“Not really. River’s a hundred and fifty miles long, Mr. Keegan. Long stretches of it are uninhabited. Lots of debris from the spring floods. Hell, he could’ve been jammed under junk somewhere . .
Keegan put the report back in the folder. “Tell me about the fight in the hobo camp that night,” he said.
“Know about that, do you?”
“Somebody mentioned it to Captain Dryman.”
“Well, sir, nobody here’s real proud of what happened that night,” Taggert said. “There’d been a lot of grumblin’ in town about the Hooverville and how big it was gettin’. And the railroad people were gettin’ real put out about it. The railroad bulls decided to clean it out. Some of the tents caught on fire. Pregnant woman had a miscarriage. Twelve people in the hospital. And two dead, one of the railroad cops and a hobo.”
“How were they killed?”
“The cop was beat to death with a baseball bat. The hobo was stabbed. Deep wound. Under the ribs right here and up into the heart. Nasty wound. Must’ve been a hell of a knife.”
He pulled off the road and parked on the shoulder.
“That’s where it happened, right over there in Barrow Park,” Taggert said, pointing out of the car. There was a broad expanse of green grass and trees beside the railroad. “The hobo camp spread along the railroad tracks from the edge of the river there all the way down the road to the edge a town. Real eyesore, it was.”
“Where’s the railroad come from?” Keegan asked.
“it’s a spur. Runs down from Logansport.”
“Through Drew City?”
“Yep.”
“Were there any witnesses to the killings?”
Taggert nodded. “One man saw the whole thing, even saw the stabbings. Joe Cobb. Worked for the railroad. Lives over on Elm Street.”
“Here in town?”
“Yes sir.”
“And he was there that night?”
“Right in the middle of it.”
“Can we talk to him?”
“Sure. Old Joe’ll tell anybody about it who’ll listen to him. Problem is, nobody takes him too seriously.”
“Why’s that?” Dryman asked.
“Cause he’s blind as a mole.”
Joe Cobb sat in a rocker on his porch, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, his hands gripping the arms of the chair as if he were afraid he would fall out of it. Years of inactivity had turned muscle to fat. Cobb had a big stomach which folded over his belt, hulking shoulders and a neck the size of a tree trunk. The chair squeaked as he rocked back and forth.
“Remember that night? Of course I remember that night. Last time I ever saw God’s sweet earth,” he said. “Look, I never took offense at those folks. They was just unfortunates, got wiped out in the bust, tryin’ to make a go of it, y’know. The Hooverville was down to Barrow’s Point. There was this spate of robberies around town. Nothin’ big, mind yuh, but folks was gettin’ nervous. Railroad didn’t want em. Town didn’t want ‘em. Hell, nobody wanted ‘em. About seven-thirty, the local rattler came in . .
“That the train that came through Drew City?” Keegan asked.
“Yeah. Bunch of hobos jumped off and was runnin’ down to the camp. They was maybe ten of us from the railroad chasm’ them.”
He remembered that night all right, like a nightmare montage burned into his mind. Men silhouetted against campfire sparks twirling into a black, windless sky. Dirt-caked fingers protruding from the holes in a pair of red wool gloves. Cardboard lean-tos, worn-out canvas tents, shacks of tar paper. The tired, burned-out faces of defeat and the frightening sounds of the attack. A woman screaming. The sickening sound of wood striking flesh and bone. Flashlight beams crisscrossing through the camp. People running from shanties, bumping into each other in the dark, scrambling to get out of the camp. The sound of a shot. A crazy-eyed hobo, blood spurting down his face from a jagged crack in his forehead, waving a Bible at arm’s length as he cried out. “They’s upon us, the heathen screws is upon us. Save yourselves, sinners. . . the wicked draw their bows and aim their arrows, to shoot at good men in the darkness.’ Psalm eleven, verse two.” And a brutal response: “C’mere, you miserable stinkweed.”
Chaos.
Oh yes, he remembered it.
“We come up on two of ‘em sitting on the edge of the gulch gasping for wind,” Cobb went on. “They jumped up when me and Harry Barker seen ‘em. ‘Here’s two more of ‘em,’ Harry yells, and we went after ‘em with our Louisville Sluggers. He hit one of ‘em in the back and that fella turned on him like a tiger, grabbed him and spun him around and wrapped an arm around his neck and snapped it with one powerful wrench of his arm. Harry went down and then the hobo grabbed Harry’s bat and he whales him and then he hits me a good one in the stomach. The other ‘bo, he says, ‘C’mon, we got to get outta here,’ and then the first one, he leans over and he pulls a knife out of his shoe— his shoe!—and sticks his buddy, just like that. ‘Sorry, ‘bo,’ he says, ‘you seen too much.’ It was a helluva knife, I’ll tell you, not a hunting knife. Had a long narrow blade sharp on both edges.”
“Like a dagger?” Keegan asked.
“Yeah, a dagger. Anyway, I started to get m’feet under mc and I looked up just as he swung that damn bat as hard as he could and it got me right in the face, right in the eyes.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?”
“Remember? Are you kiddin’? It’s the last thing I ever saw. He was tall, maybe six feet, husky, black hair, and . . . the way he was dressed. He weren’t dressed like no hobo. Had on a flannel shirt, nice pants and what looked nice brand new boots. Hadn’t been a hobo for very long, else he stole the clothes he was wearing. And there was one other thing. He had different colored eyes.”
“Different colored eyes?” Dryman echoed, looking at Keegan skeptically.
“Yep. One gray and one green.”
Indian summer had settled over eastern Pennsylvania. The golden colors of fall were replacing the green of summer and a soft breeze stirred the trees in the cemetery. They walked down the rows of markers, looking for the grave of Fred Dempsey. Keegan was more convinced than ever that Dempsey was their man. Dryman, even though he had made the connection, was still skeptical.
On the flight from Indiana to Pennsylvania, Keegan had finally explained their mission to Dryman.
“C’mon, Kee, you really believe this bank clerk was a Nazi spy?”
“I’m convinced of it,” Keegan replied.
“Well, if it was him he’s probably been dead for five years. Probably floated up somewhere along the river and the dogs ate him,” Dryman answered.
“H.P., the railroad runs right past where the car went into the river in Drew City and ends at Lafayette,” said Keegan. “Now, supposing you had just faked your own death and you had to get out of town. How would you do it? You can’t drive, can’t take a bus or hitchhike. You can’t afford to be seen. But. . . you could hop a freight. And if Fred Dempsey jumped a rattler, he would’ve walked into the middle of that brawl at the Hooverville.”
“If, if, if,” Dryman grumbled. Then Keegan grabbed him by the elbow and pointed to a plot. It was well cared for, the grass neatly trimmed and small plot of flowers at the foot of the section. A large headstone was bracketed on either side by two smaller stones, one of which read:
Frederick Dempsey
Born: Feb. 3, 1900 Died: Feb. 7, 1900
Taken from this earth after four days
Beloved for a lifetime
“Convinced?” an elated Keegan cried.
Keegan was not satisfied with just one subject. Recalling what Tangier had told him, that people on the run sometimes set themselves up with more than one identity, he and Dryman checked the rest of that cemetery and five others in the city. They strolled through the rows of tombstones, jotting down the names of all male children born between 1890 and 1910 who had died within two weeks of their birth. By the end of the day they had the names of twelve male children to check. It was a long s
hot, Keegan agreed, but so was the search that had turned up Fred Dempsey.
They had little trouble getting birth certificates of all twelve. Death certificates were recorded on a separate floor in the courthouse. Eddie Tangier was right, the state made no correlation between life and death. The certificates were not cross-referenced. As far as the clerk in the vital statistics department knew, Fred Dempsey was alive and well. Little did she realize how alive and well he was.
Keegan met Mr. Smith in a small Chinese restaurant in Georgetown. By arrangement, Keegan arrived first and was ushered into a small private room in the back. Smith arrived ten minutes later, entering through a back door after taking his usual circuitous route. The tall, enigmatic dog robber listened patiently as Keegan described the trip to Drew City and Erie, Pennsylvania.
“So. . . we know our Mr. X assumed the identity of Fred Dempsey,” Keegan concluded. “He lived in Drew City for nine months, never caused any trouble and might have even married Louise Scoby if fate disguised as John Dillinger hadn’t walked into his life.”
“Seems to me you may be stretching a point, tying him to the killer in the hobo camp,” Smith answered.
“Why? It makes perfect sense.”
“But there’s no proof. .
“We’re not trying the son of a bitch in court, Mr. Smith. I assure you, if Fred Dempsey and Twenty-seven are one and the same, then he did not die. He’s alive and well. He is six feet tall, about one-eighty, green eyes. Obviously he was wearing those new-type colored contact lenses and he lost one in the fight at the Hooverville.”
“How do you know that?” Smith asked skeptically.
“We know this guy is a master of disguise. He had gray eyes when he lived in Drew City. Joe Cobb saw a man with one gray eye and one green eye. It’s obvious that Twenty-seven lost one of the gray lenses in the fight and his eyes are green. And since he went to all that trouble to change the color of his eyes and he’s German, my guess is he’s blond. He uses a gold cigarette lighter with a wolf’s head on the top, rolls his own cigarettes using Prince Albert tobacco, loves movies and the ladies, and hasn’t a trace of an accent. I’ll tell you something else, this guy doesn’t shake. He’s one cool operator. He shacked up with Louise Scoby knowing the C-men were on their way to Drew City. And he likes to kill people, Mr. Smith. He shacked up with Louise Scoby for months, then broke her neck and dumped her in the river like that he snapped his fingers sharply “. . . to set up an alibi. He killed two men and blinded another one because they saw him and might tie him back to Fred Dempsey in Drew City. I’m beginning to understand this guy, Mr. Smith. I’m beginning to know how he thinks and how he operates.”
“If what you say is true, he’s more dangerous than we anticipated.”
“I never doubted that for a moment.”
Keegan took a list of names from his pocket.
“I’ve got twelve names for you. I believe one of them is our German sleeper agent. All of them were born in Erie, Pennsylvania, between 1890 and 1910. If I’m right, he applied for two passports in May 1933, one under the name Fred Dempsey, the other under one of those names on that list. He’d want to be able to get to Europe, to be able to escape in case something else happened.”
He leaned across the table, his eyes alive with excitement.
“If I can get a look at his passport application, I’ll know what he looks like and possibly where he lives now.”
“Doesn’t it seem likely he’s changed identities again since then?”
“Why? He has no idea we’re on to him. If he’s settled in some place, like he was in Drew City, why would he change? The more accepted he is, the safer he is.”
“That’s assuming Dempsey was your man.”
“He’s got to be.”
“But supposing you’re wrong, Mr. Keegan?”
“Then I’m beat,” Keegan said. “But I don’t believe I am. I’m right about Dempsey, Mr. Smith, and if any of those twelve names matches up to a passport application, we got our man.”
“That kind of information is highly confidential. This is not an easy task.”
“C’mon,” Keegan said. “Nothing’s too tough for the world’s greatest dog robber.”
Smith sighed. He recognized cajolery and flattery—but he was not immune to it. He toyed with the list for a few moments and shrugged.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Keegan and Dryman checked into the Mayflower to await the result of Mr. Smith’s investigation. Two days later, Smith met Keegan in the back room of the Regal restaurant a few blocks from the Capitol.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I had to drive all over the city to dump the twins.”
“What’s the latest news?”
“The whole city’s in an uproar. Everybody expects it’s just a matter of days before Hitler attacks Poland. Neville Chamberlain’s ‘peace in our time’ treaty wasn’t worth a lead nickel.”
He put a small brown envelope on the table in front of Keegan.
“You better face facts, Mr. Keegan,” Smith said as Keegan eagerly checked the contents of the envelope. “If this lead doesn’t pan out and Germany attacks Poland, you’re off the case. Hoover’s gone bananas on the subject of security.” He stopped for a moment and nodded toward the contents of the envelope. “And I broke at least three laws to get you that information.”
“Isn’t that what dog robbing is all about?” Keegan answered with his crooked grin.
He read the passport application and his heart picked up a few beats. There was no photograph, but there was an artist’s sketch showing a handsome man with a dark beard, longish hair and spectacles.
“I couldn’t lift the photograph so I had a sketch made for you,” said Smith. “Of course he could have shaved off his beard, changed his hair color . . . Well, what do you think?”
“Could be him,” Keegan said flatly.
He read the passport information:
John Trex l er, born Erie, Pa., November 2, 1898.
Passport application: August 12, 1933. Renewed: February 9, 1938.
Occupation: Ski instructor.
Address: Mountain Way, Aspen, Colorado.
He was hiding his excitement. Now he was sure that John Trexler was Fred Dempsey and both were Siebenundzwanzig, the Nazi agent 27. Keegan knew the real John Trexler was born in Erie on that date and had died a week later. This had to be their man.
“Listen, Keegan, don’t go grandstanding on this, okay?” said Smith, and for the first time he showed concern. “If you’re sure he’s your man, take plenty of help.”
“Oh, absolutely, Mr. Smith. Absolutely.”
In the weather room at National Airport, Dryman pored over maps and weather charts, shaking his head as he studied them.
“This could be hairy, Boss, very hairy,” he said, holding a thermal chart next to the sectional map. “We got a front moving in from Canada. They already had their first snowstorm of the season earlier this week. There’s four inches of snow on the ground and a blizzard coming in.”
He looked up at Keegan.
“Mountains all over the place. Big mountains—like fifteen- thousand-footers—and this place is in a pocket. Look here.”
He pointed to a large sectional of the area. The town was surrounded by mountains, two of which, to the north and south, were indeed almost fifteen thousand feet high. Dryman traced his finger down a heavy line that coursed south a few miles west of the town.
“That’s the Continental Divide. We’re gonna have to fly over it and nose-dive into that airfield, which I’ll guess is nothing but a cow pasture with a wind sock. I say we forget it until after the front moves by.”
“Why should that bother you, you’re the one who prefers to land on highways and in cornfields?” Keegan answered. “How much time do we have before the storm hits?”
Dryman read the weather strip.
“They’re expecting bad weather to move in by late afternoon. It’s a seven, eight-hour flight when you figure in
at least three stops for gas.” He looked at his watch. Five A.M. “If we’re real lucky we may be able to sneak in ahead of the storm. Otherwise we’ll end up in Lost Overshoe, Nebraska, or some dipshit town in Kansas. That’s if we don’t wind up in the side of a mountain.”
“Hey, Mister Hot Pilot, you crapping out on me? You’re the one was bragging about flying through dishwater when you were hauling the mail.”
“That’s hittin’ below the belt, Kee. That’s a real shot in the groin. We’re looking at mountains and snow here.”
“I say we give it a shot, H.P. If Aspen does get snowed in and we have to sit down someplace along the way, remember, he can’t get out either. At least we’ll be close. The minute the storm blows over we can move on him.”
“It’s gonna be colder’n hell out there”
“Then we’ll have to get some warm clothes.” Keegan said. “And we need to get ourselves a couple of pistols
They had picked up a strong tail wind somewhere over Missouri and were approaching the Colorado Rockies by three P.M. Ahead of them was a wall of ragged, threatening mountains. Black storm clouds broiled over angry, towering peaks draped in snow and ice and surrounded by ragged tors. As they flew toward the mass of rock and snow, howling winds began buffeting the small plane. For fifteen minutes Dryman tried to raise the radio at the Aspen airport without success. The storm rushing down from the north turned afternoon into twilight. The fuel gauge was twitching on empty.
Dryman pressed the button on his mike.
“Aspen local this is Army 457, do you read me? Over.”
Nothing.
“Either I can’t break through all this interference,” he yelled back to Keegan, “or they’ve shut down because of the storm.”
“Let’s just find the damn strip and get on the ground,” Keegan answered.
“Easier said than done,” Dryman answered. “There’s a fifteen-thousand-foot mountain between us and the town and so much snow on the ground we probably won’t be able to see it anyway. And these clouds aren’t helping. It’s getting darker by the minute.”
“Then put it down on the highway or in a field or any-damn where!”
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