THE DEVILS DIME (34 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Addie woke in stages, coughing, the smell of ether in her hair and clothes. Her arms and legs felt heavy, and her mind kept approaching and retreating from a wakeful state.

Piles of once-bright fabric lay all around her, and a loose spring poking through frayed upholstery not far from her shoulder told her she was on some sort of discarded furniture.

She struggled to focus on the wall that kept moving before her, and realized at last that it was a low-hanging curtain. It seemed to be all that separated her from the rest of the room, and the voices that echoed in it.

At first she thought that she was to answer when they spoke. But her words came out as yips and moans. Soon, though, she realized they didn’t hear her. It was two men. And they were talking in low tones.

She knew the voice of one. The one that belonged to the shiny patent leathers. It set her shaking, knowing how she’d taunted him just that morning. In his own office.

But the other she couldn’t place.

“Look. She knows me. I can’t take the chance.” The man with the hushed uptown tone sounded worried. He began to pace, his expensive shoes hardly making a sound though he was just on the other side of the curtain. “I’m leaving. And don’t get me up here again.”

“Well, someone’s got to find out what she knows.”

“Get the bastard who brought her up here. He looked plenty eager to me.”

The man with the quiet shoes walked past the curtain and seemed to leave. But then his voice came again from farther away.

“Did you take care of Magee?”

“Tonight, Cash. Taking care of him tonight.”

. . .

Much of the jailhouse was already deserted as Sergeant Coombs made his way up the labyrinth of halls to the death row cell where Ford Magee had been moved to the previous night.

“Evenin’, Rogers,” he said to the guard at the check point.

“Evenin’, Coombs.”

He knew Rogers crossed himself when Coombs passed. They all did. He’d gotten used to it.

And he’d gotten used to doing the dirty work no one else would touch. Most henchmen did, he supposed. But he wouldn’t do it tonight.

“Gonna have t’ let me into the cell, Rogers.”

“What for?”

Coombs pulled a long knotted string out of his pocket and showed it to Rogers. It was the one he used to measure a man for a coffin.

Rogers recoiled, and tossed his key ring hard enough that Coombs had to walk a few feet ahead to bend and pick it up. He walked on into the block and stopped at the heavy door behind which he knew he’d find Ford Magee.

It took minutes to locate the right key, but eventually he dragged the heavy door open and entered the cell.

“Magee.” He touched the sleeping form with his foot. “Magee. Wake up.”

Ford struggled awake and looked at the man who hunkered near his face. “Who are you.” His voice sounded disinterested, defeated, and he had fresh splits around his lips and eyebrows.

“I’m the man who’s takin’ you home tonight.”

“What?”

“Wake up, Magee. You got ta play along if this thing is gonna work.”

Coombs heard steps in the hall and put his fingers to his lips for Ford to stay quiet. “Hey, Rogers, you sure this fella ain’t dead already? I cain’t hardly get ‘im t’ move.”

“Magee!” Rogers bellowed through the grill in the door. “Do what the man says.” He lowered his voice and growled at Coombs. “And you. Be quick about it.”

Technically, Coombs and Rogers held the same rank in the police department, and Coombs gritted his teeth at the insolence Rogers showed him.

As Rogers walked away, Coombs reached across Ford and picked up his left hand. He felt along the bones of the palm, and then isolated Ford’s stiff, second finger, his compass finger. He ran his own fingers along it, testing its deformity, and a slow smile crept across his face.

By now, Ford had come to full alert and tried to draw his hand away, but Coombs held fast.

“Listen, Magee. Trumbull has given orders for a midnight hangin’.” Ford’s eyes flew wide and he tried to sit up.

“Take it easy, now, Magee. Hear me out. I rigged the scaffold so you can fake it. But you gotta do it right. When that trapdoor goes, don’t squirm, don’t wiggle, don’t bat so much as an eyelash. There will be planks under your feet within thirty seconds. All you have to do is hold yer breath thirty seconds. I’ll take care o’ the rest. You can do that, cain’t ya?”

Ford nodded slowly.

“Good. Remember now. No squirmin’.”

Coombs stood to go, but Ford stopped him with a hand.

“Why?”

“What now?”

“Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?”

Coombs pushed a skinny strand of hair out of his face and checked the hall for Rogers. Slowly, he turned and squatted again. “February 12
^th
, 1876. I think you know the date. A young girl was attacked, ’bout t’ be kilt, but some fella come outta nowhere and saved her life. You remember that? That first one when the guy they call the Samaritan showed up?”

Ford nodded cautiously.

Coombs turned and spit out into the hall, then turned back. “That pretty little thing, she was m’ baby sister.”

“Mariah Elanore Coombs.”

“Eye fer an eye. You’re the man with the funny finger. She told me all about it, every detail. You saved her. I return the favor.” He stood and moved to the door. “You gotta help, though, y’hear?”

Again Ford nodded, and Coombs tipped a finger to his forehead in salute before locking the door on the last man on earth who deserved to be in jail.

. . .

Plain old earth felt good beneath his cavalry boots as Jess traipsed back through town. The files Doc Haberman had waited twenty years to pass along jostled inside his shirt with each step he took.

And each step brought him closer to Addie, and the difficult things he was going to have to tell her.

The end of the day in Williamsbridge was unlike any Jess had seen in years. Folks walked home from shops they’d just closed up, stopping on porches for a chat along the way. Around the block a childish hand worked the piano keys. It sounded like a lesson.

Every yard spilled flowers into the next, and the only things fenced were the vegetable gardens. No one knew him, yet he got a smile, a lifted finger, or a tip of the head from nearly everyone he passed.

He wasn’t usually drawn to tranquil things, but the village had charmed him, made it somehow hard to leave behind. Maybe it was simply the calm he felt now that the questions had been answered.

Jess picked up the pace once he realized no one was going his way. People were coming home to Williamsbridge rather than heading into the city. If he wanted a ride, he clearly was going the wrong direction. Jess accepted the fact that he’d have to walk quite a distance before he found transportation.

More and more pieces of the puzzle revealed themselves in small bursts of clarity as Jess logically pursued the information he had so far. He still wanted to know how Ford had known what nights Jeremiah would go on his murderous sprees.

And he wanted to find out who this man Cash was. And where he’d hidden his seedy heaven.

Three miles disappeared behind him as Jess mulled over the information he’d gleaned from Dr. Haberman, and meshed it with what he’d already known. He’d been so certain that the union hall played into the scheme. Now it looked like he’d been whistling up the wrong tree on that one.

Unless.

The name Jemmy Carnello had definitely appeared on the union rosters on every date when an attack occurred. He’d verified that to his satisfaction. But did the name appear any other time? He hadn’t checked that out. If not, it could have been just a cover, an alibi for Jeremiah if he were ever suspected. The rosters would show he couldn’t have been the burglar because he was at work at the time.

It made sense. It’s how he would have done it.

Now you’re thinkin’ like a criminal, Pepper.

Jess looked up to gauge how far he had yet to go, and grinned a little when he spied the towers on the trolley barn in the distance. Just beyond it lay the track that would roll him straight home to Addie.

In ten minutes he’d reached the barn at the end of the trolley line. He sped up as he rounded the barn, and groaned when he discovered he’d have to wait for one of the red-roofed, open-air cars to arrive, make the round-house turn, and be readied for the return trip to the heart of the city.

But it was the quickest way home. And so he waited.

By the time he stepped off the trolley six blocks from Sutton House, he’d begun to get accustomed to the stares of people who didn’t expect to see a farmer ride the trolley through mid-town.

Jess reached for his pocket watch, then remembered he was in disguise and didn’t have it. It had to be after six, he reasoned. Addie would be in the middle of her performance at the hotel. It was no use checking the stoop, because if Tad followed the plan, he wouldn’t be leaving a message ’til after she was done at the hotel.

Even though the weight of resolving what remained of Ford’s dilemma was ever-present in his mind, Jess found himself smiling as his plan for the next few hours took shape.

“Ma’am! Wait a second if you would, please.”

Jess hurried toward a middle-aged woman who was just wheeling her barrow of flowers back into the store. She turned at his voice, and when she saw a disheveled bum coming toward her, she seemed alarmed. Jess held his five dollar bill up and smiled his most innocent smile. He pointed at the nosegay on the top of her load.

“Flowers, ma’am. I’d like to buy those flowers.”

The woman eyed him, then the five dollar bill, then eyed him again.

“And those chocolates,” he added.

She looked him over, as if considering his worthiness, then pulled the box of chocolates from the back of her pile.

Having been deemed worthy of her flowers and chocolates, Jess completed the transaction. With the chocolates under one arm and the flowers curled into the other, Jess turned toward home. The silly grin on his face was a far cry from the sober lines that had creased his brow when he’d slipped out of the city less than twenty-four hours earlier.

But then, this time, he was headed home with treats for his lady.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Psst. Miss Addie.”

Tad laid a hand on Addie’s shoulder, and she opened her eyes with a start. She’d been crying.

“Mmph!”

“Miss Addie! It’s me! Tad Morton! Don’t be scared.”

Carefully he pulled the gag from her mouth and she looked up at him with both relief and fear.

“Tad, you shouldn’t be here! What are you doing?” She struggled to sit up, but Tad saw that her hands and feet were tied. He slipped her feet to the floor and braced her as she raised to a sitting position.

“Miss Addie, I could see that man was making you leave with him, so I got on your cycle and I followed you here. Those two men were here until just now, so I been hidin’ behind those trunks.”

Addie looked in the direction he’d nodded and shivered. He’d been that close when Deacon Trumbull had been just on the other side of the curtain? It was too frightening to think what Trumbull would have done if he’d found the boy.

Not too far away a door scraped open.