Addleton Heights

by George Wright Padgett

  “I . . . uh . . . there was this . . . I saw a mouse.” I brushed myself off as I hurried to stand up.

  His palm balanced on the butt of the pistol in his holster. Taking a couple of cautious steps closer, he said, “Without a doubt, you are the strangest rozzer I’ve ever been paired with. You looked exactly like you did the first moment I ever laid eyes on you, lying on the floor after those brothers gave you a dose of locusts.”

  “There was a mouse,” I said, hoping that I spoke with enough indignation to make the claim believable.

  He moved to the desk and studied me with a suspicious gaze as he pulled the bottom drawer open. “Yeah, that’s what you said . . . a mouse.”

  His expression became confused when he saw my gun exactly where we’d left it. He must have assumed I’d pulled it out and then lied about it. He slid the drawer closed. “What have you been doing all this time? Where’s the directory?”

  I pulled down a thick, dusty, orange-covered book from the top shelf. “I told you, I saw a mouse. I have to live here. I can’t have mice running all over.”

  “Why are you out of breath?”

  “It was fast. I had it cornered until you came in.”

  Hennemann started to bend over as if he were going to look under the desk for it. I had to do something. I couldn’t let him see Sawyer’s blinking component.

  “Behind you!” I shouted, pointing and waving with exaggerated movements. “It’s on the window ledge behind you.”

  I rushed to the side of the desk where Hennemann stood, dumbfounded. I waved at the imaginary rodent. “There he goes behind the file cabinet.”

  I shoved the thick directory into Hennemann’s chest and proceeded to open and slam the wooden file drawers as if to drive the pest out from behind it.

  My ruse succeeded. Hennemann called to me, “Kipsey, let it go.”

  My back was to him, and I pretended not to hear him over the drawer slamming.

  “Kipsey, I said to stop.” He grew louder. “Stop it. Stop it!”

  I turned to see him adjusting his bowtie, attempting to compose himself. “It’s time to go find Garrett Olsen. You can deal with your rodent problem later.”

  I slammed the remaining open drawer and let my frustration show on my face. Hopefully, he thought I was upset about the mouse. In truth, I was disappointed that another piece of evidence was to stay behind before I understood its true meaning. This was becoming annoyingly habitual.

  First, it was the monthly ledgers in Montague’s study, then the remaining contents of Nelson’s waste bin, and now I was forced to forsake the most incredible piece of tinkware I’d ever beheld. All of this just to keep secrets from Hennemann, my “partner”—my captor.

  I half expected him to take another drink, but with the directory under his arm, he headed for the door. “Come on,” he grumbled.

  As I closed the front door and began to lock it, Hennemann stopped me. “Wait a minute there, Kipsey.” He pushed me aside with his metal hand as he opened the door. “Wait here.”

  He must have seen the blinking lights under the desk. Or what if he was checking for the incriminating pocket watch? My thoughts raced as I debated whether to hide the other half of Sawyer’s mechanism in my boot.

  A wave of relief washed over me when he came out adjusting his bowler. “Nearly forgot it,” he said, walking past me down the hallway.

  The device and the watch were both safe for the moment.

  “What are you staring at?” he shouted from the end of the corridor. “Lock it up and go.”

  Fourteen

  The ride to Berthshire gave me time to look through the directory. I earmarked nine pages listing Jason as the Christian name, but my heart sank that none of the surnames began with O. I relayed this to Hennemann. He seemed disinterested.

  “I wanted to ask you something, Kipsey. Your thing with Commissioner Davenport . . . did it go the way people say, or is that just interesting storytelling? Did you really knock him out?”

  I’ve always hated telling what got me kicked off the force, but I figured there was nothing to lose at this point. “He struck me first, tried to sucker punch me,” I said flatly. “So I gave him some back, but no, I didn’t actually knock him out.”

  He seemed disappointed by this. “You’re lucky he didn’t ship you to the Under, striking a city official and member of the Commonwealth.”

  “He wasn’t on the Commonwealth back then. Anyway, there were too many witnesses for him to do anything about it at the time. It was at the Policeman’s Ball.”

  Hennemann shifted his gaze from the road to stare at me for an uncomfortably long time for a man who was supposed to be driving.

  “You’re serious? You smacked the police commissioner at the Policeman’s Ball? I have little love for Davenport, but that was still a pretty ignorant thing to do. Did you do any jail time?”

  I directed his attention to pedestrians scrambling to move out of the path of our carriage.

  “I probably would’ve if not for his wife. She was the one who hired me to do the side job in the first place.”

  Reluctantly returning his attention to the road, he asked, “A side job like pictures of Davenport at a brothel?”

  I thought of the undeveloped film in my hat back at the office. “Yeah, his wife’s the sister of Chief Ormond. The chief watched out for me through it all. Even so, he couldn’t allow me to remain on the force—politics.”

  The big man let out a hearty laugh, shaking his head. “I suspect not. I guess he still does sort of watch out for you, like in recommending you for this.”

  I wondered if I should be grateful for this case or not. “Yeah, I guess. How much does he know?”

  “Ormond . . . about Jason? Not a bit. He answered a late-night telegraph. We asked him to name a private detective for a missing persons case, and your name and address came back to us.”

  “Hmph, I’ll be sure to thank him.”

  “After all that happened,” Hennemann said, “smacking Davenport and all, why didn’t you leave the city platform? I mean, if you’re as good as Ormond says, seems like you could’ve gotten a police job in Northern Union or Confederate states. Why didn’t you leave?”

  The question made me squirm inside, because there wasn’t a good reason. What was I waiting for? The slump I was in clearly wasn’t a passing thing. I just couldn’t seem to get myself in gear. Not for the first time, I wondered what it was that held me back.

  I shrugged and offered a feeble admission. “In hindsight, I think it was more to spite him than anything.”

  Hennemann chuckled. “You Irish are something else, something else indeed.”

  I went back to scanning the directory, this time looking for any last names that were close in spelling to Jason. Nothing stood out.

  On a hunch, I flipped over to the N section. There, beneath Jim Nelson, was the listing for a Janae Nelson. I took note of the address. It wasn’t too far from the Babbage administrator’s apartment. I dog-eared the page at the bottom, wondering if this could be the woman in the photograph.

  Berthshire was largely composed of tracts of single-story apartments in metal pyramid shapes set into parade formation. If one squinted, the morning sun melting the snowcaps made the rows of apartments glisten like diamonds pointing at the sky.

  I motioned to a row of apartments. “According to the directory, his is number twenty-eight.”

  Hennemann slowed the steam carriage to a stop.

  I closed the directory and emerged from the cab. Stretching, I asked, “How do you want to do this?”

  “These units only have one way in and out.” He pointed at one of the dozen or so whitewashed doors. “We’ll just invite ourselves in for a chat, and then I’ll use some of this.” He held up a bundle of twine coiled into a figure eight.

  “To tie him up . . . not hang him, right?”

  He tucked it under his arm and scoffed. “Need a thick rope to hang a man, but this’ll do for wrist work, and I have my iron and
Fitzpatrick’s if the situation becomes . . . say, complicated.”

  For the first time, I wondered what state we’d find Olsen in. Would he welcome us or put up a struggle? It was doubtful that he even knew Nelson had named him.

  As we reached the peeling wooden door, Hennemann rapped sternly with his metal hand. “Garrett J. Olsen?”

  I watched the curtain of the half window for movement. After a few seconds, I motioned for him to try again.

  The knocking was more forceful. “Mr. Olsen, we’re here on official business of the Commonwealth. Open up.”

  This time, Hennemann put his ear to the door. “Nothing.”

  “Maybe he’s in there just sleeping one off. It is the morning after New Year’s Eve, after all.”

  He contemplated this. “Yeah, maybe so.”

  He pulled his clockwork arm back to smash the door.

  I shouted, “Wait!”

  I pointed at an elderly woman walking a small dog up the street from us. The hindquarters of the mongrel were mech. They squeaked like a dry hinge with each step. “Just wait a minute, all right?”

  Hennemann assessed the woman and pet. “What do I care about her?”

  “The last thing we need is her or someone else losing their bottle and bringing Chief Ormond’s men down here on us.”

  “Well, what then?” he grumbled.

  “Stand aside and let me do this my way.” I took out a betty as I dropped to a knee.

  I was out of practice at lock work. It took me longer than it should have.

  Hennemann grew restless. “Dammit, Kipsey, waiting for you is about as boring as watching a constipated mule try and shit.”

  “Is that a hobby of yours or something?” I asked as the lock finally gave way with a pronounced click.

  He pushed me aside with the barrel of his Colt pistol and peeked inside.

  The old woman had maneuvered her dog directly across the street and now studied us with a suspicious squint.

  “Police business, ma’am,” I told her. “Go on home. Everything is fine here.”

  She tugged at the mutt’s leash, and a few brisk steps put them a safe distance from whatever we were about to encounter behind the door. I wished I was across the street with her.

  A swift thrust of Hennemann’s boot sent the door crashing inward. “Olsen, we’re coming in. Don’t try anything.”

  Feeling as naked as a sheared sheep without my Derringer, I stayed behind the door frame and looked in. Hennemann dashed across the small flat to an ornate post bed in the corner. He tore the bedclothes from the unoccupied mattress with a shout of frustration.

  Seeing the deadlurk state of the premises, I relaxed and entered the room as Hennemann stomped out a tantrum on the pile of blankets at his feet. “Where is he?”

  I scanned the sparse room for clues as I waited for his anger to subside.

  The bed was the nicest possession Olsen had. A barrel-shaped stovetop and heater sprouted from the center of the room with a sooty black pipe reaching up through the roof. A saucer on the stove contained half a lemon wedge that would have filled the air with a pleasant fragrance when it was warm. There was a small round table positioned next to a wooden chair by the apartment’s only window.

  I picked up the folded newspaper and noted the date of Monday, December 31.

  “He was here yesterday,” I told Hennemann, who, I was relieved to see, had returned his weapon to its holster. I waved the paper like a flag.

  “Let me see that,” he demanded.

  I tossed the gazette to him on my way to inspect the cupboards and sink.

  “I really thought we had him,” Hennemann lamented as he sat on the bare mattress. “I shouldn’t have let you waste so much time going to that church. We might’ve caught him.”

  “That stove over there is not even warm.” I rummaged through a stack of metal dishes. “I doubt anyone’s been in here at all this morning.” I noted a small waste bin with eggshells and two cigar caps. Delicately lifting the cigar ends out, I placed them side-by-side on the counter.

  “What is it with you and people’s trash?” Hennemann shouted from the bed. He’d shifted from sitting on the edge to reclining on it. “Shouldn’t you have a look in this wardrobe?” He tapped the side of it with his metal knuckles.

  “I’ll look over there in a minute.” I bent to examine the cut cigar ends. “If someone wants to hide something, they’re likely to hide it under the bed or in an armoire. It’s things like this . . . the things one forgets to hide that tells you about them and gives you insight.”

  “Insight,” Hennemann repeated with a scoff.

  I grabbed the discarded cigar ends and moved to open the curtains. A wide shaft of natural sunlight poured into the room next to the smaller luminescent rectangle from the open door.

  “See this?” I exclaimed. “Two distinctly different cuts. This one’s straight up and down, while this one’s at a more severe angle.”

  “Which proves what, exactly?” Hennemann asked mockingly.

  “Two different smokers,” I answered, offering the ends to him.

  “And what, you think Nelson and Olsen had a smoke here before he went to Mr. Montague’s party?”

  His indifference surprised me. “Well, yes . . . I think that’s entirely plausible.”

  “So where is Olsen now? Is there anything in the bin over there to tell you that?” He lunged from the bed and was on his feet before I knew it. “Perhaps he’s hiding in here.” Hennemann knocked on the wooden door of the wardrobe as if it were another room. “Oh, Mr. Olsen. Jason, are you in there?”

  I took a step back as he ripped the door from the cabinet. It barely cleared the stovepipe in the middle of the room as it breezed over my head and crashed against the wall.

  Hennemann’s face was beet red as his rant grew louder. “Maybe you should count his socks or the buttons on his shirts. Maybe his skivvies have a map to where he’s hiding and you can chalk it out so we can find this stinking bastard! What do you say, Kipsey?”

  I knew better than to respond. I became keenly aware of my proximity to the open door. I’d make a break for it if his tantrum got out of hand.

  “I asked you a question, Detective. What do we do now?”

  He emphasized the last word by bringing the wardrobe crashing down to the floor. Contents spilled and scattered across the floor. He kicked the side of it hard enough to scoot it over half a foot.

  I needed to defuse this, and fast.

  He bent and picked up a small box that had fallen from the armoire. His mood shifted, and he took on the wounded tone of a spoiled child. “On the way here, I’d imagined the look on Reginald Bailey’s face as I rode past his guard post with Jason in custody. Can you picture it?

  “Can you picture the shocked look on his old red-bearded face as the bassel carries me and my prisoner, Olsen . . . the man who’d worked right under old Reggie’s red Irish nose . . . that bassel sailing ever upward for me to present Jason O. bound up for Mr. Montague’s justice? I’ll tip my fucking hat to Reginald as I go by. Tip my fucking hat, I will!”

  He slid the box open and placed one of the cigars from it in his mouth. Even without lighting it, just rolling it from side to side in his mouth seemed to soothe him like a crying babe on his mother’s teat. He collapsed to a sitting position on the bed and removed his bowler.

  Again, I thought about how much he had at stake here. Maybe I could exploit this vulnerability and get him to let me in on Montague’s secrets. Navigating through the debris on the floor, I carried the chair over to the bed. Placing it gently in front of him, I took my place. This was my chance to find out what I was involved in. I spoke softly. “Marcus?”

  “Yeah, what?” The embers of his rage still glowed.

  “Marcus, I know that something’s going on, something that Mr. Montague would prefer you not tell me. I know this.”

  I waited for an acknowledgement, but his face was stone.

  “Marcus, if you’d let me in on what’
s happening—what’s really happening—it would help the case. The more I know, the better equipped I am to—”

  Shots rang out in rapid fire.

  The world slowed down as I instinctively found the floor. A flood of adrenaline washed over me, and I quickly inched my way on my elbows behind the toppled wardrobe.

  There was a noise behind me as more shots rang out from the street.

  We’d left the front door open, a foolhardy mistake. Now Olsen—or whoever—had us pinned in the flat with no way to escape.

  Was Hennemann hit?

  I scanned behind me. No, he’d flipped the mattress onto its side and taken cover behind it. The mattress wouldn’t stop any bullets, but it did block visibility.

  My heart beat as if it would burst.

  Then, the back of the room exploded as Hennemann discharged his revolver in the small space. I cupped my ears with my hands as I pressed into the floor. The gunshot left only a painful whine needling my eardrums.

  More shots from his gun punctured the street-facing wall. A shaft of sunlight poured in through a ragged hole the size of a fist, the air filled with splinters of wood and plumes of dust. I couldn’t tell if he’d hit our attackers, since the noise outside and in had been replaced by incessant ringing. It was like ten thousand hornets escaping through my ears.

  To this point in my vocation, I’d never been in a gun battle. Deafness was a detail left out at the academy.

  I turned back to him and saw his mouth moving.

  He was shouting something.

  Everything sounded as if I were underwater.

  He ducked back behind his mattress barricade, leading me to bury my head in the floorboard. I couldn’t be sure if he’d seen something or not, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance.

  The seconds crawled by like years, time enough for me to retrace the events that had brought me to lying face down in the flat of Alton Montague’s former gardener.

  My hearing crept back in.

  “. . . look out the window to see how many there are!” Hennemann commanded.

  My entire body clenched. I wondered if I could pretend that I hadn’t heard his command. Would he let me get shot just to save himself?