Death at the Tavern

by Lee Strauss

  The press, with the help of their contacts in the police department, quickly got wind of each new crime, and this one was no different. Men in linen suits and straw hats huddled together with either a notebook or camera in their hands. Haley had to admire their tenacity to wait it out in the stark heat of the sun. She noted a lone female presence among them, pushing her way to the front.

  The oldest pub in Boston, the Bell in Hand Tavern was situated where Union Street met the narrower alley of Marshall Street. The unusual architecture of the red-brick, four-story building reminded Haley of a wedge of a tall piece of cake, rounded at the tip where the pub was located. The view head-on created the illusion of a column, but a step to either side, and the wings of the hairpin spanned outward. Today, the windows along Union Street were riddled with bullet holes. Haley grimaced. Another gang shooting.

  Two police officers stood at the entrance, preventing members of the public, including the journalists, from stepping inside.

  The news hounds where aware that Haley was the assistant medical examiner and when they saw her, they started shouting:

  “Dr. Higgins, where’s the medical examiner?”

  “Is this shooting related to the gang killing that happened last week?”

  “What are your thoughts about prohibition?”

  Haley kept her chin down and nodded a silent thanks to the officers as they let her inside.

  Members of the police—one taking photographs and filling the room with smoke as the flash powder went off—were gathered around a hatless male figure slumped at one of the tables. Glass splinters from the windows littered the wood floor, glassware along the tall bar had been shattered, and the mirror behind where the waiter stood, looking pale and in shock, was cracked like a spider’s web.

  Detective Cluney waved at her. “Over here.” He stepped aside along with his officers to make way.

  “I expected the new guy,” he said. “Guthrie, is it?”

  “He just arrived today. Sent me alone this time. I hope that’s okay.”

  The detective shrugged. Haley knew he just needed someone to sign off on the death and if it meant a woman doing it, so be it.

  Haley set her black medical bag on one of the tables. The victim slouched forward and toward the right, away from the windows. A bright-red circular wound decorated his vest on the upper left side of his chest with a corresponding wound on the back of his shoulder. The body was warm and mobile—rigor mortis had yet to set in—and Haley estimated the shooting had happened within the hour. Detective Cluney was quick to confirm.

  “The fellow behind the bar called the police.”

  Haley glanced toward the bar, pleased that the bartender—or rather “fellow behind the counter” since there was no alcohol on offer—had moved out from behind it. He now sat in one of the chairs, his head lowered towards the gap between his knees. Shock-induced nausea was common.

  “Unfortunate citizen,” Detective Cluney said, “or a gang attack?”

  “Has the fellow behind the bar given his statement?” Haley asked.

  Detective Cluney referred to his notebook. “Name’s Mike Tobin. Says the victim ordered “tea” and took a seat at this table. Tobin was washing up behind the bar when he heard gunfire. He flattened himself on the floor and didn’t see anything until the shots ceased. When he had the gumption to stand, he saw our victim slouched over like this.”

  “Do you have an identity?”

  Detective Cluney turned his thick neck. “Checked his pockets. Nothing on him except a few bills.”

  Haley glanced around the bare tavern. “Are there any other witnesses?”

  “Tobin says it was a slow period. Only this guy in the tea house.”

  Haley inclined her head. “Was it really tea in his cup?”

  Cluney chuckled. They both knew “tea” was a euphemism for whiskey.

  “I sniffed the cup myself. Oddly, it smells like actual tea.”

  Haley hummed. There was no question Tobin had switched the cup before calling the police. Quite likely, all evidence of alcohol on the premises had been removed prior, as well.

  Detective Cluney seemed to read her mind. “My officers found nothing illegal in their search of the building so far.”

  A cursory glance proved that several uniformed officers were making a show of milling about and searching.

  Detective Cluney’s vest had inched up over a soft belly. He tugged it sharply. “They found bullet shells out on the sidewalk. It’s a cut-and-dried case, I’d say. Capone-style execution. Vic must’ve rubbed a gang boss the wrong way.”

  Haley almost agreed when her gaze landed on the bullet holes in the window. She counted them, five in total: one aligned with the victim, two before and one after. She collected a magnifying glass from her medical kit and strolled up close and studied each hole.

  “Whatcha doin’?” Detective Cluney asked.

  “The craters of the four holes on either side of this table are angling inward, but the shards in the crater of the one that killed our victim angle outward.”

  “Are you saying that you think the bullet that killed this man was shot from inside the Bell in Hand?”

  “Yes, Detective,” Haley said. “That’s what I’m saying.” She offered him the magnifying glass. “Come, have a look.”

  The detective did as requested and took a moment to examine each hole, coming to the one adjacent to the body a second time.

  “Well, I’ll be darned.”

  “You see the difference?”

  “I do, Dr. Higgins.”

  Haley picked up her medical bag. “I’m going to see how Mr. Tobin is feeling. He looks unwell.”

  Detective Cluney scowled at the young man. “I think I’ll have a chat with him too.”

  Mr. Tobin’s freckled face grew crimson as the two of them approached. Haley spoke quickly to get in front of Detective Cluney’s inquisition.

  “How are you feeling, Mr. Tobin? You’ve had a shock.”

  “I’m finding it a bit hard to breathe,” Mr. Tobin admitted. “It’s not every day you see a bird kick the bucket in front of your eyes.”

  Detective Cluney’s soured expression was pointedly unsympathetic. “Do you own a gun, Mr. Tobin?”

  “Wh-what?”

  “A firearm?” the detective repeated impatiently. “Do you own one?”

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  “Is there a firearm on the premises?”

  “No. Look here, whatcha driving at?”

  “We believe the bullet that killed our John Doe here was shot from inside the Bell in Hand.”

  Mr. Tobin was either sincerely surprised or a very good actor. He shook his head adamantly. “No way. I swear I was alone with the guy.” His gaze shot to the ceiling. “Wait a minute. I remember hearing something. Could’ve been a gunshot. I thought it was an automobile backfiring. My Tin Lizzie does it all the time. Embarrassing really,” he smiled slyly. “Especially when I have a pretty passenger.”

  “You’re a funny guy,” Detective Cluney said. “Up to funny business, I’d say.” Detective Cluney bellowed across the room. “Peters! Take Mr. Tobin to the station for a visit.”

  “What a minute,” Mr. Tobin protested. “I didn’t do anything!”

  Detective Cluney snorted. “Then you ain’t got nothin’ to worry about.”

  Haley watched an indignant Mr. Tobin being led out by the elbow to a police car parked on Marshall Street. Just as the door opened, Haley caught sight of the morgue van waiting.

  Inside, Detective Cluney consulted with an officer. When Haley approached, he said, “No bullet shells inside, but they collected four from outside.”

  “Not five?”

  The detective confirmed it by a quick shake of his head.

  “The killer must’ve picked it up off the floor,” Haley said, now completely convinced the dead man had been shot from inside the tavern.

  The detective raised his voice to address one of his men. “Check behind the bar and have a
look in Tobin’s locker.” To Haley, he added, “I asked Peters to check Tobin’s pockets. I’ll let you know if he finds anything.”

  Haley exited through the Marshall street door to wave in the driver of the morgue van and supervised as he and a police officer rolled the gurney with the body outside.

  As Haley knew he would, Detective Cluney left via Union Street to take on the reporters. He’d swear up and down that he hated that part of his job, but Haley suspected he secretly liked the attention.

  Wanting to avoid the news folks, Haley decided to walk around the building, rather than through, even though it would take longer to get to her car. She even went further out of her way to cross Union Street, giving the journalists a wide berth. She’d had plenty of encounters with pushy and insensitive reporters, and did whatever she could to avoid them.

  Haley reached her DeSota, unlocked the door, and was about to slide inside, when a female voice called for her.

  “Dr. Higgins!”

  Haley was surprised to see the woman reporter she’d spotted earlier and huffed in frustration. Why hadn’t she stayed with the others to question Detective Cluney?

  “Yes?”

  “I’m investigative reporter Sam Hawke, Samantha actually, but you know, it’s a man’s world.”

  Haley nodded. This was a truth she and this reporter shared.

  “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

  Haley considered the woman whose straw hat angled sharply along the right side of her head. Even though the blond at her temple was damp with sweat, and natural spots of red colored creamy cheeks, she remained attractive. Her rayon dress suit fit nicely on a slender, hourglass frame, but it wasn’t new. Her expression, close to desperation, flashed behind large eyes. Haley didn’t have the heart to turn her away.

  “I’m in a hurry, so if you don’t mind riding with me. I can drop you off at the paper. Which one is it?”

  Miss Hawke jumped into the passenger seat, shuffling her messenger bag inside with her. “The Daily Record.”

  Haley checked her rearview mirror and signaled before making a U-turn. She shot her unwanted passenger a glance.

  “So, Miss Hawke, what would you like to ask me?”

  3

  Being the lone newswoman at the paper had its advantages, and Samantha wasn’t beyond using her feminine charms to get what she wanted. She never felt bad about it. The female gender had very few advantages, even in these modern times. The batting of the eyes, a flirtatious smile, a pronounced wiggle in the hips, an extra inch of exposed leg. Harmless, yet effective. It had gotten her this story. Two stories, actually, but Johnny only knew of this one.

  While sitting alone at a window booth, an unidentified man was shot and killed in the Bell in Hand Tavern on Union Street as he drank a cup of tea. Several bullet holes had pierced the windows. According to the lead police officer, Detective Emmet Cluney, the incident was likely gang related, but the situation is still under investigation.

  Samantha finished the piece with statistics on gang and Mob-related crime and how it had escalated since prohibition. She rolled the page out of the typewriter’s cylinder. Lowering her chin, she stared at Johnny with wide eyes. “I’ll deliver this to Mr. August myself if you don’t mind.”

  “I can walk with you.”

  “No need,” Samantha said with gentle laughter. “I know the way.”

  Aware of the lingering gazes of most of the men in the room, including Johnny and Max, and a sneer from Freddy Hall, she strolled past the framed picture of Abraham Lincoln that hung on the wall and down the hallway to the office of the editor.

  Archie August looked up at her over round eyeglasses with a mixed look of surprise and annoyance. A competitor’s newspaper was opened on his large oak desk.

  “You can put your ladies’ piece in my inbox.”

  “This is the story on the shooting at the Bell in Hand. Johnny thinks we can get it out in the evening press if we hurry.”

  “You wrote it?” he said with the same incredulity as if he suspected a dog had written it. Samantha swallowed her offense. “Yes, sir. Max has the photos hanging in the dark room.”

  Mr. August folded his newspaper and pushed it to the side before placing the sheet of paper Samantha had offered on the desk in front of him. He opened a drawer and removed a blue pencil, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his flat nose, and squinted.

  “Uh-uh, uh-uh.”

  Samantha couldn’t tell if her boss’s grunts were positive or negative.

  “Hmmm.”

  He scribbled all over it with the blue pencil and Samantha nibbled her lip. The fact that her editor was taking time to doodle meant it wasn’t a waste of his time. Didn’t mean he liked it enough to print it, though.

  Mr. August delivered his verdict. “Not bad, Miss Hawke. You can run with it.” He handed it back and without another glance at Samantha, opened the Globe and Mail.

  “Thank you, sir,” Samantha said quickly, making her exit before the man could change his mind.

  Back in the pit, she worked madly on the corrections and then announced that the piece was good to go. Johnny, now busy with something at his desk, shot Samantha a quick look. “Take it down to Inky, then.”

  Simeon “Inky” Isaacson managed composing one floor down, and the printing press crew in the basement. Samantha pinched her copy tightly and took the stairs.

  Her presence in the composing room brought the men who worked there to a momentary standstill. Inky, a small, wiry man, clapped his ink-stained hands.

  “Get back to work! It’s not like you ain’t seen a lady before.”

  With quick, short steps, he hustled to the door where Samantha waited.

  “Miss Hawke?” His surprise and amusement were evident on his wrinkled face. “Mr. August needin’ somethin’?”

  Samantha held out the sheet of paper with her story.

  “This needs to make tonight’s paper, if possible.”

  Inky scrunched up his nose as he read. His eyes darted back to Samantha. “The boss approved the byline?”

  Samantha swallowed her annoyance. Inky wouldn’t have asked about the byline if it hadn’t read Sam Hawke.

  “I wrote the piece,” Samantha said indignantly. “It’s my byline.”

  “Inky’s lips pulled into a smile, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. “Very well. We’ll get it in tonight’s run.”

  Before Samantha could offer her thanks, Inky was halfway across the room shouting instructions to a group of men huddled around one of the composing tables. She took a moment to watch with wonder as they selected stamps with inverted letters of the alphabet and painstakingly recreated the story for type.

  When Samantha returned to her desk, she inserted a fresh piece of paper.

  I recently met the intriguing Dr. Haley Higgins, the City of Boston’s assistant medical examiner, while on a story about another apparent Mob-related shooting in the North End. Striking in many ways, Dr. Higgins is . . .

  Samantha paused and stared at the ceiling as her mind grasped for words. A thoroughly modern woman. . .

  Inspired, Samantha let her fingers start flying across the keys.

  * * *

  The morgue was in the basement of the Massachusetts General Hospital which sat on a large corner lot where Allen Street met Charles Street adjacent to the Charles River embankment. The room was painted white and was well lit with large electric lamps. There was a ceramic autopsy table, a wooden table for miscellaneous tasks, and a long counter with test tubes, glass cylinders, Bunsen burners, and other tools used for performing the corresponding tests. A large wooden desk belonging to Haley sat in one corner. Near it was a small table equipped with an electric kettle for tea, and a percolator to make coffee. Haley preferred the glass cylinder French press that she’d ordered from Paris. It was simpler to use than the percolating procedure, quicker, and in her opinion, made a superior brew. Along the far wall were rows of refrigerated cabinets that held the bodies either waiting for au
topsies or waiting to be delivered to a neighboring undertaker.

  Currently, Haley was assisting Dr. Guthrie with the autopsy of their John Doe from the Bell in Hand. The Y incision revealed the chest cavity. The bullet hole that had penetrated the heart would’ve killed the victim immediately.

  “Detective Cluney believes a Mob gang targeted the man,” she said.

  Dr. Guthrie grunted. “I don’t trust the Irish.”

  Haley wasn’t surprised by the Englishman’s words. It was well known that the English and Irish, in Europe and America, weren’t exactly on friendly terms. And there were many Bostonians who agreed with that statement. Of course, they were the same ones who didn’t trust the Italians or the Jews either.

  “Detective Cluney is one of the good ones,” Haley said. Unfortunately, there were many officers on the force who were corrupt at one level or another. The Depression was hard on everyone—even an honest cop could be tempted if it meant feeding his family.

  “But,” she continued, “I’m not sure if I agree with his assessment.”

  “Why not?”

  Haley relayed the difference in the crater direction of the shot that must’ve killed the man. “The other shots were just for show.”

  “I thought you said he was alone in the room.”

  “That’s what the man behind the counter claimed.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  Haley shrugged. “He says he flattened himself to the floor when he heard the first shot. Swears he didn’t see a thing.”

  “About those other shots,” Dr. Guthrie said. “Could this man have had so many enemies that two different attempts on his life were taken at the same time?”

  Haley conceded. “It is a bit of a stretch.”

  Dr. Guthrie left Haley to stitch up the Y incision. Out of the corner of her eye, Haley watched him through the glass wall of his office as he lit a pipe, leaned back in his chair with eyes closed, and released a puff of smoke out of the corner of his mouth.

  She’d just finished the final stitch when a sharp tap caught her attention. The door to the morgue opened and Detective Cluney’s round head popped through the crack.