Twin Cities Noir (17 page)
Jane shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“This slip! I fell all the way down the goddamn stairs…” He went on for some time, describing his fall in graphic detail. Jane stared up at him, waiting for him to wind down.
“It must have fallen from the laundry basket,” she said as his rant faltered.
That set him off again. “I coulda been
killed,”
he said for the third or fourth time.
“I’m sorry,” said Jane. “I was careless.” After all, he was absolutely right. He was right about the sink drain, and he was right about the slip.
Next time, she thought. Next time she would call the guy.
O
n the morning of June 10, 1892, as the Republican National Convention droned toward its uninspired conclusion in Minneapolis, the news across the river in St. Paul proved to be far more riveting. A great mystery preoccupied the Saintly City, and it seemed to grow more confounding by the hour. As a result, when a special edition of the
St. Paul Dispatch
appeared on the streets at 10 a.m., copies were snapped up so quickly that the newsboys were sold out within a matter of minutes. The story that everyone wanted to read sprawled across the front page beneath a headline of the size normally reserved for the outbreak of war or the death of a major advertiser.
RANSOM VANISHES
, screamed the headline above the story, which began as follows:
A shocking development occurred early today in the kidnapping of Michael Kirchmeyer, who yesterday morning was abducted by parties unknown while on his way to work at the brewery operated for many years by his father, Johann, at the foot of Lee Avenue.
The
Dispatch
has learned that the police late last night set a trap for the kidnappers, who had demanded a $10,000 ransom for the young man’s safe return. At precisely midnight, Johann Kirchmeyer, following new instructions from the kidnappers, personally delivered the money to a wooded area in a ravine near the brewery. Once again obeying instructions, he then returned immediately to his palatial home on Stewart Avenue.
The police, meanwhile, closed in. Under the direct supervision of Chief of Detectives O’Connor, a contingent of his best men secreted themselves in the woods so as to have an unimpeded view of the locale where the ransom had been left. A full moon provided ample illumination for the policemen, who formed what Chief O’Connor described as a “perfect noose” in which the kidnappers would inevitably be caught, or so it was believed.
During the long vigil which followed, however, the police detected not the faintest sign that anyone was trying to steal away with the ransom. As the sun rose, O’Connor’s confidence in his “noose” began to fall. Fearing that his men had somehow been spotted by the kidnappers, the chief called off the surveillance at 6 o’clock this morning.
It was only then, when O’Connor went to retrieve the money, that he made an astounding discovery. The ransom was gone! A frantic search ensued but as this story went to press, there was no word as to where the ransom had gone or how it had been taken from beneath the very noses of the police.
As no fewer than eight policemen had the area in view and yet not one reported seeing or hearing anything of a suspicious nature, there appears to be but one possible explanation for the disappearance of the ransom. The chief, however, refused to entertain the possibility that one of his own officers might have absconded with the money, saying they are “to a man of the highest moral character and would never resort to thievery of any kind.”
In the meantime, young Kirchmeyer is still missing, and fear grows by the hour that he will meet with some terrible fate, as it is now obvious that the police of this city are far better at losing things than finding them. Indeed, it is to be wondered now whether there is anyone in St. Paul who can prevent a most awful tragedy from playing itself out before long.
What the author of this melancholy prediction didn’t know was that Shadwell Rafferty—saloonkeeper, bon vivant, private detective, and a man with an uncanny understanding of the human animal—was already on the case.
Although best remembered for the remarkable series of investigations he undertook with Sherlock Holmes, beginning with the ice palace murders of 1896, Shadwell Rafferty had even before then made a name for himself in St. Paul as a private detective. Saloonkeeping was, of course, his chief occupation, but by the early 1890s his legendary watering hole at the Ryan Hotel had proved so successful that he found himself able to devote more time to the “detectin’ game,” as called it. It was therefore hardly surprising that he found himself in the midst of the Kirchmeyer affair almost from the very start.
The facts of the case were simple enough, or so it seemed at first. On the morning of June 9, Kirchmeyer, aged twenty-four, left his family’s towering brick mansion on Stewart Avenue in the city’s West End to walk to his job as an accountant at his father’s brewery. Located in a complex of stout limestone buildings along the Mississippi River just three blocks from the mansion, the brewery was famed as the home of “Kirchmeyer’s Cavern Lager” or “Kirchy’s,” as it was commonly called, and so named because it was aged in a system of caves dug into the sandstone cliffs nearby. Local malt connoisseurs, Rafferty among them, regarded the dark foamy libation as St. Paul’s finest beer, no small achievement in city that took its drinking seriously.
Young Kirchmeyer’s walk was normally accomplished in a matter of minutes, but on this morning he did not arrive at the brewery as scheduled. Although not considered by his parents to be a perfectly reliable young man, he was seldom late for work and, if so, his tardiness was never extreme. When he became a full hour late, his father telephoned home to see what had happened. It was only then, after a brief search of the household, that Augusta Kirchmeyer, Michael’s mother, made a frightful discovery. Lodged beneath the screen door on the front porch was a note, written in the large block letters a child might use. It said:
WE HAVE YOUR SON. PRICE OF HIS SAFE RETURN IS $10,000. DO THIS NOW: WITHDRAW $10,000 IN SILVER CERTIFICATES (DENOMINATIONS OF $100) FROM YOUR BANK. PLACE CERTIFICATES IN SEALED BOX OR OTHER CONTAINER NO LARGER THAN TWELVE INCHES LONG, EIGHT INCHES WIDE, AND SIX INCHES HIGH. HAVE MONEY BY 6 O’CLOCK TONIGHT. AWAIT OUR NEXT COMMUNICATION. DO NOT DOUBT WE WILL KILL YOUR SON IF YOU FAIL TO FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS.
It was signed, in a malevolent flourish of ink,
THE BLACK HAND.
The police were called at once, and Chief of Detectives John J. O’Connor personally took charge of the investigation. He ordered a thorough canvassing of the neighborhood, which included the busy shops of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Omaha Railroad, where a thousand men worked. Someone, the chief believed, must have seen or heard something. But the canvass turned up only one piece of useful information. A boy playing in the yard of his home saw Kirchmeyer walking down Lee Avenue toward the brewery. He was alone and gave no sign of distress. Beyond this meager report, not a single clue emerged as to the young man’s whereabouts or how he might have been spirited away. It was, O’Connor remarked, as though Kirchmeyer had been “snatched up by the devil himself in broad daylight.”
Like most of St. Paul, Shadwell Rafferty learned of the kidnapping that afternoon when the
Dispatch
reported the story under a headline that read,
BLACK HAND GRIPS BREWER’S SON.
The reference to the Black Hand was well understood by readers of the newspaper, which in recent months had presented a series of sensational articles about a supposed “terrorist organization” of that name. It was said to be controlled by “a gang of foreign-born criminals” operating from the shanty town that sprawled along the Upper Levee flats beneath the new High Bridge. Various acts of extortion and even murder were attributed to the shadowy group, though details were regrettably sparse, and no criminal charges had ever been brought against any of the alleged gang members.
A newsboy had brought in the
Dispatch
as Rafferty and his longtime friend and chief bartender, George Washington “Wash” Thomas, were enjoying a late lunch of roast beef and boiled potatoes at the saloon, which was blessedly quiet after the noon rush. Rafferty read the kidnapping saga aloud in his powerful basso, pausing now and then to chew over a particularly intriguing detail.
When Rafferty had finished, Thomas said, “Well, it’s a strange one, Shad. Maybe you should call Mr. Kirchmeyer and see if you can help. Don’t you two go back a ways?”
“We do, Wash, though it’s been awhile since I’ve seen him. Fact is, I think the last time we talked was after that business a few years ago when Jimmy O’Shea was cartin’ away his prized lager.”
Thomas, who was not fond of confined spaces, remembered the case all too well. He and Rafferty had spent hours in the dank brewery caves setting a trap for the elusive O’Shea, whom the police seemed unable to track down. Kirchmeyer had been so pleased by the thief’s capture that he sent a month’s worth of lager to Rafferty’s saloon as a token of gratitude.
“What about Kirchmeyer’s son? Do you know him at all?” Thomas asked.
“Met him once or twice. ’Tis said he’s a bit on the wild side. Of course, so were you and I at that age. I seem to remember hearin’ that the lad went off to school out east for a while to study surveyin’ or some such thing but didn’t stay for long. There was woman trouble, I think.”
“I know all about that kind of trouble,” Thomas said, a mischievous grin spreading across his broad black face.
“Yes you do,” Rafferty agreed. “You are a regular expert in that department, Wash. Now then, what do you think about this kidnappin’ business? Do you believe it is the work of the Black Hand, assumin’ there is such a thing?”
Thomas knew that Rafferty had been skeptical of the earlier news stories. Unlike the reporters who wrote for the
Dispatch
, Rafferty actually knew many residents of the Upper Levee. If a cutthroat gang had been operating there, Rafferty thought, he would have been aware of it.
“I’m guessing you’re not convinced,” Thomas said. “Any particular reason why?”
By way of response, Rafferty picked up the paper and again read aloud the portion of the story dealing with the ransom note. Then he said, “I’m thinkin’, Wash, that for a bunch of ignorant immigrants, or so the
Dispatch
would have us believe, these Black Hand fellows seems to be regular masters of the King’s English. ‘Await our next communication,’ they say. Do you know anybody down on the levee who talks like that?”
“Can’t say that I do,” Thomas agreed, adding: “The instructions about packaging the ransom are also queer, don’t you think?”
Rafferty nodded. “Queer as can be.”
The telephone behind the long mahogany bar rang and Thomas got up to answer it. The operator came on, followed by a weary-sounding man who said in a thick German accent: “This is Johann Kirchmeyer. I need very much to talk with Mr. Rafferty.”
The Kirchmeyer mansion, its high-hatted brick tower soaring above a broad lawn interspersed with oaks, stood at the end of a circular driveway, which was crowded with carriages by the time Rafferty arrived. Two coppers were standing outside the front door, smoking cigars. Rafferty, once a member of the force himself, stopped to chat. After the usual jovial banter, he quickly learned that there had been no new developments in the investigation despite an intensive search for the kidnap victim.
“The old man’s in there waiting for the next message,” one of the cops told Rafferty. “Did he send for you, Shad?”
“He did.”
“Well, the Bull won’t be happy, I can tell you that.”
“The chief of detectives is never happy when I’m around,” Rafferty said. “Must be my irritatin’ habit of makin’ a fool of him.”
Rafferty turned to go inside, pausing first to look at the front screen door where, according to the
Dispatch
, the ransom note had been left. There were two large windows to either side of the door, both offering a clear view of the open porch. Placing a note beneath the door would certainly have been a risky proposition for the kidnappers.
A servant met Rafferty in the vestibule and ushered him upstairs to a small study at the rear of the house. There Rafferty found Johann Kirchmeyer, seated in an armchair next to a window that offered sweeping views of the river valley. Kirchmeyer was a short, heavyset man, with a bristly gray beard and small dark eyes behind wire-rim spectacles. Despite the heat, he wore a brown wool suit and vest, and he’d made no accommodation to the weather by loosening his tie, which was knotted with mechanical precision.
“Ach, it is good of you to come, Mr. Rafferty,” he said. “Come sit down and we will talk.”
After Rafferty had taken a seat, Kirchmeyer said, “I want my son back, Mr. Rafferty, and you, I believe, are the man who can do that for me.”
Rafferty was taken aback. “I appreciate your confidence, but the police—”
Kirchmeyer cut in with surprising fierceness. “No, no, I will not place my trust in the police, Mr. Rafferty, not for a single minute! You know as well as I why that is so.”
Because half the cops are crooked, Rafferty thought, and the other half are lazy. “Yes, I understand, but—”
Kirchmeyer interrupted again. “Mr. Rafferty, I wish to hear no more of the police. You see, sir, I can tell you who really kidnapped my son. This Black Hand business, bah, it is nonsense. Do you agree?”
Rafferty said he did.
Kirchmeyer smiled for the first time. “I knew you would. You see, there is something that must be kept confidential, something about Michael which I must tell you. I fear he has become involved with gamblers and owes them a great deal of money.”
“Ah, I see. ’Tis a common thing with young men, unfortunately. And you haven’t mentioned this to the police?”
“No. It would be scandal and the death of my dear Augusta, if she knew.”