by Ace Collins
“IF SHE HADN’T BOUGHT THAT BLAME CAR SHE’D STILL BE ALIVE.”
“What do you mean?” Johns shot back.
“That Packard was bad luck,” the sheriff quickly replied. “You surely heard the story about what happened when it was delivered?”
“Now, Jed,” Johns argued, “you don’t believe in that kind of nonsense. You go to church. Where’s your faith? What you’re mentioning is nothing more than stupid superstition. Now tell me, do you believe a black cat is bad luck? Or what about walking under a ladder?”
“I’m not stupid enough to walk under a ladder,” the sheriff explained, “and as for cats, well no, I don’t put much stock in that either. We own a black cat and I named him Lucky. But that car is something else altogether.”
“What happened?” Janet asked. “What’s this about Aunt Abbi’s car?”
“It was nothing,” Johns quickly answered. “It was just an accident.”
“You can call it an accident,” Atkins barked, “but those that were there know it is something more.”
“What do you mean?” the woman demanded.
“Well,” Johns explained, “the car came in from the factory by rail. When they brought it out of the boxcar, the guy backing it out didn’t see one of the other men who was working for the Illinois Central. The driver accidentally drove into him, knocking him off the dock and onto the rails. He hit his head and died. But it was nothing more than an accident.”
“Maybe,” Atkins chimed in, “but how do you explain what happened at the dealership?”
Janet looked from the sheriff to the attorney. Even in the darkness she could sense the man’s impatience.
“Just another freak accident,” John’s said. “That’s all it was!”
“What happened?” Janet again demanded.
“The car body was being lowered onto the frame,” an exasperated Johns sighed, “and the hydraulics failed. The whole thing came down on top of the poor mechanic.”
“In the span of three days,” Atkins chimed in, “that car killed two people! And the man who ordered it refused to buy it after that even though he’s paid a deposit to have it painted that hideous color.”
Dedication
To our sons Clint and Rance
© 2012 by Ace Collins
Print ISBN 978-1-61626-752-0
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62029-054-5
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62029-055-2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design and illustration by Kirk DouPonce, DogEared Design
Photo reference by Sunset Classics
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
About the Author
Prologue
From a balcony on the second floor, Helen Meeker, an auburn-haired, slender, attractive woman with piercing blue eyes, dressed in a gray business suit and black pumps, glanced out toward the line workers below. Things in the three-decade old, Albert Kahn-designed Packard automobile plant appeared to be running smoothly. And why shouldn’t they be? After all, John G. Graves, second in command at the company’s public relations department, had just assured Helen Meeker that thousands of craftsmen simultaneously practicing over eighty different trades within the reinforced concrete walls of the 3,500,000-square-foot building combined their unique skills to create the finest cars in the world. He had then added, “If you don’t believe me, ask the man who owns one.”
Meeker had expected Graves to trot out the company’s time-honored motto at some point, and she gave him high marks in restraint for at least waiting until the moment she got to see the assembly line in action, which was three full hours into their tour.
“So, Miss Meeker,” Graves yelled over the factory noise, “you can tell President Roosevelt that while the dismal economy has hit even our company to some extent, we feel confident we are once more on our way to solid financial footing. I fully expect 1936 to be a profitable year and by next year, I think we will be hiring hundreds of new workers. That has got to make the folks in Washington happy!”
With Graves hovering at her shoulder, a still mute Meeker continued to study the rapidly moving assembly line that sprawled in front of her. The smoothly working operation could not hide the fact that the Depression had struck a mighty blow to the motor vehicle industry. Some of the best-known manufacturers in the world were hanging on to life by a thread while others had already shut their doors. Even Packard had been hemorrhaging so much red ink that it had been forced to produce a line of cheaper cars for folks whose names were not Rockefeller or Vanderbilt. In these unsure times, adaptation was a part of survival, and it appeared in this case that adaptation had come at precisely the right time, even if that meant giving up a bit of company prestig
e. Still, the cars she was watching below, with their dynamic styling, managed to create a sense of class and refined quality even if it was at a cheaper price.
“It is an impressive sight,” Graves shouted, a high degree of pride in his voice.
The young female attorney nodded. This was her third day in Michigan and her third company tour, having visited Ford and General Motors. While she was examining the companies’ books and production operations, that was simply a front. She had been given a much more important mission—looking for ties between crime and organized labor. The theory made some sense. Criminal elements always searched for weak points to get their hooks into legitimate business. But if it was happening in Detroit, Meeker had found no evidence. Just like Ford and GM, Packard seemed as squeaky clean as the company’s state-of-the-art plant.
“Miss Meeker,” Graves’s voice pulled the woman from watching a myriad of cars being assembled back to her host, “do you have any questions? Is there anything else the President might want to know?”
It was evident from his hopeful expression that the tall, lean, balding Graves was expecting a quick reply, but rather than offer even a token response, she just shrugged. Packard had been told Meeker was on this Detroit assignment to ascertain the effect of the President’s programs on the auto industry, thus they had rolled out the VIP treatment including this tour to fully impress her as to their fiscal stability. Yet for this White House–based assistant to the President, observing industry at work, even as a cover for something else, was simply not her cup of tea. What she really wanted was to be working in law enforcement out in the field, but the sad fact was the FBI was simply not interested in bringing in women as investigators, no matter how bright and well educated they were. Therefore, until she found a way to crack J. Edgar Hoover’s men’s club, she would play the role of free agent for Roosevelt. And for the moment, that meant pretending to be interested in the goings-on at the Packard Motor Car Company. She glanced at the cars coming through the production line, noting one in a canary yellow. Its bright, cheery color seemed out of place in the otherwise mundane lineup.
“Mr. Graves,” Meeker finally broke her long silence.
“Yes.”
Yelling over the noise, she pointed. “There seem to be five main colors, all pretty conservative, but that bright yellow car body out there doesn’t seem to fit in.”
He nodded, “We get special orders from customers from time to time. If you look to your far right you will note a bright blue coupe body about to be assembled onto a chassis. That is a departure from the norm as well.”
Meeker’s eyes darted to the bright blue paint. In the world of drab creams, maroons, navies, and blacks, the color did stand out. She followed the Carolina blue body as it was lifted above the line until a point where it would be dropped down onto its chassis. It was still hanging in the air when alarm bells, unexpectedly ringing from every corner of the plant, brought the long assembly line to an unexpected and sudden halt. As she reached up to cover her ears she yelled, “What does that mean?”
Graves, his dark eyes now as large as saucers, scanned the long line until he finally locked onto a spot about a hundred yards to his right. Meeker followed his gaze and saw a crowd of men gathering around the brightly painted yellow car she’d noticed a few minutes earlier. It was obvious that something was wrong. When the clanging stopped and the huge plant became as hushed as a church during prayer, the gravity of the issue was fully revealed. Every one of the thousands of men in the plant was standing perfectly still looking down to where that car had stopped the well-oiled machinery of one of the world’s longest assembly lines.
The forty-year-old public relations employee moved quickly to a flight of metal stairs leading to the plant’s floor. Meeker, her heels echoing on the steps, followed him stride for stride. Within two minutes the pair was a few feet from where a group of eight workers was trying to lift the sedan’s body off one of their coworkers. The man trapped face down between the yellow body and the car’s frame was still. His chest didn’t rise and fall. Blood oozed across the cement floor.
After noting the victim’s most obvious injuries Meeker’s eyes moved to a dangling cord just above the car. A quick examination revealed that one of the straps used to lower the body had broken, causing the main part of the almost completed Packard to fall forward, pinning the man where he had been working. Her investigator’s senses told her this was nothing more than equipment fatigue. After lifting thousands of cars, the belt had worn out, and in the process a man working below a car body had had his life snuffed out in the time it took to make one turn with a wrench.
“Miss Meeker,” Graves’s voice pulled her attention back to her tour guide, “we need to move away.” Just then the company doctor arrived. Graves added, “There is nothing we can do here; we’d just be in the way.” Grabbing the woman by the elbow and turning her back toward a wall, he whispered, “Let me assure you things like that never happen at this plant. It has been months since we have had any kind of accident. We take our workers’ safety very seriously here. Make sure the President knows that.”
Meeker glanced back over her shoulder. She had read enough about the company to also know that Packard’s record was exemplary in this area, but those facts weren’t going to mean much to the family of the man who’d just been killed by that bright yellow Packard. Nor would it improve the spirits of the eight grim men who had now managed to lift the car body from their fallen comrade.
Chapter 1
As she lay on the floor struggling for breath, she knew her time on earth was numbered in minutes. Accepting that fact was much easier than Abigale Watling had imagined. Death, after a life well lived, was not something to fear. So there were no tears in her blue eyes, nor was there a frown drawn on her thin lips. She was ready to see what was next. If it was anything like her adventures on earth, it was going to be a wild ride. Yet as her mind began to cloud and her body started to shut down, the irony of dying in the same room with her beloved books was not lost on her. Those volumes that gave her so much enjoyment in life—that took her to so many places and introduced her to so many people—were now watching over the last chapter in her life. And that chapter would never be finished to her satisfaction.
As she quietly waited for the inevitable, she considered all she’d done in her almost eight decades of life. She’d seen the world. She’d been all over Europe and Asia many times and even trekked to Africa once. How many people could say they heard Big Ben chime, climbed up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and jumped on a pachyderm named Sally all in the same trip? She’d met three presidents, including the one currently in the White House and even flown once with Amelia Earhart as her pilot. She’d seen Babe Ruth hit a home run in Yankee Stadium and watched Red Grange roam the gridiron in Champaign. And while she’d never had children, she had been the guardian angel of more kids than she could count. And of course she’d become like a mother to her niece, and what a wonderful experience that had been. So there were really very few regrets—very few at all!
Even the way she was dying was something she could fully embrace. While most of her deceased friends had gone with a heart attack or cancer, she was greeting the grim reaper through very unnatural circumstances. The man digging through her desk drawers at this very moment had seen to that. And she had to admit he’d been clever, much more clever than she would have predicted. So there was a very good chance no one would ever know he’d been responsible for her untimely exit. Yet, by the same token, she doubted he’d find what he so badly wanted to find. Thus he would likely spend the rest of his days frustrated, knowing he’d murdered someone for nothing. So all things considered, there was a bit of justice in it.
As her vision dimmed, she smiled. Maybe her memory would haunt him. Maybe he’d see her face everywhere he went. Maybe he’d hear her death groans in his sleep and they would drive him mad. Yet there was a problem. She hadn’t moaned, much less groaned. In fact when she’d figured out what he’d done, she’d j
ust smiled the same smile she was smiling right now. So haunting him was probably out of the question.
Now with the mantel clock ticking out her final seconds, what was left for her to do? What kind of clue could she leave as to why she was killed and by whom?
Then just as if Raymond Chandler’s pen had scribbled it into the deep recesses of her mind, it came to her. Taking a deep breath, she used what little focus she had left to slowly and silently raise her right hand from the floor. Concentrating as hard as she could, she moved it inch by inch to the right-side pocket of her yellow, floral-print dress. Finding the pocket, she pushed two fingers in and felt what she needed. Would she have the strength for one final act?
Pulling her hand, she lifted it for the final time. It hovered in the air just above her body for a moment then fell gently to the place where her heart had just one beat left.
He looked down at the woman. Smiling, he bent over and plucked the one-hundred-dollar bill from her hand. He studied it for a few seconds, grinned, and slipped it into his pocket. He turned then and walked out of the room and into the night without even noticing the keys that she still clutched in her fingers. A second later the air rushed from her lungs for the very last time.
Chapter 2
July 7, 1937
Stepping off the 1936 Packard’s wide, rubber-ribbed running board, Janet Carson swept her auburn hair from the side of her face and lifted her blue eyes to the familiar three-story Victorian home. In a block filled with small, cookie-cutter houses, it was as imposing as it was unique. Even though the paint was beginning to peel from the faded yellow clapboard siding and the windows needed a good cleaning, with its myriad of gables, stained-glass windows, upper and lower porches, and more than six thousand square feet of living space, the house seemed to have jumped directly off the pages of a child’s fairy tale. In fact, it was so unique that just seeing it once brought back a lifetime of memories.
As her gaze slid from one window to the next, the memories of time in the Watling home so many years before poured through Janet’s head like water from a pitcher. She was unable to completely focus on any of them until her eyes locked onto the round, three-story tower on the house’s far right corner. It was then that one memory drew suddenly into sharp focus, and for an instant time stood still. Two decades may have passed, and during those years Janet had grown into a woman, gone away to college, and launched a career, but now that long-dismissed moment in time was as fresh and alive as the summer breeze that pushed her shoulder length hair once more back onto her cheek. For a second she was an energetic six-year-old, pigtailed girl playing with dolls inside that glorious round turret. That was the room where her aunt kept her doll collection and the one place in the home that was reserved just for fun. It was a magical place, a place where time stood still and where childhood wasn’t measured by age, but by games. And anyone of any age could be a child again if she just stopped to play. Aunt Abbi had taught her that and so much more.
