Ax & Spade: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 1)

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  As Kamp turned the key in the lock and clicked it open, the shotgun went off again. This time the brass lock on the station door blew clean off. Kamp jumped out of the cell and trained the pistol on the station doorway. He shot the first man in the chest as soon as he appeared. He grabbed the record book from Lenz’s desk and ran for the back door. The next shotgun blast ripped a hole in the doorframe next to his head as he tumbled out into the night. Kamp got up running, gripping the pistol in his shooting hand and the record book in the other.

  TWENTY-SIX

  THE BIG JUDGE TATE CAIN ARRIVED at the county courthouse at the normal time and found the door to his chambers locked, as usual. He noticed, however, some scratches on the brass that he hadn’t seen before. The Big Judge opened the door and went in, locking it behind him. He crossed the room and sat down heavily in his chair by the window and began packing the bowl of his pipe with blended tobacco. He looked across the room and the figure of Kamp stretched out on the leather divan in the corner of the room, barefoot and fast asleep. When the Judge struck the match, Kamp’s eyes popped open.

  “Wendell, my boy, good morning.”

  “Morning.”

  “I didn’t expect to see you until eight.”

  “Yah.”

  “Heard about the commotion, though. Sounds an awful mess. And what happened to your shoes?”

  Kamp rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Where’d you get that tobacco pouch?”

  “Wendell, I need to get ready for work.”

  “Tell me.”

  The Judge said, “We don’t have time.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “I told you before. Your father gave it to me as a gift.”

  “Okay, where’d my father get it?”

  The Judge set down his pipe, took his robes off the wall and put them on. “You need to get ready, too, Wendell. You have an appointment.”

  “Where!”

  The Judge sat down and sighed. “At one point, your father earned enough money to buy the parcel of land from my father. This was before you were born.”

  “I heard that, but I didn’t see a record of it.”

  “That’s right. Because not long afterwards, I won it back from your father in a card game. So, the property never changed hands according to the official record. But that’s immaterial to the story, more or less. Around that same time, a man showed up, an Indian. He said that he had the legal rights to the land, that it had been stolen from his ancestors. Really, he was just an interloper. Well, this same fellow–I don’t know his real name. Everyone called him the same thing, not just the Indians. Everyone called him Six Killer. So, this Six Killer sets about making a commotion about how the land was stolen and how he wants it back.”

  “And?”

  “Wendell, there’s no time to—”

  “Keep going.”

  “No one paid attention to this man. So what does Six Killer do? He packs up his belongings, packs up his family–wife, mother and children–and moves the whole kit n’ caboodle onto the land, without any permission. Just up and squats.”

  “Get to the point.”

  The Judge sat back in his chair and faced Kamp directly. “Long story short, your father, having earned the money to buy the land and then having lost it just like that, he took the whole thing personally. And he took out his anger on Six Killer and his family. Killed them all one night whilst they were sleeping.”

  “My father?”

  “Yes indeed, Wendell. Murdered the whole family, except for one child, a boy who had been sleeping out in the woods that night.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Hardly, Wendell. I have proof.” The Judge held up the tobacco pouch. “That’s where this comes from. Made out of old Six Killer himself. And you can ask around. There are plenty of people who remember. Not that anyone wants to bring it up. If something’s two weeks old around here, it’s ancient history, at least in polite company.”

  Kamp sensed that the Judge’s anger was rising and said, “Who should I ask?”

  “Ask your father-in-law. He’s the child who survived.”

  “Joe?”

  “Yes, Joe, or whatever the hell his real name is.”

  “So, if it was my father who did it, why does Joe hate you?”

  “I suppose he thinks I had something to do with it, too.”

  “Did you?”

  “At the time I was a boy myself.”

  “That wasn’t the question.”

  “Time passes, Wendell. Everything changes. World keeps spinning.” The Judge stood up again, signaling the end of the conversation.

  Kamp persisted, “If you weren’t involved, why do you have the tobacco pouch?”

  “Well, you have to admit it’s a finely crafted pouch. And it was a gift. Now, Wendell, I insist that you come with—”

  “Sit down.” Kamp pointed the pistol at the Judge.

  “Put that away.”

  “Why Knecht?”

  “Settle down, Wendell.”

  “Why did you send Knecht to live with Jonas Bauer? Why not just kill Bauer straight away? Why drag it out and make it so elaborate?”

  “Convenience and simplicity. Is that what you want to hear? Knecht was a loser. I saw him in my courtroom half a dozen times before that day you brought him in. And I would’ve seen him half a dozen times more. Eventually, I’d have sent him away for good. Or worse.”

  “In other words he deserved what he got.”

  The Judge said, “Quia merito haec patior.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It means, ‘I deserve to suffer for this.’ Very Dark Ages.”

  “Is that how you sold it to Knecht?”

  “Sold what?”

  “You gave him a deal. Allow him to take the fall for the murders and in return, you make sure his sisters are taken care of. He already thought he deserved to suffer. You convinced him he had it coming and gave him a way to make it seem like it meant something.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “You told him to go live in that house.”

  “No, I didn’t. I guided him in the direction of Jonas Bauer. But I didn’t give him a deal.”

  “Someone did. They told him to retrieve the coin and find the list of names, and they’d take care of his sisters.”

  “Well, in that case Knecht failed.”

  “How do you know?”

  The Judge inhaled deeply and tilted his chin up. “You showed me the coin, which means Knecht never got it back to them. If that’s so, Knecht didn’t keep his end of the deal. Correct? And as far as a list of names is concerned, I haven’t seen or heard of one, and I can’t imagine such a thing would be valuable, in any case.”

  “That’s not what Anton Knecht said. Roy Kunkle’s brother. He said Roy Kunkle was murdered for speaking out against the management of the mine.”

  The Judge shook his head dismissively.

  Kamp continued, “Five other men were murdered along with him. They made it look like an accident. But Kunkle got the list of names, the members of the Fraternal Order of the Raven. He knew.”

  The Judge said, “Anton Kunkle? Duny? A worthless, dirty flea. A ghost. And the word on Roy Kunkle was that, yes, he was an agitator. But he angered everyone. It’s just as likely that the miners themselves killed him. Don’t trust Duny.”

  “You’ve disagreed with or dismissed every idea, every bit of evidence I’ve told you about. Why would you pull me into all of this in the first place if you think I’m always wrong?”

  The Judge relaxed in his chair. “Oh, that one’s easy, Wendell. The state attorney in Philadelphia has been pressuring us for the past year. Wanted us to clean up our act, as it were. That’s why they sent that nasty son of a bitch Crow. They wanted their own detective, too. I forwarded your name to keep that from happening. Even though you didn’t have any police experience, they went for it.”

  “Why?”

  “People love war heroes. Listen, Wendell, I’ll admi
t it hasn’t worked out precisely as I’d envisioned. You’ve turned out to be more compromised than I thought you would be.”

  “Compromised?”

  “Indeed. Wild fantasies, erratic behavior, wrong-headed theories. I didn’t expect that, and I’m sorry for having encouraged you to do something you weren’t fit to do. You need help.”

  Kamp slowed his breathing. “When we were at the hunting lodge, just before I talked to you, you had a meeting with two men, one in charge of the ironworks and the other in charge of the railroad.”

  “It wasn’t a meeting, Wendell.”

  “What did you discuss? What was the purpose?”

  “Wendell, this has to stop. You shot and killed a police officer last night, and you will be held to account. You’re not well. No matter how the trial proceeds, I will rule that you’re not guilty by reason of insanity. I’ll see to it that you go to a hospital, not to prison.”

  Kamp picked up the record book from the police station and handed it to the Judge. “This is the last entry in the official police record.”

  The Judge read, “At midnight, the prisoner, Wendell W. Kamp, began speaking incoherently in his cell. He appeared distraught at first and then withdrawn. At one thirty-five a.m. the prisoner complained of hunger and thirst. I went to the kitchen, and when I returned, the prisoner was hanging by the neck in the cell. He had affixed his own belt to the rafter. I freed the prisoner from the makeshift noose and laid him on the floor. Efforts to revive the prisoner were unsuccessful. Wendell W. Kamp perished at one forty-three a.m. Signed, Markus Lenz, Deputy Chief of Police, Bethlehem.”

  The Judge looked up from the book and said, “I guess that settles it. As far as the law is concerned, you’re already dead.”

  “Talk about compromised.”

  The Judge set the book down on his desk, and Kamp picked it back up. “Wendell, we’ll sort it all out.”

  “You guys sorted it all out already, didn’t you? The night Crow was killed. I went in there, too, and all they did was hit me over the head."

  "Wendell, so many of the things you've done lately, including that debacle, appear suicidal."

  "If these guys can kill anyone they want, whenever they want, why didn't they kill me that night?"

  "I had nothing to—"

  "It's because you told them not to. At first, you thought you could keep me in line, so you told them they could hurt me but not kill me. And then you realized I wasn’t going to cooperate, and that was that. Or maybe they just stopped listening to you.”

  “Wendell, I can arrange for you to leave today. Give you everything you need to get somewhere else, Wendell. With your family.”

  “We made a deal. Year’s almost up. See you soon.”

  Kamp bolted from the office, while the Judge yelled, “Police! Police!”

  HE RAN down the courthouse steps, hoping to get out of town without being noticed. Before he reached the bottom of the steps, a voice called, “Detective! Detective!” Kamp saw a man twenty feet ahead of him on the sidewalk. The man wore a black overcoat and bowler hat and stood next to a Brougham carriage.

  He yelled, “May I have a word with you?”

  Kamp ran to him and said, “Keep your voice down.”

  “I’m Silas Own—”

  “Yah, I know who you are. You probably don’t want to be talking to me right now.”

  “Quite the contrary. I must.”

  “This yours?” Kamp gestured to the carriage.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Get in. And hurry up.”

  Kamp put the Pepperbox revolver in his belt, tossed the record book in the carriage and climbed in after it. Then Silas Ownby stepped in after him. The driver snapped the reins, and the horse bolted. Kamp looked through the back window. No one followed. The carriage departed the South Side of Bethlehem and made its way up the road over South Mountain. Kamp noticed the first buds of spring on the trees as the carriage wheels sloshed through the thaw and slipped in and out of the ruts. He sat beside Ownby, fighting the dizziness that began as soon as the carriage started rolling.

  Ownby began, “I found this. Or, rather, my daughter found it under her pillow three days ago.” He showed Kamp the silver coin. “I don’t know who put it there, or why.”

  “Why do you want to talk to me?”

  “Well, you’re the police.”

  “If you want to speak to the real police, you should probably turn around and go back to the station. Let me out first, though.”

  “But you’re the detective.”

  “I’m persona non grata.” He closed his eyes and put his head down to keep the carriage from spinning.

  Ownby said, “That’s probably a good thing. I don’t believe I can trust them.”

  Kamp teetered to one side.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Kamp?”

  “It’s Kamp. I get dizzy when I ride sitting up. Vertigo. I’m fine.”

  Ownby studied him for a few moments. Both elbows of Kamp’s shirt were torn, his bare feet scraped up. The little toe on his left foot was purple.

  “Kamp, do you know why I’ve been targeted?”

  He opened his eyes and looked at Ownby. “You have enemies.”

  Ownby sat back in his seat. “No, I don’t. I’ve given it considerable thought and—”

  “If someone wants to kill you, trust me, you do. You just haven’t figured it out yet.”

  The color rose in Ownby’s face. “I treat my colleagues and competitors with the utmost respect. My workers enjoy the best conditions and the highest wages in the nation. I take care of the workers. You have no idea of the care I take. I’m an honest man.”

  Kamp put his head back down. “I don’t know you, Mr. Ownby, but that’s probably the beginning of your problem.”

  “How so?”

  “Are you aware of a business concern called Black Feather Consolidated?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know anything about a property called the Monocacy, a high rent building, used to be a brothel?”

  “No.”

  “How about Castor and Pollux Shipping?”

  “Yes, they’re the outfit that transports coal and iron via water.”

  “They intend to take over your business, Mr. Ownby. Walker Gray, Joseph Moore, and the guy that runs Castor & Pollux. What’s that guy’s name?”

  “Shelter.”

  “Who?”

  “James Shelter.”

  “New to the area?”

  “That’s right.”

  Kamp said, “Well, the three of them are forming a single conglomerate. They’ll own all the mining, manufacturing and transportation business in this half of the state. I’m sure their ambitions are even bigger than that, though. They know you won’t suspect them. Once you’re gone, they’ll snap up your business. And they’ll say they’re doing it as an act of charity, for the sake of your family and the community.”

  Ownby shook his head dismissively. “I’ve known Gray and Moore for years. They’re not above reproach, but I hardly think they’re planning what you say. We’ve had no conversations regarding the sale of the collieries I own. It’s never come up.”

  Kamp rubbed his left temple. “It never will.”

  Ownby became more agitated. “If they’re behind this, why the coin? Why try to scare me first? Why not simply offer to buy my business?”

  Kamp pressed his palms against either side of the carriage to steady himself, and he stifled the urge to vomit. “The coin really isn’t intended to scare you. You’re already dead.”

  “Then why?”

  “To scare everyone else. People hear you found the coin. One way or the other, word gets out. And then a few days or a few weeks later, you die. It will appear to be an accident, but people will know it was them. No one will be able to prove it, and no one will even try. But everyone will know who’s behind it.”

  “Who?”

  “The Fraternal Order of the Raven.”

  “Nonsense. You’re saying Wa
lker Gray and Joseph Moore have formed a secret society?”

  “I don’t think they formed it. But they’re part of it. They joined it. From what I can tell, it’s been around for a long time. You’re a good person, Mr. Ownby. I understand why you wouldn’t—” Kamp paused and held up his hand. He lurched forward and threw up on Ownby’s shoes and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sorry, sorry about that.”

  Silas Ownby shook his head. “Quite all right, although I must say, I was wrong about you. You’re not well.”

  The carriage turned onto the gravel drive and stopped in front of Ownby’s stone mansion. Kamp leaned heavily against the side of the carriage. There was no light or sound coming from the house.

  Kamp said, “Kind of quiet.”

  “I sent everyone away to someplace safe. Even the servants.”

  “Very thoughtful of you.”

  The driver climbed down from the carriage and went to the front door. He jiggled the key in the lock, but it didn’t open.

  Ownby said, “Yes, well, actually I sent them to their respective homes. They’re likely not in any danger, as such. It’s my family I’m worried about. After all, they went in my daughter’s room.”

  Ownby got out of the carriage as another wave of dizziness and nausea washed over Kamp. The feelings forced him to kneel on the floor of the carriage. Ownby saw the driver struggling to open the front door and walked in that direction.

  He called back over his shoulder. “It just occurred to me that one of the servants may have put the coin there as a prank.”

  Ownby took the keys from the driver and said, “Let me have a go.” He worked the key in the lock and finally got it to turn. “That’s strange. This feels warm.” He turned the knob, and the house exploded.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE BLAST charred the carriage and turned it over several times before it came to rest on its roof. Kamp lay in the carriage, looking through the side window at what was left of the mansion. He saw the remains of Silas Ownby and his driver scattered among the bricks and broken glass. Kamp assumed that whoever had rigged the explosion would want to inspect the damage firsthand in order to be certain Ownby was dead. So he waited. Moments later, he heard footsteps crunching softly on the gravel drive. He also heard men talking to each other in calm, low voices. Kamp curled his fingers around the Pepperbox pistol and gently pulled it from his belt. It held just one cartridge, so even if he came out firing, he’d only be able to put one of them down. The footsteps grew louder, and the men’s feet appeared next to the carriage. They were looking at the horse, which lay dead on the ground, a shard of glass protruding from its neck.