Amerikan Eagle

Sam saw National Guardsmen standing outside the train, carrying rifles with fixed bayonets. No wonder Lowengard had been so upset. A labor camp train, stopping here for coal or water before going out west or up north or someplace where the communists, the labor leaders, the strikers, any and all enemies, foreign and especially domestic, were dumped. Something cold tickled at the back of his neck. Those people in that train… they were heading to a labor camp for choices they had made, people they had associated with, organizations they had supported.

Choices. The cold feeling increased. And what kind of choices was he making now?

“Saul Rothstein!”

“Hugh! Hugh Toland!”

“Sue! Sue Godin! Are you in there?”

One heavyset woman with a blue scarf tied about her head turned to Sam, tears in her eyes. “Sir? Can you help? Can you?” She gestured at the train. “That train… it left Brooklyn two days ago. We followed it, best we can, they no tell us where it’s going. Now we just want to bring food and drink. That all.”

Brown paper grocery sacks lay on the cracked sidewalk. There were barred windows at each end of the boxcar, and hands were poking out between the bars, waving. Sam looked up and down the fence, spotted a gate. A B&M railroad detective, dressed in a brown suit, with a badge clipped to the coat pocket, was standing on the other side.

“Hey,” Sam said. “How about opening the gate, let these folks bring some food over to the train?”

The detective shifted the toothpick in his mouth. “Hey. How about you leave me the hell alone?”

Sam pulled out his badge, pressed it up against the fence. “Name’s Miller. I’m the inspector for the Portsmouth Police Department. What’s your name?”

“Collins,” he grudgingly replied.

“Look, Collins, let these people go in there. And tell you what: For the rest of the month, you can park anywhere you want, speed anywhere you want, and no Portsmouth cop will ever bother you. How does that sound?”

Collins said, “Boss’ll get pissed at me.”

“I can handle Lowengard. C’mon, let these folks go over, drop off the food, be a nice guy for a change.”

Collins shifted the toothpick again. “What’s it to you, then?”

“Guess I like being a nice guy sometimes.”

Collins scowled and spat out the toothpick, but stepped back. The crowd watched silently as he unlocked the gate. In a brusque voice, he said, “You folks go up there, pass over the stuff, then leave. Any funny business, you’ll be thrown in the boxcar with those slugs, and you’ll be in a labor camp tonight!”

Sam felt the crowd swirl about him like water parting around a rock, and there was a touch on his arm, the woman with the scarf, who whispered something foreign—Yiddish, perhaps?—and said, “God bless.” She joined the other family members streaming to the parked train, rushing over the railroad tracks. Within moments grocery sacks, bottles of Coke and Pepsi, and sandwiches were being passed up to the barred openings, the eager hands reaching down, grasping for life.

Sam walked away. Maybe Walter was right. Maybe one man could make a difference. But for how long?

He stopped and looked back at the train, thinking again of the train that had sped through late one night, the one that was sometimes in his dreams. It was similar to this one but different—there were no openings allowing air and sunlight to come in. Those boxcars had been shuttered closed, as if those in charge didn’t want anyone to see what was inside.

But they couldn’t hide the voices, couldn’t hide the screams.

And one more thing. The train that night, speeding through the darkness, had gone past a streetlight, illuminating the shuttered boxcars and…

And what else?

The paint scheme. The cars in front of him were dark red. The special train from that night was a dark color as well, but there was a difference.

Yellow stripes had been painted on the sides of those special trains.

What the hell did that mean?

Nothing, that’s what, and nothing that was going to solve this murder for him.

* * *

He went to his desk, ignored Mrs. Walton, and when she got up to powder her nose, he picked up his phone, got an operator, and made a call to Concord again, this time to the motor vehicle division of the Department of Safety. He quickly found out it would take a week to get him a listing of all yellow Ramblers registered in the state. A week… well, what the hell. Make it thorough. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was deliberate, but the train slowing down in Portsmouth was a question mark, and he wanted that question answered. Was the train slowed on purpose so the body could be dumped?

After the phone call, he was going through his old case files when a familiar voice spoke up.

“Inspector,” said the man. “You look like you could use some hooch. And since this department is officially dry, how about a cup of joe instead?”

Sam swung about in his chair, saw a smiling Sean Donovan before him, holding two white mugs of coffee. Sean limped over and pulled a chair closer to Sam’s desk. “I understand you’ve had quite the busy day.”