The Detroit Electric Scheme (28 page)

Sutton hesitated before he nodded. “I suppose it's possible.”

My father was looking at me, a puzzled expression on his face.

“What?” I said.

“I didn't realize the judge . . . Why would he hate you?”

“Another long story.” One I would never tell him. “Suffice it to say he does.”

Sutton turned to my father. “You're sure no one but your managers and security people have access to your buildings after hours?”

“Yes.”

Sutton's fingers played a rapid rhythm on the table. “How about the Employers Association?”

“No,” my father said. “No one else has our keys.”

I jumped in. “But John must have. When he called, he said for me to meet him in the machining room.”

Sutton looked at my father again. “Is it feasible Cooper could have gotten a copy of the door key?”

My father's shoulders lifted a fraction of an inch. “Possibly. If our security guards got sloppy. EAD people have been in the factory almost constantly since the unions started sniffing around.”

“Frank and John spent a lot of time in the security office,” I said.

Sutton jumped up from his chair. “I think Will may be right. It seems a reasonable assumption.” He turned toward me. “We'll look into Judge Hume and the Denver lead right away. I had a few men digging into the unions, just to be sure, but they haven't found anything. It looks like your friend Edsel was right. And contrary to your father's opinion, I still believe it's worthwhile to look into your competitors. Why couldn't this be a scheme to defame Detroit Electric?”

My father rounded on him. “Look here, Sutton. This ‘scheme,' as you call it, has nothing to do with our competitors. We're just not significant enough to warrant something like this.”

“You said you were passing Baker as the number-one electric brand in the country.”

“Walt Baker is a gentleman. What you're proposing is outrageous.”

“Then what about the luxury gasoline car companies?”

My father frowned. “Forgive my language, but we're nothing more than a pimple on their backsides. This year we're going to ship fewer than fifteen hundred automobiles and a thousand trucks. So, yes, that's more
than our electric competitors, but it's a drop in the bucket of total automobile sales.” He shook his head vehemently. “You may not understand the dynamics of this business. Electrics are women's automobiles—easy to start, easy to operate, but not manly, not for the adventurer. We're trying to change that, but at this point our gasoline competitors don't give a tinker's damn about Detroit Electric.”

Sutton shrugged and began to gather up the papers on the table. “Just trying to consider all the possibilities.”

“I want you to be clear on this,” my father said. “This is not one of those possibilities. Whoever is behind this scheme is trying to frame Will, not defame my company.”

Sutton gave him a grudging nod.

“Mr. Sutton,” I said, “are the clothing and the typewriter business going to keep me in jail if Elizabeth comes forward?”

“That all depends on the judge adjudicating your case.” He turned to my father. “
And
how much pressure you can level on the mayor.” Looking at me again, he said, “The clothing is another building block in the state's case, but assuming Elizabeth does come forward, you may get out again. The fact that the notes were traced to your typewriter doesn't add substantively to the state's evidence regarding the murder of John Cooper.” Sutton looked at me sourly. “It just destroys whatever was left of your credibility.” He thought for a moment. “I'm going to make Denver the priority. If we can't find Frank Van Dam, I don't like our chances.”

My heart sank. If an optimist like Sutton thought I would be convicted, what hope could I have?

It was almost time for the hearing. My father left to be seated in court while Sutton and I waited in the little room.

I still had some business to attend to. “Oh, Mr. Sutton,” I said, trying to be casual. “Can I borrow twenty dollars? I owe a guard.” And I was going to need another bottle.

“You don't want to owe anybody in there, Will. The guards aren't much better than the prisoners.” He pulled his wallet from his coat pocket, and took out a ten and a pair of fives. “Stick them inside your boot. You're going to get searched again when you go back to jail.”

I thanked him. We waited another half an hour before a guard led us
to the defense table. My father was sitting behind us in the front row. He greeted people with a firm grip, looking them in the eye, daring anyone to make a comment. Even under these circumstances, he was a strong man. I knew I was lucky to have him for a father, but for the first time I understood that money had little to do with it.

Knowing that a trial was a foregone conclusion, I didn't pay much attention during the hearing, although I heard enough to make
me
vote for my conviction. Sutton said little while District Attorney Higgins presented his evidence, and almost nothing when asked to present my defense. One thing was crystal clear—unless we found Frank Van Dam, I would be convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

 

Three days later, Detective Riordan stood outside the cell door with a smirk on his face that made his scar pucker. “So, Will. Looks like you fell down some more stairs.”

I didn't say anything. The body search on my return to jail had turned up the money. Those guards kept it. My guard didn't get paid. Actually, I'd been lucky. The other occupants of the holding cell hated the police so much that, even though I was a member of the also-hated upper class, they were more interested in defying authority than taking out their frustrations on me. Still, I had a number of additional cuts and bruises, though to be honest, I think the criminals were only going through the motions.

He glanced down at my feet, now partially covered by a ripped-up pair of two-tone spectator shoes.

“What happened to your boots?”

I crossed my arms and tried to look bored.

“Suit yourself.” Riordan gestured to the jailer to open the door. “The lucky boy gets to go home for the holidays.” Taking hold of my elbow, he pulled me down the corridor. “Seems the Humes aren't going to press charges on the kidnapping. I guess someone got to Miss Hume, huh? McRae, maybe?” He stopped and turned me toward him.

I kept my mouth shut and fixed my eyes on a rust-colored oval staining the dirty plaster just to the right of his head.

“It's too bad I can't give you a ride on Old Smokey,” Riordan said.

I shrugged. I still thought it a better alternative to life in prison.

He smiled, and again my eyes slipped to his jagged purple scar. “Unfortunately, we live in the wrong state. But I don't care who your father is. You're not getting out of this. You're going to the big house for the rest of your miserable life.”

I cocked my head at him. “How'd you get that scar, Riordan?”

He leaned down in my face and growled, “That's none of your business.”

I met his eyes. “Are we finished here?”

He looked at me for a long moment before jerking my arm forward and pushing me out of the jail.

Mr. Sutton and his two thugs waited at the entrance. One of them handed me my greatcoat, and we ducked out into a howling wind. This time, there was no mob scene. A few reporters tried halfheartedly to get a quote, but it was clear the newspapers were now concentrating on bigger game—probably Judge Hume.

Sutton and I sat in the back of his Pierce-Arrow touring car. I shoved my hands into my pockets and huddled down, trying to block some of the cold wind stinging my face. Once we were away from the police station, Sutton said, “All right, some housekeeping. The trial is set to begin on Monday, January 30. That gives us two months to get our defense together. Between now and then, we'll meet as needed to go over our progress. If you need anything or think of anything else in the meantime, phone me.”

I nodded. “Did you find Frank yet?”

“No, but the Pinkertons are on the job. Their western office is in Denver, and they know the town like the backs of their hands. They've already talked to the police, and now they're canvassing all the hotels, apartments, and flophouses in the area. It's just a matter of time.” He patted my leg with an ungloved hand. “We'll find him. Oh, and in case you weren't paying attention during your bail hearing, if you leave Michigan, you'll be violating the terms of your bond. You'll be back in jail for the duration. Don't even think about going out there yourself.”

“I'm supposed to just sit and do nothing?”

Sutton patted me on the leg again, but quickly and hard like he was playing the drums. “Listen, Will, I know this is difficult. But you can't seriously think you'll have better luck at finding Van Dam than the Pinkertons will. It's what they do.” He pulled absently at his muttonchop whiskers. “Besides, he's not the killer.”

My head jerked involuntarily. I stared at him. “No, I'm certain Frank murdered John. It had to be him.”

“You need to listen to me carefully.” Sutton took a deep breath. “I'll get this out of the way first, since I'm sure you'll hear it eventually. When Frank was thirteen years old, he was arrested for attempted murder.”

“What?”

He nodded. “Apparently a neighbor—a thirty-four-year-old man, by the way—accused Van Dam of beating him nearly to death. The neighbor claimed it was a misunderstanding regarding his intentions toward Frank's mother. He was in the hospital for a month. Frank denied the charges out of hand. The man had been arrested a few times for his involvement in confidence schemes, so the police questioned his veracity. The case was dropped for lack of evidence. That was Frank's only trouble with the law.”

I tipped to the side as the big automobile swayed. In front of us, a group of city workers in white coveralls were loading a horse carcass into a wagon.

Sutton continued. “Frank's a born and bred Detroiter, went to Cass Union High School, no college. Started at the Employers Association in '06. Sharp, articulate, ambitious. Since the attempted murder, he's never been arrested, though there have been plenty of accusations of violent crimes, all related to his job. Sounds like a potential murderer, right?”

I nodded, waiting for the “but.”

“But . . .” With a grim smile, he began ticking off points on his fingers, which were turning red from the cold. “His mother claims he left for Denver, Colorado, to find his fortune on Monday, October thirty-first—Halloween. He resigned from the EAD that same day, with the same story he told his mother. He sent her a letter from Denver on November third, saying he'd write again when he settled. She hasn't heard from him since. John Cooper was killed at midnight on the second. It
would have been impossible for Frank to make it from Detroit to Denver to mail a letter in less than a day.”

I frowned. “Well, what's she going to say? Of course she'd say Frank wasn't around when John was killed.”

Sutton shrugged. “I saw the letter and the postmark. It was his handwriting.”

“Someone else could have mailed it for him.”

“True, but I'm not finished. Point two—my men polled Van Dam's neighbors and scoured all his regular haunts. Nobody's seen him since the day he quit his job—two days before Cooper's death.”

“But his car was at the train station.”

“Are you certain? There's more than one red Oldsmobile Palace in this city.”

“No, I'm not one hundred percent certain. But nobody seeing him doesn't mean he was gone. He could have been hiding to build his alibi.”

Sutton held up a hand. “Listen to me. Most troublesome, he took a sleeper to Denver on October thirty-first and stayed at the Oxford Hotel from November second through the ninth.”

I was deflating. “He took a train to Denver two days before John was killed?”

“He bought two tickets, and the conductor confirmed the berth was filled. A Mr. and Mrs. Frank Van Dam spent eight nights at the Oxford.”

“He's not married.”

“If you were checking in to a hotel with a girlfriend, how would you register?”

I conceded the point.

“There's no evidence whatsoever that Van Dam returned to Detroit. It's difficult to get any information out of the Employers Association with this Judge Hume mess, but a connection we have there says you were right about the bribery. Frank was involved. I'd say he hightailed it to avoid prosecution. That would explain why he's so hard to find.”

“And you're still so sure Judge Hume wouldn't have done this?”

Sutton thought for a moment. “I can't see the judge as a killer. Besides, everyone we've talked to said he loved Cooper.”

I wasn't giving up on Frank. “Even if Frank didn't kill John himself,
either he or the judge could have hired someone to do it. If they were both complicit in the bribery, they both had a motive.”

Sutton held his hands out in front of him. “I don't disagree with you. Either of them could have hired someone. But if we can't find the killer and get him to confess, we have to place Frank in Detroit on November second or the judge at the factory that night. If we can't do that, it's going to take Svengali to convince a jury you didn't kill John Cooper.” He grimaced. “And I'm not Svengali.”

I shook my head, frustration boiling out of me. “Are you looking at the EAD, too?”

“Of course. But no one there is going to be implicated unless Frank turns up again and testifies. If they keep their mouths shut, they're all home free.”

“What if the judge or the Employers Association had someone follow Frank to Denver and kill him there? That would explain his disappearance.”

He shrugged. “It's possible. But that wouldn't help us a bit. It would just prove Frank didn't kill Cooper.” He patted my shoulder. “I've got half a dozen detectives digging into everything. Leave it to me.”