H.J. Gaudreau - Jim Crenshaw 02 - The Collingwood Legacy (6 page)

Chapter 14

The first morning of any visit to Sherrie and Gerry’s farm was, by tradition and function, an exercise in choreographed confusion. The first person awake made coffee then, inevitably took a seat on the covered porch.

As each member of the foursome made their way to the porch the topic of breakfast gradually took over. It always ended with Jim and Gerry frying eggs, pancakes and bacon, while Sherry retrieved a selection of homemade cherry, apple and berry jams from her pantry. Eve produced a maple syrup from a friend’s farm, and then she and Sherrie selected a tablecloth for the antique round eagle claw table, which sat in an equally rounded portion of the covered porch.

When all was ready the four descended on the food. The next hour was spent in a near continuous dull roar as each talked over the other and all laughed at the same stories which had been told countless times before. Jim enjoyed this noise more than anything he could think of. This was his definition of wealth. Finally, he asked Gerry why they had to cut a hole in a barn door. It seemed rather odd.

“Odd? That doesn’t begin to describe this place,” replied Gerry. “The building is made of brick, not terribly unusual, but still a little different. The windows are all eyebrow windows. They’re all at the top of the walls.”

“Are you sure this thing is a barn?” Jim interrupted.

“I mean, that sounds like a mechanics shop or something like that.”

“You’re probably right.” Gerry took a sip of his coffee and continued, “There’s a pair of steel garage type doors on the south end and both sides have normal entry doors. Which is also a little odd, normally the long doors go on the long side of a building. The thing is that all those doors are made of heavy gauge steel. No door windows and the hinges are all on the inside. I’m assuming the doors open to the inside, but I can’t be certain of anything with this place. I’m telling ya Jim, it’s a weird deal.”

“Are the windows big enough to get through if we can get that high?” Jim asked.

“Sure, but I think they’re lined with a steel mesh on the back side. And, they’re all twelve feet off the ground. We can’t get a torch up that high and cut the mesh.”

“We thought about our picking equipment. That could get us high enough, but we don’t think they will hold the weight of your torch,” Sherry added.

“You’ve got a front loader on your tractor don’t you?” Eve asked.

“Sure, but that’s not…” Gerry stopped for a moment.

“We use the bucket to put up Christmas lights,” Jim said with a smile.

“That’s a great idea! Let’s get going,” Gerry stood.

“No, lets not,” Sherrie cried.

“You guys get the towels, we’ll clear the table,” Eve confirmed.

In moments the dishwasher was humming, the fry pans were being scrubbed and put away and the counters cleaned.

Gerry’s tractor was equipped with a hydraulically operated front loader; an arm on each side of the tractor held a V shaped bucket approximately six feet long and three feet wide. Two levers mounted next to the driver operated the loader. One moved the two arms up and down; the second tilted the V shaped bucket forward and backward.

Sherrie found some moving blankets and packing material in the processing shed while Gerry grabbed two coils of rope. They quickly made a cushioned bed for the tanks of oxygen and acydlene and then secured them in the bucket with chains. Satisfied the tanks would not roll or fall out of the bucket Jim, Eve and Sherrie piled into the pickup truck. Gerry climbed to the tractor seat and soon they were on the way through the orchard to the mysterious block building on the new property. Arriving at the building they surveyed the exterior for several minutes.

“This thing is a regular Fort Knox!” Eve exclaimed. All nodded in general agreement.

“I’ve always wondered about this place,” Jim said. “Did the title search tell you anything?”

“Its been owned by the state for the past thirty years. Apparently, the state got it because the property tax wasn’t being paid. When the title was transferred it seems that whatever office is responsible for government property was never notified. The lawyer told us the State of Michigan didn’t know it owned this land. No one knew about the property until an alert auditor found it during an inspection of the Secretary of State’s records. This popped up,” Gerry explained.

“How did the county not collect property taxes?” asked Eve.

“That’s a mystery to me too,” Gerry answered. “When someone figures out how to pull that trick off let me know.”

“From what we could tell this building isn’t on any tax role. And, the property owner in the sixties was a guy named William Tocco. Apparently he died and this piece wasn’t processed with the estate,” Sherrie offered.

“Well, it’s a nice piece of property,” Jim said glancing around.

They all admired the view for a moment, then Jim said, “You ready to do this? Pick the window you want to replace.”

They settled on a spot where the ground looked firm, Gerry squared the tractor to the building and tilted the loader so that the point of the V sat on the ground. Jim climbed in and knelt on one knee. When he was ready he signaled Gerry to lift the bucket. Slowly the bucket reached its highest point, Jim was just below the window. Gerry then tilted the bucket forward a few inches leaning the bucket against the barn’s wall.

Taking a pipe wrench in his right hand, and covering his face with his left, Jim reached out and smashed the wrench into the window. Glass cascaded into the bucket. Behind the painted glass was a heavy wire mesh. Jim set to work on the remaining glass, removing it from the steel frame. After several minutes the frame was clean. He then lit the torch and began to cut the heavy-duty wire mesh, a few minutes later it fell away to the floor of the building.

Gerry lowered the bucket and Eve and Sherrie took a ladder from the back of the pickup and placed it in the bucket. Eve then climbed in next to Jim and the bucket was raised once more. Jim secured a rope to the top of the ladder while Eve tied the other end to the bucket. Satisfied with their knots, Jim and Eve pushed the ladder through the window then gradually lowered it to the ground.

“Ready?” Eve asked.

“Almost,” Jim replied.

He finished tying a bowline knot, slipped the end of the rope around his chest and passed it through the knot.

“Loop it there,” he pointed.

Eve quickly looped the line around the hydraulic arm, then snubbed the line as Jim squeezed through the window, hung from the windowsill, and found the top of the ladder with his toes. “Okay, give me some slack,” he called.

Chapter 15

Dolly was determined to find the boat. Unfortunately, she was two hundred miles from where ever that boat was hidden. She needed to eat and the only way she could do that was to work at the diner. But, she needed time off too. Her boss was the problem. Mel rarely scheduled any of the diner’s crew for more than five days in a week, but he never gave them two days off in a row.

That would not work for Dolly; she set about convincing him she needed her days off together to visit a sick aunt. Mel didn’t believe it. He was convinced she had a boyfriend somewhere. He was certain she would be married or pregnant soon. At first, he didn’t want her to leave and considered never scheduling her days together.

But Mel had a surprising soft spot for young girls in love. He pretended to buy the story about a sick aunt and soon Dolly had two days off a week, back to back.

It was perfect. As soon as her shift finished Dolly would hurry back to her room and pack a small handbag. It was a long ride from Muskegon and there was always the fear that someone from the Purples would recognize her, but Dolly was determined.

She stayed away from anyone or anyplace she had

ever known or visited. She dyed her hair and tried to blend in with the other people walking the streets. She did her best to keep out of sight. She was certain that no one recognized her.

It took two trips and a lot of walking to find the boathouse. Finally, on a Tuesday morning, just before lunch, she found the corner store. From there it was easy.

She retraced her steps from all those months ago to the tool shed. And there it was, the boathouse where they captured her Solly.

That first morning she had nearly been caught. She hadn’t expected the Purples to post a guard on the boathouse. She had nearly blundered into him. Only the sound of a passing barge had distracted the lookout. But, she hadn’t been caught and now she would bide her time and find that money.

And so it went. Dolly would travel to the boathouse almost every week. Carefully she would slip into the same shed and sit on the same stool from which she had watched Sol arrested. She would spend every minute she could in that damned shed. On the second day, about five o’clock she would slip out of the tool shed, creep low behind the wooden crates and race away through the alley between the warehouses. An all night train ride later and she was back home in Muskegon.

As summer began to turn to fall, Dolly began to plan for the coming winter. In late August she began knitting a heavy sweater, a new hat and heavy mittens. She visited the church and found a good winter coat in the charity box. She knit two pairs of wool socks and then, when no one was looking, stole a pair of men’s winter boots. She was ready.

That winter she visited the Detroit riverfront whenever she could get away from the diner. She felt like she was hunting deer with her father. She would sneak into the tool shed and sit and watch the boathouse for hours. It was guarded night and day. She couldn’t be sure the big cruiser was still inside.

She didn’t see the boat at all that winter. But her father had taught her how to hunt. She’d sat on a deer stand many, many cold mornings waiting for a big buck. She knew you could go an entire season without seeing a deer, but they were there. She was certain the boat was there too.

Dolly didn’t have a plan, but she had plenty of time to think. She thought about how to search the boat once she made it inside the boathouse. Where she would look, how she would search. She thought about tools and saws and drills. But the more she thought about it the more she realized how long it would take to really search the boat.

Finally, her mind was made up. Searching the boat made no sense. Why not do what she and Sol had intended? She decided to steal the boat and go to Canada; just like Sol had planned.

She began to study boats. She visited the library and read everything she could about boats. She especially liked the magazines, they showed lots of pictures of Chris-Craft boats. She found one picture that included the controls and she familiarized herself with them all. It didn’t look hard, she had driven the neighbor’s tractor; she could do this. She talked to the sailors about boats. She asked questions about motors and steering. She showed them pictures of powerboats and asked about the controls.

Dolly figured it out.

One evening Dolly was in the town library reading about ships and sailing when the question of navigation began to nag. She’d not thought about navigation, Sol was going to do that. Dolly went to the card file and quickly found several books about maritime navigation. It was complicated, it took a lot of figuring and she felt as if she’d hit a stone wall. She wasn’t good at math and didn’t know the names of any of the stars except the North Star. Dolly began to doubt she would ever understand latitudes and longitudes and sextants and all the other things associated with navigating a ship at sea.

A week later Dolly was pouring coffee for one of the sailors and decided to ask for help.

“Honey, I don’t use none of those tricks. Hell, if I want to go to Chicago I go south until I run into it. If I want to go to Milwaukee I go west until I git there. Ain’t that hard.”

Dolly thought about his answer the rest of the day. It made sense. She would be in a river or a lake, not an ocean. There’s only two ways to go on a river, up stream or down. And on a lake, well, even a big lake like Erie, she would eventually come to the other side. Dolly had renewed hope.

One morning Dolly was sitting in the tool shed watching the comings and goings of the riverfront. The gang’s boathouse guard sat on a stool, leaning back against the building’s wall, and smoked a cigarette. Dolly watched the boats on the river. They always stayed between the colored buoys. That was it! There was a road out there defined by the colored buoys.

Back at the diner she tested this theory with the sailors. One, a sailor named Brian took the time to explain to her about the colored buoys. “Red, right, returning” is the saying he told her, “keep the red buoy on your right when in the river or the channel, it’s where the deep water is.” Seemed simple enough. She kept repeating it to herself. “Red, right, returning.”

She found an atlas of the United States at the library and poured over its maps. After a while she decided that if she kept in the middle of the river, between the buoys and headed south, turned left when she got to Lake Erie and went east until she was low on gas that should get her out of danger. She’d get gas wherever she ended up and continue until she got to Buffalo or Toronto whichever came first. She decided to buy a road map of Canada, at least she’d know where Toronto was.

There was only one problem. If she was going to steal the damn thing she had to know where it was. She hadn’t seen it since the morning they arrested Sol and the others. She spent every minute she could in the tool shed. Sometimes, she spent the entire night in the boathouse, shivering and watching. Maybe it wasn’t there; maybe she was a fool. She didn’t know, but she was determined to get a look inside the building.

Finally, in late April she got her break. Mel had given Dolly three days off in a row in the middle of the week. She wasn’t happy about it, the extra day off was a day without pay, she needed the money. However, it did give her an extra day to watch the boathouse.

That Thursday afternoon four cars - two Chryslers, a Ford and a Packard, arrived within minutes of each other. Several men got out and stood around the empty lot talking and smoking. One man from each of the vehicles went inside the boathouse.

Ten minutes later she heard the low rumble of a big engine. Not sure what the sound was she tried find a hole in the shed wall that would let her see further south. It was no good. Then, like an evil monster crawling out of the swamp, the cruiser crept north up the river, swung it’s bow toward the shore and slid into the darkness of the boathouse.

A man came to the door and waved his arm.

Immediately all the “extras” standing around their cars dashed inside. In less than a minute they were back, arms full of cases of whiskey, gin, and vodka. Dolly watched it all.

As the last Chrysler drove away she scanned the area around the boathouse intently. No one. They hadn’t left a guard. She waited; maybe he was inside. Five minutes passed. She eased herself through the tool shed’s door, moved right to the edge of the water and knelt behind a stack of wooden crates. She carefully studied the boathouse and the shadows beyond. The building looked deserted. Moving around the crates she put two large barrels between her objective and herself, then crawled to the barrels. Peering between them she again studied the boathouse. No one was there. Now what? Inhaling deeply Dolly stood. Slowly she walked toward the boathouse, then veered to the water’s edge. She knelt and picked up a stone, just an innocent girl at the river edge. She threw the stone into the river. Casually she glanced around; she was alone.