CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Attorney General Fred Martin

Des Moines, Iowa

December 26, 1915

Dear Fred,

If you have been following the recent happenings of our murder case in your newspaper, then you know that we have arrested the confessed murderer and have brought him to trial. Cleavers has described the murders accurately, and much supportive evidence as to his presence at the time of the murders — and his disappearance the morning after the murders has been established. It looks like at last we have the murderer and I am happy to say that Twin Forks can soon begin to think again about progress.

There is a problem, however, and I am asking for your help. I have filed suit against men in our town who have from the beginning tried to use the murder case to destroy my political career and social standing. First, they accused me of the murders. Although I was outraged, at the time I decided not to honor their malicious lies with comment. When Cleavers was arrested, I thought the matter would drop. It did not.

On the last day of trial before Christmas, I was accused publicly, and on court record, of having hired Cleavers to murder the Porter family. Although they offered absolutely no evidence to warrant such an accusation, I have lost the respect from my friends and neighbors, and my daughter has left her home.

I must take action now to regain my social standing. Will you come to the County Seat to represent me? I know that we are both interested in my political future in this state and hope to see you before the Cleavers’ trial resumes on January 5, 1916.

With sincerest regards,

Senator Frank F. Gardner

Frank Gardner read the letter with the same intensity that had always been his. Only now a pair of gold rimmed glasses enlarged the words for him and when he stroked his beard slowly he did so with the knowledge that a long streak of gray ran through it and that similar changes in color were taking place along his brows and temples. His appearance was that of a healthy, retired, well-to-do gentleman who should be riding out life comfortably and effortlessly. But neither age nor retirement were on Frank Gardner’s mind. There were many things he had left to do in life and if it took forty more years to do them, he intended to work every day of those forty years to accomplish what he had started. Only one thing could stop him from reaching his goals, only one man could keep him from going further and he had decided that he had had enough of the Twin Forks axe murders and of detective John Morgan. He finished reading the letter, gave a slow nod and put his signature to the page in heavy black ink. Carefully, he blew the ink dry and gave the paper three crisp folds before placing it in the envelope. He started to hand it across the library table to John Goodell’s waiting hand, but before letting loose of it, he said,

“From the beginning I have had to believe that the course I am taking is the correct one. If I don’t believe that, how can I justify my actions to anyone, including myself?”

Goodell read his statement as a qualifying one, something Frank Gardner was not accustomed to doing, and he asked cautiously, “Will you need some help from the Party?”

An irritable glance replaced the anger that might have been expected. Frank Gardner turned to a stack of papers on his table saying unemotionally, “If I go to Des Moines, it will be to pick up some support with the Governor and other senators. They cannot offer me help, none that I can think of, but they could refrain from giving us opposition if they thought I was going to come out of this on top. I will not go begging. With Cleavers all but standing on the gallows, I won’t have to. I never will.”

“The men in Des Moines could be important for us,” John Goodell reasoned.

“Important, yes. But I will not go begging. We have our ace in the hole.”

On Friday John Morgan moved unwilling above the covers. Beside the bed on the lamp table a half-emptied bottle of whiskey stood in victory. From the lamp, through the yellowed shade, a weak light washed the dirty wall and pooled a sick glow halfway across the room, over the oak floor covered by papers and heavy clothes and empty bottles — the sacrifices of John Morgan.

Morgan sat at the edge of the bed. From the frosted window he could see the downtown of Blue Island, Illinois. And he could see the sheriff’s office where he had tried for twenty days to find a link between the Mansell murders of Blue Island the Porter murders of Twin Forks. Now Morgan wondered if the sheriff had been correct when he had said that first day: “Here we had a no-good family that got murdered — probably by the husband, Blacky Mansell, who’s missing. Sure, I could track the guy down, but who cares? As far as the folks that pay my salary are concerned, I’d be wasting their money to fly and find Mansell. If you run across him and bring him back, then we’ll bang the bastard. Otherwise, I don’t care.”

And there was the difference, Morgan knew. In Twin Forks a respected family of the town had been axed to death. If it could hap pen to the Porters, then it could happen to anyone, at anytime. He looked above the buildings. The sky over Illinois was an ice-blue reflection of the snow-covered ground. But the depression of hopelessness had once again settled in Morgan’s mind. Don’t let this day begin, he prayed.

But the day began. He heard the outer door at the street level bang. He heard the steps as a man in heavy boots hurried up the stairs. And he heard the boots stop outside his door, and the loud knock — “Telegram, Mr. Morgan,” the old messenger said. He opened the envelope and read the short message from Al Crans,

JOHN MORGAN

BLUE ISLAND, ILLINOIS

COME HOME QUICK — SLANDER SUIT FILED BY GARDNER — LUCK

AL CRANS

Luck, Morgan repeated the last word of the message. He kicked at a stack of research papers that spewed across the room. No luck.