The Chase

UP FROM THE DEPTHS

APRIL 16, 1950 FLATHEAD LAKE, MONTANA

AFTER THE COAL TENDER WAS BROUGHT UP AND SET on the barge behind the big Pacific locomotive, the divers concentrated on running the steel lift cables under the bottom of the freight car and attaching them to a cradle so it could also be raised. Despite the muck and slime, the name SOUTHERN PACIFIC was still readable across the sides of the tender.

Late in the afternoon, the director of the salvage operation, Bob Kaufman, paced the deck impatiently, as the divers were lifted from the bottom on a platform that was swung onto the barge. He looked up at the clouds, which were dark but not threatening, and lit a cigar while he waited for the brass helmet to be lifted off the dive master’s head.

As soon as it was lifted from the diver’s head, Kaufman asked, “How’s it look?”

The diver, a balding man in his early forties, nodded. “The cables are secured. You can tell the crane operator he can begin the lift.”

Kaufman waved to the man who operated the big crane that rose skyward from the deck of the salvage barge. “All cables secure!” he shouted. “Lift away!” Then Kaufman turned and spoke to the tall, older, silver-haired man standing next to him on the deck of the barge. “We’re ready to raise the freight car, Mr. Bell.”

Isaac Bell nodded. His face was calm, but there was an expression of expectancy. “All right, Mr. Kaufman. Let’s see what it looks like after all these years on the bottom of the lake.”

The crane operator engaged the lift levers, tightening the cables as the diesel engine on the crane rose from an idle to a high rpm before flattening out as it strained to hoist the freight car. The operation was not nearly as complex as bringing up the hundred-thirty-four-ton locomotive. Once the car was pulled free from the bottom, the lifting operation went smoothly.

Bell watched with an almost-morbid fascination as the freight car broke the surface of the water and was raised up high before the crane slowly swung it over the barge. Deftly coordinating the controls, the crane operator cautiously lowered the car until it settled onto the deck behind the locomotive and tender.

Gazing at the train, Bell found it hard to visualize in his mind how it looked so many years ago. He walked up to the car and wiped the lake growth away from the serial number that was barely visible through the oozing slime. The number 16455 now became distinct.

Bell looked up at the freight door. It was still as open as when he fell through it so long ago. The interior was dark because the sunlight was diminished by the clouds. Memories flooded back as he recalled that fateful day when the train rolled across the ferry and plummeted to the bottom of the lake. He dreaded what he would find inside.

Kaufman came with the ladder they had used to enter the locomotive’s cab and propped it against the open floor of the freight car. “After you, Mr. Bell.”

Bell nodded silently and slowly mounted the ladder until he was standing on the threshold of the boxcar. He stared into the darkness and listened to the water dripping throughout the freight car. He suppressed a shudder. The dampness and the smell of muck and slime seemed to reek of death, hoary and evil and infinitely ghastly.

The once-ornate furnishings and decor of the palatial car now looked like something out of a nightmare. The plush-carpeted floor was covered with sediment decorated with long slender weeds. The intricately carved bar, the leather chairs and couch, the Tiffany lamps overhead, even the paintings on the walls, looked grotesque under their coating of ooze and growth. Small fish that had not escaped as the car came out of the water were flopping on the floor.

As if delaying the inevitable, Bell sloshed through the mud and found the five leather trunks along one wall where he remembered seeing them back in 1906. He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and pried open the rusting and nearly frozen latches on the first trunk. Lifting the lid, he saw that the interior was relatively free of silt. He carefully picked up one of the bundles. The paper currency was soggy but had held its shape and consistency. The printing on the gold certificate bills still appeared distinct and well defined.

Kaufman had joined Bell and stared fascinated at the stacks of bills stuffed in the trunk. “How much do you reckon there is?”

Bell closed the lid and motioned at the other four trunks. “A wild guess? Maybe four or five million.”

“What happens to it?” asked Kaufman with a glint in his eyes.

“Goes back to the bank whose depositors were robbed of their savings.”

“Better not let my crew know about this,” said Kaufman seriously. “They may get it in their heads it’s open salvage.”

Bell smiled. “I’m certain the banking commissioners in San Francisco will be most generous in granting a reward to you and your crew.”

Kaufman was satisfied, his gaze sweping through the car. “This must have been one luxurious palace on wheels before it sank. I’ve never seen a boxcar fixed up like a private Pullman parlor car.”

“No expense was spared,” said Bell, eyeing several bottles of vintage champagne and expensive brandy that were scattered in the sediment on the floor.

Kaufman’s expression turned grim as he nodded at two misshapen mounds protruding from the floor. “These the two you were looking for?”

Bell nodded solemnly. “Jacob Cromwell, the infamous Butcher Bandit, and his sister, Margaret.”

“The Butcher Bandit,” Kaufman said softly in awe. “I always thought he’d disappeared.”

“A legend handed down through the years because the money was never recovered.”

The adipose tissue that once stored Cromwell’s fat had broken down and his body, like the corpses in the cab of the locomotive, had turned waxlike in saponification. The notorious killer looked less than something that had once been a living human being. It was as though he had melted into an indiscernible lump of brown gelatin. His body was twisted, as if he’d died writhing in terror when tons of water gushed into the freight car as it followed the locomotive down to the bottom of the lake. Bell knew better. Cromwell might have struggled to survive, but he would never have been gripped with terror. No longer was he a menacing figure. His reign of robbery and murder had ended forty-four years ago under the cold waters of Flathead Lake.

He waded through the muck to where Margaret’s body lay. Her lustrous hair was fanned out in the silt and tangled with strands from a reedlike weed. The once-lovely face looked like a sculpture an artist had left unfinished. Bell could not help but remember her beauty and vivaciousness the night they met in the elevator of the Brown Palace Hotel.

Kaufman interrupted Bell’s thoughts. “His sister?”

Bell nodded. He felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow and remorse. Her final words before he fell from the car came back to haunt him. He could never explain his feelings toward her. There was no endearing love on his part, more a fondness coated with hatred. There was no forgiving her criminal actions in league with her brother. She deserved to die as surely as he did.

“Can’t tell from the look of her now,” said Kaufman. “She might have been a beautiful woman.”

“Yes, she was that,” said Bell softly. “A beautiful woman full of life but veiled in evil.” He turned away saddened but his eyes dry of tears.

SHORTLY BEFORE midnight, the salvage barge tied up at the old railroad dock in Rollins. Bell made arrangements with Kaufman to see that the bodies were taken care of by the nearest mortuary and the next of kin of Hunt and Carr notified. He recognized Joseph Van Dorn standing on the dock surrounded by four of his agents and was not surprised to see him.

Van Dorn was in his eighties but stood straight, with a full head of gray hair and eyes that never lost their gleam. Although his two sons now ran the detective agency from offices in Washington, D.C., he still worked out of his old office in Chicago and consulted on the cases that had never been solved.

Bell walked up and shook Van Dorn’s hand. “Good to see you, Joseph. It’s been a long time.”

Van Dorn smiled broadly. “My work isn’t as interesting since you retired.”

“Nothing could stop me from coming back on this case.”

Van Dorn stared at the freight car. Under the dim lights on the dock, it looked like some odious monster from the depths. “Was it there?” he asked.

“The money?”

Bell merely nodded.

“And Cromwell?”

“Both he and his sister, Margaret.”

Van Dorn sighed heavily. “Then at long last it’s over. We can write finish to the legend of the Butcher Bandit.”

“Not many of the Cromwell Bank’s depositors,” Bell said slowly, “will still be alive to receive their money.”

“No, but their descendants will be notified of their windfall.”

“I promised Kaufman and his crew a fat finder’s fee.”

“I’ll see that they get it,” Van Dorn promised. He placed a hand on Bell’s shoulder. “Nice work, Isaac. A pity we couldn’t have found the train fifty years ago.”

“The lake is two hundred seventy feet where the train sank,” explained Bell. “The salvage company that was hired by the San Francisco banking commissioners dragged the lake but couldn’t find it back in 1907.”

“How could they have missed it?”

“It had fallen in a depression in the lake bed and the drag lines passed over it.”

Van Dorn turned and nodded toward a car parked by the dock. “I guess you’ll be heading home.”

Bell nodded. “My wife is waiting. We’ll be driving back to California.”

“San Francisco?”

“I fell in love with the town during the investigation and decided to remain after the earthquake and make my home there. We live in Cromwell’s old mansion on Nob Hill.”

Bell left Van Dorn and walked across the dock to the parked car. The blue metallic paint of the 1950 Custom Super 8 convertible Packard gleamed under the dock lights. Although the night air was chilly, the top was down.

A woman was sitting in the driver’s seat wearing a stylish hat over hair that was tinted to its original blond. She gazed at him approaching with eyes that were as coral–sea green as when Bell met her. The mirth lines around her eyes were the lines of someone who laughed easily, and the features of her face showed the signs of an enduring beauty.

Bell opened the door and slipped into the seat beside her. She leaned over and kissed him firmly on the lips, pulled back, and gave him a sly smile. “About time you came back.”

“It was a hard day,” he said with a long sigh.

Marion turned the ignition and started the car. “You found what you were looking for?”

“Jacob and Margaret and the money, all there.”

Marion looked out across the black water of the lake. “I wish I could say I’m sorry, but I can’t bring myself to feel grief, not knowing about their hideous crimes.”

Bell did not wish to dwell on the Cromwells any longer and changed the subject. “You talk to the kids?”

Marion stepped on the accelerator pedal and steered the car away from the dock toward the main road. “All four this afternoon. Soon as we get home, they’re throwing us an anniversary party.”

He patted her on the knee. “You in the mood for driving all night?”

She smiled and kissed his hand. “The sooner we get home, the better.”

They went silent for a time, lost in their thoughts of events long gone. The curtain to the past had come down. Neither of them turned and looked back at the train.