The Big Mitt (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 1) (27 page)

“Tell me what kind of bullet felled her,” Anderson asked. “You were with Coroner Williams when you examined her body, right?”

“Yes,” Walsh replied. “We extracted a .45-70 size bullet from just over her left breast. It entered her heart, and I believe she died instantly. A mortal shot.”

“And from a rifle, I assume.” Anderson was parched, and wiped his dry lips with the back of his hand. He wished he’d downed that water Cahill had brought him earlier. “Do men usually bring rifles to saloons here, Detective Queen, on New Year’s Eve? I can imagine a pistol, perhaps, tucked into a belt, but who carries a rifle into a saloon in Minneapolis? That seems to be looking for attention.”

“That does seem odd,” Keeper Walsh agreed.

Queen wore a concerned look. “A valid question, Sheriff. But there are many rough types about in this city, and I don’t find that particularly strange. Perhaps someone had come back from a hunting trip, and without time to leave their gear at home before heading out for a drink. There are dozens of possibilities like that one. It doesn’t seem out of the ordinary to me.”

“Tell me, Mr. Walsh. Is it usually the coroner or the Police Department who contacts family members regarding their deceased?” Anderson didn’t care that Queen was standing there. He was now past being polite.

“The coroner’s office does that, but we are in transition right now. Detective Queen kindly offered to ease our swamped situation.”

Footsteps stomped above them, interrupting the discussion. Keeper Walsh gave a faint, abashed grin. “I live upstairs with my family, and my wife is preparing lunch. She has a heavy step when I don’t appear on time. Sheriff Anderson, let us take care of what you came to do.”

The three men followed Walsh to the back, into a dark room that appeared to be an annex to the main building. Anderson knew it was the dead room. His eyes adjusted as Walsh turned up a gaslight. Even with the extra illumination, the room felt heavy and somber. Six marble slabs filled the sullen space.

The sheriff had seen his share of corpses in his day, but the anticipation of seeing his sweet Maisy lying on cold marble numbed him from head to toe. His senses slowed as they passed the slabs. Flat, cold and empty. Walsh, in his black suit, took on an undertaker’s persona, serene and taciturn. Queen’s face was ashen. Anderson’s limbs grew weaker as they approached, and he grabbed for support at the slabs he passed. Detective Cahill came up like a dart behind him, reaching out to help, but Anderson waved him away with a shake of his head.

“No, thank you, young man,” he said in a low grumble. He needed to pull his strength together, and with great effort, knees feeling like bending branches, he stretched himself up once more, letting go of the support of the slabs.

“Are you well enough to continue?” Keeper Walsh asked, looking alarmed.

“Yes. Let’s finish this now.”

They stopped at the back wall, by two slabs shrouded in white linen sheets, blindingly white in the gloom. One was fully covered. The other’s sheet was turned down, revealing the head of a ginger-haired teenage boy. His bare arm hung limply from his side, fingers smudged black and pointed to the floor. Anderson saw a recognition light up Queen’s face when he set eyes on the boy, a quick twist of horror and dismay. The look was there for an instant, then gone. The edge of the sheet, tucked under the boy’s chin, was drenched in blood, and his eyes were crossed, as though looking at his own gore from beyond the grave.

“Where did you find him?” Queen asked, his hand cupped over his forehead.

“In an alley near the depot, late last night,” replied Walsh.

“How did he die?”

Walsh cleared his throat and looked at Anderson. “It is quite gruesome, Lieutenant. Perhaps right now, isn’t the best time for those details. I’d be glad to –”

“It’s fine,” Anderson said. “Tell him.”

With a solemn nod, Walsh continued. “He was impaled, I believe, through the neck. Perhaps with a stake.” Walsh pushed the boy’s eyelids down with his fingers, to still the expression of frozen torment.

“W-why would someone do that?” piped up Cahill, looking horrified.

“There are dangers in living a life on the streets,” Queen said, gritting his teeth. Anderson watched Queen turn his head away. The detective looked genuinely affected by the boy’s death, and Anderson, even in his spell of melancholy, was touched.

“Sheriff Anderson,” Walsh said.

Anderson looked up. This is it, he thought, the moment his life crumbles into nothing.

“I have written as much of Maisy’s information as I know in the register in the reception area. Once we’ve confirmed identification, I’ll ask you some additional questions, fill out a complete report, get the coroner’s signature, and she’ll be released to you. Her body has been here for a week, but fortunately the weather has been cold. Up until today, anyway. Normally a body is handed over to a mortuary first, but Detective Queen thought it best that we worked directly with you. Out of respect for your past law enforcement background. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” He gripped the edge of the slab, and closed his eyes. Keeper Walsh was about to uncover her face. Anderson thought of his granddaughter when he’d last seen her, holding his hand on that sunlit day, readying herself for the big world about to open before her eyes. That’s how I want to remember her, with her sweet, ethereal smile, and a dulcet laugh that made everyone around her gay. I’ll look for just a moment, and it will be enough, and then I’ll return forever to the image of her I adore.

Anderson opened his eyes as Keeper Walsh pulled back the sheet, and the girl’s dirty yellow locks fell to the side. The lips on her pretty face were blue, her eyes closed.

The moan he let loose was guttural, a long deep primal release. His knees buckled, and he felt not only Cahill but also Queen and Walsh there to help him. Again, he used his sinewy arms to raise his aged body to its full length.

Finally, he managed to speak. His face was awash with deep, deep relief.

“It’s not my granddaughter. This is not Maisy.”

CHAPTER 9

A
FTER HIS ENCOUNTER WITH
J
OHN
P
ILLSBURY
yesterday, Dix Anderson was in no mood for another one. That morning, with a touch of shame, he had folded up his colorful Mackinaw coat and packed it into his bureau drawer. A look at the
Minneapolis Tribune
’s early edition, delivered at his hotel room’s door, and the embellished article about his visit to the Mayor’s office by one “Freddy Bonge,” brought out his scissors and straight razor. After a good bit of wrangling he managed to completely remove his mustache. Curled remnants of his twenty years’ effort sat in the sink and on the floor, white bits of fluff floating through the air and dusting the carpet.

It wasn’t embarrassment that led him to it. He’d been called far worse than by Pillsbury, and had heard every name imaginable during his long years. He wasn’t ashamed for the way he dressed or how he carried himself, either. In fact, the last time he was in Minneapolis, reporters had written about his quest in a very agreeable light. His outlandish garb and alpine height, along with the tragedy surrounding his visit, had elicited lots of warm-hearted attention. He’d received flowers, cards, and a proposition from the widow of a prominent Minneapolis businessman, which had even made Martha smile. While that earlier visit had been wracked by worry, he’d also felt the city’s enormous outpouring of support.

Bonge’s article, this time around, wasn’t flattering in the least, with no mention of why Anderson was here. Cahill had spoken of the reason as he’d grabbed Anderson’s arm and nudged him away. You’d think, Anderson thought, that his presence in town again, compounded by the discovery of a dead girl the police had thought was his granddaughter, and it would be screaming across the front page of the
Tribune
. Instead, he’d been branded a “once formidable, now antiquated Don Quixote” who had gotten in over his head, tilting lances against Minneapolis’s greatest leaders of industry with humiliating results: a five-foot-tall policeman pushing him out of harm’s way just before being arrested for disorderly behavior and attempted assault. He made a note to himself: no more conversations with reporters. No more unnecessary attention. He was here to find Maisy, God willing, alive, and as discreetly as possible. If that meant packing away his good-luck Mackinaw and slouch hat in favor of a drab gray city hat, suit and coat, then so be it.

The shock of yesterday’s discovery was still echoing through his head and heart. Once the astonishment had worn off for everyone in the dead room, Queen had hastily shaken his hand and apologized for the confusion, explaining he was needed elsewhere in the city. Out the door he flew, Cahill close behind, although not before the greenhorn detective offered Anderson some kind words.

“The good news, sir, is that she is still out there! Hope springs eternal!” Anderson wished he could view the world through such rose-colored glasses.

Keeper Walsh apologized, as he had an unidentified girl on his hands. No doubt realizing the work of finding her family would be daunting, he excused himself as well, leading Anderson to the front door. The sheriff assumed from the way his cord had been snipped so hurriedly by Queen, that what little goodwill he had with the police was now gone.

And here he was now, about to rough it alone. What was his next step? Where was he to go? What did he know today that he didn’t know two years ago, when he scoured the city for his little girl? He knew somebody knew her name. Someone had heard of Maisy Anderson, and connected it to that poor dead girl, and it didn’t seem like such a common name to have. Sure, there were probably thousands of Andersons in Minnesota, but the name Maisy would narrow it down. His intuition told him that her disappearance, and the appearance of a dead girl with her name, were more than mere coincidence.

After a night to sleep on it, he had wished he could have asked Queen about the boy in the morgue who had given the detective such a shock. Anderson wondered if he was the same boy Queen had mentioned earlier in the evening, the friend who had identified her as Maisy.

He could take two directions, he decided. One, he could explore the shantytown where the girl’s body had been discovered. Ask questions, describe his granddaughter’s face, and see if someone might have some little tidbit of information that could somehow connect him to her trail. Or, there was another possibility, perhaps a faster way to get the answers he needed. A few sips of coffee later, he had decided where he needed to go.

Milwaukee Depot was flush with the flurry of passengers, most looking cheerful as the day’s weather was unseasonably warm. Anderson tugged on the outside of his new suit jacket, trying to make it a little roomier, as he hadn’t taken the fit into consideration before strapping his gun belt to his waist. It had been awhile since he’d bought new clothes—not since Martha had been there to help him out. He remembered now why she did all the shopping. There was no chance this time of his pistols showing, though. He kept his long overcoat firmly buttoned, and this winter garment was far roomier than the jacket.

The dead boy’s fingers had been smudged with newspaper ink, and that was what led him back here. He remembered the teary-eyed newsies he’d spoken with when he’d first walked out of the station, and while he wasn’t certain, he suspected now they might have been mourning a friend. A friend in the morgue, stone cold dead, with his throat split open.

Queen had admitted that he’d learned about the dead girl’s identity from a boy. It was a long shot, he knew, but he figured those newsboys had as good a chance as any of knowing something about a fellow delinquent, who in turn might know something about his granddaughter. He hoped that the keeper of that information wasn’t the boy in the morgue, the one who’d made Detective Queen’s jaw drop in shock, but there was only one way to find out.

The cobblestone pavement was clear of ice, but slick and wet from melted snow. He watched from across the street, waiting for the three boys he’d seen yesterday to materialize from around a corner, lugging their newspapers, but they didn’t appear. Perhaps they only sell the evening papers, Anderson thought. It might be a long day ahead.

There were other boys hawking their rags, though, spread out along the sidewalk and trying to outshout each other with titillating headlines, the more gruesome the better.