by Jim Lehrer
“Rutherford,” Mathews said, not looking up.
“Right. Rutherford. One name—first and last.”
“I know him from the Super but I’ve never heard of him,” Howard said.
“Nobody has,” said Rinehart. “That’s the point.”
The sheriff’s office was in the basement of the Valerie County courthouse, a three-story white stone structure with a clock tower in the center. It was in the middle of a small park a short five-block walk from the station.
Sanders found Sheriff Ratzlaff in his office at his desk hunched over some papers.
The sheriff told the Santa Fe man to have a seat, to take a load off.
“Did you come to tell me that the curly-headed suspect finally turned up and you have arrested him on behalf of the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe?” the sheriff asked.
Charlie Sanders smiled. Whatever he had to take, he would take.
“I just came to review where we were, thinking maybe it was not a straightforward murder,” said Sanders, feeling his way toward a most difficult destination. “Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was more complicated than that.”
The sheriff leaned back in his dark oak chair, which was a swivel with arms. “What are you saying, detective?” This time the word “detective” came out sounding more like “go ahead, little boy.”
Sanders ignored that and pushed on, relying solely on some seat-of-the-pants hope about the judgment of Sheriff Ratzlaff, a man he barely knew.
“Let’s say Mr. Wheeler wanted to have it both ways,” said Charlie Sanders. “Let’s say he wanted to end the pain and suffering from his sickness but he also wanted to make sure he got the full funeral and burial …”
The sheriff popped his chair and himself straight up. He was smiling. If this had been a newspaper comic strip a little lightbulb would be in a circle above Sheriff Ratzlaff’s head.
The sheriff went into public speech mode.
“Stop right there. It was clearly murder, there was no both ways about it. As you know, I have determined officially that the murder was committed in my county—Valerie County, Kansas. I have possession of the body. I have assumed full authority over the investigation and I have so informed the FBI and everybody else of that. We will continue to search the train station, our streets and byways, our churches and cafés and everything else in our county for the alleged killer as described by witnesses until we believe it is time to close the case, to move on and to let all concerned rest in peace.”
Both the sheriff and Sanders stood up.
The sheriff extended his right hand, which Sanders grabbed and shook hard in the manner of a happy constituent who has just heard exactly what he wanted to hear.
As Sanders took a step to leave, the sheriff said, “By the way, I’ve got a message for you from Jack Pryor.”
Charlie Sanders felt the heat rising in his cheeks.
The sheriff said, “He called our office from somewhere a while ago saying you should be at the Bethel station right after eleven so he can call you from La Junta.”
“Thanks, I was already planning to do that,” said Sanders, struck immediately with the deflating probability that Pryor had told the sheriff that the Santa Fe man on the ground in Bethel was no detective.
And there it came. The sheriff walked out from behind his desk and right up to Charlie Sanders.
“Yeah, Jack told me you were some kind of passenger agent. But don’t worry about it. The connection was bad and he was short on time so I didn’t say anything about your saying you were a detective. Besides, as we Randallites say here in central Kansas, a man should be known for his deeds not his labels.”
Sanders had a hunch the sheriff had just invented a new Randallite saying for the occasion.
“One more thing, for the record just between us,” said the sheriff, his voice now down to slightly more than a whisper. “I believe it’s safe to assume that there really was more involved in the manner of Otto’s death than a funeral service.”
Charlie Sanders had nothing to say to that.
So Sheriff Ratzlaff spelled out what Pollack meant by “sensitive financial” matters. “It occurred to me as you were talking a while ago that there were probably some very large bequests as well as insurance policies, written no doubt by our own denominational insurance companies, on Otto’s life.”
Sanders got it. “And they wouldn’t pay off if it was suicide?”
“That’s right. Knowing Otto, I’d bet anything the beneficiaries for everything are our Randallite schools, colleges, hospitals and missionaries.”
Sanders decided it was definitely time for him to get out of here. He didn’t need to know any more.
But the sheriff wasn’t quite finished. “I hope your big important railroad doesn’t have a policy against murdering one Randallite on the Super Chief for the greater good of other Randallites.”
Sanders responded only with a knowing smile and said his farewells to the sheriff.
The sheriff still wasn’t done. “I was delighted to hear that Harry Truman was on that train. And that he heard the shot that helped fix the time—and place—of the shooting. Some of our most severe Randallites are peace fanatics who gave Randallite hell to Harry because of the bomb. They’re still praying and whimpering over killing a few thousand Japs to save several million of them and us.”
Sanders just wanted to go.
The sheriff continued, “But I’m not one of those kind of Randallites. A lot of us were with Harry on the greater good stuff. The next time you run into Harry on the Santa Fe, you tell him that, okay?”
Charlie Sanders, now at the door, promised he would definitely do that.
Rinehart and Mathews were now back in the dining car for lunch. Both had ordered from the top of the menu, choosing a stuffed zucchini named an Andalouse and the Toasted Hot Mexican Sandwich Santa Fe, each a well-known and treasured Super Chief specialty.
“Get ready, it’s almost time—just a few minutes now,” Gene Mathews said. And he said it with animation, interest. Gantry was not even in sight. “The engineer’ll slow down here, if he can spare the time …”
Rinehart knew that. He was faced toward the rear so all he could actually see were patches of brush in what appeared to be mostly a sandy desert. The great variety of colors from earlier was mostly gone. But he knew what was about to happen …
“Okay, get ready,” said Mathews. “Now!”
The train slowed, both men began waving, and so did most everyone else in the dining car, including the steward and the waiters.
The greetings were aimed at several people standing at windows in a small-town courthouse. They all had their arms in the air, moving them side to side at the passing Super Chief and the people on it.
And then, just as suddenly, it was over—the faces, the waves and the courthouse were gone and the sand and the bushes returned.
A man at a table across the aisle was on the wrong side of the train and he was clearly not a Super Regular.
“What was that all about? Were they Indians?” he yelled out at Rinehart and Mathews.
“There’s a judge in that courthouse who recesses whatever he’s doing every afternoon around this time,” Mathews answered. “He went away to World War Two from Albuquerque and came back alive on the Super Chief, so he says thanks every day. And, yeah, he’s an Indian—a Navajo. Won the Silver Star with the Marines on Guadalcanal.”
Gene Mathews looked at Rinehart. There were tears in his friend’s eyes.
“Okay, what is it now, Dar?” he asked. “So they’re going to take your Brancusi … so who needs a sculpture of a boiled egg?”
“I’m going to miss the Super and all of this so much, Gene,” Rinehart said.
On the phone with Jack Pryor in La Junta, Charlie Sanders delivered the sheriff’s speechy message about Otto Wheeler’s death and desires.
“And I have a confession to make to you,” Sanders then said to Pryor.
“You shot Wheeler?” Pryor said
with only a faint hint of humor. He was a cop who took whatever he could get.
“No, no, not that kind of confession,” Sanders said. “It’s just that I went along with not telling the sheriff about the guy in—”
“Stop right there!” Pryor barked into the phone. “I know all I need to know,” said Pryor, speaking quickly and with force. “But I’m really not sure I did the right thing for the Santa Fe—”
Pryor finished that sentence of Sanders’s, too. “This is over for us and the Santa Fe. I’ll telegraph my chief in Chicago to back up the sheriff. I just hope the FBI is willing to leave it alone. Otherwise, they’ll be waiting for me in Albuquerque with an army of agents and technicians.”
Charlie Sanders made the second most important decision of his life—until now. He would not finish his confession.
And after taking a deep breath he said, almost playfully, to Pryor, “How’s President Truman doing?”
“Fine,” Pryor said eagerly. “He’s developed a friendship with Browne, the newspaper guy from Strong, Kansas—every time I see them they’re talking, mostly about atomic bombs.”
“Who cares about the atomic bomb now?”
“A Private, for one. He came on to harass Mr. Truman for allowing that testing in Nevada. I had to put him off the train in Dodge City.”
“How did the guy get on?”
“I’m pretty sure it was that porter Ralph again. If there’s money to be made, he makes it. He’d let Hitler on the Super Chief without a ticket if the price was right. I haven’t had time yet to make a move on him. I’ll do that when we get to LA.”
Sanders suddenly wondered if Ralph was the Santa Fe employee who helped Pollack arrange for the killing of Otto Wheeler. If so, that really makes us at Santa Fe a truly unique full-service institution. But he said, “You’ve had your hands full. What about Clark Gable?”
“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him,” said Pryor. “And, as far as I know, neither has anybody else except Ralph and maybe a visitor or two.”
“Women, you mean?”
Yes, that’s what he meant, said Pryor and added after a two-beat pause, “You’ve done a great job, Charlie. For a college boy in the passenger agent’s office.”
“Thank you, Jack,” said Sanders.
And now, finally, they were Jack and Charlie.
“I couldn’t turn down an invitation from you, Mr. Truman,” said Clark Gable.
“Sure you could, you’re a king.” Truman laughed. “I was only a president.”
Truman, A. C. Browne and Gable were seated in the sitting-room section of Truman’s drawing room. Browne had, with the help of Jack Pryor and a conductor, delivered the invitation to Gable, who, according to Pryor, seemed pleased to be asked but reluctant to accept the invitation to join his two fellow passengers. The porter had now served a round of drinks—Truman and Gable both had bourbon on the rocks, Browne his regular gin martini straight up with an olive.
“I admire what you did during the war, Mr. Gable,” said Browne.
“It was nothing,” said Gable.
“Flying combat missions over Europe is not what I call nothing,” said Browne. “You were bombing Germany—or was it Italy and other occupied countries?”
Gable smiled and nodded, as if to confirm it was Italy.
“Didn’t you make a documentary-type movie about it?” asked Truman.
Gable again said nothing. It seemed obvious to both Truman and Browne that he didn’t want to talk about his war service.
“Your modesty is quite admirable, Mr. Gable,” said Browne.
“I agree,” said Truman. “Mr. Browne and I are in professions where modest people don’t usually do very well. I would have thought that applied to the movie business as well. You’re quite a refreshing fellow, not at all what I expected.”
Gable smiled and took a large gulp from his glass.
“That outfit you flew with from a base in England,” said Browne. “I read a lot about it—they were B-24s you were flying, right?”
Gable, his glass up to his mouth again, grunted a yes.
“I should have had you come to the White House when I was there,” said Truman. “It may not have been that great for you but I’m sure Mrs. Truman and Margaret would have gotten a thrill out of it.”
There was an abrupt silence. A lull. Truman and Browne had been happy so far to do all the talking but now, for a count of three or so, both had run out of something to say.
Gable seemed to pick up on the fact that he had to talk. He said, “I’ve never been to the White House. That would have been fun.”
“Ike would probably invite you if you were really interested,” said Browne. “Some of my dad’s old Republican friends are still around. Would you like me to check into it?”
Gable shook his head. “No, no.”
Then he finished his drink and stood. “I hate to drink and run but I’ve got an appointment with a friend here on the train shortly and I have some work to do before we get back to LA in the morning.”
“A question before you go, Mr. Gable,” said Browne. “Have you heard anything about any movie stars’ being at risk from some nuclear testing in Nevada?”
“Not a thing,” said Gable. He shook hands with his two hosts, awkwardly thanked them for the drink and left.
Several moments of uneasy silence ensued.
“I think maybe we missed out on the famous charm of Mr. Clark Gable,” said Truman finally. “What do you think, Browne?”
A. C. Browne looked at his pocket watch and replied, “The man wasn’t here five minutes.”
“We’re clearly not interesting enough for a king,” said Truman.
They sat back down and continued on their own drinks, which had barely been touched.
“I was just thinking about something,” said Truman. “I’m pretty sure Clark Gable went to the White House when FDR was president. He was there with one of his wives, that actress Carole Lombard, who died in the airliner, for one of FDR’s fireside chats. FDR would usually invite an adoring crowd of fifty or so of his closest friends to watch him speak into the radio microphone. I was in the Senate at the time Gable came. A big to-do was made about The King paying a visit to the president. Gable and his wife may even have stayed for dinner with the Roosevelts. I think I remember something about their having a long chat with Eleanor—heaven forbid.”
Browne said nothing. He was just thinking about something else Gable had said.
“His aerial gunner and photography flying was over Germany and Belgium—not Italy, I remember now for sure,” Browne said, adding with a whack to his head, “and I remember for a fact now that they flew B-17s not B-24s.”
“What are we suggesting here, Browne?” asked Truman.
“I think we may be suggesting, at the very least, that Clark Gable is a man with no charm and a very bad memory about his own life,” said Browne. “Maybe all that drinking and womanizing he does has that kind of effect on a man.”
“Or could it be, Browne, that the man we had a drink with is some kind of imposter?” answered Truman. “Maybe that was not the real Clark Gable—a pretender to the throne?”
Darwin Rinehart was proceeding through a sleeping car passageway when he came across a man standing in the vestibule between cars. He was smoking a cigarette and facing the window.
Rinehart started to keep walking when he recognized, even from the back, who it was: Clark Gable.
“Hey, King Clark,” he said, on reflex.
Gable raised his right hand, the one with the cigarette, but didn’t turn around.
“It’s Darwin. Rinehart. Darwin Rinehart—again.”
Gable repeated the hand gesture but didn’t move his head or any other part of his body.
Rinehart raised his own right hand and the middle finger of it and thrust it silently toward Gable’s back.
And moved on.
A few seconds later, Gable, having seen everything in the reflection from the window, put out his Kent on the floor wit
h his foot. Then he turned around and raised the middle finger of his right hand off in the direction of the man who said he was Darwin Rinehart.
And moved on.
Still in Truman’s compartment with their drinks, Truman asked Browne, “Should we do something about the possibility that this Gable man is not for real?”
Browne had to think about that. “It’s probably none of our business, sir. But it might be wise to at least inform that Santa Fe detective on board.”
“Right. Our friend Pryor. Is there a law against posing as Clark Gable?”
“If there isn’t, there ought to be, Mr. President.”
“Where’s the do-nothing Congress when we need them?”
They decided to finish their drinks before seeking out Detective Pryor and sounding their False Gable alarm.
“Come to think of it, Browne,” said Truman after a few minutes, “how in the hell do I know for sure you’re really Albert Roland Browne’s son? You talk with a British accent and you wear that eyepiece thing.”
Browne took his monocle from a vest pocket, stuck it on his right eye and then leaned over and peered at Truman with the manner royalty would use on a commoner. “I say, old chap, now that you mentioned it, how can I be certain you’re not really Thomas Dewey?”
“Because he has a mustache,” said Truman. “Just like Gable.”
Truman and Browne reported their imposter suspicions to Jack Pryor, and a few minutes later the Santa Fe detective took Ralph with him toward Clark Gable’s compartment.
“You sure there’s no woman in there with him now?” Pryor asked as they walked.
“Not unless he got her in there himself—all by himself, which is not the usual way. He had a couple last night but said he didn’t want any today,” said Ralph.
“So how many have there been so far on this trip that you know about?”
“Just those two last night, the first night out from Chicago. Normally he’d be up to five or six by now. I don’t know how he does it. He really is some kind of king, that’s for sure.”
