H.J. Gaudreau - Jim Crenshaw 02 - The Collingwood Legacy (3 page)

Chapter 4

April – This Year

Herman James Crenshaw preferred to be called “Jim”. It never became an issue, but this morning a new teller at the bank had insisted he show two forms of identification. Ordinarily this wouldn’t bother Jim; in fact, he was a big believer of better safe than sorry, but in this instance the young man knew Jim personally. Not only that, but Jim was putting money into his checking account, not taking it out.

He knew everyone in town, they knew him. Jim had umpired the kid’s Little League games and coached his pee-wee basketball team. He knew it was “procedure,” but knowing everyone was why he’d returned to a small town and not retired in D.C. or Boston or some other big city.

Plus, the whole idea of showing two forms of identification to put money INTO his account struck him as absurd. Jim didn’t care who put money into his account; he just didn’t want anyone taking it out.

Leaving the building he shook his head, smiled and started his truck. He had two more stops on his morning errands. He needed to stop at the dollar store and pick up five packs of suckers, five packs of number 2 pencils and a pack of colored paper. Apparently, Eve’s kids had earned a reward of a sucker and had also broken, stolen or sharpened to extinction the five packs of pencils he bought two weeks ago. Computers and the internet hadn’t made pencils obsolete, at least in Eve’s classroom. Next was a quick stop at the combination feed and seed store and grain elevator office to check on the price of fertilizer. Here he parked his truck in front of the building, rolled both the passenger and driver’s windows up to the two-thirds position and got out. His dog Molly watched him walk away from the truck with sad eyes, gave one bark, then curled up in Jim’s seat to wait for his return.

April was a wonderful time of year, the snow was gone, there was always the chance of a tee shirt and shorts day, opening day of baseball season proved the Union would last at least another year, and best of all those fields around the house just looked anxious to get to work. Jim had planted corn the last three years and was beginning to think this might be a year for soybeans. Crop rotation was something he should pay attention to he knew, but he hadn’t owned the farm long enough for it to matter. Now, for some reason he couldn’t explain, it mattered. Jim had retired from the Air Force just six years ago. He’d worked for a defense contractor for a little while, found that to be an experience similar to a root canal without Novocain and quit. Four years ago he and his wife Eve had purchased their little sixty-acre farm. They’d taken a year to build a cottage style home, a barn and equipment shed and then planted their first crop. Jim grimaced as he recalled that first year. He termed that year’s crop a “learning experience.” Eve called it a disaster. Since then Jim had learned about seed depth, acid balance, seed spacing, nitrogen requirements, soil types, nematodes, a multitude of bugs, various fungi, and a host of other things that he’d never thought of before. He loved it.

Returning to the farm Jim parked the pickup in front of the garage, opened the truck door and moved aside as Molly rushed to be the first to the house. Jim walked to the rear of the truck, grabbed an armful of bags and headed for the house. Placing the bags on the kitchen table he filled Molly’s water bowl, stood, then noticed the light on the telephone answering machine. Pushing “Play” he heard the welcome voice of his sister, Sherrie.

Chapter 5

The light turned red and Sol Levine braked the car to a stop. He checked the rear-view mirror for what must have been the fiftieth time. He had just witnessed three men murdered. He was on the edge of panic. What had he been thinking? In the confusion of the murders he’d grabbed the briefcase and run. He’d taken money from the Purple Gang; it was a death sentence.

His forehead was covered with sweat. He took off his brown fedora and wiped the hatband with his handkerchief. His hands were shaking. Sol had to get out of Detroit, he knew that, he just didn’t know how. He checked the rear-view mirror again.

Sol had circled Detroit twice trying to decide what to do. Evening had turned to night; night was becoming morning. No one was behind him…for now. There would be. He thought he spotted a familiar Packard. Frantically he pressed the accelerator. Sol came to Jefferson Avenue and smashed the brake, attempted to downshift and missed the gear. The transmission gave a loud clatter and rattled the shift lever in his hand. He found third gear and accelerated as he turned left on Jefferson to parallel the Detroit River. He had to calm down.

Sol took a deep breath. He passed Owens Park, then Memorial Park. Suddenly Sol was inspired. He’d worked for Izzy Sutker before. A couple of times he’d helped Izzy unload booze at a boathouse just down the street. Once, Izzy had taken him on a run to Canada. They’d crossed at night, loaded the booze on the boat and come back all in one night. He’d made fifty bucks for one night’s work. The more he thought about it the better Sol liked his idea. What better place to hide out than in the Purples own boathouse

He slowed when he came to the Detroit Water Works building. A little further and he’d found a small dirt path, more a driveway than a side street. The big Chrysler crept silently down the small two-lane path, coasting to a stop at the water’s edge. Sol turned the lights of the car off and carefully studied his rear-view mirrors. Nothing moved. No one had followed him. Sol had never owned a gun, he wished he did now. This was not a totally safe place, but it was the only place he was sure they wouldn’t be looking.

He stepped down from the car and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. After a moment he was calm, well, as calm as he could be right now. Sol carefully examined his surroundings. He was alone. No, maybe not. Maybe they were waiting for him. He couldn’t decide. He stood next to the open door, engine running. Again Sol checked his surroundings. No one was here. He was almost sure. He bent into the car to shut off the engine. If someone was going to grab him it was going to be now.

With a grimace Sol turned the key. The engine died. He listened to the night. A horn blared in the distance. Street noise filtered down between the warehouses and garages along Jefferson. Against Windsor’s lights he could see a working boat making its way toward lake Huron. Sol relaxed just a little.

Nervously Sol fingered the newspaper bag. He glanced left, then right, took a deep breath and sprinted across the parking lot to a small boathouse and slipped inside. Happy that he hadn’t been gunned down before he reached the door Sol sat down on the floor and caught his breath. He started a nervous laugh. After a few minutes he stood up, cracked the door open, and peered into the night.

Nothing moved.

Sol turned and groped his way across the building. Eventually outstretched hands found a workbench. Reaching into his pocket he found a match box. Fishing one out he gripped it in his fist and flicked his thumbnail against the match head. It flared and Sole tried to get his bearings. Quickly the match burned down; he struck another. He fixed the layout of the building in his mind and began to work his way to the end of a long workbench. There, he searched the wall.

It took a minute, but soon Sol found what he was looking for. He struck another match, turned up the wick in an oil lantern and a quiet light illuminated the inside of the building. Across from the bench, resting peacefully at its moorings sat a beautiful Chris-Craft cruiser.

Sol didn’t pause to admire the boat. Taking a small step stool from its hook Sol placed it on the edge of the dock. A moment later he was aboard the boat and opening the door to the small cabin below. There he slid into the cabin booth and emptied the newspaper bag on the table. Out fell a small tin, several newspapers and packs of money.

Sol was amazed. The sight of the money didn’t erase stupid, but it did make Sol brave. He quickly counted the cash, twenty packs of hundreds. Twenty thousand dollars per pack, four hundred thousand dollars. He grinned. This was the big score. Sol would be sitting pretty the rest of his life, all he had to do was grab his girl and get out of town. He could easily get lost in Canada somewhere. He’d always heard that Toronto was a pretty town, maybe Montreal…the possibilities were nearly endless.

Sol picked up the tin. It was a Blue Bird caramel container. Opening the top he shook out the contents. A pile of baseball cards, a few coins, several packs of cigarettes and a handful of caramels. He grinned, unwrapped a caramel and stuffed it into his mouth; this was perfect. Sol pocketed the coins, some of the caramels and two packs of cigarettes. He scooped the rest back into the tin. Pressing the cover onto the can he shoved it into the bottom of the newspaper bag. Still this was serious business. He had to think.

Gradually the grin returned. Sol got up from the bench seat and made his way to the boat’s forward cabin. Here he removed a board from the floor to expose a small compartment. This compartment extended forward three feet and was specifically built to hold five cases of Canadian whiskey. Sol had loaded this very compartment when he’d gone on the trip with Izzy. Normally, no one would find it. But Sol knew that his friends were also his enemies and they knew about the compartment as well as he did.

Leaving the boat and returning to the workbench Sol took a few moments to find the tools he needed. He tied on a carpenter’s apron, shoved the tools he’d selected in the apron and hurried back to the cruiser. Feeling better about his chances by the moment Sol sprinted up the small foot stool and bounced onto the cruiser’s deck. Moving into the cabin, he pushed the compartment cover out of his way and lay on the floor. Then, turning on his back Sol wedged himself into the whiskey compartment.

He lay there for a moment, head and shoulders in the compartment, heels on the deck. The edge of the compartment cutting into the small of his back.

Reaching with his right hand he grabbed the lantern and sat it on the floor of the compartment above his left shoulder. Now he had light. Removing a screwdriver from the carpenter’s apron he reached above his head deep into the compartment and began removing the brass screws which held the end board.

After a few minutes he had all eight out and was able to pull the board away from its frame. Sol then took the canvas newspaper bag, wrapped it in newspapers, and wedged it into the bilge of the cruiser. Forty minutes later he had replaced the endboard and painted a fresh coat of shellac over the entire compartment. No one would find any evidence of his handiwork.

He crawled out of the hole, stood and rubbed his lower back. Then Sol took a bottle of Windsor Canadian from behind the captain’s seat and sat down at the settee. A grin began to grow; Sol lifted the bottle, toasted the now dead “Captain” Izzy and took a long pull. He imagined his girl Dolly in the finest Chicago fashions; she’d look just like Gretta Garbo. He pictured her leaning on a long bar and whispering, “Give me a whiskey, ginger ale on the side, and don’t be stingy, baby.” Just like Garbo herself.

He’d get himself a new suit and look just like Cagney. He had it planned. The grin broaden to a smile, things were looking up. Sol killed the light and went to the front of the boathouse. A narrow walkway extended along the wall to the opening and around the side of the building. It allowed operation of a large, garage-like door into the boathouse. Sol could just squeeze around the wall without falling in the river.

Sol liked this, it allowed him to see the surrounding area from a place no one would suspect. He studied the shadows between the buildings, the light was low, the morning sun was just peeking over Windsor. Satisfied that no one was watching Sol jumped to the shore then sprinted to the Chrysler. Starting the car Sol grinned again. “Who knows? Maybe Dolly Eleanor Grongoski would even become an honest woman,” he thought.

Chapter 6

Dolly Grongoski was not a shy wallflower. Raised on the poor, sandy soil of northern Michigan she was used to long days, hard work and hard people. Small, just five foot four inches tall and skinny, too skinny by her own standards, she had left the farm for a job in Detroit the day she turned eighteen. That was just under a year ago. She’d fallen in with hard people and lived a hard life, but she was proud of the fact that never, not once, had any of them been able to take advantage of her. She could out think them, and she wasn’t afraid of a fight.

The one bright spot in the past year had been Sol. She didn’t love him, he wasn’t very smart and he could never make it on a farm back home, but he had a kind heart and he gave her lots of things and spent money on her when he had it. It was a good deal for both of them; she only worried about getting pregnant.

But Sol was not her dream. Dolly intended to be someone, she did not want to end up like her mother or cousins. Spending the rest of her life ironing someone else’s shirts or feeding chickens was not her idea of a life. She would be a nurse or a school teacher or a secretary to some big executive.

To add color to the dream Dolly liked to take the bus all the way out to Ann Arbor on her days off. That’s where she was this morning. She would walk across the University campus and pretend she was a student. She would sit on the benches, admire the clothes the girls wore, and dream about having something more than a tenth grade education.

At noon Dolly began to get hungry. She used the engineering building’s archway to leave the campus and made her way south on University Avenue. Soon she came to the East Quadrangle dormitory. She waited until several students were entering the building and joined the crowd.

A blond haired boy politely held the door and Dolly was in. Carefully she explored the building. It only took a few minutes and she’d found what she had come for, the cafeteria line. The line moved steadily along and Dolly closely watched the process at the door. A student sitting on a stool fought off boredom while checking each person’s University identification card. Several of the students claimed they had forgotten their ID card or had otherwise lost it. The ID checker then consulted a list, found the name, then passed the offending party into the land of food and ice cream. Satisfied, Dolly gave up her position in line.

A few minutes later she was again outside the building’s main entrance. She waited until one of the school’s few women students approached, then leaned against a light post and began to cry. The young woman immediately came to her aid.

“Hi…ahhhh….are you all right?” she asked.

“Nooooo.” Dolly moaned. “I just broke up with my boyfriend, and I want to go home.” She tucked her chin down to her chest and gave a few silent sobs.

“Oh honey, that’s tough.” The girl put a hand on Dolly’s shoulder. “We’ve all been through it. Maybe you should go back to your room and lay down.”

“No, I can’t, I’ve got to go to class,” Dolly sobbed.

“Well, you can’t go to class crying like this. Come on, I’ll walk you back to your room.” The girl gently took Dolly’s elbow.

“Thank you,” Dolly said and let herself be led along. After a few steps, in her most pitiful voice, Dolly said, “What’s your name?”

“I’m Mary Ellen Bennett. What’s yours?”

“I’m Debbie Williams.” A few steps later Dolly shook herself, stood to her maximum height and in her most confident voice announced. “Oh, I’m alright. I’m not going to let him ruin my life. I really should go to class, it’ll be fine.”

Mary Ellen smiled, “That’s the spirit. You’ll have another boyfriend in no time, you’ll see.”

Mary Ellen didn’t take a great deal of convincing and soon she went on her way. Dolly waited until the girl was out of sight then slipped back into the dormitory and rejoined the line for the cafeteria.

It wasn’t such a pleasant day for Sol. He was on a frantic search for her. Nervously watching his rearview mirror Sol visited the diner where Dolly worked, checked her apartment and searched her favorite stores. The afternoon was slipping away and, afraid to return to his own shabby room, Sol took up residence in a bar on Fort Street. There he began calling her boarding house phone every thirty minutes.

At six that evening Dolly was back in Detroit climbing the stairs to her flat when Mrs. Boardman, the boarding house owner, stopped her.

“Dolly, a man’s been looking for you. Wouldn’t say his name. I don’t approve of men in the building miss. You know the rules.”

Dolly thought a moment, decided it had to be Sol, then examined the exceedingly large woman. Using her most charming smile Dolly said, “He’s my cousin, I’m sure this is about my mother. She’s very sick you know.” The woman eyed Dolly. “I’m sure,’ she said, then slammed her door.

Shortly after Dolly had closed her apartment door the phone at the end of the hall rang. It was answered by one of the building’s tenants. Seconds later the loud cry, “Dolly, ya got a lover on the line,” careened through the house. A minute later Dolly was talking to Sol.

“Dolly, babe, where ya been?” he didn’t wait for an answer. “Never mind, I’ve got some big news. We’ve hit the big time baby. I need to pick you up. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Meet me in back of the building.’ And, before Dolly could argue Sol had hung up.

They drove to Grosse Pointe just to get out of the city and let Sol explain what he had seen and done. Dolly at first panicked. She wanted out of the car and intended to run as far from Sol as she could. She was no fool and knew what happened to people who crossed the Purples.

It took a while, but eventually he convinced her to calm down. When he did, Dolly began to think the situation over very carefully. Sol said he had a lot of money, more than a lot. And he wasn’t lying. He was too scared to be lying, she could tell. She asked a few questions and slowly it came to her. This was legit. Dolly was convinced; this was their chance for a big score and to get out of Detroit.

They ate an early dinner in Hamtramck, then headed to the river. Dolly insisted on stopping at her apartment for a change of clothes and to pick up some keepsakes she’d brought from home. Then they headed to Sol’s apartment.