The Detroit Electric Scheme (32 page)

I tried to march Sapphira up the aisle, but we were stopped again and again by men pounding me on the back, offering their congratulations, and making lewd remarks. I tried to push through them and move forward, a salmon swimming upstream. Sapphira was staring at me with narrowed eyes and a question on her face. I ignored it and practically dragged her to the coat check and out of the theater.

We were walking out the door when a man said, “There he is,” and then yelled, “Anderson!”

I cursed quietly. It was Horace Dodge. He stood next to his brother on the sidewalk outside the theater. The sharp glare of the electric lights on the marquee washed out his skin, turning him a ghostly white. John Dodge was facing the building, hidden in the shadows. He turned toward us. An arc of piss splashing off the wall turned with him.

I froze. Her voice tight, Sapphira said, “Will?”

John Dodge shook off the last few drops and tucked his penis back into his trousers. “I told you before I wasn't done with you, Anderson, you goddamn sodomite.” Both of the brothers advanced on me.

I gave John the dead eyes. He didn't slow down.

Sapphira pulled on my arm, tugging me in the other direction. “Come on, Will, let's go.”

John sneered. “Brought your whore along tonight. You got a lot of class.”

I couldn't let him get away with that. “Apologize, Dodge, or so help me . . .”

“So help you what, Margery?”

Sapphira tugged at my arm again. “Will, please, leave it.”

Just as I looked at her, John Dodge shoved me to the ground. I landed hard on my backside. Dodge crossed his arms over his chest and, his voice full of scorn, said, “Listen to your whore, Anderson. Run away, you little pussy.”

I had to defend Sapphira's honor. I jumped to my feet and took a wild swing at his face. My arm connected with his jaw, and it sent a shock down my arm. He staggered. Before I could regain my balance, his brother grabbed me by the lapels, pulled me into the alley, and knocked
me over a pile of rubbish. He began kicking me in the ribs, and John dove on top of me, throwing lefts and rights at my face. Though I tried to shove and buck him off, it was useless. He outweighed me by a good seventy-five pounds. I threw punches at him, but with no leverage my fists did nothing more than glance off him while he drove fist after fist into my face, bouncing my head off the dirt. Jumping forward, he sat on me with his knees pinning my shoulders to the ground. I couldn't move my arms.

He slapped me in the face. “Oh, the poor little Electric Executioner.” He slapped me again. “Not so scary after all, are you, killer?” He slapped me again. “Millie DeLeon ought to see the little fairy now.” He slapped me again. “Does the witty-bitty Executioner need a hanky?”

I struggled, writhing back and forth under him while he kept taunting and slapping me. I might as well have been in primary school being beaten by the school bully.

From the corner of my eye I could see that Horace now had hold of Sapphira. She was struggling with him and shouting. When John finally tired of slapping me, he stood, chest heaving, and spit a wad of mucus onto my face. “Goddamn pussy.” The brothers walked out of the alley.

Sapphira knelt down next to me. “Will? Will, are you all right? Do you need a doctor?”

I propped myself up on my elbows. My head was boiling hot and hurt everywhere. Sharp pains came from a dozen spots up and down my body from Horace's kicks. But my pride was in the worst shape.

“No,” I said through puffy lips, not quite meeting her eyes. “I'm fine. He didn't hurt you, did he?”

She shook her head.

I pushed myself to my feet, and the alley spun for a moment before it locked into place. I wiped my face and brushed off my jacket, looking out toward the street at the crowd that had gathered there. The burn of humiliation was settling in. “I've got to go.”

“No.” She took hold of my arm. “Come back to my house. I'll get you fixed up.”

“I can't. I've got to go.”

“But, Will . . .”

I turned and hurried out of the alley, pushing through the onlookers. Sapphira followed closely behind. The crowd seemed to be in good spirits. Now I heard my name murmured by people around me.

I looked back at Sapphira. “I'm sorry. You can find your own way home, can't you?” I didn't think I'd ever be able to look at her again.

“Well, yes, but . . . Let me at least get you fixed up first.”

I shook my head and turned away, fumbling for my wallet. My lips kept swelling. I thrust a five-dollar bill at her. “This should get you home. I'm sorry, Sapphira.”

She didn't even seem to notice I'd given her the money. “Let me come with you then, Will,” she pleaded.

“I'm sorry. But I just . . . can't.” I spun on my heel and hurried off into the dark.

All the way home I kept to streets with few or no street lamps, staying in the shadows. It took me more than half an hour to make it home, and by the time I reached the back of my building I had gotten control of myself. I fished the key out of my pocket, unlocked the door, and crept inside, praying no one saw me. I didn't want to have to explain my condition, even to Wesley.

I tiptoed to my apartment door, turned the key quietly, and slipped inside. After I switched on the lights, I headed for the bathroom, stripping off my jacket, tie, and shirt as I did. My top hat was already gone, probably on a hobo's head by now. I washed my face and risked a glance in the mirror. I didn't look as bad as I'd feared, though my lips had swollen to near twice their normal size, and my head looked like someone had filled it full of air with a bicycle pump. Leaving my clothing on the floor, I walked to the bedroom.

The first thing I noticed was that my bed was unkempt. The sheets were rumpled and piled up in a heap. I was sure I'd made my bed that morning. The next thing I saw was a black jacket and trousers, and a gray and white striped ascot, folded neatly over a chair. At the side of the bed lay a pair of black oxfords, with stockings, garters, and undershorts piled up next to them.

The room stank of shit.

I walked closer. It wasn't that the sheets were piled up. Someone was underneath. I pulled back the covers and froze in place. A stout man lay sprawled on his back across my bed. He wasn't breathing. His skin was tinged blue. His head was turned away from me at an impossible angle.

I leaned over the bed to look at his face. It was Judge Hume.

 

I'm not sure how long I stood over my bed staring at Judge Hume. His eyes bulged. His swollen tongue protruded from his mouth. A purple line encircled his neck, the skin inflamed. In death, the judge didn't look like a powerful man. He just looked sad and pathetic, with lonely strands of hair pasted over the top of his head, rolls of fat bulging through his midsection, shriveled penis curled into a nest of graying pubic hair.

I was much more lucid than I had any right to be. Perhaps the alcohol and the events of the evening had inured me to the shock, but I found myself thinking rather clearly. My mind went to Elizabeth. First her fiancé, now her father. Maybe she was the one the killer was trying to hurt. But even if that were true, he was every bit as interested in destroying me.

For half a second, I considered calling the police. I had an alibi and credible witnesses. But my alibi would hold up only for portions of the last four hours. If the judge had been killed earlier, or in the past hour, I'd be sunk—and that was assuming, with me wrapped up so neatly, Riordan would even concern himself with the time of death. No. If the judge were found here, I would never see daylight again. I had to move the body—two hundred pounds of inert flesh.

I wondered how the killer had gotten in. The door was locked. No
one but my parents had a key. If I was going to begin suspecting them, I might as well give up right now. Besides, how he got in wasn't the problem. It was how I was going to get the body out that worried me.

I threw on a shirt, ran to Wesley's, and knocked quietly on the door. No answer. I knocked again, a little louder this time. He wasn't home. I ran back into my apartment. Dragging the body down the stairs was out. The commotion would most likely draw attention from other residents.

It would have to be the fire escape. I rolled him over onto the center of the sheet. His flesh was rubbery, cool to the touch. The stench was sharper now. A shudder of revulsion rose from my gut. I pushed down my disgust and got back to work. Underneath him I found a short length of rope tied in a noose. I threw the rope and his clothing over the top of him, wrapped him in the sheet as tightly as I could, and tied it in a knot over his head and below his feet. When I tugged on the end of the sheet, the body moved more easily than I'd expected. It slid off the bed and clunked onto the floor in a heap. One of Judge Hume's legs and all the clothing spilled out.

With another shudder, I tucked the leg back inside the sheet and ran to the kitchen for a canvas shopping bag. After dumping the rope and clothing into it, I pulled my gun from the nightstand and stuck it in my belt, then dragged the body out of the bedroom to the parlor. I reached for the window latch and found it already unlocked.

All those nights drinking on the fire escape. Would I have remembered to latch the window after a bottle of bourbon? Wesley had been able to swing himself up from the ground. Why not someone else? Especially a tall, muscular man like Frank Van Dam.

I opened the window and leaned out, looking through the metal grid of the fire escape's landing. The lights in the apartments below mine were off, and no one was in the street. I grabbed the body from under the arms and pulled it up to a sitting position. When I did, the head clunked against my chest like a bowling ball. I dropped him.

Tears came to my eyes, and I slumped to the floor, pushing the body away. I couldn't do this. But a few moments later, I stood and took a deep breath, then lifted the body and maneuvered it to the windowsill,
where I propped it up and then climbed out onto the landing. I reached in through the window, grabbed the body from under the arms, and dragged it out onto the fire escape.

Tires squealed in the distance.

I rushed back inside, threw on my duster, and slung the bag over my shoulder before sprinting back to the parlor and climbing out the window again. I grabbed hold of the knot at the top of the sheet and pulled the body around the corner to the steps. Somehow I managed to get him onto my shoulders in a fireman's carry.

The engines of gasoline motorcars revved as they got close, tires squealing around corners. I had no doubt as to their destination.

Bent under the weight of the judge, I climbed down the steps to the second-floor landing, feeling the strain in my back and knees. I released the last set of stairs, and they crashed to the lawn with an incredible racket. I got to the ground as quickly as I could, one hand on the back of the judge's neck, the other over his knees, then turned and awkwardly pushed the lower section of the stairs back up. I hobbled across Second Street into the alley between the houses, and had just reached Third Street when cars screeched to a stop behind me. Men shouted. A car door slammed. And another. Yellow light from lanterns careened wildly across the walls.

Detective Riordan's voice called out, “Malone, around back! Don't let him get past you.”

Manic energy surged through me. I staggered to the next street and the next, barely able to support the weight of the judge's body. My breath shot out in clouds of steam, visible in the pale white glow of the full moon.

I couldn't stop and rest. If I dropped Judge Hume now, I would never get him back onto my shoulders. I stumbled along, reeling from the weight, until finally I came to what I'd been looking for—the cornfield. Stubbly cornstalks jutted up in rows, the space between them just wide enough for Judge Hume's body lengthwise. I dropped him about fifty feet from the street and fell to the ground panting, feeling pain in every muscle in my body. Exhaustion washed over me.

When I felt I could, I rose to my knees, laid the bag and my coat
beside me, and plunged my hands into the cold ground. On top the dirt came out in clumps, and I was able to push it to the side, but once I'd gotten down a few inches, the soil was harder, nearly frozen.

I sat back and tried to think. A huge oak tree near the street was silhouetted against the lights of the city, its bare limbs reaching up to the sky. I pushed myself to my feet and ran to the tree. Branches and leaves littered the ground around it. I picked up a sturdy limb and returned to the body.

Stabbing my makeshift pick into the earth again and again, I dug mechanically, prying up the soil and using my hands to push it out of the hole. I was making progress now. Another foot and I could bury him.

A low hum became audible underneath the sound of the limb thudding into the dirt. I stopped and listened. The noise clarified to the
putt-putt-putt
of a gasoline engine. I dropped to the ground and looked out toward the street. The lawn in front of the redbrick three-story on the corner began to brighten. A motorcycle turned the corner toward me, its headlamp augmented by a lantern propped onto the handlebars. The rider was bundled against the cold in the dark blue overcoat of the Detroit Police's Flying Squadron. I rolled Judge Hume into the hole and lay on top of him, pressing myself as flat as I could, though much of my body was still exposed. Panic was an eyelash away.

The engine quieted. I couldn't see the motorcycle, but it had stopped almost directly across from us, no more than two or three rows down and perhaps seventy feet away. The kickstand clicked, and boots hit the cobbles. Springs creaked as the rider pushed his weight off the seat. His boots scraped against the pavement and then hit gravel. He was walking into the field.

 

Run? Stay? I didn't know. I was so scared I wasn't sure I could run. The light bobbed away and continued around the perimeter of the field. I realized I wasn't breathing. I reached behind me and pulled the gun from my belt. The policeman's mutterings were carried by the breeze—mostly curses, with Riordan's name mentioned more than once. He reached the corner farthest away from me, and I tensed, ready to run.
But he spun around, the lantern whirling with him, and let out a loud curse.