Murder in Burnt Orange (5 page)

Marriage is like life in this—that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses.

—Robert Louis Stevenson,
Virginibus Puerisque,
1881

There was no need to telephone for O'Rourke. The carriage was rattling down the street toward Norah's house as Hilda stepped out the door, and—oh,
Herre Gud,
Patrick was in it.

He was nearly speechless with rage and fear. Nearly. Unfortunately, not quite.

“And what d'you think you're doin', sneakin' out like this? And with the wreckers right here, right
here
, not two blocks away, and a fire startin' and maybe goin' to spread to these houses... What were you
thinkin'
?”

“I did not know there would be a train wreck, Patrick. Please help me into the carriage; I cannot get in by myself.” Hilda was trying hard to keep hold of her temper. Patrick had a certain amount of good sense on his side, and besides, Hilda was genuinely frightened. She could see the smoke rising near the factory, a black cloud that was growing by the moment. “Let us go home—please, Patrick.”

“You're goin' home.” He jumped down and gave her a hand up. “I'm goin' to the fire to help.”

Only then did Hilda notice that her husband was in his old fire-fighting gear, his helmet under his arm. She started to voice the thought that the carriage should first deliver him to the fire scene and then come back for her, but the look on his face changed her mind. “Yes, Patrick. Be careful.”

He turned away without another word and started to run in the direction of the smoke.

By the time Hilda reached home, tears of frustration were forming in her eyes. If only she could have gone with Patrick, have stayed at the scene of the accident—if accident it was. She might have seen something, someone, heard talk, might have been able to make some sense of what was happening. But no, she had left like a good wife and expectant mother, had gone back to where she and the baby were safe, while Patrick had gone to a place where he was certainly
not
safe. Train men were not the only ones who had been killed in the fires following wrecks.

There should, thought Hilda drearily as she climbed the steps to the porch, also be rules for expectant fathers.

Eileen met her at the door. “Oh, Miss Hilda, ma'am, I was that worried about you! When we heard about the wreck, so close to the factory, we was all afeared the fire might spread to those houses. You'd best come upstairs and have a lie-down. You know you didn't ought to be runnin' around like this, with wrecks and fires and all!”

Hilda allowed herself to be cosseted. She hated to admit it, but she
was
tired. A baby was such a nuisance!

And then she thought of little Fiona, soft and warm and trusting in her arms. Maybe, after all, there was something to be said for babies. At least once they got themselves born.

But what had her exhausting little trip gained her? Nearly nothing. Norah's advice about how to handle Patrick, while sound, had, as things turned out, been useless, though maybe she could use it on another occasion. As for information, she had already known that most Studebaker workers were perfectly content not to be unionized. Her own brother Sven told her that, frequently. A deeply conservative man, and the valued foreman of the paint shop, he had little use for unions, regarding them as disruptive and liable to cause far more harm than good.

Hilda thought about the fire. If it spread to the factory it could destroy wagons and carriages in production. It might even damage or destroy some of the motorcars Studebaker was now selling in increasing numbers. If it got as far as the paint shop—she didn't want to think about that. Surely Sven would not be there. He would be out fighting the fire, for if it reached the paint shop, everything would go up like an explosion. Workers—no, they would get out safely. They had to!

But it could spread to the company houses, the workers' houses. They were nice enough houses, though small, but they were built of wood. They would burn like tinder.

Not like this house. Hilda deliberately made herself relax and think about this good, safe house. This house was built of stone. It would last a long time, a home for her child, and for that child's children, and theirs....

When Patrick came home in the middle of the afternoon, tired, reeking of smoke, and ravenous, he found Hilda sound asleep. The sight of her lying in bed in her shift, her hair curling damply on her forehead, her cheeks flushed, made Patrick forget everything else—his weariness, his hunger, his anger. Heedless of the soot clinging to his garments, he sat on the bed and stroked her forehead. “Darlin' girl,” he murmured.

“Mmm.” Hilda opened her eyes. “Patrick! You are safe!”

“That I am, darlin'. The fire's not out, quite, but it's under control.”

Hilda yawned widely and woke more fully. “And you have brought most of it home with you! Look at what you have done to the sheets!”

“I'll have a bath in a minute, but first...” He leaned over, kissed her cheek, and then touched the sooty mark he had left there. “There. That's to remember me by. Is there anythin' to eat?”

Eileen, who had watched all this from the door, torn between approval of his attitude and dismay over the grime he was leaving everywhere, answered. “On the table, Mr. Patrick, as soon as you've cleaned up.”

Hilda, too, was famished, so it was some little time before the two stopped eating long enough for conversation.

“Patrick,” said Hilda, “I am sorry I went out this morning without telling you. It was only to see Norah and Fiona, and I did not think you would mind.” That was not the whole truth, and she had a feeling Patrick knew it, but he, too, was eager to mend their quarrel.

“I let me temper get the better of me, darlin', but when I heard about the train wreck and the fire, and found out you'd gone to that part of town—well, I got that pothered, and...” He spread his hands in silent apology.

“Yes, the wreck. Patrick, did you see anything, hear anything about how such a thing might have happened? Was it an accident?”

“Don't know. Reckon nobody knows, not yet, at least. One o' the front cars jumped the track, just as it was gettin' close to the factory. Carryin' coal, it was, and should 'a been goin' a lot slower than it was, the way I hear it. Anyway, it tipped over and spilled the coal all over the track, and then o' course the rest of the cars behind it tipped, too, and the weight of it all brought the engine down, and that's what started the fire. The engineer and the fireman were killed, and the brakeman's bad hurt. He was thrown off when the cars jumped the track.”

Hilda knew the brakeman walked along the tops of the cars to set the brakes. “But—is there not a law about automatic brakes? I am sure I read something in the newspaper that said the driver, the—the engineer had to be able to stop the train himself.”

“There is, but there's what they call a loophole in the law. If a train goes from one state to another, it has to have automatic brakes. But some of these coal trains, they just bring coal up north here from the coal mines down in southern Indiana, and so they can use old trains with the old systems. I talked to a couple of the train men, though, them as was at the other end and wasn't hurt, and they said as how this train did have the new brakes, so somethin' was maybe wrong with 'em, and that's why the brakeman was up top, and why the first car jumped.”

“The brakeman would know,” said Hilda.

“He would, and so would the engineer. But the one's dead and the other maybe dyin', so how's anyone to tell?”

“And—the fire. Was anyone—did everyone—?” She had been afraid to ask before, and Patrick was quick to reassure her.

“Sven's all right. He was in there fightin' the fire with the rest of us, and so was Sean. Nobody was bad hurt, savin' a few burns here and there. The factory buildings were never in real danger, though a few windows got smashed. And it never came near the houses.”

Hilda's sigh of relief came from so deep inside her, it seemed as if the baby must have sighed, too. Her mind set at rest, she bent it again to questions. “But was there no one there who might have—have caused this to happen? I know that if someone damaged the brakes, or the track, he could have done it hours ago, but I have heard that when someone does a bad thing, commits a crime, he wants to stay and see what happens.”

“I know what you're gettin' at, darlin'. But there's no tellin', honest. You've never fought a fire. When there's coal burnin', like today, there's so much smoke, sometimes you can't tell who's next to you, helpin'. And you're hot and scared, and workin' as hard and as fast as you can. You don't have time to notice hardly anythin' but where the flames are, if you can find 'em for the smoke.

“As for damagin' the track, that couldn't hardly have been done much before the train came along. There's trains along that track all day long, and most of the night, too. It must 'a been the brakes. Maybe somethin' could 'a been done to 'em so they'd work okay if the train was just slowin' down a little, but when it was tryin' to stop, they'd give out.”

“Could not someone tell by looking at the wrecked cars?”

“Darlin', the shape those cars are in, it's my belief nobody could tell now if they'd been cut apart with an axe.”

And with that Hilda was obliged to be content—for the time being.

She slept badly, visions of burning train cars playing behind her eyes. When morning came, very early, she was glad to get out of the rumpled bed and take a cool bath. By the time Patrick came downstairs, she was dressed and breakfasted and ready for church.

For the past several months, with Hilda so uncomfortable, they had abandoned their practice of a family dinner after church. It had been their habit, with Sunday the servants' afternoon out, to alternate between the Johansson and the Cavanaugh homes, facing in either place veiled resentment and chilly courtesy. Hilda had been glad to go to her church while Patrick went to his, and come straight home afterwards. Today, though, she felt better.

“Patrick, let us go to Sven's house after church. Mama and everyone will be there, and there will be plenty of food.”

“There always is,” Patrick agreed. “Your mama is goin' to want a report, though, and seems to me you've found out precious little.”

“That is why I want to go, to talk to people at church, and then to Sven and the others. Mama will think I should know all the answers by now, but she will be pleased that I work at finding out. And someone might know something, a little hint that might lead me to bigger ones. And you, Patrick, you will ask at your church. We work together,
ja
?”

“Ja,”
he echoed. “But you'll be careful what you ask, darlin'? Somewhere around, there's someone who doesn't mind who he kills.”

“And you, too, be careful.” She raised herself on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Pah! Your hair still smells of smoke.”

“Ah. It always does for a while, after a fire.”

“I never noticed it before we were married, when you were still a fireman.”

“That, darlin' girl,” he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her properly, “is because you never let me get close enough so's you could tell.”

A few clouds had gathered in the sky, but instead of moderating the heat, they seemed only to intensify the humidity. Hilda felt completely wilted when she stepped out of the carriage at her church. She was early; few people had gathered outside, so Hilda went inside, where it was stifling, even with the windows wide open, but at least she could sit down in the pew her family always used.

They came in just before the first hymn, so Hilda had no chance for more than a greeting. Sven, she noticed, smelled slightly of smoke. Or maybe it was just that the church was near the scene of the fire.

“Sven, Patrick and I would like to come to dinner today—if it is all right with you and Mama,” she said as soon as the last prayer was said, the last hymn sung, the final blessing pronounced.

“You have found out something!” said Mama in Swedish.

“No,” Hilda replied in the same language. “Anyway, not very much. But it has been a long time since we have had dinner together.”

Patrick and the carriage arrived just then. The distance to Sven's small house was not far, but Hilda was not expected to walk even a few blocks, especially not in the heat.

“Today, I think,” announced Sven, “we eat outside. A picnic we have!”

“Hooray!” shouted Erik, tossing his hat in the air.

As tables were brought outside, cloths were laid, and all the girls bustled in the kitchen, Hilda had the unusual pleasure of sitting and watching. Mama might be perfectly willing to have Hilda investigate murder and mayhem, but she was not about to have her helping in the kitchen on a hot day!

After Sven and Erik and Patrick had arranged the tables and chairs to their liking, there was little for them to do but watch the womenfolk arrange the meal. Hilda sat down next to her older brother.

“Sven, what happened yesterday? No, I know
what
happened.
Why
did it happen? What do people say?”

“Some say it was no accident. The men at the plant think the brakes must have failed, and if they failed, there might have been a good reason.”

“Why do they say that? Do they know who might have done it?”

Sven paused and looked around. Hilda's four sisters were bringing out dish after dish of herring and potatoes and salads. Erik was getting in their way, trying to sample everything. Mama was supervising the whole operation in the kitchen. Nevertheless, Sven lowered his voice to a whisper only Hilda and Patrick could hear.

“Some odd things have been happening in the paint shop. Men we don't know come in and talk about how bad our working conditions are, how we ought to organize. Most of us pay no attention, but they come back and come back, and some of the men, the young ones who know no better, are beginning to listen.”