The Yellow Packard
Read The Yellow Packard Online
Authors: Ace Collins
Tags: #Fiction, #Christian, #Historical, #Romance, #Suspense
“IF SHE HADN’T BOUGHT THAT BLAME CAR SHE’D STILL BE ALIVE.”
“What do you mean?” Johns shot back.
“That Packard was bad luck,” the sheriff quickly replied. “You surely heard the story about what happened when it was delivered?”
“Now, Jed,” Johns argued, “you don’t believe in that kind of nonsense. You go to church. Where’s your faith? What you’re mentioning is nothing more than stupid superstition. Now tell me, do you believe a black cat is bad luck? Or what about walking under a ladder?”
“I’m not stupid enough to walk under a ladder,” the sheriff explained, “and as for cats, well no, I don’t put much stock in that either. We own a black cat and I named him Lucky. But that car is something else altogether.”
“What happened?” Janet asked. “What’s this about Aunt Abbi’s car?”
“It was nothing,” Johns quickly answered. “It was just an accident.”
“You can call it an accident,” Atkins barked, “but those that were there know it is something more.”
“What do you mean?” the woman demanded.
“Well,” Johns explained, “the car came in from the factory by rail. When they brought it out of the boxcar, the guy backing it out didn’t see one of the other men who was working for the Illinois Central. The driver accidentally drove into him, knocking him off the dock and onto the rails. He hit his head and died. But it was nothing more than an accident.”
“Maybe,” Atkins chimed in, “but how do you explain what happened at the dealership?”
Janet looked from the sheriff to the attorney. Even in the darkness she could sense the man’s impatience.
“Just another freak accident,” John’s said. “That’s all it was!”
“What happened?” Janet again demanded.
“The car body was being lowered onto the frame,” an exasperated Johns sighed, “and the hydraulics failed. The whole thing came down on top of the poor mechanic.”
“In the span of three days,” Atkins chimed in, “that car killed two people! And the man who ordered it refused to buy it after that even though he’s paid a deposit to have it painted that hideous color.”
Dedication
To our sons Clint and Rance
© 2012 by Ace Collins
Print ISBN 978-1-61626-752-0
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62029-054-5
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62029-055-2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design and illustration by Kirk DouPonce, DogEared Design
Photo reference by Sunset Classics
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683,
www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
Prologue
F
rom a balcony on the second floor, Helen Meeker, an auburn-haired, slender, attractive woman with piercing blue eyes, dressed in a gray business suit and black pumps, glanced out toward the line workers below. Things in the three-decade old, Albert Kahn-designed Packard automobile plant appeared to be running smoothly. And why shouldn’t they be? After all, John G. Graves, second in command at the company’s public relations department, had just assured Helen Meeker that thousands of craftsmen simultaneously practicing over eighty different trades within the reinforced concrete walls of the 3,500,000-square-foot building combined their unique skills to create the finest cars in the world. He had then added, “If you don’t believe me, ask the man who owns one.”
Meeker had expected Graves to trot out the company’s time-honored motto at some point, and she gave him high marks in restraint for at least waiting until the moment she got to see the assembly line in action, which was three full hours into their tour.
“So, Miss Meeker,” Graves yelled over the factory noise, “you can tell President Roosevelt that while the dismal economy has hit even our company to some extent, we feel confident we are once more on our way to solid financial footing. I fully expect 1936 to be a profitable year and by next year, I think we will be hiring hundreds of new workers. That has got to make the folks in Washington happy!”
With Graves hovering at her shoulder, a still mute Meeker continued to study the rapidly moving assembly line that sprawled in front of her. The smoothly working operation could not hide the fact that the Depression had struck a mighty blow to the motor vehicle industry. Some of the best-known manufacturers in the world were hanging on to life by a thread while others had already shut their doors. Even Packard had been hemorrhaging so much red ink that it had been forced to produce a line of cheaper cars for folks whose names were not Rockefeller or Vanderbilt. In these unsure times, adaptation was a part of survival, and it appeared in this case that adaptation had come at precisely the right time, even if that meant giving up a bit of company prestige. Still, the cars she was watching below, with their dynamic styling, managed to create a sense of class and refined quality even if it was at a cheaper price.
“It is an impressive sight,” Graves shouted, a high degree of pride in his voice.
The young female attorney nodded. This was her third day in Michigan and her third company tour, having visited Ford and General Motors. While she was examining the companies’ books and production operations, that was simply a front. She had been given a much more important mission—looking for ties between crime and organized labor. The theory made some sense. Criminal elements always searched for weak points to get their hooks into legitimate business. But if it was happening in Detroit, Meeker had found no evidence. Just like Ford and GM, Packard seemed as squeaky clean as the company’s state-of-the-art plant.
“Miss Meeker,” Graves’s voice pulled the woman from watching a myriad of cars being assembled back to her host, “do you have any questions? Is there anything else the President might want to know?”
It was evident from his hopeful expression that the tall, lean, balding Graves was expecting a quick reply, but rather than offer even a token response, she just shrugged. Packard had been told Meeker was on this Detroit assignment to ascertain the effect of the President’s programs on the auto industry, thus they had rolled out the VIP treatment including this tour to fully impress her as to their fiscal stability. Yet for this White House–based assistant to the President, observing industry at work, even as a cover for something else, was simply not her cup of tea. What she really wanted was to be working in law enforcement out in the field, but the sad fact was the FBI was simply not interested in bringing in women as investigators, no matter how bright and well educated they were. Therefore, until she found a way to crack J. Edgar Hoover’s men’s club, she would play the role of free agent for Roosevelt. And for the moment, that meant pretending to be interested in the goings-on at the Packard Motor Car Company. She glanced at the cars coming through the production line, noting one in a canary yellow. Its bright, cheery color seemed out of place in the otherwise mundane lineup.
“Mr. Graves,” Meeker finally broke her long silence.
“Yes.”
Yelling over the noise, she pointed. “There seem to be five main colors, all pretty conservative, but that bright yellow car body out there doesn’t seem to fit in.”
He nodded, “We get special orders from customers from time to time. If you look to your far right you will note a bright blue coupe body about to be assembled onto a chassis. That is a departure from the norm as well.”
Meeker’s eyes darted to the bright blue paint. In the world of drab creams, maroons, navies, and blacks, the color did stand out. She followed the Carolina blue body as it was lifted above the line until a point where it would be dropped down onto its chassis. It was still hanging in the air when alarm bells, unexpectedly ringing from every corner of the plant, brought the long assembly line to an unexpected and sudden halt. As she reached up to cover her ears she yelled, “What does that mean?”
Graves, his dark eyes now as large as saucers, scanned the long line until he finally locked onto a spot about a hundred yards to his right. Meeker followed his gaze and saw a crowd of men gathering around the brightly painted yellow car she’d noticed a few minutes earlier. It was obvious that something was wrong. When the clanging stopped and the huge plant became as hushed as a church during prayer, the gravity of the issue was fully revealed. Every one of the thousands of men in the plant was standing perfectly still looking down to where that car had stopped the well-oiled machinery of one of the world’s longest assembly lines.
The forty-year-old public relations employee moved quickly to a flight of metal stairs leading to the plant’s floor. Meeker, her heels echoing on the steps, followed him stride for stride. Within two minutes the pair was a few feet from where a group of eight workers was trying to lift the sedan’s body off one of their coworkers. The man trapped face down between the yellow body and the car’s frame was still. His chest didn’t rise and fall. Blood oozed across the cement floor.
After noting the victim’s most obvious injuries Meeker’s eyes moved to a dangling cord just above the car. A quick examination revealed that one of the straps used to lower the body had broken, causing the main part of the almost completed Packard to fall forward, pinning the man where he had been working. Her investigator’s senses told her this was nothing more than equipment fatigue. After lifting thousands of cars, the belt had worn out, and in the process a man working below a car body had had his life snuffed out in the time it took to make one turn with a wrench.
“Miss Meeker,” Graves’s voice pulled her attention back to her tour guide, “we need to move away.” Just then the company doctor arrived. Graves added, “There is nothing we can do here; we’d just be in the way.” Grabbing the woman by the elbow and turning her back toward a wall, he whispered, “Let me assure you things like that never happen at this plant. It has been months since we have had any kind of accident. We take our workers’ safety very seriously here. Make sure the President knows that.”