H.J. Gaudreau - Jim Crenshaw 02 - The Collingwood Legacy (5 page)

Chapter 11

Traverse City Michigan is located at the base of the twin forks of Traverse Bay. Begun as a shipping and lumber town it soon became a favorite haunt of a young Earnest Hemingway. The town passed through the lumber industry period, floundered for some years then found its footing when the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane was established in 1885. By the time the old Victorian hospital closed in 1989 the city’s economy had moved on to tourism. The rest of the State, and the tawny folks of Detroit and Chicago, had discovered the jewel at base of the bay. Now, multimillion dollar homes lined the Peninsula between the forks of the Bay. A single vacant lot with a bit of water and sand and enough room to install a septic tank sold for more money than most people in “TC”, as the town is called by the locals, earn in a lifetime.

Just northwest of TC is Leelanau County. Home to vineyards, orchards and the Sleeping Bear dunes. Here life is still a bit slower, though Hollywood types have begun paying outrageous sums for the privilege of losing money in the wine business. Here a few locals hang on. Here too, was the old family cherry farm where Herman James Crenshaw and his sister Sherrie spent the occasional long weekend and traditional mid-August week when their parents packed them up and shipped them off to the grandparents.

By the time Sherrie entered college, both of their grandparents had passed away. Mom and Dad quickly decided that if they were going to be empty nesters then the nest was going to move. Six months later they’d sold their suburban house, bought out the bank’s interest on the orchard and traded a hectic life in the city for the lakes and clean air of “up north” Michigan.

Jim had been in the middle of an Air Force career when the bad news arrived; he’d lost both his parents to a drunk driver. The will split the property in two, which meant that neither could live at the orchard. Jim, in exchange for a lifetime supply of cherries, gave his half of the property to his sister and resumed his Air Force career.

It was a bad move financially, but a good one morally, and Jim never regretted it. Sherrie and her husband Gerry immediately quit their successful but stressful careers in Chicago and moved north. Sherrie oversaw the restoration and expansion of the traditional field stone farmhouse and now proudly showed her home to various tourist magazine photographers as the essence of a northern Michigan home.

Gerry hadn’t been idle during the home renovation. When not working on the house he renovated the cherry shed, added more processing space, and a small office. He reskinned and reroofed the barn then put new roofs on the smaller outbuildings. When the buildings were complete the two turned their attention to expanding and updating the orchards. Now, several years later they managed a very successful cherry farming business, supplying cherries to packinghouses and individual customers on-line.

It was this expansion of the farm that now had Gerry’s attention. He and Sherrie had recently completed the purchase of an additional twenty acres of land, which bordered their orchard’s southern edge. The property had been sitting idle for many years and was a bit of a mystery.

The property had been sold by the state, not by a bank or land company. While that did occasionally happen, what really seemed odd was the lack of property records associated with the purchase. Each county in the state maintained a map showing ownership of every square inch of the county, the map, called a ‘plot map’ was periodically updated. Somehow, the twenty acres in question were missing from the plot map. A title search showed a dead man as the owner as of 1961.

Sherrie couldn’t remember having ever seen anyone on the property when she had vacationed at “the farm” as a child. Being landlocked the property hadn’t generated a great deal of interest when it went up for auction. It was a fairly simple thing for Sherrie and Gerry to make the purchase. Included on the property was a barn made of brick. The barn was of unknown age.

The lawyer who had represented the state had been unable to supply any information on the building or its contents and had insisted the purchase be made “as-is.” Gerry half expected to find a barn full of cow manure.

The purchase complete, Gerry was now assessing the property, intending to lay out a new orchard. He referred to several pages of a soils report he held in one hand. In his other hand he held a soil pH test probe. He took several pH samples and began to walk the length of the orchard. Gerry only went ten feet and stopped. The task was impossible. Before he could begin, Gerry had to satisfy both his own, and Sherrie’s, curiosity.

Here Gerry ran into his first problem with the new property. Try as he might Gerry could not find a way into the barn. For the third time he walked around the building. It was long, and somewhat narrow. There were three doors, all firmly locked. A set of, what appeared to be, steel garage doors on the narrower south side and an individual door centered on both the west and east sides. Each door was constructed so that the hinge was on the inside of the building. Gerry found this a bit odd. Around the top of the walls, just below the tin roof and protected from the rain by the overhanging rafters were eyebrow windows. Spaced two feet apart each window appeared to be painted over with black paint. The paint was thin in some areas. Gerry wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw heavy gauge wire mesh against the inside of a few of the windows.

Returning to the large garage doors Gerry examined the inset door lock. It was clearly a heavy gauge, solid deadbolt. Gerry thought that a bit odd for a barn. The lock stood out in a round circle of reddish orange. Even if he had the key he doubted the rusted lock mechanism would work.

Disgusted, Gerry returned to his pick-up truck and bounced across the back of the field, opened a gate, passed into the edge of his orchard, found the lane between trees and eventually stopped at his cherry processing shed.

Sherrie walked to the side of the truck and leaned in the open window. After a quick kiss she asked, “Well, did we make a good deal? Or, are we the proud owners of a toxic waste site?”

Gerry grinned. “The land is beautiful. I’m not finished confirming all the soil tests, but the reports are perfect. We’re going to have a nice orchard in there honey. But, that damn building. I can’t find a way in!”

Sherrie’s eyes lit up and she started to laugh. “This is cool! It’s like we’re on a game show.”

“With Bob Barker asking what’s behind Door Number One?” Gerry laughed.

He parked the truck and they walked to the house. “I think the only way in is to cut a big hole into those doors.”

Sherrie looked puzzled. “Why can’t you just break a window and climb in?” she said as the screen door banged behind them.

“Can’t. The windows are all at the top of the wall and, you won’t believe this, but I think there’s heavy wire mesh on the inside.” Gerry walked to the kitchen sink and began to wash his hands. Then, without turning around said, “Jim has an acetylene torch doesn’t he?”

“I have no idea…and don’t even think about using my clean towels to dry your hands. Use a paper towel.”

Gerry grinned, “Yes ma’am.”

Sherrie picked up her cell phone. “We haven’t talked to Jim and Eve in a few weeks. Let’s give ‘em a call.”

Chapter 12

Jim stood at the kitchen counter and listened to the phone message. “Hi guys, it’s your loving sister Sherrieeee…” He grinned, this woman was always excited.

“We need a favor pleeease. We just closed the deal on the twenty acres next to us with that big garage on it. If we were to cook steaks and make a nice cherry pie would you bring your acetylene torch up this weekend? We can’t seem to get into that stupid garage and Gerry figures the only way is to cut a hole in one of the doors. Let me know, love ya. Bye”

Jim considered himself to be fairly practical, and cutting holes in doors didn’t sound quite right. Surely there had to be a way to get in that old building without destroying expensive doors. In any case a trip north was a good deal this time of year. Eve would be excited to visit family, and he and Gerry could get in a little trout fishing. Jim went to the barn to load his torch on the wagon.

Eve’s arrival home from work was always an event. Carrying a minimum of two large cloth bags, she would burst into the kitchen, simultaneously calling “I’m hoommme.” Then, before Jim answered she would recite the details of her day, beginning with the funniest thing a child had said or done and ending with the stupidest thing said or done by a member of the school’s administration or a fellow teacher. The entire process interrupted by their beagle Molly’s excited barks and demands for attention.

Jim looked forward to this ritual, he rarely listened in great detail; it was the enthusiasm with which it was told that he loved. Tonight’s ceremony was no different, and to Jim it proved once again that all was right with his world.

Eve was surprised and pleased that Sherrie had phoned and immediately returned the call. No one outside the family could tell the two were not immediate sisters, they were “like two peas in a pod” Jim’s mother used to say. Twenty minutes of one trying to out talk the other and somehow arrangements were made.

Friday was the beginning of the Easter break. Thursday night Eve left the school as quickly as she could. She hurried home and, upon entering the kitchen announced they would stop at “Cops and Donuts” in Clare for dinner. A quick change of her clothes and she was backing the Jeep up to the trailer almost before Jim had the barn doors open.

Ten minutes later, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, hitched to a small trailer loaded with an industrial sized acetylene torch and attendant tanks, along with two bikes and two kayaks slowly moved down a hundred-yard long driveway.

On the folded down back seat lay a large pillow where Molly sat calmly watching the scenery slide past. She would be curled up and snoring before they came to the end of the long drive. Molly would miss most of the three and a half hour trip north.

Chapter 13

Detroit and the Detroit River business soon returned to normal. The city forgot the Collingwood murders. Harry Keywell, Irving Milberg and Ray Bernstein were gone and quickly faded from memory. Sol Levin soon became the funny story of a scared rabbit who refused to leave the police station. Sol was quickly forgotten by everyone involved with or who had ever heard of the ‘Collingwood Manor Massacre.’ Everyone, that is, except Dolly Eleanor Grongoski.

Dolly slipped out of the city and moved to Michigan’s west coast and the gritty little port town of Muskegon. The town’s small waterfront was jammed with ships, large and small, making the run up and down the lake to Chicago. Some of the bigger ones even crossed to Milwaukee or north to Green Bay.

The sailors got hungry and Dolly landed a job at the Dockside Café. It wasn’t the kind of café she had seen in the movies. Muskegon was not Paris or New York. The Dockside’s walls were nearly as grimy as the coal fired ships whose crews it served.

Behind the building a small pigpen housed three large sows and their piglets. A large boar was kept in a separate pen to the side. The pen provided about half of the ham and bacon for the café and a good deal of ambiance.

Dolly worked four days a week. Five if she could talk Mel, the cheap bastard owner, into giving her the extra day. She made a buck fifty a day plus tips, which she split with the other waitresses and the cook. Sometimes she talked Mel into paying her to slop out the pigpen and that gave her an extra seventy-five cents. She’d been raised on a farm and didn’t mind the work, but she hated pigs.

The sows could be mean when they had piglets and the boars could be mean just because. And she thought about what Sol had told her. She thought about having a nice place to live and her hair done by a real woman’s hairdresser. And the clothes. She dreamed about the clothes. She thought about warm soft coats, pretty dresses, the fanciest hats and real silk stockings. Mostly, Dolly thought about how close she’d come to being rich.

They had taken the bags into the boathouse and put them on the boat. Sol had said that they were all packed and would leave as soon as he finished fueling the boat.

But she hadn’t seen the money, and of course they were packed, she had her two bags and Sol wasn’t taking anything.

He’d asked her to get him some razor blades while he worked. She thought about that. He didn’t need razor blades. Had he been trying to get her away from the boat?

Maybe he had intended to leave Dolly? But why had he driven all over Detroit to find her? Had he changed his mind? Sol had sent her away for some reason she was sure of it. What was it?

The money. Where was the money? Did he leave while she was gone, get the money and come back? But they were going to leave as soon as she returned from the market.

Dolly mulled the thing over and over. It had only taken her about eight minutes to walk to Jefferson Avenue, turn right and go another block. A store stood on the corner there. Then eight minutes back. If she added five minutes at the store…there was no way Sol could drive someplace and be back with the money. And…he said they were all packed.

She thought about that. She thought about it every day, every time she filled a coffee cup, every time someone only left a nickel for a tip or grabbed her bottom or when her boss told her to take the diner’s scrapes out to the pigs in back. They were all packed.

That November, as Sol was being loaded on a boat for Europe, Dolly got her first break in months. She was pouring coffee for a sailor on the railroad ferry.

Suddenly a man burst into the diner and yelled, “Lowel, you lazy sonofabitch, if you don’t get your shit loaded now you ain’t going to have time when we leave.” The sailor didn’t move, he just smiled and said, “Hoss, I loaded my gear last night.”

Dolly didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. The sailor’s words hit her like a ton of bricks. It came to her. Just like that. It was so simple; she should have seen it months ago. The money was already in the boat.

Sol had picked her up about one o’clock. He said he’d been looking for her for two hours. They’d gone to Gosse Pointe, then Hamtramck for dinner. They’d stopped at her apartment to pack, drove to his apartment and gone to the boathouse. She’d gone to the market, but Sol hadn’t gone anywhere. He didn’t have time.

Sol was doing what he said he was doing, putting gas in the boat. He really did just want some razor blades. He must have loaded the money before he picked her up. She’d known it all along, only now she understood it. Sol had loaded it before he came to see her that day.

The boat. She needed to find the boat.

The world was beginning to change. The artisan was being replaced by the big company. The small car companies in and around Detroit were being consolidated. Willie Durant and Charles Stewart Mott were building the biggest company the world had ever seen. Reliant Motor Truck, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac all had been taken over, it was just business.

It was just the same in the world of crime. The Purples were just as mean and vicious, but there were fewer of them. No new leaders had been groomed to replace Ray Bernstein or Harry Keywell. Gradually leadership fell to Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher. Abe and Eddie were loyal soldiers, but they weren’t very smart. They began to make mistakes. The loss of leadership, manpower and influence at City Hall was like blood in the water to a Great White shark. The competition began to move in and the Purples were helpless to stop it.

The biggest threat came from the Italians. The Eastside gang was tied into the New York Mafia and Capone’s Chicago gang. Slowly they were becoming the dominant gang in Detroit. “Black” Bill Tocco had a special hate for the Purples and pressured them across the city. Muscling in on their gambling operations, prostitution and most of all the alcohol smuggling routes. Imports were down, hijackings were up and ‘runners’, the boys who delivered the booze to the speakeasies and beer gardens across the city were being killed, disappearing or quitting.

Dolly didn’t know of the turmoil in the Detroit underworld that winter. She spent her time thinking about the boat. She’d have to find it. She was convinced Sol had hidden the money on the big Chris-Craft, she just needed time alone with the boat and she’d find it. But that was the issue wasn’t it? How to find the boat. Dolly didn’t know Detroit.  She’d only been to the river once before that night and in their panic and the darkness she certainly hadn’t kept track of street names. All Dolly knew was that the boat was in a small boathouse on the Detroit river.

She got another break in mid-December. A truck driver stopped at the diner for breakfast before loading onto one of the ferries crossing the lake. He ate his breakfast, drank his coffee and paid his bill and drove down to the docks. Dolly cleaned up his table and found a packet of maps laying on the seat where the man had been sitting.

She picked the packet up and stuffed it down deep in her apron pocket. Then Dolly poured coffee and waited tables for the rest of the day, the packet totally forgotten.

That evening Dolly took off her shoes and her apron, counted her tips and began to think about making dinner. Suddenly she remembered the packet. Untying the string and unfolding the leather case she found road maps of Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.

There was also a detailed street map of Detroit. Dolly stared at this map for several minutes. This was important, this could help her. Dolly wasn’t exactly sure why this was important, but the feeling was more than a suspicion, it was a certainty. She had never seen a map and didn’t know how to use one, but she wasn’t stupid and she could read. She would figure this out.

She cleared the small table which served as kitchen counter, dining room table, ironing board, and occasionally living room coffee table, and spread the map out flat. Carefully she examined the thing. Slowly she began to understand what she was looking at. After a while it began to make sense. It was just a big picture of the city.

Eventually she found the address of the old boardinghouse she had lived in. She placed her finger on the map. She closed her eyes and imagined walking down the steps, turning left and walking to the corner grocery. She traced her finger along the map. He finger came to a street intersection. If she was doing this right it would be Bagley Street. She searched for the street name. Bagley Street, she’d done it.

Excited, she began finding other places she knew from her year in the city. She found the library, the museum, the streets where she knew the clubs. Then the importance of the map came to her. She could find the boathouse.

Dolly quickly found the Detroit River and began to trace the streets that ran parallel to the river. She remembered a park and the city water works. She’d run past both. Her finger ran along the river. Jefferson. She had run along Jefferson Avenue. Past the water works and, there it was, Memorial Park. That meant the dirt road was somewhere…here. She stabbed the map with her finger.

That night Dolly lay in her bed deep in thought. She could find the boathouse. She was sure the money was in the boat, Sol must have put it on board before he came to get her. She had been in the boat and hadn’t seen any bundles just sitting out; he must have hidden it. It wouldn’t make any sense to just leave it laying out. Lots of boats were stopped by the Customs police; Solly must have anticipated that. He hid it. The only real question was how well had he hidden it?

It had been months; the Purples must have used the boat since. Surely they’d found the money by now. But, maybe not. Could she really afford to not look? She could spend the rest of her life feeding slop to pigs and waiting tables, the same things when she thought about it. Or, she could take a chance on being rich.