The Hunt aka 27 (45 page)

Dry
m
an roared across Indiana at three hundred feet with a Sinclair Oil Company road map in his lap, trying to figure out exactly where he was.

“Are we lost, H.P.?” Keegan asked. He had the folder on the Dillinger job in his lap, reading through every sheet of paper.

“Of course not,” Dryman said, insulted. “I’m looking for landmarks.”

“You’re going to knock some farmer’s hat off if you don’t put some altitude under us.”

“I can’t navigate from ten thousand feet,” Dryman complained and changed the subject. “You’re really hot on this one, aren’t you, Boss?”

“It’s desperation. We’re running out of subject matter,” Keegan answered sourly. “Just keep flying.”

Keegan remembered something Eddie Tangier had told him.
If he faked his death it would stop right there. He’s out clean.
.

Fred Dempsey had supposedly drowned in an auto wreck but they had never found his body. He was the loan officer in the bank and had actually spoken with Dillinger during the robbery. Certainly he had been a prime witness and one of the first the FBI would have interviewed.

“Hey, there it is!” Dryman said, pointing down as if surprised that he had found the town. “Drew City, Indiana. Boy, there’s not much to it. I hope we’re not going to be here long.”

“As long as it takes, H.P.”

Dryman buzzed the town once, “to find a place to set down.” Then he did a slow chandelle to the right, circled the main intersection and put the low-winged monoplane down on a road just beyond a cluster of houses.

“Beautiful,” he congratulated himself.

“How come we never land at airports?” Keegan said as they climbed out of the AT-6 but Dryman ignored the remark. “Got a reception committee,” he answered instead.

A string of kids stretched out from the middle of town, running toward them followed by several adults who approached with more reserve. A police car wheeled around them and screeched to a stop a few feet away.

“Everybody okay?” the young policeman asked as he jumped out of the car. Keegan leaned closer to him. He was wearing a chief’s badge.

“Just fine, uh
...
Chief...
?“

“Yes sir, Chief Luther Conklin, at your service, sir. Not often a plane lands on Main Street Extension.”

Keegan flashed his ID. “I’m Francis Keegan, White House Security,” he said. The response was always the same: a flurry of excitement, then curiosity (“Why is he here?”), and eventually, “The White House
what?”

“We’re here to run a check on a man who was killed a few years back. You’ll probably remember, it was the day Dillinger robbed your bank.”

“I certainly do, sir. My boss, Tyler Oglesby, was killed that day. Shot him down in cold blood. But you’re talking about Fred Dempsey.”

“Right. Fred Dempsey. You knew him, did you?”

“Real well. Once made me a loan just on my name.”

“Nice guy, huh?”

“Yes sir. On the quiet side. It was a real tragedy. Both him and Louise Scoby was killed. Car skidded off the road back at the bridge and went into the river. Her father was Fred’s boss, Ben Scoby, president of the bank. Damn near killed him.”

“I’ll bet it did, Luther. I hear they never found the bodies.”

“Oh, they found Louise the next day. But it was during the spring thaw and we had a hellacious rain that day. The river could’ve taken him
. . .
fifty miles downstream. Probably stuck up under some log somewheres.”

“Probably. Tell me about old Fred. How tall was he? What’d he look like?”

“Tall? Oh, six feet, I guess. Had a good build on him for a bookworm type. Dark hair, a little gray around the edges. Gray eyes, I remember those piercing gray eyes of his. I think he and Louise were pretty hot and heavy, everybody expected them to get married. Roger, her brother, took it real hard. He loved Fred. Fred was good to him. More like a father than old Ben.”

“How old is he, the kid?”

“Let’s see, he’d be about thirteen now. Works afternoons down at the filling station.”

“And her father’s president of the bank?”

“Yes sir. Fine man. How come you’re interested in Fred?”

“We’re putting the Dillinger files in the archives,” Keegan said casually. “Just filling in some blanks.”

“Oh.”

“Would Ben Scoby be at the bank now?”

Luther took out a pocket watch and checked it.

“Probably home eatin’ lunch about now.”

“Mind running’ me by there, Chief? Then maybe Captain Dryman can check around town, talk to some of the folks who knew Dempsey.”

Ben Scoby was a man
aged early by time and tragedy, his straw-thin hair streaked with gray, his eyes faded and lusterless, his voice shallow and distant. He ushered
K
eegan into a parlor that was neat but dusty, a room choked with furniture, doilies and doodads, the small treasures of life in a room that looked frozen in time. He had taken off his suit jacket and his suspenders dangled around his hips. A forgotten napkin was tucked under his chin and as he sat down he noticed it and took it away with an embarrassed grin.

“Well,” his faint voice said, “never have met anybody from the White House before. Can I get you something? Lemonade, coffee maybe?”

“No thanks,” Keegan said. “Actually we’re closing out some old files, Mr. Scoby. There still is a question about Fred Dempsey. You know, his body never turned up and, uh
.

He let the sentence hang in the air, hoping Scoby would respond. But Scoby only nodded and said, “Uh huh.”

“I understand that your family was close to him?”

“Yes, sir. M’boy Roger loved him. And I guess I hoped that maybe he and Weezie—my daughter Louise—might marry. It was.
. .
it was a.
. .
devastating experience. Senseless waste.
.

He shook his head and looked down at his veined hands.

“Mr. Scoby, can I trust your discretion? What I mean is, if I confided something to you, could you keep it quiet?”

“Suppose so, Mr. Keegan. Never have been much for gossipin’.”

“This is just speculation, of course. Supposing I told you that there’s a chance that
. . .
maybe
. . .
Fred Dempsey wasn’t killed in that accident. That perhaps he got out of that car and managed to get out of the river
. . .
or maybe never went in the river in the first

“That’s a lie!” a voice cried from the doorway. They looked up at a skinny kid in scuffed-up corduroy pants and an open shirt, glaring defiantly from the doorway.

“Fred didn’t do that,” the boy insisted angrily. “Fred would’ve tried to save Weezie and that’s why the river took him under. That’s what Mr. Taggert said and that’s what happened.”

“Roger, you’re not supposed to be eavesdroppin’ on your elders,” Scoby scolded. “This is my son, Roger Scoby. Roger, this gentleman is from the White House in Washington, D.C.”

“I don’t care where he’s from, he’s a liar!” the boy said, pointing at Keegan.

“Roger!”

“I said
supposing,”
Keegan said. “
I
was just speculating
…
playing a little game
.

“It’s a rotten game. Fred was my friend and you shouldn’t play games like that about dead people. You lie and you get out of our house!”

“Roger!” the boy’s father snapped.

“It’s all right,” Keegan said. “Loyalty is a rare enough thing, Mr. Scoby. I admire his spunk.”

“Go upstairs and do your homework, son,” Scoby ordered.

“Finished it already.”

“Then just plain go upstairs,” Scoby snapped.

“Yes sir.” Roger started to leave, then turned back to Keegan. “Isn’t right to talk about dead people like that,” he admonished Keegan again before leaving.

“Never has gotten over the accident,” Scoby said, closing the parlor door. “They were real, real close. You were saying
. .

“Who’s Taggert?” Keegan asked.

“County coroner over at Lafayette. Why would Fred do something like that anyway? I mean, if he got out, why didn’t he tell us? Why would he’ve left without saying anything? Don’t make a lot of sense, Mr.
. . .
uh

“Keegan. And I agree, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense but you know how these bureaucrats are. They can’t stand loose ends.”

“Why would Fred do that?”

A Nazi spy, hiding in Drew City, Indiana, working in his bank, making love to his daughter? The man would think I’m totally nuts, thought Keegan.

“That’s why it’s far-fetched, Mr. Scoby. You’re right, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s just that never finding the body and all, we’re trying to cover all the bases. Want to close the case up once and for all. Sorry I upset the boy.”

“Like I said, he’ll never get over it,” Scoby said sadly. “But then, neither will I. I’ll say one thing for Fred, he made the last few months of my daughter’s life very happy ones. She didn’t have a very pleasant life before he came along. Lost her mother when Roger was born, had to tend to him and me and the house. Fred put some sparkle back in her eyes. I’ll always be indebted to him for that.”

“Yes sir. Can you remember anything else about him specifically. You wouldn’t have a photograph, would you?”

“No sir. Fred wasn’t one for snapshots. Was a private man, Fred was, stuck close to his friends, didn’t go in much for show.”

“Did he have any quirks? Any funny habits?”

Scoby pursed his lips and scratched his temple with a forefinger.

“I just, uh.
. .
been a long time, Mr. Keegan. Five years this past May. M’mind strays a bit these days.”

“Sure.”

“Actually Fred was just an average man who treated me and my children with a lot of love and thoughtfulness. Liked the movies. Liked a glass of beer with his dinner but he wasn’t a big drinker. He rolled his own cigarettes. Didn’t like the storebought kind. Prince Albert pipe tobacco, as I recall. Had this gold cigarette lighter he was real proud of. Family heirloom, so he said.”

“What kind of lighter?”

“It was rectangular, ‘bout three inches long.” He measured a distance between his thumb and forefinger. “‘Bout like that. Had smooth sides and a wolf’s head carved on the top of it. It was solid gold, not plate. Very handsome thing. Looked expensive. He was right proud of that lighter.”

“Could you draw a picture of it for me?”

Keegan handed him a notebook and a pencil and Scoby drew a fair likeness of the lighter with a hand that had begun to shake with time.

“Mother lived in Chicago,” Scoby went on as he drew. “She was ailing. He used to go up there occasionally to visit with her.”

“Was her name Dempsey?”

“Well, I suppose so.”

“What I mean is, she could have been a widow or divorced and remarried.”

“Uh huh. Never did ask. He didn’t talk a lot about himself, sir.

“Do you remember where he was born, Mr. Scoby?”

Scoby looked up with surprise and then grinned. “Born?” he said.

“Yes sir. Where he was from.”

“Sorry to laugh, it just seemed like a strange question. Matter of fact I do remember that. He was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. I remember it from his job application. Looked it up on a map once, just out of curiosity.”

“Anything else. College? Previous jobs
.

Scoby stared at him for several seconds, then shook his head no.

“Right,” Keegan said and rose to leave. “Mr. Scoby, you’ve been a lot of help. As I told you, we’re just trying to clean up some loose ends, put this to bed once and for all. Thanks again for your time.”

As they reached the front door, Scoby said, “There was one thing about Fred. I’ve never told anybody this, not even the board down at the bank. Fred had a letter of recommendation from the First Manhattan Bank in New York. I hired him because I liked him and because he had a good, strong letter. He seemed real smart and honest, told me he’d been looking for work for a long time. This was the heart of the Depression, remember.

I forgot about the letter until about a month later I came across it in my desk drawer and just kind of force of habit, I called the bank. They never heard of Fred Dempsey.”

“And you kept him on?”

“Well, times bein’ what they were, lots of people were desperate. By that time I had found him to be an honest man and a hard worker, easily living up to the recommendation. Besides, Roger and Weezie were in the picture by then. I decided to judge for myself rather than broach the subject with him. Never said anything more about it to anybody till now.”

“I appreciate your confidence. Thanks again. Good luck, Mr. Scoby.”

“Same to you, Mr. Keegan.”

On the way back to the plane, Conklin turned off the main road and drove across a bridge, parking on the opposite side of the river.

“Thought you might like to see this. Here’s where the car went off, right here,” Chief Conklin said. “Must’ve skidded. The car was he pointed fifty yards downstream,
“. . .
about there when we found it. Weezie was still in it. She had
a hold
of Fred’s jacket. He must’ve been swept away. The river was going crazy that night.”

Keegan looked around. It was a barren stretch. There were no houses nearby, only the railroad tracks that paralleled the river. Isolated. If Fred Dempsey had wanted to fake his death, this was the perfect place.

“I didn’t get much,” Dryman said as they crawled back in the plane. “Too long ago. People really don’t remember him all that well. Want to hear something funny? That same night, the night of the bank robbery? There was a big fight in a hobo camp down the road. Two people were killed.”

“A hobo camp? Where?”

“Lafayette.”

“No kidding. Do you think you can find Lafayette, H.P.? And a real airport? I’m getting tired of landing in people’s backyards.”

“What’re we going to Lafayette for?”

“I want to talk to the coroner.”

* * *

Elmo Taggert. who was both funeral director and coroner in Lafayette, picked them up at the airport in his hearse.

“After you called, I took the trouble of digging out a copy of the report I filed on Louise Scoby,” he said. He handed Keegan a brown envelope. Keegan took out the report and scanned it.

“She was dead when she hit the water?” Keegan asked.

“Yes sir. Probably snapped her neck when the car hit the water or maybe when it went off the road. Broke her neck clean as a dry branch. Death was instant, that’s why her lungs were dry.”

“Was there a bruise?”

“Had several bruises, what you’d expect. The car fell eighteen feet before it struck water. I figure she was looking back or maybe out the window when it hit. Kind of made a twisting break.”

“A twisting break, you say?”

“Yep.” He cracked his hand from the wrist and snapped his fingers at the same time. “Crack! Just like that,” he said. Dryman grimaced.

They drove in silence for a few minutes more. The report did not reveal too much more.

“There’s one thing I guess I should tell you, although I don’t really see that it makes any difference,” Taggert went on. “I’ve known Ben Scoby since high school, Mr. Keegan. Didn’t want to see him get hurt any more than he was already, so I didn’t put it in, but.
. .
Louise Scoby had semen in her vagina when she died. Obviously she and Fred Dempsey had sexual intercourse just before they were killed.”

Christ, was he that cold? Keegan wondered. Did he lure her to his house and make love to her before he killed her and dumped her in the river? A man on the run from the FBI who takes time out to get laid before he fakes his own death? He could not have planned it. He didn’t know John Dillinger was going to rob the bank. Everything he had done that fateful day had to have been spur of the moment. Was 27 really
that
cool?

“How about Dempsey?” Keegan asked.

“Nothing. She had his jacket in her hand, like she was hanging on to him when she died. My guess is, the door flew open and Dempsey was swept out of the car.”

“Isn’t it likely he would have surfaced sooner or later?”

“Not really. River’s a hundred and fifty miles long, Mr. Keegan. Long stretches of it are uninhabited. Lots of debris from the spring floods. Hell, he could’ve been jammed under junk somewhere
. .

Keegan put the report back in the folder. “Tell me about the fight in the hobo camp that night,” he said.

“Know about that, do you?”

“Somebody mentioned it to Captain Dryman.”

“Well, sir, nobody here’s real proud of what happened that night,” Taggert said. “There’d been a lot of grumblin’ in town about the Hooverville and how big it was gettin’. And the railroad people were gettin’ real put out about it. The railroad bulls decided to clean it out. Some of the tents caught on fire. Pregnant woman had a miscarriage. Twelve people in the hospital. And two dead, one of the railroad cops and a
ho
bo.”

“How were they killed?”

“The cop was beat to death with a baseball bat. The
ho
bo was stabbed. Deep wound. Under the ribs right here and up into the heart. Nasty wound. Must’ve been a hell of a knife.”

He pulled off the road and parked on the shoulder.

“That’s where it happened, right over there in Barrow Park,” Taggert said, pointing out of the car. There was a broad expanse of green grass and trees beside the railroad. “The
ho
bo camp spread along the railroad tracks from the edge of the river there all the way down the road t
o
the edge a town. Real eyesore, it was.”

“Where’s the railroad come from?” Keegan asked.

“it’s a spur. Runs down from Loga
n
sport.”

“Through Drew City?”

“Yep.”

“Were there any witnesses to the killings?”

Taggert nodded. “One man saw the whole thing, even saw the stabbings.
Joe Cobb. Worked for the railroad. Lives over on Elm Street.”

“Here in town?”

“Yes sir.”

“And he was there that night?”

“Right in the middle of it.”

“Can we talk to him?”

“Sure. Old
Joe’ll tell anybody about it who’ll listen to him. Problem is, nobody takes him too seriously.”

“Why’s that?” Dryman asked.

“Cause he’s blind as a mole.”

Joe Cobb sat in a rocker on his porch, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, his hands gripping the arms of the chair as if he were afraid he would fall out of it. Years of inactivity had turned muscle to fat. Cobb had a big stomach which folded over his belt, hulking shoulders and a neck the size of a tree trunk. The chair squeaked as he rocked back and forth.

“Remember that night? Of course I remember that night. Last time I ever saw God’s sweet earth,” he said. “Look, I never took offense at those folks. They was just unfortunates, got wiped out in the bust, tryin’ to make a go of it, y’know. The Hooverville was down to Barrow’s Point. There was this spate of robberies around town. Nothin’ big, mind yuh, but folks was gettin’ nervous. Railroad didn’t want em. Town didn’t want ‘em. Hell,
nobody
wanted ‘em. About seven-thirty, the local rattler came in
. .

“That the train that came through Drew City?” Keegan asked.

“Yeah. Bunch of
ho
bos jumped off and was runnin’ down to the camp. They was maybe ten of us from the railroad chasm’ them.”

He remembered that night all right, like a nightmare montage burned into his mind. Men silhouetted against campfire sparks twirling into a black, windless sky. Dirt-caked fingers protruding from the holes in a pair of red wool gloves. Cardboard lean-tos, worn-out canvas tents, shacks of tar paper. The tired, burned-out faces of defeat and the frightening sounds of the attack. A woman screaming. The sickening sound of wood striking flesh and bone. Flashlight beams crisscrossing through the camp. People running from shanties, bumping into each other in the dark, scrambling to get out of the camp. The sound of a shot. A crazy-eyed hobo, blood spurting down his face from a
jagged crack in his forehead, waving a Bible at arm’s length as he cried out. “They’s upon us, the heathen screws is upon us. Save yourselves, sinners.
. .
the wicked draw their bows and aim their arrows, to shoot at good men in the darkness.’ Psalm eleven, verse two.” And a brutal response: “C’mere, you miserable stinkweed.”

Chaos.

Oh yes, he remembered it.

“We
come up on two of ‘em sitting on the edge of the gulch gasping for wind,” Cobb went on. “They
jumped
up when me and Harry Barker seen ‘em. ‘Here’s two more of ‘em,’ Harry yells, and we went after ‘em with our Louisville Sluggers. He hit one of ‘em in the back and that fella turned on him like a tiger, grabbed him and spun him around and wrapped an arm around his neck and snapped it with one powerful wrench of his arm. Harry went down and then the
ho
bo grabbed Harry’s bat and he whales him and then he hits me a good one in the stomach. The other ‘bo, he says, ‘C’mon, we got to get outta here,’ and then the first one, he leans over and he pulls a knife out of his shoe— his
shoe!—and
sticks his buddy, just like that. ‘Sorry, ‘bo,’ he says, ‘you seen too much.’ It was a helluva k
n
ife, I’ll tell you, not a hunting knife. Had a long narrow blade sharp on both edges.”

“Like a dagger?” Keegan asked.

“Yeah, a dagger. Anyway, I started to get m’feet under mc and I looked up just as he swung that da
m
n bat as hard as he could and it got me right in the face, right in the eyes.”

“Do you remember what he looked like?”

“Remember? Are you kiddin’? It’s the last thing I ever saw. He was tall, maybe six feet, husky, black h
a
ir, and
. . .
the way he was dressed. He weren’t dressed like no hobo. Had on a flannel shirt, nice pants and what looked
ni
ce brand new boots. Hadn’t been a hobo for very long, else he stole the clothes he was wearing. And there was one other thi
n
g. He had different colored eyes.”

“Different colored eyes?” Dryman echoed, looking at Keegan skeptically.

“Yep. One gray and one green.”