He inhaled noisily through his nose, nodding as he exhaled. “Garrett said something, didn’t he? What’d that goat fucker say?”
“Jack didn’t—”
“Jack, is it? You spreading your legs for him now?”
“Don’t talk to me anymore. You need to—”
“But you have to work with me. With our—”
“I don’t have to do anything. I’ll report you to Denver.”
“No … now … I risked my life for you. You can’t—”
“Risked? You risked it?”
“Yeah, I did. I risked my career. I risked my life for—”
“You risked your life,” she repeated in bemusement, thrusting the blade into the air between them, her eyes fixed on his. “If that’s true, then the risk just got a little higher. Yeah? So leave me be. Or Mr. Haywood will—”
The storage closet’s door opened, and a Mexican prep-cook entered. He stopped. Taking in the pair, seeing the raised cleaver in her hand, he asked, “Everything alright here, Miss Capone?”
“Yes, Sammy. Gracias,” said Carla. “Just deciding how to best carve up a Pink hog.”
The cook shrugged. “Save his ears. I’ll take em to my dogs.”
She snorted with a grin.
Farrington glared at the man, then pushed by him to leave, the Valentine still in his hand. “Step aside. Goddamned beaner.”
<><><>
The warden’s office, on the second floor of the penitentiary’s administration building, burst with cigar and pipe smoke and the click, click, click of an Underwood in action, its ribbon having been twice replaced. At a large pine table sat Detective McParland, Senator Borah, Agent Jack Garrett, a woman from the First National Bank of Idaho brought in to serve as stenographer, and Harry Orchard—three hours into his confession. No one else had been allowed.
“Wasn’t like you say it was,” Orchard protested, using his lit cigar as a small baton.
McParland raised his hands in mock surrender. “All right, Mr. Orchard. As you wish. It’s your confession, not mine.” He sucked on his pipe.
“Mine neither,” mused Borah, standing to crank the window.
“Senator!” cried McParland at the burst of cold air.
“I hoped for real air,” said Borah, waving at the smoke before closing the window. “This man’s story is stifling enough.”
Convinced that Haywood had ordered him killed two nights prior—and not just shot at, but almost burned alive—Orchard hadn’t just agreed to confess, but had demanded he be given the opportunity. Now the mood was heavy. The confession had been long. He had laid out the details of the bombing of Governor Steunenberg, and the murders of at least fifty-three other people, most by bombs made, implemented, and triggered by his own hand; and uncountable other deaths at the hands of accomplices with whom he had cooperated—old sins casting long shadows—including the dynamiting of the Bunker Hill Mine the year prior. It was on that last point that Detective McParland was now focused.
“You said the superintendent of the Bunker—he got away, and Mr. Haywood was unhappy about that, correct?”
“That’s right. Don’t know how he got out alive. We had him locked in the Pullman. He lost a hand. What I was told anyhow.”
“And Mr. Haywood instructed the other man, Steve Adams, to go find the super and kill him?”
“No, we’d been told to kill him there. Him and any other sombitch on that platform, but—”
“No, now, let’s get this straight. You said that, when you were in Denver, later—that you were ordered by Mr. Haywood to kill Adams, after Adams finished killing the Bunker super. Right?”
“Yep.”
McParland blinked a few times. “That’s a devil’s lot of killing to keep sorted.”
“You’re tellin me!” exclaimed Orchard. “Cept when I seen Adams here, when I got here, he hadn’t gone to kill that fella yet. So, I got him to help me with the governor. Reasoned I’d find Adams after he lit out for the super.”
“You used Adams, truth be told,” said McParland, “to try to get me off your scent. You got him to go to the governor’s house and get himself seen. Then seen again on a train, a little after you popped that bomb. That right?”
Orchard nodded. “About the size of it.”
McParland exchanged a weary head shake with Borah, then looked again at Orchard. “So Adams is headed to kill that man?”
“Damnifino.”
“But you reckon so.”
“Reckon lots of things.”
“Reckon you know his name?”
“Steve Adams? Yeah, though I thought it was Addis at first, when he killed those others in Wallace, on our way to the Bunker.”
“All right. All right. Wait. I want to come back to that, but I’m asking about the name of the superintendent of the Bunker Hill Mine. Do you know his name? The one Adams has gone after?”
“No, Sir.”
McParland turned to Jack and spoke quietly. “Find that super’s name and where he is. He’ll be somewhere in San Francisco, or nearby. We followed Adams there but lost him. So let’s focus on the super. We’ll surveil him and get Adams coming. Might even save the super’s life.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Jack. “Now?”
“When we’re done here.”
Senator Borah leaned into the back of his chair, staring at Orchard. “Back a few months, you killed some railroad men up in Missoula, then you killed an owner’s man in Wallace, here in Idaho. Then, of course, all of that carnage at the Bunker Hill Mine. That got everybody upset, especially my friend Governor Steunenberg. Even President Roosevelt. Which, of course, led to all those arrests. Arrests that angered labor, and Mr. Haywood in particular, because he’d helped pay for the governor’s election. And that, in turn, led to you assassinating the man. Do I have all that right?” Borah waited for a reply, but none came. “Is that right, Mr. Orchard? And you were at the center of all of it?”
“I didn’t kill them conductor fellas in Missoula. Don’t know who did. And them Wallace ones was Addis. I mean Adams.”
“Oh, now,” Borah protested. “You’re just splitting hairs—”
“Maybe,” groused Orchard. “But you missed what came first.”
“First?”
“Yeah, the mistreatin—the killin—of thousands of miners, over the years,” said Orchard. “You politicians—horse asses, the lot of you—so eager to overlook why these awful things get started firstly. Why it figures a man might take up arms. Might wire some dynamite. You never gnaw on that.”
“Maybe,” said McParland, flipping his hand to rejoin the conversation. “But that’s for the law—”
“Ain’t no law to it, Detective,” said Orchard. “Where was the law for the widows of the Stratton men?”
“The Stratton?” asked Borah.
“Stratton Mine, a year or so back,” McParland explained. “Cripple Creek, Colorado.”
“Oh, yes,” muttered the senator.
McParland motioned to Orchard. “What does that little mine in Colorado have to do with all this other? It was a terrible accident, but I don’t—”
“What’s it have to do?” Orchard looked at the detective incredulously. “Everything, Detective. Everything’s got everything to do with everything else! Law did nothing for em at the Stratton. Those were Wobblies who fell to their deaths, good Federation men. Thirty some odd. Stratton owners done nothing for them—the law less. Even Haywood’s lawyer, that fancy fellow from Chicago—”
“Mr. Darrow,” Borah offered.
“Yeah, him,” said Orchard. “He didn’t get em nothing.”
McParland narrowed his eyes at Orchard. “As I recall, that trial was going on the same day as you bombed the Bunker.”
“Maybe. I’m just saying everyone was angry about it all—all of it, all the killing of miners. S
till are. Real angry. And Mr. Haywood had to do something. No, I didn’t look happy on killing em, all them at the Bunker or any others. Or the governor. But something had to be done, and I was the man chosen to do it.”
“You did something, all right,” snarked McParland.
Borah leaned and whispered with McParland. Then McParland nodded, and Borah stood and said, “Mrs. Nelson, I thank you, but at this time I think we’re done with the recording of the confession.” As she gathered her coat, he continued, “Thank you. I have no doubt we’ll be in need of your services again.” After she left, Borah resumed his seat at the table and began thumbing through the sixty-four typed pages beside the machine. “You’re a despicable human being, Mr. Orchard. You must know that about yourself.”
Orchard gave no response, keeping his gaze on the table.
Borah continued, “I’m hard pressed not to have vile regard for all humanity, sitting across from the likes of you—knowing such is possible by the hand of one man—one otherwise quite unremarkable man.”
Still Orchard refused to look at him.
McParland nodded in agreement. “I’ve seen so much. But this …” He waited to see if Borah had more to add, but, hearing nothing, he sighed and spoke directly to Orchard. “You said you were chosen to do it, that Haywood ordered you to do these things.”
“That’s right.”
“How so?”
“What do you mean, how so?”
“How so? How’d he communicate with you? How’d you know what he wanted from you? Did he say it? Did he write it down?”
“I told you—”
“No, you didn’t. You didn’t tell me.”
Orchard cleared his throat and drank from a glass of water.
“You don’t want to tell me this?” McParland asked wryly. “You’ve listed out all these horrors,” he said, touching the papers, “and attributed most of them to Mr. Haywood. But on this question, as to how you were ordered, you balk? Now that’s interesting. Why is that, I wonder?”
“He’d just let me know.”
“How, damnit?” McParland pounded the table. “Why are you still protecting the man who tried to shoot you last night?”
Orchard mumbled. “Maybe that was you—Old Necessity.”
“What did you say?” asked Borah.
“Speak up,” instructed McParland.
Orchard looked at McParland. “After all this time in here with you, I’m beginning to think, maybe it was you. You don’t follow the law—not really. So, coulda easily been you who had me shot at. Just to scare the life from me. Got me to confess today.”
“You think so, do ya?” asked McParland through a chuckle.
“Yeah, I think that’s the way it is.”
“Why would I risk killing you, Senator Borah’s lead witness?”
“There’s only one man,” said Borah, joining again. “Only one who’d gain from you being dead, and that’s Mr. Haywood.”
“That’s correct,” said McParland. He then squinted at the prisoner. “Old Necessity? I haven’t heard that in a while.”
Borah looked perplexed. “What’s that: Old Necessity?”
McParland nodded at Orchard. “Tell him.”
Orchard looked at Borah. “You know that sayin: necessity knows no law? So that’s what they call him.” He titled his head toward McParland. “Old Necessity.”
“Isn’t that a fine thing?” huffed McParland. “A murderous, misanthrope cur such as yourself, Mr. Orchard, saying that I don’t follow the law. Ah well ... The point is, you’re still lying for that son of a bitch in Denver. So, let’s be done. Answer my question: How’d Haywood give you his orders? Tell me, or I swear to God, I’ll make that shot easier for them next time. You understand me?”
Orchard hesitated before saying, “He’d write it down.”
“He wrote it down?”
“Yeah, then he’d burn it. He’s got special paper only he uses.”
McParland’s eyes tightened. “A yellowish paper?”
“Yep,” replied Orchard, lifting his nose.
“Did he ever not burn it? Did you keep any of those orders?”
Orchard held his gaze steady. “You already know that.”
Borah tilted. “What does he mean?”
Orchard grinned. “Tell him what you found in my hat.”
McParland elevated a brow at Jack. Then he took a deep breath and returned his gaze to Orchard. “The orders from Haywood?”
“You saw it.”
“Was that in his hand or yours?”
“His.”
McParland let his chin fall a fraction, then stood and kicked one of the chairs, making it skitter and crash across the small room.
Everything fell silent for a bit until Senator Borah looked at Orchard and asked, “You said Adams killed someone else up in Wallace, before you blew up the Bunker Hill?”
“Yeah—couple of em. He shot the owners’ man in a saloon there. Said he’d seen that fella’s name on one of Big Bill’s lists.”
“And the other?” asked Borah.
Orchard took his time before replying. “Adams cut the throat of a deputy who came after us. I wished he hadn’t done that un.”
“But the first one, in the saloon, that one was fine by you?” McParland growled, sitting again. “But not the second one, the deputy. What difference is a single life to a man like you?”
“The deputy was just a boy.” A shudder came from Orchard. “Looked like my boy. He didn’t have nothin to do with me and Addis. I mean Adams.”
McParland stopped on that, then blew a sigh through his nose, making his mustache flicker. “This Adams—he’ll have something to say about Haywood and his orders?”
“Doubt it. Doubt he’ll say anything. Doesn’t matter, though. You’ll never find him—least not alive.”
“Because Haywood had a kill order on him,” said McParland. “Aye, you told us. But you’re in here. And I’m sure you’ll be sorry to learn this, Harry, but your killing days are done. There’s only one person left you’re going to help kill—and that’s William Haywood.”
“Somebody else will get Adams.”
“Who?”
“Adams.”
“No, who’s gonna kill Adams? You have names of any of these other animals like yourself?”“
“Not real names.”
“Not real names. Of course.”
“They’d be dead time you caught up to em. Same with Adams.”
“We got you, didn’t we?”
Orchard took a beat. “Yep.”
“Have to give the Pinkertons some credit,” Borah tried.
“Even if you found Adams,” continued Orchard, “he’d never confess—not like I just done.”
“Oh yeah? Why not?”
“Fella like that don’t know the difference tween life and death.”
“We’ll see,” grumbled McParland.
“No, no—he’s mad.” Orchard fluttered his hand. “His senses are left him.”
“But you?” asked Borah. “You’re not mad?”
“Me?” Orchard winced, wounded. “Of course not.”
<><><>
– 26 –
MONDAY
February 25, 1907
“I’m done for, Neva,” Haywood said softly.
“Nonsense,” she replied. They were in the back seat of a carriage drawn by two gray Walkers. Her invalid chair was strapped to the rear quarter. The sky was clear, causing bright blue to reflect with little suns in the melt-pools of Arapahoe Street, a brick road lined with snow mounds. In front of Haywood, a hulking guard leaned on his shotgun barrel up from the floorboard. In front of Neva, the coach driver presented his middle finger to a passing automobile driver who was squeezing the vehicle’s condescending bulb-honker—sounding like a young fo
ghorn going by. Neva snickered at the vulgar gesture, then pulled close the fox collar of her coat. Pleased to ride on Bill’s good-eye side, she glanced at him, admiring how his new coat fit square to his shoulders—not always an easy task due to the thickness of his chest.
“I’ve given everything for labor,” he said. “Everything. What more must I do?”
“No one can blame you. You weren’t in Boise when—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. The federal government will never let me rest. Not Congress nor Roosevelt. And not that goddamned Senator Borah. They’re all spineless puppets of their corporate lords—their overlords. Morgan and Rockefeller and every other one of those sons-a-bitches. And they’ve got the Pinkertons as their private army.”
She patted his arm. It was a tired refrain. “I know, but—”
“That McParland should be dead. Plain and simple. He gives no accounting to the laws of man, of nature, the rights of an individual, the man who works—”
“That’s true,” she whispered as an intended balm.
“And now they have the goddamned nerve, after all I’ve given, the goddamned gall of Borah and McParland to scare one of my good men, Harry Orchard, into making a false confession. Accusing me of the whole … goddamned thing.” His words faded as they skittered off to catch up with his thoughts now miles away.
“I understand,” she said. Though it was best to let him fume, she loathed the ease with which he cursed in front of her.
When he resumed, his words came just above a whisper. “They’ll see me hanged, Neva. If they can, they will.”
When the carriage came to a stop in front of the Pioneer Building, Clarence Darrow was standing there. Neva noted the attorney’s dreary derby and plodding suit. The man was certainly consistent in his attire, she thought. Haywood climbed down and scooped Neva in his arms before plopping her in her invalid chair, which the driver had set right. The guard stood watchful.
“Tell him something good, Mr. Darrow,” Neva implored. “He’s inconsolable.”
“I don’t need consolation!” Haywood shouted, moving ahead of her, leaving the driver and Darrow to lift the chair, with her in it, up the short flight of steps. Inside, Darrow rolled Neva past a door to the Gassell Saloon and on to the elevator where Haywood waited impatiently. The elevator operator clanked the gate closed, followed by the door, before levering the car into a squeaky ascent. Haywood snarled at Darrow, “You need to do something. Get this under control and bury Orchard.”
American Red Page 22
