The Big Mitt (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 1) (10 page)

“This isn’t exactly top shelf stuff, is it?”

“Have they told you what you’re going to be paid?”

“$780 a year, and the salary is more than enough for me to live on. I don’t have many expenses.”

“Good for you. I happen to live the life of an adult.”

He realized as soon as he said this that his appearance spoke otherwise. He looked like hell, and reeked like the inner bowels of hell.

“You know what you are?” Queen asked. He crossed his arms and stared coolly at the kid.

“Well, I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

“You’re a milkshake.”

The boy looked confused. “Why am I that?”

“A milkshake is a sport whose idea of a hot time on the town is an afternoon at the soda fountain sucking through straws.”

“Is that because I don’t get drunk like you?”

“Exactly. A real man drinks and knows how to have a good time. You haven’t even separated from your mother’s tit yet.”

Cahill said nothing, but his cheeks burned red. He focused intently on pouring the whiskey into the flask’s small opening.

“Keep working on that. I’m changing my clothes and then we’ll leave together.” Cahill looked up and nodded. What a rube, Queen thought smugly, as he pulled a fresh suit and shirt from his closet, walked into the hall, and then dropped the clothing on the floor. When he reached the front door he saw his sister Estella appear, wearing an apron and a concerned look on her face. She held up her hand, about to say something, but he put his finger to his mouth. “I’ll tell you about it later,” he said apologetically, grabbing his hat and coat from the rack. “I need to do something important, and I need to deal with it,
alone
.”

The Second Precinct Police Station, known to all as Central Station because of its location at 671 Central Avenue, was a dreary, unremarkable brick building wedged between others of the same ilk. To one side of the building, a large open doorway revealed a driver scrubbing a police wagon with a dry brush near the horses that pulled it. Queen entered through a steel-arched door, and passed Sergeant Krumweide at the desk. The sergeant barely looked up, intently penciling notes into a record book. It was quiet, and Cahill had evidently been right; most of the officers and staff who would have normally been milling around had left for the inauguration. Others, who wouldn’t be coming back, had emptied out their lockers. They should have gone home, but more likely ended up in nearby dives and doggeries to drown their sorrows and plan for their next careers.

There were cells on the first floor, and Queen decided to check those first, before going up to the main floor, which housed more men and the women’s ward. The circulation on the first floor had always been poor, but especially so in the winter when windows were locked tight. It led to an excruciating stench that permeated everything, from the worn walls to the crumbling concrete floors.

“Here you are,” Queen said with grim satisfaction when he reached the cell where Emil Dander sat. He hadn’t had to look far. “You look cozy behind these bars.”

“Good afternoon, Detective Queen. I’d been told you were planning to call on me.” He stood up and walked towards the cell door. Higgins snored on a bench nearby.

“They should have separated you two,” the detective observed disapprovingly.

“If my earthly journey ever gives me the chance to peruse the precious annals of Minneapolis police lore, I guarantee that you, Detective Queen, would go down as the most acrid, depressing representative of law enforcement in its contemptible, comical history.”

“I don’t have time for this, Dander, so I’d appreciate you answering my questions directly and promptly. None of your goddamn slang-whanging bluster today.”

Dander rubbed his jutting chin and lit a hyena smile. “I’m sitting in this rancid cell without the slightest gleam of knowledge as to why I’m here. But whatever you desire from me, I’m extraordinarily pleased to oblige.”

“Whatever reason you have for wearing that stupid smirk on your face, it can’t be nearly as bad as the possibility of you hanging for murder.”

“And who is this most unfortunate that you’re accusing me of extinguishing the life from?”

“I told you not to talk to me like that. You know what happened. Christ, you abandoned your house before the girl’s body had even turned cold.” Queen grabbed a bar with each hand, leaning into them. “And I need to know where the other girls are. The ones who
mysteriously
disappeared.”

“Not to worry. They’re safely tucked away.”

“Did you do the murder? Or are you as innocent as a newborn babe?”

Dander gave an exaggerated shudder. “Please do not mention babies in my presence, detective. I don’t find children useful or interesting in the slightest. Whenever one of my girls mentions her month has passed with no blood, my nights are awash with tosses and turns.”

“Jesus, don’t you understand the situation you’re in right now?”

“I certainly understand it.” A lock of black hair fell over his eye, and he pushed it from his handsome face. His expression turned serious. “I would never have touched a golden hair on her fair head, detective. She was my favorite, amongst all of my consorts. My muse, my love. Did I threaten her that evening? Regrettably, yes. She was threatening me as well, though. A threat far worse than mine. She was defying every rule I had laid down! Betraying the trust I’d put in her!” A tear ran down his cheek. “My beloved Maisy, plucked from the countryside like a fragile flower, and deposited to me for safe-keeping.”

Queen had had enough of this drivel. He reached through the bars, clutched Dander by the throat with one hand, and with the other held his shirt to keep him close. He squeezed Dander’s throat. Dander sputtered and spit and his eyes bulged wide.

From the bench, the hulking Higgins rose and moved closer. “Le’ go of his gutter chute, Queen!” he bellowed.

“Step back,” Queen threatened, “or I’ll call every man in this station who’s not taking a shit into your cell to slog you down into a fat, bloody pulp.” Higgins froze, his veins bulging in his thick neck, and massive hands curled into fists. Dander’s face was turning blue, so Queen loosened his grip a little to watch him scratch at his throat and catch his breath to speak.

“W-w-what are you trying to accomplish by this? Release me!”

Instead of being gentle, Queen thought a rough push might highlight his point, and it sent Dander backwards into Higgins’s arms. “Now sit down, both of you, and listen to me.” Higgins stared with intense hatred at Queen, but Dander just straightened his jacket. They sat on the coarse wooden bunk along the wall and Queen continued, grabbing a bar in each hand to help steady his words. “I think you two are as rotten as they come. You prey on innocent young girls and keep them against their wills. If I’d had even an inkling of the kind of business you’d been running I’d have stopped it long ago. However, despite how I personally feel towards you, my intuition tells me you may not have had anything to do with this. You’ve always come across to me as plotting, but not impulsive. Killing someone who makes you money wouldn’t be smart business. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Dander gave a nonchalant nod and picked at his finger.

“So, if it wasn’t you, who was it? Don’t act smart with me at this very important moment for you. I want straight answers or I leave this cell now, and you won’t see me again until I bring you a lovely bouquet of flowers the night before your execution.” Queen smiled inwardly at this lie. Evidently no one had yet told Dander that there would be no murder investigation while Colonel Ames was making the decisions.

“I am telling you this with the utmost respect, Detective Queen,” Dander explained with a placid expression. “I haven’t the slightest idea who would murder her. I’ll admit that I attempted to coerce her from flight with the threat of a bullet, but I never seriously had any intention of doing so, for the reason you so aptly stated. As far as others who might harm her, she had clients who frequented her room regularly, but none I would deem dangerous.”

“What about a man named ‘Ace’? What can you tell me about him?”

Dander laughed. “A jittery wisp of a man. I don’t think he’d even have the strength to lift a weapon, let alone pull a trigger.”

“He was especially taken with her.”

“She was a lovely girl. I was smitten as well.”

“I saw the conditions she lived in,” Queen spat. “I don’t believe for a goddamn minute you cared about her.”

“I’m sure I could never convince you of my feelings about my Mopsy, but I had them just the same.”

“Mopsy? That’s rich.”

“Again, despite what you think, I wanted no harm to come to her.” He ran his fingers through what little pomade he had left in his hair, slicking it back with his fingers and then delicately wiping the grease on Higgins’s sleeve.

“So you are saying you actually want me to find out who did this?”

Dander stood up. His eyes were moist, and he dramatically pulled out a handkerchief to dab them gently. “However you feel about me, Detective Queen, I want you to find the bastard who shot her. I’ll give you money if it helps your investigation. I don’t have it here with me, of course, but I can connect you to people who do. Hire private detectives if you have to, but know that cost is no concern.”

“I’m glad you are so cooperative, although those crocodile tears don’t hold much weight with me.”

“They’re nothing of the kind. Just tell me what you need from me.”

“I need to know where the other girls you had locked up in that house are hiding.”

“Ha!” Dander threw his head back and chortled. “You want to deprive me of my retirement fund?”

“What good are they doing you here? Once you’re tried and convicted of murder, they’ll be the smallest of your concerns.”

“I’d think, despite your rather beleaguered face, that women would be falling all over you, Queen, with your penchant for authority. Women like men with power. I’d expect you to do much better than with one of my runaways.”

Queen gritted his teeth. “The girl whose room was next to Maisy’s had the perfect view to the alley in back. If it wasn’t you, as you claim, then it’d behoove you to tell me where they are. One of your girls was a likely witness to the killer. Where are they? This might your only lifeline left, Dander, so out with it, quickly.”

“This must be some kind of dirty cop trick,” Higgins blurted out. “Don’t tell him.”

“Why?” asked Queen, as he lit a cigarette. “Because your sniveling pal Pock might be with them?”

“He ain’t!” shouted Higgins. “He’s somewhere you ain’t never going to find.”

“Give us a rest,” Dander said. “You’re in no intellectual position to engage the detective.”

“Don’t tell him, boss,” Higgins pleaded.

“You’d better tell me,” Queen warned, “if you want to live to see 1902.”

Emil Dander sighed, and pulled a bit of paper out of his pocket. Reluctantly, he handed it to Queen. “The fellow you mentioned before, named Ace. Regrettably, I do not know his last name. A secretive soul, he is. I do, however, know, with one hundred percent certainty, that my ladies are with him.”

“And how do you know this with such pin-point accuracy?”

“My employee Pock followed them there. He’s watching them and just waiting word from me on whether to take them back into our possession or not. I figured there wasn’t any harm in letting them be, for now. They’re safe with that weak-nosed ninny. Do you happen to have a spare cigarette?”

Queen ignored him and took the paper to read. “I suppose it would be too much to ask your rotten little friend to take a piece of mail out of his box to find out what his real name is?” Dander shrugged. Queen glowered back and continued reading. “This is an address in Bohemian Flats. I thought this dandy had money. What’s he doing living in a cesspool like that?”

“Living discreetly?”

“Probably something you should have done. Norbeck said he found you at the White Elephant, just a stone’s throw from City Hall. I took you to be a little more up to dick than that.”

Dander shook his head, slightly embarrassed. “A brief lapse in judgment. I’m partial to their chicken salad. It’s absolutely exquisite, but it proved my undoing. Like the mythical Pandora’s box, I simply couldn’t resist—”

“That’s enough,” Queen grunted. “I warned you about talking stupid. What are the girls’ names?”

“The ones they were legally born with? I’d like to think that besides their benefactor, I’m their protector too. Divulging that information would certainly jeopardize their future safety. Haven’t we already seen what a crazed lunatic with a gun can do already?”

“Their goddamn names.”

Dander bowed dramatically. “As you wish. Anything for the grand champion of the distressed and downtrodden. Edna Pease and Trilly Flick.”

“And which of those girls had the room next to Maisy’s?”

“That would be Miss Flick, detective.”

“And Maisy. Is that her real name?”

“Certainly. Maisy Anderson, to be completely compliant with your questioning.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me about that, now, would you?”

“As you said yourself, you are my best chance at freedom, detective. I tenderly submit to you.”