The Assassin Read online

  “Mostly, like you said, they heard that somebody saw Straub, somewhere—that’s Big Pete Straub, Miss Hock, a Standard—”

  “Mr. Straub was just promoted to refinery police superintendent,” Edna interrupted.

  “Which means he travels anywhere he pleases,” said Bell. “Go on, Archie.”

  “I did find one guy who claimed to see Mr. Straub renting a horse in Fort Scott.”

  “Did he see the horse?”

  “Said it was tall as a Clydesdale.”

  “The one I saw was a mighty lean Clydesdale. Are your witnesses suggesting Standard Oil’s motive for setting the fire?”

  “One school of rumor says Standard Oil wants to shut down Kansas production to raise the price of oil by limiting the product reaching market.”

  Bell looked to see Edna’s reaction. She said, “The Standard is still heavily invested in the Pennsylvania and Indiana fields. They’re somewhat depleted, so the oil is more expensive to pump. The Standard will lose money if they don’t keep the price up.”

  “What else, Archie?”

  “Another rumor, a doozy, claims that Standard Oil is laying pipe lines straight through Kansas to tap richer fields in Oklahoma. After they connect those fields to their interstate pipe line, they’ll bypass Kansas oil completely and shut down Kansas production. Then when the producers are forced to the wall, the Standard will buy their leases cheap and lock the oil in the ground for the future. Their future.”

  Bell looked again to Edna Matters.

  The newspaperwoman laughed. “When you grow up with a father in the oil business, you learn that rumors about Standard Oil are always true. And JDR hears them first.”

  “What about this one?” asked Bell.

  “The Kansas part fits their pattern. Indian Territory and Oklahoma appear rich in new strikes. But the Standard’s pattern does not include shooting people and setting fires.”

  “Exactly what Spike Hopewell told me.”

  Edna Matters said, “Clearly, Mr. Hopewell was murdered. But there’s no evidence of the cause of the fire.”

  “Yet,” said Bell. He conceded that the only crime that he knew for sure had occurred was the sniper killing of Spike Hopewell. If anyone could determine the cause of the fire, it was Detective Wally Kisley. But to get the best work out of Wally, he had to stay out of his way until he asked for a hand.

  Archie asked, “How does John D. Rockefeller hear the rumors first?”

  “When two men shake hands, JDR knows the terms of their deal before they report to their front offices.”

  “How?” asked Bell.

  “He pays spies to keep him ahead of every detail in business and politics. Refiners, distributors, drillers, railroad men, politicians. He calls them correspondents.”

  “Does he pay newspaper reporters?”

  Edna Matters Hock smiled at the tall detective. “He’s been known to ask reporters.”

  “What do they say?”

  “I can’t report on other reporters. There are confidences involved. Among friends.”

  “Do you have any personal experience in what reporters say?” Archie asked, his most eligible bachelor in New York smile working overtime.

  Edna smiled back. “Personally? I quoted my father’s old partner, poor Mr. Hopewell.”

  “What did Hopewell say?”

  “Why don’t you ask Mr. Bell? He was the last to speak with him.”

  Bell said, “He told Rockefeller to go to blazes.”

  “Actually,” Edna corrected, “he was paraphrasing. What he originally said, at least according to my father, was, ‘I’d join Satan first.’”

  “How did Rockefeller respond to your preference for Satan?”

  “I haven’t a clue. JDR does not ask in person. He sends people who ask for him.”

  “He’s a famous negotiator. Did they come back with a counteroffer?”

  Edna Matters answered Bell seriously. “They asked me to reconsider. So I did. JDR never gives interviews. I said, All right, I’ll fill you in on some things I learn if, in return, Mr. Rockefeller will sit down with me and my questions for a full day interview.”

  “What happened?”

  “I never heard back.”

  “But it’s interesting,” said Bell. “That he doesn’t seem to hold your writing against your father. I understand he is a member of the inner circle.”

  “My father is a valuable man, and JDR appreciates valuable men.”

  “Even valuable men whose daughters are a thorn in his side? He can’t love your articles. You’ve exposed all sorts of behavior, both underhanded and outright illegal.”

  Edna asked, “Doesn’t his willingness not to hold me against my father speak rather highly of Mr. Rockefeller?”

  Wally Kisley hurried up, grease-smudged and reeking of smoke. He tipped his derby to Edna. “Isaac, when you have a moment . . .”

  Bell said, “Be right there. Come along, Archie.”

  They followed Wally toward the tank that had exploded first.

  “Extraordinary!” said Archie. “A journalist who doesn’t reek of booze and cigars.”

  “Hands off,” said Bell. “I saw her first.”

  “If I weren’t almost engaged to a couple of ladies due to inherit steel mills, I would give you a run for your money.”

  Bell said, “Keep in mind the sooner we arrest the marksman who shot Spike Hopewell, the sooner you can go back to catching your jewel thief.”

  “What does that have to do with Miss E. M. Hock?”

  “It means go find witnesses. I’ll deal with Wally.”

  Archie made a beeline for the caboose saloon. Bell caught up with Wally Kisley at a heap of ash and warped metal where the crude storage tank had folded up like a crumpled paper bag.

  Wally said, “It blew when you were down by the creek, right?”

  Bell pointed. “Past that bend.”

  “By any chance did you hear a second shot fired?”

  “Not down there.”

  “How about behind you? Back at the oil field.”

  “I heard something. I don’t know if it was a shot.”

  “Could it have been?”

  “It could have been. There was a heck of a racket all at once. Why?”

  “I found this,” said Wally. He was holding an oddly shaped, rounded piece of cast iron by a square bracket attached to the top. “Careful, it’s still hot. Take my glove.” He passed Bell his left glove and Bell held the metal in it.

  “Heavy.”

  He examined it closely. It was six inches high. On one side, the entire surface was pocked with minute indentations, as if a blacksmith had peened it with a hammer. “It’s shaped like an upside-down duck.”

  “I thought the same thing, at first.”

  Bell upended it and held it with the bracket under it. “It is a duck.”

  “Shaped like a duck.”

  “You know what this is?” said Bell.

  “You tell me.”

  Bell had apprenticed under Wally and his ofttimes partner, Mack Fulton, years ago, and one of the many things he had learned from the veteran investigators was not to voice an opinion until a second brain had an opportunity to observe without being influenced by the first.

  “It’s a knockdown target. A shooting gallery duck.”

  Wally nodded. “That bracket attaches to the target rail. The duck hinges down when a bullet hits it.”

  “Where’d you find it?”

  “Thirty feet from the first tank that blew.”

  “What do you think?”

  “The racket you heard right before the explosion could have included a rifle shot, a bullet smashing into this duck, and a blasting cap.”

  “So while I was chasing the sniper on the horse, another marksman detonated the explosive
that ignited the fire.”

  “That’s my read. He shot the duck, which jarred a blasting cap.”

  “Or,” said Bell, “the man I chased led me on a wild-goose chase while the real assassin stayed put to set the fire.”

  “High marks for a sense of humor,” said Wally Kisley. “Using a shooting gallery duck for a target.”

  “I’m not laughing,” said Isaac Bell. “But I will give them high marks for the nerve it took to set up the duck, the cap, and the dynamite right under everyone’s noses. I wonder why nobody noticed.”

  “Oil fever. Too busy getting rich.”

  5

  Midnight was warmed by a slight breeze as a crescent moon inched toward the west. The assassin sat on a large barrel that had been cut into a chair in front of the switching office of the railroad freight yard. The interior was dark and empty since no trains were due to leave or arrive until late the next morning.

  The assassin lit a Ramón Allones Havana cigar and retrieved from a coat pocket a leather pouch that contained a gold medal, a fifty-dollar bill, and a letter on heavy stock. The touch of wind dissipated an attempt at blowing a self-satisfied smoke ring.

  The medal was as heavy as a double eagle gold piece. And the center was fashioned like a target, with concentric rings and a single dot in the precise center of the bull’s-eye. It hung from a red ribbon that was attached to a gold bar pin engraved “Rifle Sharpshooter.”

  The fifty-dollar treasury note would have been just another bill of paper money except when you turned it over you saw that the president had signed the back—as if, the assassin often thought, the busy president had suddenly shouted, “Wait! Bring that back. I’ll sign it for that fine young soldier.”

  It had to be Roosevelt’s signature because it matched his signature on the commendation letter that the president had typed, as he was known to do with personal letters, on White House letterhead. The assassin read it by the light of a globe above the switching office door for perhaps the hundredth time:

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  Washington

  October 1, 1902

  I have just been informed that you have won the President’s Match for the military championship of the United States of America. I wish to congratulate you in person . . .

  The assassin skipped some folderol about honoring the regiment and the value of volunteer soldiers—as if their eyes had sighted the targets and their fingers caressed the trigger. Fat chance. Then came the best part.

  I congratulate you and your possession of the qualities of perseverance and determination—

  A sound of footsteps on gravel interrupted all thought. Quickly, everything went back into the leather pouch and was returned to the coat pocket.

  “Why here?” Bill Matters grunted. “We could have met in the comfort of my private car.”

  “Too ostentatious,” said the assassin. “I have always preferred a life of simplicity.” Before Matters could reply, the assassin motioned to another barrel chair with the cigar. “I admit they’d be more comfortable with seat cushions.”

  Even in the dark Matters showed his anger. “Why in blazes—why in the face of all good sense—did you shoot Hopewell when the detective was with him?”

  The assassin made no apology and offered no regret but retorted loftily, “To paraphrase the corrupt Tammany Haller Senator Plunkitt, I saw my shot and I took it.”

  Bill Matters felt his heart pounding with rage. “All my kowtowing to those sanctimonious sons of bitches and you blithely undermine my whole scheme.”

  “I got away clean. The detective never came close to me.”

  “You brought a squad of Van Dorns to the state.”

  “We’re done in this state.”

  “We’re done when I say we’re done.”

  Matters was deeply troubled. His killer, who was vital to his plan, operated in a world and a frame of mind beyond his control, much less his understanding: efficient as a well-oiled machine, with gun in hand, but possessed off the killing field by a reckless faith that nothing could ever go wrong, that fortune would never turn nor consequences catch up.

  “I’m surprised by your disappointment.” There was a pause to exhale a cloud of cigar smoke. “I naturally thought you would celebrate your old friend’s departure.”

  “Van Dorn detectives have a saying: ‘We never give up!’”

  To Matters’ disgust, this drew another, even colder response. “Never? I have a saying, too: ‘Never get too close to me.’ If he does, I will kill him.” The assassin flicked an ash from the cigar. “Who’s next?”

  “There’s a fellow giving me trouble in Texas.”

  “Who?”

  “C. C. Gustafson.”

  “Ah!”

  The killer nodded in vigorous agreement, admiring Bill Matters’ cunning. C. C. Gustafson was not merely a newspaper publisher and a thorn in Matters’ side but a vocal foe of Standard Oil and a firebrand instigator beloved by the reformers hell-bent on driving the trust out of Texas.

  Matters said, “With a crackerjack Van Dorn private detective on the case—thanks to you—we’ve got to throw off suspicion.”

  Nothing in the murderer’s expression indicated the minutest acceptance of blame. In fact, it looked as if the murder of Spike Hopewell under the nose of a Van Dorn had been completely forgotten while Matters’ inclusive “we” had kindled delight.

  “May I offer you a fine cigar?”

  Matters simply shook his head no.

  “Brilliant! Public outrage expects the worst of Standard Oil. They’ll blame Gustafson’s killing on the bogeyman everyone loves to hate.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “Can I do it?” The assassin accepted the assignment with a dramatic flourish: “You may consider Mr. C. C. Gustafson’s presses stopped.”

  Matters did not doubt they’d be stopped. A bullet through the head would take care of that. But what bothered him the most was how near was his private assassin to flying out of control.

  6

  Isaac Bell went looking for the coroner in Independence, the Montgomery County seat, not far from the Indian Territory border. The courthouse clerk directed him to the coroner’s undertaking parlor. A plumber repairing the refrigerating plant told Bell to try the jailhouse. Dr. McGrade was visiting the jailer in his apartment above the cells. They were drinking whiskey in tea cups and invited Bell to join them.

  Like most Kansans Bell had met, Dr. McGrade was fully aware of the Corporations Commission investigation and hugely in favor of any action that reined in Standard Oil. Bell explained his connection.

  “Glad to help you, Detective, but I’m not sure how. Didn’t the Bourbon County coroner conduct the autopsy on Mr. Hopewell?”

  “I’ve already spoken with him. I’m curious about the death of Albert Hill.”

  “The refinery fellow,” Dr. McGrade told the jailer, “who drowned in the still.”

  The jailer sipped and nodded. “Down in Coffeyville.”

  Bell asked, “When you examined Mr. Hill’s body, did you see any signs of bullet wounds?”

  “Bullet wounds? You must be joking.”

  “I am not joking. Did you see any bullet wounds?”

  “Why don’t you read my report from the inquest.”

  “I already have, at the courthouse.”

  “Well, heck, then you know Mr. Hill tumbled into a still of boiling oil. By the time someone noticed and fished him out, about all that was left was his skeleton and belt buckle. The rest of him dissolved . . .” He paused for a broad wink. “Now, this wasn’t in my report: His belt buckle looked fine.”

  “How about his bones? Were any broken?”

  “Fractured femur. Long knitted. Must have busted his leg when he was a kid.”

  “No holes in his skull?”

  “Just the ones God put ther
e for us all to see and hear and breathe and eat and whatnot.”

  “And no damage to the vertebrae in his neck?”

  “That I can’t say for sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t understand what this has to do with the Corporations Commission . . .”

  Bell saw no reason not to take the coroner and the jailer into his confidence. If the word got around, someone might come to him with more information about Albert Hill. He said, “Seeing as how Mr. Hopewell was shot while I was discussing the commission investigation with him, I am interested in running down the truth about the deaths of other independent oil men.”

  “O.K. I get your point.”

  “Why can’t you say for sure whether the vertebrae in Mr. Hill’s neck suffered damage?”

  “I didn’t find all of them. The discs and cartilage between them must have dissolved and the bones scattered.”

  “That wasn’t in your report.”

  “It did not seem pertinent to the cause of death.”

  “Did that happen to the vertebrae in his spine?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did his thoracic and lumbar vertebrae separate and ‘scatter’ the way you’re assuming his cervical vertebrae did?”

  The doctor fell silent. Then he said, “Now that you ask, no. The spine was intact. As was most of the neck.”

  “Most?”

  “Two vertebrae were attached to the skull. Four were still connected to the spine—the thoracic vertebrae.”

  “How many cervical vertebrae are there in the human skeleton? Seven?”

  “Seven.”

  “So we’re missing only one.”

  The doctor nodded. “One. Down in the bottom of the still. Dissolved by now, of course. Distilled into fuel oil, or kerosene or gasoline, even lubricants.”

  “But . . .”

  “But what, Mr. Bell?”

  “Doesn’t it make you curious?”

  “About what?”

  “You say two cervical vertebrae were still attached to the skull. So the missing vertebra would be cervical number three, wouldn’t it?”

  “Three it was.”

  “Wouldn’t you love to get a gander at cervical two and cervical four?”