Twin Cities Noir

kind.”

In the meantime, young Kirchmeyer is still missing, and fear grows by the hour that he will meet with some terrible fate, as it is now obvious that the police of this city are far better at losing things than finding them. Indeed, it is to be wondered now whether there is anyone in St. Paul who can prevent a most awful tragedy from playing itself out before long.

What the author of this melancholy prediction didn’t know was that Shadwell Rafferty—saloonkeeper, bon vivant, private detective, and a man with an uncanny understanding of the human animal—was already on the case.

Although best remembered for the remarkable series of investigations he undertook with Sherlock Holmes, beginning with the ice palace murders of 1896, Shadwell Rafferty had even before then made a name for himself in St. Paul as a private detective. Saloonkeeping was, of course, his chief occupation, but by the early 1890s his legendary watering hole at the Ryan Hotel had proved so successful that he found himself able to devote more time to the “detectin’ game,” as called it. It was therefore hardly surprising that he found himself in the midst of the Kirchmeyer affair almost from the very start.

The facts of the case were simple enough, or so it seemed at first. On the morning of June 9, Kirchmeyer, aged twenty-four, left his family’s towering brick mansion on Stewart Avenue in the city’s West End to walk to his job as an accountant at his father’s brewery. Located in a complex of stout limestone buildings along the Mississippi River just three blocks from the mansion, the brewery was famed as the home of “Kirchmeyer’s Cavern Lager” or “Kirchy’s,” as it was commonly called, and so named because it was aged in a system of caves dug into the sandstone cliffs nearby. Local malt connoisseurs, Rafferty among them, regarded the dark foamy libation as St. Paul’s finest beer, no small achievement in city that took its drinking seriously.

Young Kirchmeyer’s walk was normally accomplished in a matter of minutes, but on this morning he did not arrive at the brewery as scheduled. Although not considered by his parents to be a perfectly reliable young man, he was seldom late for work and, if so, his tardiness was never extreme. When he became a full hour late, his father telephoned home to see what had happened. It was only then, after a brief search of the household, that Augusta Kirchmeyer, Michael’s mother, made a frightful discovery. Lodged beneath the screen door on the front porch was a note, written in the large block letters a child might use. It said:

WE HAVE YOUR SON. PRICE OF HIS SAFE RETURN IS $10,000. DO THIS NOW: WITHDRAW $10,000 IN SILVER CERTIFICATES (DENOMINATIONS OF $100) FROM YOUR BANK. PLACE CERTIFICATES IN SEALED BOX OR OTHER CONTAINER NO LARGER THAN TWELVE INCHES LONG, EIGHT INCHES WIDE, AND SIX INCHES HIGH. HAVE MONEY BY 6 O’CLOCK TONIGHT. AWAIT OUR NEXT COMMUNICATION. DO NOT DOUBT WE WILL KILL YOUR SON IF YOU FAIL TO FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS.

It was signed, in a malevolent flourish of ink, THE BLACK HAND.

The police were called at once, and Chief of Detectives John J. O’Connor personally took charge of the investigation. He ordered a thorough canvassing of the neighborhood, which included the busy shops of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Omaha Railroad, where a thousand men worked. Someone, the chief believed, must have seen or heard something. But the canvass turned up only one piece of useful information. A boy playing in the yard of his home saw Kirchmeyer walking down Lee Avenue toward the brewery. He was alone and gave no sign of distress. Beyond this meager report, not a single clue emerged as to the young man’s whereabouts or how he might have been spirited away. It was, O’Connor remarked, as though Kirchmeyer had been “snatched up by the devil himself in broad daylight.”

Like most of St. Paul, Shadwell Rafferty learned of the kidnapping that afternoon when the Dispatch reported the story under a headline that read, BLACK HAND GRIPS BREWER’S SON. The reference to the Black Hand was well understood by readers of the newspaper, which in recent months had presented a series of sensational articles about a supposed “terrorist organization” of that name. It was said to be controlled by “a gang of foreign-born criminals” operating from the shanty town that sprawled along the Upper Levee flats beneath the new High Bridge. Various acts of extortion and even murder were attributed to the shadowy group, though details were regrettably sparse, and no criminal charges had ever been brought against any of the alleged gang members.

A newsboy had brought in the Dispatch as Rafferty and his longtime friend and chief bartender, George Washington “Wash” Thomas, were enjoying a late lunch of roast beef and boiled potatoes at the saloon, which was blessedly quiet after the noon rush. Rafferty read the kidnapping saga aloud in his powerful basso, pausing now and then to chew over a particularly intriguing detail.

When Rafferty had finished, Thomas said, “Well, it’s a strange one, Shad. Maybe you should call Mr. Kirchmeyer and see if you can help. Don’t you two go back a ways?”

“We do, Wash, though it’s been awhile since I’ve seen him. Fact is, I think the last time we talked was after that business a few years ago when Jimmy O’Shea was cartin’ away his prized lager.”

Thomas, who was not fond of confined spaces, remembered the case all too well. He and Rafferty had spent hours in the dank brewery caves setting a trap for the elusive O’Shea, whom the police seemed unable to track down. Kirchmeyer had been so pleased by the thief’s capture that he sent a month’s worth of lager to Rafferty’s saloon as a token of gratitude.

“What about Kirchmeyer’s son? Do you know him at all?” Thomas asked.

“Met him once or twice. ’Tis said he’s a bit on the wild side. Of course, so were you and I at that age. I seem to remember hearin’ that the lad went off to school out east for a while to study surveyin’ or some such thing but didn’t stay for long. There was woman trouble, I think.”

“I know all about that kind of trouble,” Thomas said, a mischievous grin spreading across his broad black face.

“Yes you do,” Rafferty agreed. “You are a regular expert in that department, Wash. Now then, what do you think about this kidnappin’ business? Do you believe it is the work of the Black Hand, assumin’ there is such a thing?”

Thomas knew that Rafferty had been skeptical of the earlier news stories. Unlike the reporters who wrote for the Dispatch, Rafferty actually knew many residents of the Upper Levee. If a cutthroat gang had been operating there, Rafferty thought, he would have been aware of it.

“I’m guessing you’re not convinced,” Thomas said. “Any particular reason why?”

By way of response, Rafferty picked up the paper and again read aloud the portion of the story dealing with the ransom note. Then he said, “I’m thinkin’, Wash, that for a bunch of ignorant immigrants, or so the Dispatch would have us believe, these Black Hand fellows seems to be regular masters of the King’s English. ‘Await our next communication,’ they say. Do you know anybody down on the levee who talks like that?”

“Can’t say that I do,” Thomas agreed, adding: “The instructions about packaging the ransom are also queer, don’t you think?”

Rafferty nodded. “Queer as can be.”

The telephone behind the long mahogany bar rang and Thomas got up to answer it. The operator came on, followed by a weary-sounding man who said in a thick German accent: “This is Johann Kirchmeyer. I need very much to talk with Mr. Rafferty.”

The Kirchmeyer mansion, its high-hatted brick tower soaring above a broad lawn interspersed with oaks, stood at the end of a circular driveway, which was crowded with carriages by the time Rafferty arrived. Two coppers were standing outside the front door, smoking cigars. Rafferty, once a member of the force himself, stopped to chat. After the usual jovial banter, he quickly learned that there had been no new developments in the investigation despite an intensive search for the kidnap victim.

“The old man’s in there waiting for the next message,” one of the cops told Rafferty. “Did he send for you, Shad?”

“He did.”

“Well, the Bull won’t be happy, I can tell you that.”

“The chief of detectives is never happy when I’m around,” Rafferty said. “Must be my irritatin’ habit of makin’ a fool of him.”