him. In a tight voice, I said, “Nothing. You would have found nothing.”

He leaned over, his face inches from mine. “What did you do tonight?”

“I went to the show. I got beat up. I walked home. I was humiliated.” I nodded toward his scar. “Surely you can understand being humiliated.”

A smile began to spread across his face. “You seem to have grown a pair over the last week or so.” He half turned, like he was going to leave, and then spun and kicked me in the groin with one of his big boots.

I collapsed onto the floor, doubled over, retching.

Riordan stood over me and waited until I'd brought up my dinner and about a quart of bourbon. “I liked you better before.”

 

The next morning I shuffled to the bathroom from the couch, where I'd spent the night. Even though I'd changed the bedding—and thrown out everything from the night before—I couldn't imagine sleeping in my bed.

Pain coursed through my body. Every muscle fiber, organ, and bone hurt, though the stabs in my gut and groin courtesy of Riordan's boot were the worst. After swallowing a handful of aspirin, I stood over the toilet bowl and tried to urinate. I'd go a little and stop from the pain, then go a little more. The thin stream was tinged pink.

I hobbled to the kitchen, reached up behind the flour, and brought down one of the bourbon bottles. I'd already pulled out the cork and raised the bottle to my mouth when I hesitated.

I was destroying myself. That realization was nothing new. But today, for some reason, it mattered.

I stared at the red and white label on the bottle of Old Tub. Somewhere in the back of my mind a soothing voice told me to take a drink. It would feel so good going down. The anticipatory burn in my throat, the warmth spreading through my body, the darkening around my mind that would dull the pain, help blur the memories. My mouth began to turn up in a smile. I could already taste the bourbon, feel the burn, the warmth. It would be so good.

Another minute passed. I was still staring at the bottle.

The voice was the dead man inside me. He'd been trying to escape for more than a year. Had I been in this shape a week ago I would have let him out, let him stick my head in the oven and turn on the gas. After getting so drunk I'd believe him when he told me it was the only thing to do.

But not today.

I turned the bottle of Old Tub upside down over the sink, my head turned away, trying not to smell the sweet caramel odor while the bourbon splashed into the sink and down the drain. I followed that with the other three bottles of bourbon in the cupboard, and then all the bottles from the liquor cabinet in the parlor.

This wasn't the first time I'd sworn off alcohol, but I was determined it would be the last. Elizabeth had been able to escape the clutches of heroin. Surely I could stop drinking. Sober, I might have a chance to save myself from Frank Van Dam and Detective Riordan. If I kept on like I was, I would only be digging another grave, this one for myself.

Every motion brought a new round of pain, but I suffered through it long enough to break off a sturdy piece of wood from the pile next to the fireplace. I wedged it into the frame of the window overlooking the fire escape. Frank would have to find another way in.

The gun was a loose end that would have to wait until tonight. It was hidden well enough, and I couldn't very well stroll over to someone else's house in broad daylight and pluck a gun from their garden. I went back to the parlor and lay on the couch all morning, moving as little as possible while I tried to sort through the jumble of ideas bouncing around my mind. Judge Hume had been murdered, and I'd been framed for it. I was killing myself with liquor. I'd been made a fool in front of a woman I thought I might care for and only made the humiliation worse by running away. Every time I thought of Sapphira my cheeks began to redden, and I felt the humiliation anew. I'd never be able to see her without thinking of last night.

I'd never be able to see her.

Around one, my telephone rang. I steeled myself and rolled slowly to the edge of the couch, then lowered my legs to the floor and unfolded
myself an inch or two at a time. That was tolerable. I hobbled to the den and answered the phone. It was my father, asking why I wasn't there for dinner.

“Dinner? Oh, right,” I said, grunting out a laugh. “I was going to phone you. I'm not feeling too well.”

“Not feeling well enough for your mother's prime rib?”

“No, I should just stay in bed today.”

“We'll bring it to you then.”

“No!” I said, much more forcefully than I intended. I didn't want them seeing my condition, much less the condition of my apartment.

“I've got something to discuss with you, Will. We should talk today.” His manner was casual, but given the state of the rest of my life, I was certain it would be something bad.

“Gosh, well . . . all right. I'll come to your house. I suppose I could use some home cooking.”

“Excellent,” my father said. “I'll have Mother hold dinner for a bit.”

“I'll be there as soon as I can.” I cleaned myself up and dressed, every movement a painful reminder of the night before. My hands were shaking when I tried to tie my cravat. The shaking hadn't stopped by the time I walked up the sidewalk to my parents' house. It was a two-story shingle-style Victorian with an inviting shade porch and rough-hewn wood shingles on the siding and steeply pitched roof. My father always said it was “spacious but not ostentatious.” I used to agree. Now it seemed more a monument to excess, along with the rest of the neighborhood. I knocked. Somehow just walking in didn't feel appropriate anymore.