The Little Engine That Killed: Double V Mysteries, #7

By Jacqueline Lynch

The week before Christmas 1951, Juliet and Elmer are hired by a retired factory owner to find the missing money his son-in-law stole sixteen years ago. The culprit is being released from prison. His wife is expecting him. So is her younger sister. So is the former co-worker who arrives to meet him at the train station with a gun.

 

Did the thief have an accomplice?  How many, Juliet and Elmer included, are going to follow him in hopes of retrieving the stolen money from its hiding place?

 

It's a holiday rush to get things done, and to wrap up old resentments, rivalries, and crimes, with a neat bow before the deadline of Christmas Eve when debts, and blackmail, comes due.

 

If you like the romance and charm of a classic film, this will remind you of an era of character-driven stories—and pop culture of times past comes alive again.

But trouble sometimes comes in small packages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jacqueline T. Lynch
• Release date: Nov 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223015369

Book preview

This book is dedicated to John Hayes—

poet and proofreader, bard and musician, renaissance man, and dear friend.

NO AI TRAINING:  Without in any way limiting the author’s/publisher’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited.  The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

The week before Christmas 1951, Juliet and Elmer are hired by a retired factory owner to find the missing money his son-in-law stole sixteen years ago. The culprit is being released from prison. His wife is expecting him. So is her younger sister. So is the former co-worker who arrives to meet him at the train station with a gun.

Did the thief have an accomplice?  How many, Juliet and Elmer included, are going to follow him in hopes of retrieving the stolen money from its hiding place?

It’s a holiday rush to get things done, and to wrap up old resentments, rivalries, and crimes, with a neat bow before the deadline of Christmas Eve when debts, and blackmail, comes due.

If you like the romance and charm of a classic film, this will remind you of an era of character-driven stories—and pop culture of times past comes alive again.

But trouble sometimes comes in small packages.

Chicopee Falls area topographical map, U.S. Geological Survey 1946

Chicopee Falls c. 1912, Richards Map Company, Atlas of Hampden Co., Mass.

Chapter One

He jumped at the train whistle.  His heart pounding, the whistle seemed unusually shrill to him.  He squinted into the fine pelting of sleet in the light above him on the station platform.  The overcast skies of a late December afternoon brought twilight at an absurdly early hour.  He touched the gun in his coat pocket once more.

The snow over the weekend covered the ground, most of the roads still being plowed, and had been shoveled into lumpy piles along sidewalks and banked against homes and buildings. The thick whiteness all around reflected what little light there was and made it seem easier to see in the growing darkness.  He could see the stream of fine sleet in the headlamp’s beam of the westbound train streaking down the track in the distance. 

Momentarily mesmerized by the locomotive slowly pulling in, he mused, chagrined that he should be surprised by the sight of a diesel.  Of course, the old steam locomotives were quickly being replaced, even on the Boston and Maine, but there was a time when he could have told the difference between a steam-powered B-15 Mogul and an Atlantic, or a Pacific P-2 not just by sight, but by sound.  Watching them from the office window nudge around the bend and crawl into the yard had been one of his greatest pleasures.  He grudgingly gave diesels credit for being powerful, but he had no feeling for them.  They were like so many things these days: utilitarian, going at a faster pace, and without beauty.

The platform was crowded; the sight of the train pulling into the station brought travelers from the overcrowded waiting room.  It had been predicted to be a very busy travel season so close to Christmas.  He searched the faces of the passengers alighting from the coach cars.

They came by twos and threes, and then in a swarm past him, mingling with those waiting to board the train.  Frustration, even a sense of panic, emboldened him and made him block with his body those attempting to pass him, so that he might see the face he wanted to see.

Irritated travelers dodged and elbowed him, in no mood to brook a man so devoid of platform etiquette. 

He grabbed an arm of the oncoming man.  The man pushed him away.  He lost his balance and tumbled off the train platform onto the cold, wet track below.  He later remembered hearing a bang and another train whistle, softer this time, from a distance.  It was the approaching eastbound.  He remembered nothing after that.

***

Three weeks earlier, Thanksgiving Day, 1951.

––––––––

Robert Forde, though having spent Thanksgiving dinner earlier with his family, had no reservations about joining Elmer and Juliet for yet another piece of pumpkin pie.  That the invitation brought him to Juliet’s father’s Victorian gothic mansion on Farmington Avenue in Hartford was the clincher.  His favorite moment of the evening might have been watching Elmer request drinks and coffee from Mr. Van Allen’s butler, Frederick, in the master’s study.

Robert raised his eyebrows demonstratively, and Elmer smirked.

I can see you’re getting way too used to this, Robert remarked, taking the cup and saucer Elmer handed him.

Some things you don’t get used to, you just take what comes.

Yeah, I’ll take this. ‘Thank you, Frederick,’ he mimicked.

I didn’t say it like that.

Yeah, you did.

Juliet entered, waving the gentlemen down when they stood.  This has been a day among days.

Elmer handed her a cup of coffee, having already put in the milk and sugar to her liking.  Robert took note of that as well.

Do you know, she continued, sitting on the leather sofa, "my father is in the library with Jane, pretending to nod off in his chair, and allowing her to change the radio from the news to a children’s program."  She said it like he had turned a blind eye while Jane robbed a bank.

Elmer smiled.  He turned one of the Queen Anne chairs around from the front of the desk to face her, and picked up his coffee.  Robert sat beside Juliet on the couch and continued to regard them both. 

Robert said, So the old gent’s taken to the little girl?

So it would seem, Elmer replied.  Did you think he would? he asked Juliet.

No.  I did not, or at least, I was afraid we would have one of our usual fights before he finally washed his hands of it.  But that’s not the least of it.  He’s ordered a Christmas present for her from G. Fox to be delivered here next week when she’s back at school.  It’s an enormous dollhouse.  He told me because he wanted to make sure I didn’t get the same thing.  He’s going to have Frederick haul it up to the attic to hide it there until Christmas.  He said this to me with a straight face.  She shook her head at the wonder of it.

Sounds like he’s in grandpa training, Robert said.

He went down to the toy department and picked it out himself.

Elmer chuckled.  Maybe he’s having his own second childhood.

He never had a first one.

Juliet, Robert sipped from his cup, am I the first colored man to be a guest in this house?

Juliet shot an embarrassed glance at him.  Yes, Robert, as far as I know.

Robert nodded and grinned.  Well, considering he only just got used to Elmer, I take that as a great compliment.

Inviting you was my father’s idea.  Juliet said, When I told him Elmer would be leaving right after dinner to meet up with you, because you would only be in town for the day, he said to invite you for dinner.  I told him you were having dinner with your family, and he insisted I invite you for dessert.

Ah, he wanted to keep his boy Elmer here.

I hope we didn’t drag you away from your family, Juliet said. How is your grandmother?

Grandma’s fine, and it was her special wish that I go with her to Thanksgiving dinner to the cousins’ house, otherwise I wouldn’t have set foot near it.  Roderick was there.  He scowled into his cup.

Elmer explained, Roderick got an electric train for Christmas when they were kids.

Juliet patted Robert’s hand.  I understand, dear.

You can both knock it off, it was traumatic.  I’ll never get over it.  I got underwear and a top, he gets a Lionel five-car freight train.  With a red caboose.  That’s why I ended up in a life a crime and going to prison. 

Elmer roared. 

Hey, Robert brightened, that’s what you should get Jane for Christmas, a train.

Then you could play with it, Elmer said.

Juliet scoffed, I know just what my father would say to that.  ‘Trains are for boys.’ 

Elmer was less surprised than Juliet was at her father’s interest in Jane, who recently became Juliet’s foster child, a souvenir, as Elmer called her, of their last case.  He knew that Jonas Van Allen, Juliet’s stodgy father, had taken Juliet’s act of responsibility and affection for the little girl as the first normal behavior his daughter had ever displayed in her life.  Her assuming responsibility for Jane was a kind of female nesting instinct he had never observed before in his rebellious daughter.  Elmer hoped Jonas would have the good sense to keep this opinion to himself.  It would only bring about another fight and possible estrangement in their long history of them.

But inviting both he and his friend Robert to the house for this holiday family gathering, Elmer could only wonder at that.  Jonas did not normally welcome outsiders.  He was insular, clannish, dismissive of others whom he felt beneath him, though he had come to regard Elmer well since their adventure together last year when Juliet had been kidnapped.  Elmer wondered if he had become son-in-law material in Jonas Van Allen’s eyes, perhaps a default son-in-law much as Jane was a default grandchild.

Elmer’s first try at marriage and fatherhood a decade ago had ended in tragedy.  He brooded ever more these days on whether he would ever have the guts to try again.

Elmer, Juliet said, You’ve gone quiet all of a sudden.

He smiled, let his eyes rest on the lovely, trim woman in the soft brown dress with the full skirt and the form-fitting waist and bodice.  She had a perfect figure for the post-war fashions.  He was glad he hadn’t known her in the flapper 1920s, where her independent personality would have been more at home, than these times of somewhat neurotic conformity.  Just thinking of a graceful way to broach the subject of our next case.

Oh?  Have we another case?

We have a letter here I got in the post office box yesterday.  See what you think.  He unfolded it from his coat pocket and handed it to her.  Upshot is this.  It’s another screwy one and I have no idea why we get these kinds of things, except no real private detective would want them.

We are real private detectives.

We don’t even admit that on our business cards.

Elmer is suspicious of everybody, she said to Robert.

Robert replied, I guess you’re supposed to be if you’re a gumshoe.  What’s up?

Elmer sat back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head.  This fellow’s a retired manufacturer.  Back about fifteen, sixteen years or so ago, his son-in-law embezzled $10,000 from his company.  Got caught, went to prison.  He’s getting out in a couple weeks.  The money he took was never found.  Said he buried it someplace, but the cops never found it.  So this old guy wants us to tail his prodigal son-in-law, figuring he’ll come back to get his money from wherever he stashed it.  Oh, by the way, this case comes indirectly from Bernie.

Juliet smiled.  Good old Bernie.  He’s the wonderful chap who let me have Jane, she said to Robert.

Oh, the Boston lawyer who’s in charge of her?

Yeah.  This old guy who wants to hire us, his lawyer works in Bernie’s firm, and he asked Bernie who he should put on the case, and Bernie recommended us.

At least there’s no murder this time, Juliet offered.

There wasn’t supposed to be murders in half the cases we’ve been on.  It just ends up that way.

Ugh, don’t say that.

But even without murder, this locating the money is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.

So, you don’t want to take it?

Robert watched them back and forth, as in a tennis match.

Elmer replied, Well, we have to pay the bills.

***

Juliet sipped from her cup and regarded him over the rim.  Elmer was a powerfully built man, though barely taller than she.  His dark, abundant pompadour, shiny with Brylcreem, his dark eyes, and his boxer’s nose gave him the appearance of more of a saloon bouncer than a matinee idol, but she loved the sight of him.  His loud print tie splayed over his white shirt.  He had a talent for losing hats, but managed to start each case with a new fedora. 

His remark about paying the bills stung a little.  He knew very well that she did not have to worry about paying bills.  She had a trust fund that could keep them in caviar for decades.  But he had to worry about paying bills, including the rent on his one-room apartment with the Murphy bed and the stuck window in the kitchenette in the poorer part of town.

Juliet said, Then, let’s take the case.  I hope we can wrap it up by Christmas.  I’m taking Jane back to school on Sunday evening, and the term ends on Friday, December 21st.  Where is the case?

Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts.  Not too far, just above Springfield.

Train or car?

Let’s take the car.  The trains are going to be pretty crowded for the Christmas season, and besides, we may want to drive around the village.

Juliet smiled and shared a knowing look with Robert.  Elmer had a hopeless love affair with her 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan. 

Elmer said, He wants us to pose as a couple of antique dealers appraising some of his treasures.  He doesn’t trust his daughter, or at least doesn’t want to tip her off that he’s hired detectives to tail her husband.

Has the daughter been in contact with her husband while he was in prison?  Does she intend to resume the marriage?

Yes, and I don’t know.  She lives with the old man, but how close they are is anybody’s guess if he doesn’t want her to know that we’re detectives looking for the loot her husband stole.  If it can even be found.  How do we know he didn’t have a partner for this job, and maybe the partner’s been sitting on it all these years?

Juliet replied, Presumably, that’s why we’re tailing him.  It’s assumed that the son-in-law is coming back to Chicopee Falls upon his release from prison?  A partner may be waiting for him anywhere in the state.  From where is he being released?

Elmer said, Charlestown State Prison.

That’s in the eastern part of the state.

The old man’s convinced he’s coming back to Chicopee Falls.  That’s where his wife is.  That’s where the money is supposed to be.  In no particular order of importance.

Juliet smirked, and rose, and the men stood as she did.  I’ll just get Jane off to bed.  I’ll bring her in to say goodnight.

***

Juliet paused before the open door to the library, eavesdropping when she heard the soft voices over the radio.

I’ll look forward to seeing you again at Christmas, young lady.  I hope you’re happy here, her father said.

Yes, sir.  It’s very nice.  And I love Juliet so much, Jane replied.

Do you?  Well, that’s fine, he said.  I love her, too.  So we have a lot in common.  But since Juliet is my daughter, and she is your foster mother, then perhaps it might be a good idea if you were to call me Grandfather.  Do you think that would be all right?

Yes!

Juliet entered with moist eyes and mouthed thank you,  indicating to Jonas that she had heard.  He stood at her entrance, smoothed his tie, and resumed his cherished dignity.

Well then, goodnight, Jane.

Goodnight, Grandfather.  She impulsively threw her arms around his stomach as if she were going to tackle him, and gripped him in a brief but enthusiastic hug.

After a quick gasp of surprise, he recovered and briskly kissed the top of her head and patted her cheek.

Jane then took Juliet’s offered hand and skipped out of the room. 

***

The next stop was Jonas’s study, where Elmer and Robert had switched to Scotch.  They stood again at the ladies’ appearance, and Jane ran to embrace Elmer much as she had Jonas, but Elmer was more used to it, so there was no gasp of surprise, just a bear hug. They kissed each other on the cheek with comfortable familiarity, but over the top of her head, Elmer noticed Juliet wiping tears from her striking light-green eyes.  Robert noted as well.

Juliet colored, smiled and shrugged.  My father just asked Jane to call him Grandfather.  Say goodnight to Mr. Forde, honey.

Jane turned happily, still hanging on Elmer’s arm.  Goodnight, Mr. Forde.

Oh, no, Robert said, Don’t you know I’m Elmer’s best friend?  If Mr. Van Allen gets to be called Grandfather, then I want to be called Uncle Robert.  Can you do that?

Yes!

Goodnight, Jane.  It was a pleasure meeting you.

Goodnight, Uncle Robert.  I like meeting you, too.  She beamed at Juliet, who took her away at last down the highly polished hall and up the grand staircase to the second-floor bedrooms, where Jane’s room was right next to Juliet’s.  Jane had only moved in a few months ago in September, just before she started the fall term at Juliet’s old boarding school, a condition of Juliet’s being allowed to foster Jane.  Her holidays were to be spent with Juliet.  It was a scenario neither of them could have imagined being in a year ago, and now neither could imagine doing without the other in her life.  Jane, enduring a unloved and sad childhood, adjusted more effortlessly than Juliet, and Juliet marveled that it should be so.  Perhaps age made one more suspicious of change and of one’s own ability to change, and suspicious of the ability of others to change.

***

Robert finished his drink.  So I’ll be in New Haven at least until March, I think.  I’ll be a stagehand, alternating with the stage manager when he takes a couple weeks off for his surgery.  For three shows they’re giving me bit parts.

Elmer grinned and shook his head, You have really got your foot in the door.

It was Beatrice Longworth.  Ever since the case where we met her last summer at the Hammonasset Playhouse, she’s been in touch, wanting to know what she can do for me, what doors to open, who I should contact next.  She’s better than twelve agents.

You’ll be getting an agent next.

Not till I can support his ten percent.  But I’m happy.

I know you are, and it’s great to see, Elmer said, raising his glass and downing the last of his drink.  Well, I hate to rouse James, but the old man said he would bring us home.

The chauffer doesn’t get Thanksgiving off?

As far as I know, only Mrs. Howe, the housekeeper, got the day off this year. She went to her sister’s house in Glastonbury.  Frederick, James, and the wonderful cook, Mrs. Hastings, had their dinner together down in the kitchen.  They’re like a family.

Go ahead.  I want to see you ring for him.

Shut up.

Juliet returned, more composed, and walked the gentlemen to the door and their coats, and kissed them each on the cheek to say goodnight.

Clyde James, Mr. Van Allen’s chauffer, hustled up from the kitchen and his third piece of pie, hastily announcing he would bring the car around.  It would be Jonas’s 1947 silver Cadillac touring sedan.  Robert stifled an excited giggle.

It’s just a car, Robert.  No need to act like a little girl.  Elmer adjusted the slant on his latest fedora.  I’ll call this client tomorrow and accept the case.  Oh, by the way, since he wants us to pose as antique appraisers, we’re from Astin & Curry.

That’s a real company.  We can’t fake that, Juliet replied, and she instantly blanched at the memory of the woman, a criminal whom her father had almost married nearly two years ago, who had worked at Astin & Curry.

Elmer caught her expression.  He says his brother-in-law is connected with the firm and will cover for us if anyone wants to check on us.  And he wants us to use fake names.  Do you want to be Katie Quackenbush again?

Absolutely not!  You stuck me with that on the Hammonasset Playhouse case.  I want something more dignified this time.  By the way, you never told me the old gent’s name.  What is it?

Joachim Purdy.

They waited a beat, and then all three burst out laughing.

Can you top that, Juliet?  Robert asked.

No.  But I bet Elmer can. 

***

James pulled up to the building in the south end area of Hartford where Robert Forde’s grandmother lived on the third floor.  From her back porch, one could see the distant construction of an elevated highway, which was to be an interstate crawling up from New Haven to, one day in the future, the Canadian border.  So far, the so-called Dike Highway and the North Meadows Highway gave no one except perhaps the engineers a clue what the future multi-lane destroyer of neighborhoods would really look like, or what its principal impact would be: to bypass downtowns.

Robert said, If the neighbors see me get out of this car, they’ll think I’ve been shaken down by the mob.

Elmer and Robert shook hands as Robert got out of the car.

See you at Christmas?

I’ll try to get back and see Grandma, but we work on holidays in the theatre.  He said it proudly. 

Elmer smiled.  Take care, chum.

You too.  Good luck on your next adventure.

They regarded each other with bemused satisfaction.  Three years ago, Thanksgiving of 1948, they were both still in prison.

James left Elmer off a few streets over in another working-class neighborhood called Frog Hollow.

Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. James.

And to you, sir.

Elmer stood a moment on the sidewalk in front of his brick apartment building.  The air smelled like snow.  Thanksgiving dinner was over, one could start to think about Christmas now.  That was how it was these days. It seemed like barely one holiday was finished, when the stores and the radio and now the television pushed the next one at you.

He walked up to his second-floor apartment.  It was small, spare, and quiet.  On the far wall hung a small painting Juliet gave him for his birthday of the New London Lighthouse.  She painted it herself.  She was gaining confidence in her skill, but he felt she did not believe him when he told her it was his favorite birthday present he’d ever received.

It was true.

He wondered what to get her for Christmas.  She understood he could not spend much.  She kept herself from overspending on him.  His gifts to her up to now had been impersonal, books mostly.  He realized that whenever he looked at the painting.  She had touched him with it, it was meaningful and personal.  And it did not cost more than a canvas, a frame, and some paint.

And her time, and her talent, and her heart.

And now there was Jane.  Perhaps she would be the perfect outlet for Juliet’s love and her money.  And her time.  A better object