Ace Atkins - Devil’s garden

Sam walked beside her on the long, endless deck of the ocean liner, other Pinkertons interviewing hundreds of passengers and checking their trunks and suitcases before they could head down the gangplank. City cops prowled the guts of the big ship, Sam spotting Chief of Detectives Matheson and Tom Reagan; Reagan caught Sam’s eye but turned back to interviewing the purser.

“I heard it’s not a half mil,” Daisy said. “They carried a half mil, but the robbers only got a hundred and a quarter.”

“Still, a nice haul.”

“Would set me up for a while.”

“You check every boat that comes in?”

“We had a tip about LaPeer,” Daisy said, walking beside Sam, strolling the top deck like an average couple taking in the sights, through the backed-up passengers and out onto the aft deck loaded down with bunches of green bananas. Daisy wore a cape with a blue jumper dress, and the wind blew the cape up off her shoulders while they walked. “But I figure they already dumped the hooch at the three-mile limit.”

“You miss me?”

“I ached,” she said. “In the gut.”

“Funny girl.”

“How ’bout you? How’s that baby?”

“A girl. Very pretty.”

“What’s her name?”

“Mary Jane.”

“Wife okay?”

“Dandy.”

“I like the tie.”

Sam looked down to see which one he put on with the tweeds that morning. Red with blue dots. He readjusted the cap on his head to block out the morning sun, finding the end of the boat and then turning around the bow and heading back around.

“So what happened, after you were south?”

“You shoulda seen Jack Lawrence after the bit with the lion. He was scared to death of me, practically begged to work for us. I think it was the lion balls in his face that did it, emasculated him. So, I set up a little meeting in Frisco with my boss, F. Forrest Mitchell, and he thought Lawrence was on the square, too. And we turned the son of a bitch loose.”

“And he ran.”

“No, not then,” Daisy said. “He was a good boy for a while. He went back to the same ring that supplied the booze for Fatty and ended up getting sent to Plumas County to help run a moonshine still with this fella named Clio. This old-timer Clio. You shoulda seen this guy, looked like a real miner forty-niner type with the whiskers and flop hat and all. He ran a fifty-gallon still in this abandoned lumber camp that was only eight miles from the Blairsden railroad station, where they’d move a lot of the stuff. We knew every move LaPeer was going to make but played it patient waiting for the good stuff to make its way from the Philippines or up in Canada. But all of our plans got shot to shit.”

A little girl in a straw hat with a pink ribbon turned to stare at Daisy with an open mouth and then leaned back over the ship’s railing and tossed bread crumbs to a dozen seagulls. The seagulls just hung in the wind, barely moving their wings, catching and fighting over the crumbs, another dozen joining the others squawking and fighting.

“LaPeer sniff him out?”

“Mr. Mitchell and I figure we got a rat on the inside,” Daisy said. She stopped walking and found a spot to lean over the rail and look out at the fishing boats heading out through the Golden Gate. “A few weeks back, LaPeer sends Jack Lawrence back to the old lumber camp with a letter, telling him to hand it off to Clio. And of course what does Lawrence do but open the son of a bitch. It read something like, ‘I don’t know whether to trust this Australian bastard or not, keep one eye open.’ That being kind of a joke between LaPeer and Clio, I guess, because Clio only had one eye.”

“Then he ran?”

“Scared shitless.”

Sam offered her a smoke.

“Don’t you have a coat?” she asked.

“I hocked it.”

“For what?”

“A nice cut of meat.”

“Hard times.”

“Not too bad,” Sam said. “I got some bum lungs and a lousy job. You read about all these vets who come home shell-shocked out of their mind and end up checking out early with a.45.”

“That’s a solid way to look at things, Sam.”

“It’s the truth,” he said, leaning over the railing with her, about the same spot over the edge and meeting her eye. She smiled at him and he smiled back.

“Don’t you need to work?”

“Guess so,” Sam said. “Waiting for the cops to finish up with the purser and then I’m headed down below.”

“What’s below?”

“Where they kept the money,” he said. “Stronghold. So they say it’s an inside job?”

“That’s what I heard.”

Sam nodded, still staring back at Daisy. He wanted to touch her face. She had a lovely cleft in her chin.

“They pulled me off the Arbuckle case.”

“This is a big job.”

“Wasn’t the job.”

“What was it?”

“Greed.”

“From who?”

“You ever feel like you’re no better than a prostitute?”

“Every day,” she said. “You got an alternative?”

THE THREE HUGE WOODEN DOORS were brought in during lunch and placed within the witness-box. Roscoe knew about them and the fingerprints, expected them, but didn’t think they were going to get into the whole mess today. When the jury was brought in, the men and women stared at the doors, as if they’d propped up a corpse for the viewing, something tangible, the first physical piece of the St. Francis they’d laid eyes on. Roscoe poured some water from the pitcher and leaned back into his seat. He took a swallow, and as U’Ren began Roscoe started to examine his cuticles, glancing up to the man sworn in by the judge.

E. O. Heinrich. A tall, gangly man in a rumpled black suit. He wore glasses but still needed to stare up at the judge and out at U’Ren. He was nervous and bookish and that all suited U’Ren well as the bastard continued to call the witness “Professor” on every occasion.

McNab waited a minute for the accolades and then pushed back his chair, standing and cutting off U’Ren’s reading of Heinrich’s résumé credentials.

“Your Honor, we challenge this witness as an expert.”

“On what grounds?” Louderback asked.

“We have no issue with Mr. McNab asking the witness a few questions before we proceed,” U’Ren said, a cracked smile showing. “In fact, we insist.”

McNab pursed his lips, nodding, moving toward the witness, wasting no time. “What cases have you testified for in this state?”

“In this state?” Heinrich asked.

“Yes.”

“None in this state.”

“So you have never testified in the state of California on fingerprints for any district attorney.”

“No, sir.”

“Where else have you testified in the Superior Court or a court of criminal jurisdiction?”

“In the state of Arizona and the state of Washington.”

“How often have you testified on fingerprints in the state of Washington?”

“Once.”

“How often in the state of Arizona?”

“Once.”

Brady and U’Ren stood in unison, Brady putting his mitt to U’Ren’s shoulder and seating the boy. He said, “Perhaps it would please Mr. McNab to have Professor Heinrich take the fingerprints of every jury member, have them secretly numbered, and then test his abilities.”

McNab stuck a thumb in his vest pocket and looked over the jury box and shook his head. “No,” he said. “No. That won’t be necessary.”

Louderback yawned and told U’Ren to please resume questioning the witness. And there were degrees and citations and awards and scientific papers, and as they continued McNab started to fidget and tighten his jaw, his rough, old-man breathing growing louder until he pushed back the heavy chair and stood. “I think we’re quite aware of Mr. Heinrich’s gold stars. May we continue?”