Clive Cussler - The Assassin

But to his disappointment, Forrer had not discovered any special connections between Spike Hopewell, Albert Hill, and Reed Riggs — no mutual partners, no known feuds. All they had in common was being independent oil men. Even if all of them were shot, the shootings were not related on a personal level.

“O.K.,” said Bell. “The only fact I know for sure is that Spike Hopewell was shot. Two questions, gents. By whom? And why?”

Archie said, “Hopewell had an enemy who hated him enough to kill and just happened to be a crack shot at seven hundred yards.”

“Or,” said Mack Fulton, “Hopewell had an enemy who hated him enough to hire someone to kill him who happened to be a crack shot at seven hundred yards.”

“Or,” said Wally Kisley, “Hopewell had an enemy who hated him enough to hire a professional assassin to kill him whose weapon of choice was a rifle with an effective range of over seven hundred yards.”

Bell said, “I’m betting on Wally’s professional.”

“That’s because a professional makes it more likely that your other two victims were actually shot. But, oh boy, Isaac, you’re talking about amazing shooting.”

“For the moment, let’s agree they were shot. Who’s the mastermind?”

“All three independent oil men were battling Standard Oil.”

“Was Hopewell a Congregationalist by any chance?” Wally Kisley asked. He grinned at Mack Fulton. The joke-cracking partners were known in the Van Dorn Agency as “Weber & Fields,” for the vaudeville comedians.

“Presbyterian.”

“Too bad,” said Wally. “We could have arrested Rockefeller if he was.”

The newspapers were full of stories about a Congregationalist Convocation in Boston that had turned down a million-dollar donation by John D. Rockefeller because Rockefeller’s money was “tainted.”

“That money sure is tainted,” chorused Wally and Mack. “’Tain’t yours! ’Tain’t mine!”

“Listen close,” said Bell, grinning. “The last words Hopewell said to me was that he had what he called tricks up his sleeve to build his tidewater pipe line. Wally and Mack, talk to everyone in Kansas who knew him. Find out his plan.”

“You got it, Isaac.”

“Archie? Run down Big Pete Straub. Find out where he was when Spike was shot. Find out if maybe I winged him with my Winchester. But watch yourself.”

“Thank you, Mother. But I think I can handle him.”

“That’s your call,” Bell shot back firmly, “if he’s alone. But if he’s running with a bunch, get ahold of Wally and Mack before you brace him. I’ll be back soon as I can.”

“Where you going, Isaac?”

“Washington, D.C.”

“But you don’t have anything to report.”

“I’m not going to report.”

“Then what are you going for?”

“To shake up the Boss.”

By 1905 the Van Dorn Detective Agency spanned the continent, with field offices in major cities and many towns. It maintained national headquarters at the Palmer House in Chicago, where Joseph Van Dorn had founded the fast-growing outfit. But Van Dorn himself — gambling that a private detective agency with a national reach could profit by contracting its services to a federal government ill-equipped to hunt modern criminals across state lines — spent more and more time in his Washington, D.C., field office.

It was at the new and unabashedly lavish Willard Hotel, two blocks from the White House, and Isaac Bell noted that it had grown by several more rooms since his last visit. He credited the Boss’s warming friendship with President Roosevelt, his industrious courting of the powers who ruled the Justice Department and the U.S. Navy, his honest name, his colorful reputation, broadcast in Sunday supplement features, and his Irish charm.

Van Dorn’s private office was a sumptuous walnut-paneled inner sanctum designed to make bankers, industrialists, senators, and cabinet secretaries feel at home. It was equipped like the nerve center of a great railroad, with numerous telephones, voice tubes, an electric intercom, a self-winding stock ticker, and a telegraph key for the agency’s private wire. Windows on two sides offered a preview of clients and informants arriving on Pennsylvania Avenue or 14th Street, and it had a spy hole for sizing up prospects in the reception room.

The Boss was a large, solid man in his forties with a friendly smile that could turn cold in a flash. He was bald, his skull a shiny, high dome, his cheeks and chin thick with red whiskers. Bristly brows, red as his beard and sideburns, shaded his eyes. Only when he opened them wide to stare a man full in the face did he reveal enormous intelligence and colossal determination. He could be mistaken for a well-off business man. Criminals who made that mistake, and they were legion, were marched off in handcuffs.

Van Dorn glanced up at Isaac Bell with genuine affection.

He was leaning over the mouthpiece of one of the three candlestick telephones on his desk, with one meaty fist pressing the earpiece to his ear. The other gripped a voice tube into which he issued a terse request. He replaced the voice tube stopper, roared orders into the telephone, banged the earpiece back on its hook, snatched up another telephone and purred, “Senator Stevens, I cannot recall such hospitality as was extended by you and Mrs. Stevens this past weekend…”

A secretary, in vest, bow tie, and shoulder-holstered, double-action Colt, hurried in, placed a typewritten letter on the desk, exchanged cylinders in the DeVeau Dictaphone, and hurried out with the full one.

“… Thank you, Senator. I hope you can join me for lunch at the Cosmos Club… Oh, yes, I belong. I can assure you that no one was more surprised than I when they tapped me to join. Who knows what the membership committee was thinking… I look forward to seeing you next week.”

He returned the earpiece to its hook and signed the letter on his desk.

“Good to see you, Isaac.”

“Good morning, sir. You’re looking prosperous.”

“Busy as a one-armed paperhanger. What brings you back from Kansas?”

“What may sound, at first, like a strange request.”

“I’ll judge what is strange. What do you want?”

“I want you to inveigle John D. Rockefeller into hiring the agency to arrest the marksman who murdered Spike Hopewell.”

Van Dorn sat back and regarded the tall detective speculatively.

“That is strange… even by your standards. Why would Rockefeller do that? He knows we’re investigating him for the Corporations Commission.”

“I brought you the latest newspapers from Topeka and Kansas City.”

Bell spread the Kansas Watchman , the Kansas City Journal , and the Kansas City Star on Van Dorn’s desk and showed him the headlines about the murder of Spike Hopewell. Then he opened them to the editorials.

Van Dorn read quickly. “They’re howling for Rockefeller’s hide. They’re practically claiming that Rockefeller pulled the trigger. Do they know something about the president of Standard Oil that we don’t?”

“Rockefeller did not shoot anyone, of course. But the killing is making him look even worse than the people of Kansas thought he was. And since Standard Oil locked up their pipe lines and their tank cars — and they were already mad as hornets about crude dropping to seventy cents a barrel and kerosene jumping to seventeen cents a gallon — they equate him with the devil.”

Van Dorn looked dubious. “You’re suggesting that if we catch the killer at Rockefeller’s behest, it will improve his reputation.”

“According to E. M. Hock, he has a slew of publicists on his payroll to improve his reputation. Being blamed for murder can’t be making their job any easier.”