Resurrecting Harry (23 page)

“This is the guy the neighbors have been talking about. The drifter whose been sponging off Mrs. Houdini.”

“Excuse me?”
How dare these yokels accuse him of using Bess? Or starting their house on fire. “That’s just idle gossip.”

“Bess is a friend of mine,” Will said, “and I know Erich. He worked in my shop for a few days. Remember? It wasn’t him.”

“Didn’t you just repair that furnace about a week ago?” Stanley asked.

He couldn’t lie. Stanley had been there when he’d offered his services and Bess accepted.

Good God, was this my fault?

Had Martin done him a favor pulling Bess away before the furnace exploded?

“I fixed it then, but it took a lot of work. It’s seen better days.”

“So, you must know a lot about fuel oil furnaces. Maybe how to make them explode when you’re not around to get your baby-fine, blond hair singed.”

“That’s ridiculous. Look, Gail Cooper came by earlier and argued with the two of us. That’s why I went to town, to ask Will to drive us to the train station. I was worried the Coopers would do something…something like this.”

Stanley eyed him up and down, seemed to be weighing the facts. He then gave his attention back to the house and the flames that the firefighters appeared to be controlling. “Has anyone seen Mrs. Houdini?”

“The neighbor from across the street saw her leave with Martin Cooper. Ten to fifteen minutes later, they heard the explosion and saw the flames,” Frank answered.

“Martin Cooper is a respected doctor. You’re a drifter. I’m taking you back into town.” Stanley grabbed Erich’s arm and used brute force to spin him around. Metal handcuffs clamped down on his wrist. A sensation burned in Harry’s memory.

Though stunned, he knew it best to just cooperate for the moment. It wasn’t like any pair of cuffs could
really
hold him anyway. “You’re not seriously going to arrest me?”

“Not yet, but I’m suspicious enough to hold you until we find Mrs. Houdini and can talk to her.” Stanley addressed Will, “I’ll send Lou out to the Cooper’s. See if she’s there.”

Will patted Erich’s shoulder. “Just hang tight, guy. I’m not going to wait for them to mess around. I’ll go and fetch Bess now, and she’ll straighten everything out.”

“Thank you.” Though not in his nature, Erich decided patience was probably the best course of action. For now. Causing a scene would only make him look less stable. As the second cuff clicked into place, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“Something funny?”

Stanley would never understand the irony. “It’s kind of an inside joke.”

Erich shook his hands up and down once, feeling the weight of the metal against his wrist. They were light, and Stanley had not closed them as tight as he could have. At least he didn’t consider Erich a threat.

Harry’s knowledge told him he didn’t even need a pick to get them off. If he folded his hands just right, pushing the joints out of place, the cuffs would fall away. Arrogance bubbled up, and Erich was tempted to use the know-how just to show he could. As quickly as the thought came to him, he dismissed it. What would it prove? Where would it get him?

Will was a good friend, and he could trust him to get to Bess. She would explain everything to Stanley. He needed to forgo his pride, and embrace some patience. Anything else would complicate matters more than they needed to be.

Pride goeth before a fall.
Wasn’t that a Proverb?

As Stanley pushed down on his shoulder, directing him into the back of the car, Erich spoke to Will. “Go to Bess, please. Make sure she’s okay.”

“I’m on my way, Erich. Just sit tight. I’ll get her to town.”

Why was it that clear decisions only stayed that way long enough for something to happen to muck up the picture? Not ten minutes after Erich left for town, Martin showed up full of apologies and petitioning for one simple request. Not for him, but for Gail.

Now Gail sat across the table from Bess, each with a mug of tea. Before Martin left the room, he insisted they talk through the issues. She hadn’t needed Martin to tell her that Gail had few friends. Gail had been all too willing to say just that a few days earlier, and most people in town would gossip about her when given the chance. But, when he said he’d be damned if his arrogance cost his wife the one friend she most valued, that touched her heart. All the scandalous chitchat was just that.

True love was selfless. Like Martin’s. Like Erich’s.

“Everyone thinks it was easy for Martin.” Gail wrung her hands as she spoke. She never lifted her eyes from the centerpiece on the table. “They believe our relationship was sordid. They see him as unfaithful and me as disrespectful. They fault him for needing a shoulder to mourn on, and me for providing it. Erich might think he’s right to cast stones, but he doesn’t know. No one really does.”

The pain radiating in Gail’s voice couldn’t be faked. Bess knew how hard it was to live by the community’s moral compass and that they would assess her by a harsher code because of her celebrity status.

She’d made choices in the past few weeks based on how she would later be judged. Now, she regretted giving anyone else that kind of power. “I’ve always maintained that was none of my business. Other people’s feelings on the matter is not why I am canceling the séance. This isn’t about your relationship with Martin or past events between you and Harry. It’s about me and being able to live with myself. Harry didn’t write his code, or ask me to hold séances because he believed in any of that.”

Gail drew in her cheeks as she nodded.

Bess knew facing the truth was hard for Gail, but there was no way she could argue with facts. Harry let it be known how he felt about spiritualism. “I didn’t realize until after he communicated with me how much I was clinging to him.  Erich showed me that Harry is gone.  He didn’t want his name or his legacy drug through the mud. It was for the exact opposite reason he made these plans. If I go to the press and tell the world he’s been in touch, I’m opening the door to everything he despised and fought so hard to protect his name from. The best thing I can do for Harry is to let him go.”

“But he was the one who gave credence to the notion I was a liar and a cheat. Martin and I were already being condemned for being in love. Harry made it worse by calling our characters into question.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s not
your
fault, Bess. You didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“I regret it just the same.” She’d stood by when Harry’s temper flared, comforted his grief, but didn’t call him out on the anger. He was entitled to his emotions, but threw too many stones, way too hard. “Gail. I believe wherever he is now, he’s sorry too. His mother was just so dear to him.”

“I only tried to help.”

“I know that.” Who had Harry been to judge? It made Bess nauseous to think of the time they spent running their own spiritualist con, especially now that she’d lived the aftermath. She remembered the pain in Harry’s face when he spoke of his mother and had, herself, spent too many nights crying and even more days drowning her pain in Martin’s brandy, longing for the comfort of his voice or the warmth of his touch. Faking communication with the dead was a cruel hoax and misguided game. She saw that with crystal clarity.

“Contacting Harry would restore my reputation, and you have the power to do that. All you have to do is help me make people believe that Harry talked to me from beyond the grave.”

“I won’t lie in my husband’s name.”

“It would make things easier for Martin if people didn’t malign us. Don’t you owe us that much for all we’ve done for you in the last year?”

“Don’t you understand what you’re asking, Gail? You want me to dishonor my husband’s memory—”

Gail pounded her fist against the table to accent every word. With each strike, she spoke louder. “To restore the reputation that Harry ruined. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.”

“Ladies, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Will’s here, and he needs to talk to you, Bess.”

She turned her chair and saw only one thing on both of Martin and Will’s faces: disaster.

Will took cautious steps until he stood in front of her, then squatted down and touched her knee. “Sweetie, something’s happened.”

A pang vibrated through her, as if a rock had free fallen to the pit of her stomach. Was there anything left to go wrong? “Is Erich sick again?”

He tightened his grip. “No, he’s fine. It’s...I hardly know where to start.”

She didn’t have patience for side-stepping and kit-glove handling. If there was more pain to be had — and the look on the men’s faces told her there was — she just wanted to hear it. “Tell me.”

“There’s been a fire, honey. At your house.”

“Oh my God. Bad?” Tears pushed against her eyes, but she swallowed hard. No more crying for things she couldn’t control.

“They’re still fighting the flames, but I doubt there will be much left.” With a long exhale, Will shifted his weight and looped a thumb through the belt loop of his pants.  “Bess, there’s more. It’s Erich—”

She leapt to her feet. “You said he was fine?”

“He is, but…”

Her chest tightened. “Just spit it out!”

“He’s been arrested. The fire chief thinks the fire was set on purpose, and he suspects Erich.”

“That damn furnace went out again this morning. Erich just relit it.”

“He didn’t say anything about that. He’s a stranger in town. No one knows him and many suspect he’s up to no good because of the way he latched on to you.”

Bess took her handbag from the table. “That’s ridiculous. Please, take me to him.”

“Let’s go.”

As they crossed the threshold, Martin grabbed her arm. “I’m so sorry, Bess, about your house. If you need anything at all, let me know.”

A tenderness shown clear in his eyes, signaling sincerity and concern, but grateful words balled up in her throat. She merely nodded.

“You can stay with us until you work something out.”

She squeezed his hand. No matter what other’s thought, Martin and Gail were true friends, despite Gail’s need for fame. “Thank you, Martin, but the only thing I can focus on now is helping Erich.”

***

Give me your best. I’ll escape any confines
.

In the early days of their careers, Harry would dare the police officers in the cities they performed in to try and restrain him. Every station sounded the same: ringing phones, clacking typewriter keys and the static from the car radios. Walking into this one took Bess back to all those nights and every challenge.

Each and every one brought a foreboding sense of agony. The lawmen took the challenges to heart, getting more cruel and demeaning in the attempts to contain Harry, at times endangering his life to protect their delicate egos. She knew if Erich’s anger got the best of him and he provoked the police, they would retaliate. She’d seen it time and again.

Bess shook off her fear and approached the desk. “Erich Welch, please. Can I see him?”

The officer looked up. Recognition flashed in his eyes as he stood. “Mrs. Houdini. The sergeant wants to talk to you about the fire.” He shifted his weight. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

She waved her hands in front of her. “Mr. Johnson told me that you folks arrested my friend Erich. I want him released.”

“Mr. Welch hasn’t been charged with anything. The sergeant wanted to talk to you before he assumed innocence.” The officer tried to offer comfort by reaching out — to touch her arm perhaps — but she pushed it away.

The only thing that would console her now was to see Erich. “Innocence is what you’re supposed to presume, not guilt. The only place I’m going is to the cell where you’re holding Erich. You can tell the sergeant if that old fuel oil furnace caused the fire, it was an accident.”

Stanley showed his face from behind a closed office door. “What’s going on out here?” His gaze locked on Bess, and sympathy softened his chiseled features. He crossed the room and offered his extended hand. “Mrs. Houdini, I’m so sorry about your home.”

The gentle way everyone was handling her told Bess the damage to her house must be devastating, but she wouldn’t let that veer her from what was most important.

“The officer says you have questions, and I’ll be more than happy to answer them, but not until you release Erich. He is my friend, and I know he didn’t cause the fire.”

“Ma’am it’s my understanding he’s only been in town a week or so and that he showed up out of nowhere.”

“That doesn’t make him an arsonist. Take me to him now!”

Stanley’s head bowed. “Okay, okay, but I’m not releasing him until you both answer some questions.”

She conceded to the deal, anything to get to Erich and make sure he was all right. The next step she needed to focus on was getting him out of jail. “Can you wait for me, Will?”

He motioned her over to him, and she reluctantly obeyed. Now that Stan had complied, she didn’t want to waste minutes.

“I told them Erich was with me,” Will said, “I mean, he was with me — at the diner — and I told them that.”

In the quiver of Will’s voice she could hear just how scared he was. She closed her eyes and dug deep for the strength to fight for Erich’s honor. “I’ll make them understand.”

“I’ll wait right here while you get this taken care of.”

Stanley led her through a door into a large cinder block room. There was an aisle that ran between two rows of barred cells. All but one sat empty, half way back and to her left. She could see Erich lying on the small cot, his left arm shielding his eyes from the harsh florescent lights. As the heavy door shut, he let the arm slide over his head and glanced in their direction. When he saw her, his face lit up with a smile.

He stood and gripped the bars. “Bess. I was so worried.”

At the sound of his voice, restraint disintegrated. The heels of her shoes clapped against the concrete floor as she ran down the small aisle. When she was in front of him, she reached through the bars and gripped his hair, pulling him down until she tasted his lips. The scent of him circled and calmed her, even if he was doused in smoke.

“When Will first told me about the fire, I was so scared you were caught inside.” She’d mourn the house later. It was just a building. Looking into his eyes, she knew her home existed anywhere that she could lie in his arms.

Erich stroked her cheek. “I’m okay. Don’t you worry. We’ll get through this.”

She leaned into his touch. “I know we will. I trust you. I just have to figure out how to convince them you didn’t do this.”

“They just want to protect you. It’s okay. Answer their questions.”

She hadn’t expected humility. For some reason she imagined him pacing the cell like an animal and roaring his anger like a tiger, but that would be Harry’s reactions to such an event, not Erich’s. The dichotomy confused her almost as much as it touched her. “I know you’d never hurt me.”

She tipped her head and kissed his palm, before turning to the officer. “Okay, Sergeant, I’ll answer your questions.”

“Why don’t we go back up to my office? You’ll be more comfortable.”

“I want to do this right here and now.” Bess knew Erich was right; the poor man only wanted to do his job. She didn’t mean to stand in the way, but wouldn’t be whisked away or hide anything from Erich.