THE DEVILS DIME (17 page)

“I merely need a list of your tenants, if that wouldn’t be too much trouble?”

“Trouble? Not at all, sir, er, Chief, er, Chief Trumbull. Not at all. Just one moment!”

The old fellow disappeared into his dusty confines and reappeared minutes later with a carefully copied list of tenants. “Anything else, sir?”

The fellow seemed so anxious to oblige that Deacon Trumbull pursued the question he was most eager to have answered. “Oh, just one small thing. Do you happen to know who it is that Jess Pepper might know in this building?”

The old man was crestfallen. He had no idea who Jess Pepper was, and no idea if the man had even been in his building.

Trumbull left the man standing in his hallway, blabbering offers to help, and made his way to the front of the building. Jess Pepper had been here, all right. He’d seen him stroll out the door just minutes earlier. And he wanted to know who the nosy reporter had visited.

The lobby was as dismal as the rest of the building, and the only human he saw before passing through the front door was a woman who stood at the far end of the parlor with her hand on the window pane.

Chief Trumbull moved slowly up the street, not wanting to sweat through his Sunday coat. It took him five minutes to stroll the block and a half to the area precinct where he could commandeer transportation.

He read through the list of names, then started to work his way back up from the bottom. Nothing jumped out at him and he was beginning to question his hunch. There was probably nothing more here than some stupid source for another of Pepper’s articles.

When he reached the top of the page, he slid his finger to the second column listing apartment numbers and the next of kin for each. And here a name jumped out at him that had him heaving to a stop and beads of sweat forming on his upper lip.

Halfway down was a name that came shrieking out of his past. A name that had cost a careless beat cop a promotion twenty years earlier. A man who had eluded him for nearly two decades.

The next of kin listed for the tenant in 4H was none other than Ford Magee.

. . .

Jess slammed the typewriter roll hard to the left and winced at the clanging of its raucous bell. That very sound was the reason he’d bought the Blickensderfer years ago for work and retired this annoying Remington to his home. It finally clanged at him one too many times and he grabbed the little bell and clapper spring-loaded mechanism and ripped it off the machine.

He blew a long, settling breath and tried to come to a decision on the direction this story would take. Two hours earlier the article had come tumbling out faster than he could type. But then he’d gone upstairs to visit Ford Magee, and now he was having second thoughts about publishing the story at all.

He knew now that Magee was his Samaritan. The man’s language and the incriminating dates in his wife’s diary were too convincing to ignore. But even as he formed the thought, his stomach churned at the preposterous theory.

He liked Magee. And his feelings for the man’s daughter had obviously gone farther than he’d ever ventured with another female. They were good people, whose lives had been derailed by questions a husband and wife were afraid to ask and answer for one another. How fiercely they had both protected Addie. Wouldn’t people want to know that this honorable man had sacrificed his own family for the safety of their daughters? Wouldn’t they want an opportunity to thank him?

Still, there was no question of naming Magee. He would never do that. The man had let his family move to Chicago without him rather than reveal even to them who he was. A man wouldn’t do that without good reason. A very good reason. A reason backed by fear.

Jess pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. What was the reason? That was now the focus of his investigation. And if he managed to answer that question, Ford Magee might be able to breathe freely for the first time in over twenty years.

For the moment, Ford was off the hook. Jess would give him a couple more days, a week at the most, and then he was going to lay it all out for him. One way or the other he’d help Ford and Addie bring this shadowed fear into the light.

Jess dug through his waste basket for a discarded version of the article, and contemplated merging his present page with ideas from the page he’d rejected just minutes earlier. A passionate thread began to emerge, and as he rolled a clean sheet into the typewriter, Jess let his fingers have their way with the Remington. In half an hour, his final take on the article had tumbled onto the page.

. . .

From the Salt Mines
by Jess Pepper

A Tale of Two People

The inclination to protect one’s own is as natural as any instinct shared by man and beast. To stand at the gate and thwart the attack. To send the scavenger fleeing.

Picture books are full of majestic lions protecting their den. Or soaring eagles screeching down on hawks that threaten their nests on the cliffs.

The lion paces before the cleft in the rock where he has harbored his young, mouth stretching in a fearsome roar. Tail twitching. The wild boar that dares to threaten his cubs finds himself suddenly shredded by the swift, killing claws of the lion.

The eagle swoops from the sky and plucks a hawk before it can land in her nest, her talons ripping and beak stabbing at the hated intruder.

The man who stands on his doorstep and single-handedly fights off a marauding bandit has much in common with his brother Lion and sister Eagle.

But what about the other nests on the cliff? Or the pride of lions that lives in the grove beyond? Does the lion rush to their aid when they come under attack? Does the eagle swoop to keep the hawks away from the unwary rabbit or innocent prairie dog?

No, my friend. Here is where man and beast part ways.

For it is only man who will don a uniform and sacrifice his life for the good of a nation. Only man who will run into a burning house to save the child of a stranger. Only man who will throw himself between a killer and a defenseless girl.

What manner of man is this, I ask you?

Does he fear nothing?

Does he have no family to whom he feels a greater duty than to this stranger?

Imagine if you will, two very different people. One, the solid patriarch, responsible and loving, cautious in business, and safeguard of the welfare of his family.

The other, a vigilante. Who casts aside his own obligations in order to safeguard the welfare of anonymous strangers. The risk-taker. The man willing to face down death.

It is as impossible to imagine the patriarch rushing out to join another’s fight and leave his children vulnerable as it is to imagine the vigilante playing cat’s cradle with an infant.

And yet they do.

Now imagine that the patriarch and the vigilante are one and the same. He guards his family and cares for them with as much love and concern as he is capable. His gentle hands wipe his daughter’s tears and teach his young son to tie his shoes.

And when he is at last content that all is well, some hunch, some instinct, some clue that comes from who knows where, leads him to a dark street to save a girl he’s never seen from death at the hands of a lunatic.

How can he throw himself between? Is he bigger? Is he stronger? Does he know the attacker? Does he know for certain that he can save the girl and not lose his own life in the process?

In this teeming city there is no shortage of men who put aside their fears and leave behind their families to stand between good and evil.

Were they born courageous? Or were they emboldened by the examples of other men. Men like our own Samaritan, who has gone these twenty years unthanked for his courageous deeds. A man who may have left his own wife and child time after time and searched the streets in order to save some other fathers’ daughters.

We can only wonder if this man feels the gratitude of a city. If we passed him on the street, would we know it was him? Would we see something in him we don’t see in others?

Would we stop to thank him? Or hurry on by.

Ponder this, Dear Reader. You may have ridden the trolley with this brave man. You may worship in the same church, shop at the same market, visit the same barber.

He might be your tailor. The conductor on your train. The man who shovels coal into your coal chute. Or your banker.

Or, Gentle Reader, he might even be the man who lives upstairs.

When you see him, will you know him?

Chapter Twelve

Jess loitered on the steps of the Chase National Bank, grateful for the shade from the afternoon’s heat. He had more papers to hide in the safe deposit box, but he wanted to complete his task closer to closing time so he could walk Addie home.

At ten minutes to four he strode into the foyer and checked the teller lines. Addie and one other teller were busy, but the rest were available. Several nodded for him to come to their window and he waved them off, content to stay in Addie’s line and wait. After the third offer was rejected, the women began passing knowing looks back and forth along the line and nodding in his direction.

Awkward as it was, Jess managed to wait until Addie had finished with the crabby old fellow who insisted she count his withdrawal a third time.

“And Mr. Pepper, what may I do for you today?” She’d seen him waiting in her line and her smile said she was more than pleased he hadn’t gone elsewhere.

“A visit to my safe deposit box, Miss Magee, if you’ve the time?”

“All the time in the world, Mr. Pepper. I’ll meet you at the gate.”

Addie slid the leather thong of keys onto her wrist and placed the wooden block in front of her window. She glided to the gate, seemingly unaware of her coworkers’ giggles. Without breaking stride she pushed open the low gate and indicated for him to follow her into the vault.

Jess watched her insert her key, then he inserted his and they turned both keys nearly in unison. He heard the soft click and Addie slid the box from its shelf and carried it to the high center table.

“I’ll leave you alone, sir.”

“If you do, I’ll be forced to come pester you at your counter, Miss Magee.”

She stopped and turned back toward him, smiling.

“If I don’t, the ladies will never stop pestering
me
, Mr. Pepper. Just let me know when you’re finished.”

Jess flipped up the lid, dropped in the papers, and let the lid fall with a clank.

“Finished.”

“Oh! Well, then, let’s just put this back and you can be on your way.”

Addie slid the box back into its place and reached to retrieve her key. Jess reached at the same time, but instead of reaching for his key, he reached for hers and covered her hand.

“I’ve come to walk you home.”

“Oh! How nice! But...I’m not going home.” Addie looked truly dismayed. “I’m going to see my father. I stopped at Ballenger’s this morning and Cherise gave me some day-old’s. I thought my father might like them.”

“I’m sure he will. And since I live there, too, I’ll walk you anyway. What do you say?”

Addie began to smile, then blushed. “To your building? Wouldn’t that be...I don’t know, a bit compromising?”

“I’ll tell you what. We’ll walk together until the last block and then I’ll cross the street the other direction. No one will see us together entering my darkly mysterious bachelor’s lair. I’ll wait a full five minutes before I come in. Would that suit you?”

Before Addie could answer, Hamilton Jensen swung into the vault and startled the two. Jess quickly turned his key and said loudly, “Thank you, Miss...um, Magee, is it? You’ve been very helpful.” He moved behind her to pick up his Stetson from the center table and whispered as he passed, “Front step. I’ll wait.” And with a courteous nod first to Addie and then to Jensen, he left the vault.

It was a full fifteen minutes before Addie emerged from the giant doors. Jess had waited, leaning against a cool marble column, then wandered over to the window of the music store next door and watched the demonstrator play new sheet music for the customers. He turned from the storefront just in time to see Addie swing off the bottom step onto the sidewalk. The miniature decorative birds nested in her hat were colored an unlikely blue-green, and bobbed cheerfully as she looked discreetly about for Jess. She carried her father’s bakery goods with a finger hooked beneath the string that tied the box closed.

He was getting accustomed to the possessive feeling that rose as he walked toward her, and suppressed a grin at Addie’s unsuccessful attempt to stifle her own grin. The result left her looking like the cat who ate the canary.

As he came close, he could simply have pivoted and joined her to walk alongside. Instead, he greeted her with a huge smile as he caught her elbow and turned them both in an abrupt square corner and ushered her into the side alley.