THE DEVILS DIME (21 page)

“Trumbull, it’s done. She has no job, no home, her father is in jail, and her boyfriend put him there. She won’t be a problem to us any longer.”

“You seem awfully certain of that, Cash.”

Hamilton felt a nervous shudder, like a goose walking over his grave, at hearing his college nickname muttered right into his earpiece.

“Give her twenty-four hours, Deac. She’ll leave town. Go back to Chicago. I’m sure of it.”

Hamilton’s knee jiggled nervously when the silence on the other end of the line lasted a moment longer than necessary.

“See that she does, Cash. Because one way or another, I want that woman out of this town. She’ll only draw sympathy for Magee and that won’t do.”

. . .

Fool!

Ten blocks away, Jess had reached the
Times
Building, fuming the whole way. If Hamilton Jensen thought they believed him, he had another think coming. This was pure vengeance.

And that’s what made it even worse. Hamilton was punishing Addie for Jess’s own rash impulse.

A hot fist of anger rose to an explosive edge and began to throb behind his forehead. If his article had landed her father in jail and his whimsical kiss in the alley had cost Addie her job, then he himself was to blame for every ounce of misery he’d seen on her face minutes earlier.

No wonder when he attempted a second not-so-private kiss in less than two days she’d recoiled.

He took the front steps two at a time, determined to get his column out and get back to Addie. Any one of the several rejects he’d laid aside over the last few days would have to do. At least until he could pull together enough information to write a story that would clear Ford of suspicion.

But that was going to take time, and Jess didn’t want Addie alone all day.

He grabbed the door before it closed behind the person who’d entered a moment earlier and nearly trampled the man as he strode through it. In the cool, dark interior, he hadn’t seen the congestion just inside the door.

A half dozen women with baskets were handing black armbands to
Times
employees as they arrived for work.

“Ruth!” Jess stepped aside to get the attention of one of the few women he knew by name. She was just tugging an armband into place for a fellow whose bicep could really have accommodated a band twice the size of this one.

“Ruth, what’s going on?” As he asked the question, Jess looked across the wide foyer and saw that all the ‘regulars’ at the
Times
had a black band on their sleeve.

“Oh, Mr. Pepper, the saddest thing. It’s Mr. Twickenham.”

“Ollie?” An unfamiliar jangle of alarm coursed down his neck and sent warnings to the far reaches of his fingers. “What’s happened?”

Ruth leaned close and lowered her voice, as if what she were about to say wasn’t common knowledge. “Gus Calloway found him in the basement this morning. In the...in the morgue, God help us. Shot dead. By his own hand.” Her hand was a blur as she crossed herself, then slipped a band onto Jess’s sleeve.

He stood motionless, unbelieving, questioning the idea that there was anything remotely suicidal about his crusty friend.

“Suicide?” Jess asked and Ruth nodded. “That’s not possible.”

“Oh, but they found him with a gun!” she hissed.

Jess knew all about the gun Ollie kept for protection. He excused himself and hurried to find Gus. It didn’t take long, since everyone knew by now that it was Gus who’d found Ollie, and he was still in the basement finishing up with the detectives.

If it weren’t for Gus, Jess would have been the morgue’s most frequent visitor. But Gus shared Jess’s penchant for research, and often hit the morgue to check out facts his reporters on the city desk tried to foist onto an unsuspecting public as news. So he had been on a mission for historical data when he discovered Ollie in the early morning hours.

The basement was quiet except for a bit of activity near the central kiosk. The sulfur smell of a spent flash pot lingered in the air, and Jess wondered for a moment if he’d have to look at photographs of his murdered friend one day soon.

He’d spent half his life studying crime pictures, but never those of someone he’d been so fond of.

Jess spotted Gus standing some distance away by himself. He approached from behind and Gus jumped at his quiet greeting. “I’m sorry, Gus. I just heard.”

Gus turned and raised an eyebrow at Jess. His cheeks were flushed, and his expression seemed more perplexed than sorrowful.

“They don’t believe me, Jess.”

Jess knitted his forehead and cocked his head, communicating an unspoken question.

Gus shoved one hand in his pocket and with the other steered Jess to a point out of earshot from the police detail. He rubbed a palm across his bald spot three times before he finally exhaled a long breath and began to explain.

“All I wanted to do was check out some old statutes, so I came down here first thing this morning. I whistled for Ollie like I always do, but he didn’t answer, so I was just going to go on and get my work done when I stepped in something. I turned to see what it was because it was...because I almost fell.”

Gus swallowed and looked at Jess, then looked away.

“It was blood, Jess. A river of it. And there was Ollie, lying there soaked in it.”

Jess put a hand on Gus’s shoulder. The man had gone white just recounting the tale.

“I was going to run for help and then I saw the gun. He always told me he had a gun down here. And it was there in his hand. So, I don’t know why, but I picked it up. And it was heavy. And I had this crazy thought that maybe the bullets made it heavy, so I opened the cylinder and...you know...spun it around. All the slots had a bullet.”

“All six? Gus, you’re sure about that?”

“Yeah. All six. So I figured he was trying to frighten someone off and they killed him. I ran to get the police and they came in poking all around and wouldn’t let us near ‘til they were done.”

Jess felt a curious wave of anger and relief when Gus confirmed what he knew had to be true. Ollie hadn’t killed himself.

“Then they started asking me questions. And I told how I’d found him. And they asked if Ollie had been upset or worried about something. Or if he’d been acting strange lately. And, well, I laughed, ‘cuz you know Ollie. He’s always acting strange.”

Jess smiled his agreement.

“So I asked if they knew who killed him, and they said he did it himself. Suicide. And I said that can’t be, because I’d found all six bullets in his gun.”

“You told the detectives that?” Jess could tell Gus was giving an accurate account, but he needed to be sure.

“Mm-hm. Then they said I must have been scared or shocked or something, because there were only five bullets in the gun. I argued but they showed me the gun. There were only five.”

Gus shifted and straightened his shoulders. “Jess, I swear there were six. But then they showed me five, and I—”

“Whoa, there, Gus. If you say you saw six, then I know there were six. I think...I think they were bending the story to suit their purpose.”

“But why?”

“Who knows, Gus. But for now, let’s keep it under our hat, ok?”

Gus agreed.

“Do you...can you give me the names of the investigators or police, whoever might have been here first?”

Gus nodded. “Three of them, Jess. Got here right away. Maupin, Conroy and Trumbull.”

“Trumbull was here? You’re sure?”

Again Gus nodded.

It made no sense. No sense at all. Why would the Chief want folks to think it was suicide, not murder?

Although it grieved him to have Ollie’s name sullied with the suggestion of suicide, Jess knew he’d keep quiet about it. He needed evidence before he could claim otherwise.

But his time belonged to the living, not to the dead. He needed to get to his office and make some notes, then focus on Ford’s situation.

The quiet murmurs of the investigating team faded behind him as he reached the stair top. It might be a while before he could return to the morgue. But when he did, he knew he would come to avenge Ollie Twickenham’s murder.

Chapter Fifteen

“Papa?”

Addie squinted through the small barred opening of the cell door and tried to make out the form of her father.

“Ford Magee?”

A slow drip worked its weary rhythm somewhere behind her, its sound echoing from the stone walls and dying away just before the next drop fell. Something on the other side of the door moved.

“Papa, please say something.” Addie punctuated her plea with a soft tap on the heavy door.

But even as she begged him to speak, she was afraid of what he might say. Or what he might not say.

Just being near to him, though, brought the first calm she’d felt since she’d watched the paddy wagon door close behind her father the night before. When he was ready to speak, she’d be ready to listen.

Addie welcomed the silence of the deserted hall, with its cold, fortressed stone that stood between her and the city. Here was a place she found she could think for the first time today.

Her legs were weary from walking the streets and climbing stairs to look at sixth floor rat infested rooms. How had she managed to find the Grayburn Arms so easily less than two months ago? There was nothing remotely close to it available now.

Be careful what you wish for.

Her mother’s words had tumbled in her head all afternoon. Even this week she had contemplated the earliest possible moment that she could afford to leave her dismal room behind and find something better. Something with running water.

Now that desperate circumstances had befallen her, she knew how wrong she was not to have appreciated her clean, safe haven.

Addie dropped her weight onto a low stool and stretched her legs in front of her. She lifted her violin case into her lap and sat with both hands clasping it as she rocked her head against the wall to work out the kinks in her neck.

Images of the squalid neighborhoods she’d passed through earlier in the day blurred into scenes from a childhood tale of horror she’d once read. As her mind began to lose the boundary between truth and fiction, her agitated fingers worked the latches on her case open.

Addie responded out of instinct to the sweet resin smell that wafted from the case, and before she realized it, the violin was tucked beneath her chin.

She drew the bow across the strings and let her fingers wander until they fell into a familiar tune. Her mother’s favorite hymn.

The Old Rugged Cross
melted into
It is Well With My Soul
. The sounds bounced back to her, delayed, like a choir at the back of the church that couldn’t quite keep up with the organ at the front.

The long echoes should have been disconcerting, but they were not. And by the time she modulated into
Nearer My God to Thee
Addie was off the stool and pacing the narrow hall, as was her nature when she fell into the music.

The final notes spun out, rich, warm, comforting, and Addie rocked to a stop and lifted her bow from the strings. Eyes closed, she felt the haunting overtones recede into the quiet darkness. And with them went some of her sadness.

She opened her eyes a languid crack, and sensed her father’s nearness. With the violin clasped to her chest, Addie leaned her shoulder against the door to his cell and rested her head against the iron grill.

Minutes passed before she became aware that her father’s hand had quietly grasped another of the iron bars. And just as he had when she was a child, the backs of his rough fingers began to stroke her cheek, and Addie wept. Her music had spoken to him, too.

. . .

Tad Morton and his father had carried the last of Addie’s belongings into her father’s apartment and were moving things around to make space for her two steamer trunks. Addie stood by the door, at odds with making herself at home. But her father had insisted, and when she realized the comfort it gave him to provide a place for her, she’d accepted and loved him for it.

“I’ve wondered why I kept the place. Too nice for the likes of me m’self. But now I know, Addie girl. I kept it for this. For you.”