Red Jacket

by Joseph Heywood

“Two weeks ago, the State crowd overruled me, and reinstated the injunction in favor of the operators. Strikers can have their parades, but they can’t stop men from working if that’s what they want to do. How do the strikers react? They ignore Lansing and are at it again. Later this morning I’m going to have to order mass arrests in Allouez and Mohawk . . . Damn them all.”

  “Those are Keweenaw locations, Judge, not Houghton. Sheriff Hepting, does he know?”

  “Nah, tomorrow’s soon enough. John will be pissed at me because his heart’s with the strikers, but I’ve got three Pullman cars being hauled out from Houghton to house prisoners and take them back to Houghton, to the jail.”

  “What about Eagle River?”

  “What about it!” the judge howled. “It’s a two-bit one-room jailhouse. Truth is, the damn place is no more than a lame joke. There’s no damn reason for two counties up here; my circuit covers both.” O’Brien ran his hands through his greasy hair. “This thing is ready to really blow—more guns, more fighting, more deaths. It has to stop here.” The judge glared at Bapcat. “What in hell are you doing here? At night. Again?”

  “Same as you—looking for peace and fair play.”

  The judge sneered. “I’m listening.”

  Bapcat laid out the scenario involving the boxes and Nesmith Victuals.

  “For God’s sake, boyo, the hairs could have come from anywhere, at any time.”

  “But the manifests say that each Norway pine box contains fifteen hundred pounds of ore. I personally watched three men lift each box easily, and all twelve in short order, so I am wondering why the manifest weights are so inaccurate. The railroad man who escorted the shipment seemed not the least bit concerned about the discrepancy.”

  “Norway pine?” the judge asked. “Worthless stuff.”

  “Exactly, and when we buried Moilanen, it took eight of us to carry his coffin and with him in it we’re talking only seven hundred pounds. There’s no way three men can handle fifteen hundred in Norway pine. If we search and find nothing, we can just say we’re sorry and depart.”

  “You think Raber’s part of this—whatever this is?”

  “Speak freely, Your Honor?”

  “You always do, Deputy. Spit it out.”

  “The mine operators are attempting siege tactics—poisoning streams, flooding animal dens, killing deer, and leaving them to rot. They want to starve the miners and their families.”

  “No chance that will succeed,” O’Brien said. “The union opened a cooperative in Red Jacket. I think there are plans for a couple more in towns to the south.”

  “How long can they afford to operate?” Bapcat asked. He had very little notion of economics and money, and again felt a hole where knowledge ought to be.

  “Keep going,” O’Brien said, rubbing the stubble on his face.

  “I don’t know if Cruse is involved, but he damn well knows what the operators are up to. It could be that Raber is working on the sheriff’s behalf with this Nesmith thing, I don’t know, but it’s also possible Deputy Raber has found a way to line his own pockets, independent of the sheriff. Frankly, Your Honor, I don’t care what direction it goes, as long as we can get into Nesmith Victuals, the rolling stock, and the rail depot in Champion.”

  “That won’t work. Champion’s out of the question, as it’s not part of my jurisdiction. It comes under the circuit court in Marquette. But I can order Echo and Lucas to issue a writ on Nesmith, and I’ll sign it and make sure there’s a second signature, which will allow you to enter at night. But you get nothing on the rolling stock unless you come up with something at the warehouse, understand?”

  “Yessir. Can you call Lucas now?”

  “Don’t push me, dammit. Don’t you have the slightest interest in the distasteful things I have to do today?”

  “Honestly, Your Honor? I don’t.”

  “God help me . . . an honest man,” the judge said with a grand smile. “You’re fast learnin’ the unwritten rules,” he added, pulling papers out of his desk and sliding them across. “Warrant forms.” He took a pen and signed and held them out, then reached for the telephone and cupped the mouthpiece. “Take the forms to Lucas’s office tonight. He and Echo can use your information to create the warrants. I’ll dictate the language so you won’t need to worry about it. Just get into Houghton as fast as you can get there. Now git!”

  Bapcat heard the judge say into a telephone, “Tony, it’s Patrick. I’ve got a little late-night work that might gain you some ground against a certain fat bastard with a tin star.”

  88

  Houghton

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1913

  Bapcat found the Russian and Gipp, and showed them the search warrant. “The boxes and any surrounding areas and any suspected or confirmed storage spaces or areas, attached and unattached. O’Brien and a JP named Peters signed the warrant, which gives us the power to go in tonight, right now. The prosecutor’s already summoned Nesmith, who is on his way to open up.”

  “If he refuses?” Gipp asked.

  “We break down the door,” Bapcat said, adding, “but only if we have to.” Assistant Prosecutor Echo had given him a thorough briefing on what he could and couldn’t do, and having recently worked through Tiffany’s, he felt almost confident.

  The three men jogged down near the dark entrance and waited. There were street lamps up on Shelden Avenue and down by the rail depot, but few along the canal, and none in this area, which sat in total darkness. Snow was falling softly.

  Nesmith arrived in a Buick roadster and centered his lights on them, jumped out, and shouted defiantly, “Nothing happens until my attorney is present, and he and I have the opportunity to read all paperwork!”

  Bapcat said, “Just open the door,” and handed the warrant to the man.

  “Not until I can digest this in good light.”

  “Open the door and turn on the light,” Bapcat said.

  “I will not!”

  “We’re authorized to open the door by force if necessary.”

  “Like hell. This country’s got a constitution. Who signed the damn warrant?”

  “Judge O’Brien and Justice Peters.”

  Nesmith made a hocking sound. “Raging socialists, the both of ’em.”

  “Open the door,” Zakov ordered sternly. The man sighed deeply and took out a key.

  Bapcat stood while the man read the warrant and Zakov and Gipp went through the area, looking for the wooden boxes, which did not appear to be in the warehouse. What they found was a door to a room built into the back of the warehouse with the label cold.

  “What’s in there?” Zakov asked Nesmith.

  “Supplies.”

  “What about ore boxes?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the man said.

  “We watched your men pick them up yesterday at the depot and we saw them delivered here,” Zakov said. “Open the door to the room.”

  Nesmith’s lawyer arrived looking sweaty and half-dressed, his hair tousled, eyes red. Deputy Sheriff Raber came in behind the lawyer, revolver in hand. “What’s going on here?” the deputy shouted in a stentorian voice.

  Zakov calmly showed him their shared badge while Bapcat presented the search warrant. “Holster your weapon, Raber,” Bapcat said.

  The sound of his own name seemed to deflate the man’s bravado.

  “Open the door.” Zakov repeated.

  Nesmith’s attorney pored over the warrant. “There’s no mention of a cold room in this writ,” he said.

  Bapcat said, “I quote, ‘wooden boxes, surrounding areas, and all storage facilities, known or suspected on the premises or adjoining thereof,’ end quote.”

  The lawyer, who gave his name as Elliott Fasman, took Nesmith’s arm and said firmly, “Open the cold room for th
ese gentlemen, Michael.”

  Inner door open, there sat the boxes, spread out, no longer stacked.

  “Open them,” Bapcat told the owner. “And turn on some lights in here.”

  “If you boys have everything under control,” Raber said, backing out of the room and disappearing.

  Dim lights came on. There were ice bins on the floor in several locations, filled with massive ice blocks that were covered with sawdust. They could see their breath hanging in the air. Shelves lined the walls, and packages wrapped in pink-brown paper were stacked on the shelves, the paper caked with frost. A metal table in the room had butchering tools, knives and grinders, cleavers, rolls of paper, balls of string, and the floors were stained with dark marks. Blood.

  Nesmith said, “There are no box keys.”

  Attorney Fasman said sharply, “Michael.”

  Bapcat stepped up with his rifle and used the stock to strike the lock off the first box, metal bits skittering across the floor. He opened the lid and found meat, which looked hurriedly butchered, bones still in place, loose hair clumps here and there.

  “Not mine,” Nesmith said, raising both hands. “Don’t even have keys. We store them for a client.”

  Fasman said, “Don’t.”

  “Client?” Zakov said. “Client is by linguistic syllogism someone you have regular transactions with. What is your client’s name?”

  “We’re paid by many to store their things,” Nesmith said.

  “Including contraband,” Zakov said.

  Bapcat left Zakov to question the man while he opened other boxes, eight of which also contained meat. The final four contained deer heads, which caught him by surprise.

  Attorney Fasman started to walk over to Bapcat, who in turn went toward the lawyer to block his access to the last four boxes.

  “My client wishes to cooperate,” Fasman announced.

  “He’s got a funny way of showing it,” Bapcat said.

  “He’s an honest businessman who has never been in trouble. He is nervous—a phenomenon I’m sure that you, an experienced lawman, can understand.”

  “We want information.”

  Fasman took his client by the arm and led him away. Once they had left the cold room, Bapcat showed Zakov and Gipp the boxes with the deer heads.

  “Perhaps our entrepreneur is double-spooning,” Zakov said. “He sells venison meat, and takes heads for bonuses.”

  “I’m not moving anything,” Bapcat decided. “George, I want you to get over to the county building. Assistant Prosecutor Echo is in his office. Explain what we’ve found. Tell him we need a locksmith to seal the building, and we need to set up some kind of security arrangement.”

  “You want a locksmith to change the locks on this room?” Gipp asked.

  “No, I want the whole building sealed off. We’re confiscating Nesmith’s entire operation.”

  “He’ll fight,” Zakov said.

  “Let him explain that to the prosecutor when he gets here. Information can open minds, cells, and doors.”

  Zakov grinned. “Very poetic, not to mention truly philosophical.”

  “It must be the company I keep,” Bapcat said. “Go find Davidov, and get heavy with him if you have to. Call Harju and tell him what we’ve found here, and that we’ll need a warrant for the Champion depot. Are those Nesmith employees over there? Tell Harju we need him to rattle the cages of all the railroaders in Champion’s baggage operations, to find out how they are connected with Nesmith and to Davidov.”

  “Da,” Zakov said, and departed, limping slightly. He had been off his crutch for some time now, but soreness sometimes hit him.

  Fasman soon came back, leading his sheepish client. “The meat belongs to my client,” the attorney said. “The heads do not. We have no idea where they came from, or why.”

  “Who killed the deer?”

  “My client.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes. He has an insatiable desire to hunt.”

  “And make money from it,” Bapcat added. “There are laws against shipping contraband through the US Mail.”

  “There is no US Mail involvement here. The railroad is private and offers a private shipping service. A noble try, Deputy, but you have no grounds with that line.”

  Bapcat took a moment to clear his mind and focus. He had not mentioned the deer heads to Nesmith or his attorney, and there was no way they could have seen them, which meant they already knew what was in the final four wooden boxes before they were opened. Or at least Nesmith knew.

  Gipp came back, followed ten minutes later by Houghton County assistant prosecutor Roland Echo, a locksmith, and a reporter for the Houghton-Calumet Mining Journal.

  The reporter pompously introduced himself as Lars Allan Bernard Petersson, Esq. Following the plan he’d worked out in his mind, Bapcat told the newspaperman that more arrests were in the offing. On an impulse, he told the story of deer being killed and left to rot by persons—and reasons—unknown, which seemed a terrible and tragic waste of the state’s resources, and that further, the State had credible information that certain persons were paying hunters to kill deer, solely to deny legal hunters the chance to hunt them—especially miners in need of food because of the strike.

  The reporter was short and wide, with a square, bristling black beard and long, stringy black hair. “Who would author such a nefarious scheme?” the man asked.

  “Well, we don’t know for sure, Mr. Petersson, but the way we come at things like this is to ask who benefits most from a crime.”

  “Nobody benefits from deer left to rot,” the reporter said.

  “Really? What about someone who doesn’t want others to have access to food?”

  The reporter looked stumped, and Bapcat decided to say no more, although before parting, added, “We can’t yet say who is responsible, Mr. Petersson, but we have some very strong leads, some growing evidence. A team of investigators from different agencies is working on this case, and anyone who comes forward now with new and relevant information will certainly find the prosecutor in a cooperative spirit.”

  “Will there be a reward?” the reporter asked.

  “Yes, of course, but I’m not at liberty to reveal the source, or the amount. Let’s just say that a wealthy, community-minded individual is appalled by the killing, and has stepped forward to provide an incentive to help us find the guilty parties and close the case.”

  It was noon by the time new locks had been installed and the building secured by a private guard brought in by Prosecutor Echo.

  Bapcat said, “C’mon, George, let’s head for home and get us some food.”

  “What about Mr. Zakov?”

  “He’ll join us later. George, have you seen your uncle Herman lately?”

  “No, but he’s working again, this time at Citizens Hardware in Laurium.”

  “Fig get him the job?”

  “I don’t know; why?”

  “Let’s stop and talk to Herman about deer hunting.”

  “Has he done something wrong?”

  “Not at all. I just want to ask him something. He knows a lot about hunting, right?”

  “Just about everything,” George Gipp said.

  89

  Laurium

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1913

  Citizens Hardware was less than six blocks from Herman Gipp’s house. Bapcat wondered how Uncle Herman would escape to the woods from a job so close to home.

  “Like your new job?” Bapcat asked Herman.

  “Pays da bills, I guess,” the man said.

  “Where’s Fig working these days?”

  “Dunno. He sorta got mad at me and I ain’t seen ’im for a while, ya know?”

  “Nothing serious, I hope,” Bapcat said. He hated making small
talk, but was slowly learning to accept it as part of the job.

  “Nah, Fig can’t stay mad long on account he can’t remember nuttin’ dat long.”

  “Herman, you’re a woodsman. You know what Canady yew is?”

  “Yeah, sure, you betcha. My grandpa usta call it deer candy.”

  “Much of it in these parts?”

  “Some, if youse know where ta look. Why?”

  “Mostly curious, I guess. I like to know what’s around me in the woods, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, sure, I guess.”

  “So?”

  “You mean yew? Way up Lake Manganese ridges, ya know, ’round dere.”

  “How about around here?”

  “Upper Owl Creek usta be good; Cedar Creek Canyon down low, and youse know, Delaware mine down ta Eagle River, all t’rough dose ridges an’ deep cuts.”

  “Good deer hunting?”

  “Can be, ’specially in winter when da deers yard up. Most head toward da bay, but lotsa dose big bucks, dey go west up into da yew canyons.”

  When did it become legal to hunt deer in winter, in their yards? “Don’t hear much about that westerly movement.”

  “Most pipple lazy, eh. Won’t work hard, which makes huntin’ good for dem dat will.”

  “You ever hunt up there?”

  “Not after all da wolfies come.”

  “Are you talking about the ratting grounds?”

  Herman Gipp nodded solemnly. “Not no more so much, you know.”

  “But there are still some yews up that way?”

  “Wun’t s’prise me, but I ain’t been up dere in years. Fig, he don’t like it up dat place.”

  “How come?”

  “Ghosts and spooks and stuff,” Herman said nervously.

  “Thanks, Herman.”

  The elder Gipp smiled and said nothing.

  “See you, Unc,” George told his uncle, and turned to Bapcat. “Get what you needed?”

  “Could be.” Yew kills rats, but not deer. How come Herman knows yew attracts deer and I don’t?

  “We done working?” George asked.

  “Yes. How about you drop me up the hill and take the electric back?”