"I don't blame you, Pickles. Clearly, this grand university community with all of its gothic buildings isn't as tranquil as it looks."
The next morning, my head reminded me of the previous night's beer consumption as I sat at my kitchen table with coffee and the Tribune. On Page 4, there was a three-paragraph item about Bergman:
U OF CHICAGO PROF
FOUND MURDERED IN
HYDE PARK APARTMENT
The body of a University of Chicago faculty member, Arthur Richard Bergman, was found in his
South Cornell Avenue apartment last night after police received an anonymous telephone tip. Bergman, 41, had been an associate professor of physics at the school for the last eight years, according to a university spokesman. Police said he had been strangled with a rope, and that he apparently had been dead for several days.
The dead man had received his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and a PhD. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It was bare-bones stuff, although I was surprised Ellis was able to get even that much into the home-delivered editions, given that everything happened fairly late in the evening. And at that, he probably had to rouse a university mouthpiece out of bed to supply some background on poor Bergman.
My head was still hammering when I got to the press room a few minutes before nine. "Anything new on that murder down in Hyde Park after Ellis went home?" I asked Corcoran, our overnight man.
"Nope, just what's in the three-star," he said dismissively, getting up to turn the Tribune desk over to me. This was typical of Corcoran. He never went out of his way to advance a story or do any serious digging. The words "enterprise reporting" were not part of his vocabulary, which is why he liked working the graveyard shift, when little news occurred.
The Bergman murder never came up during our start-of-the-day conversation, although when we broke camp to go to our respective beats, Packy Farmer of the Herald American stopped me. "Hey, Snap, when you talk to Fahey, make sure you get new stuff on that Hyde Park murder. We're going to need something fresh."
"Yeah, and for us too," Eddie Metz put in. "There wasn't much in the Trib, and I see the Sun didn't even bother to run it." He smirked at Dirk O'Farrell.
"You're right, Eddie," O'Farrell snapped. "But the readers of your tabloid rag just suck this kind of thing up. Hand the Times a good juicy murder, and its audience is as happy as a bunch of pigs in shit."
"Gentlemen, gentlemen–and I use the term loosely–that's enough bickering," Anson Masters pronounced. "We all, except of course for our Miss Joanie here, have a newspaper to serve, and we need to get to work. And by the way, Mr. Malek, although the Daily News does not place a high priority on the baser and more sordid crime stories, we too will be interested in any additional information Mr. Fahey can provide about the unfortunate university murder."
"Okay, Antsy. I'll give the Times this, though: They aren't hypocrites, and they don't pretend to be something they aren't, like another and somewhat pompous afternoon paper I could name." I winked at Masters and headed off for Fergus Fahey's office.
"And a hello to you, Mr. Malek of the Tribune," Elsie Dugo chirped as I eased into her anteroom. "You look a little tired this morning, if I may say so."
"I can't stop you from saying so. It's a long and complex story," I said, "and one that I'm not up to recounting at the moment. How's his nibs today?" I tilted my head in the direction of Fahey's sanctum.
"He looks better than you do. But I know he's expecting you; go on in."
"Morning, Fergus," I said with forced cheer as I dropped into one of his guest chairs and tossed an opened pack of Lucky Strikes onto his desk within his reach.
"Morning yourself," he muttered, looking up from a sheaf of paperwork. "You don't look so hot."
"Between you and Elsie, I'm going to get a complex. What is it? Did I forget to brush my hair this morning?"
He grunted. "Your hair looks fine. Now about your eyes…" He was interrupted by Elsie's entry. She set a cup of coffee on the corner of the desk closest to me. "Here, you poor baby; there's lots more if you need it."
"Okay, okay," I said, holding up both hands in mock surrender. "So I may have slightly overindulged last evening."
"Slightly?" Elsie laughed, clicking out in her high heels and closing the door behind her before I could mount a response.
"So, what do you think about this Hyde Park business?" I posed to Fahey.
"I was about to ask you the very same question. Funny thing: An anonymous call came in last night about the murder, and not more than fifteen minutes later, my boys tell me that your night man, Ellis, was in here asking for information about the killing. Seems he knew just about as much as we did–and at about the same time."
"Interesting. Just goes to show that civic-minded citizens know enough to call the Tribune as well as the Police Department."
"Uh-huh. I'll agree with the 'interesting' part," Fahey muttered, wrinkling a ruddy and ample brow and running a hand across his jaw. "Why do I have a strange feeling that you're somehow involved in this business?"
"Can't imagine, Fergus. Other than the fact that it was you who brought up concerns about Hyde Park to me a few days back. Looks like maybe Grady, your worrywart of a precinct boss down there, had reason to be concerned. What have you found out about this professor's murder?"
"Huh! You mean in all these many hours since the body was found. Very funny. By the way, you said you were going to do a little nosing around down there for us. Find anything out?"
"Haven't had the time–sorry. But back to the murder: Anything turn up that wasn't in our story this morning?"
"Not so far. Of course we're looking into the possibility that it had a homosexual slant."
"So you figure he knew his killer?"
"I guess so," he said, clearly uncomfortable. "That's a world I don't have any experience with, and I plan to keep it that way. Of course, it also could have been a burglary–maybe the killer was trying to force Bergman to tell him where his money was."
"Maybe so," I answered. "But the place didn't look like it had been–" I stopped in mid-sentence, but it was too late.
"Didn't look like what?" Fahey spat, coming halfway out of his chair.
"I mean…"
"Just what do you mean?"
"Well…I…"
"Dammit, Malek, you were in that apartment last night, weren't you?"
Fahey uses my last name only when he's angry, and this time his red face was a giveaway even before he opened his mouth.
"Uh, I think the caller said something to Ellis about the place not being rifled," I said, trying to recover.
"Oh, horse shit! You've been caught–give it up."
"Hey, I didn't disturb anything. I went in, took one look at the body, and got the hell out."
Fahey's glower was strong enough to cut through a concrete wall. "And how, if I may deign to ask, did you get in there in the first place? And don't tell me the door was ajar. I'm not as stupid as I sometimes seem."
"I had…somebody with me who knows how to work with locks. But Fergus, this was all my idea. He was just doing what I asked him to."
"And I'll bet whoever he is, he's got a rap sheet. Let's see, we've got breaking and entering and disturbing a crime scene, and that's just for starters. I'm sure we can work up some other charges."
"Fergus, look at it this way: If I hadn't gone in there, it might have been days, even weeks, before the poor bastard's body was found. This gives you an earlier start."
Fahey leaned back and crossed beefy arms over his chest, considering me. "I'm not sure I ever believe anything you say, which seems a prudent approach. But what the hell, I'll try it anyway. What made you pick that specific apartment to break into?"
The game was up, and I knew it. I spent the next several minutes telling Fahey how I had visited the U.T. in Hyde Park on a tip–I never mentioned Pickles–and had sat next to a guy at the bar who hinted that he had some sort of mysterious inside infor
mation on how we were going to win the war.
"Sounds like a crackpot," Fahey growled. "Universities are full of them, you know, particularly that one." He tilted his head in the general direction of Hyde Park.
"I don't doubt it, although I'll have to take your word for it; I never made it past high school. Anyway, this Bergman disappears–doesn't show up at the bar for days, even though he was apparently an almost-every-night regular. I found out his name from the bartender and got curious, so I went to his place."
"Tell me about the guy who picked the lock."
I held up my hands, palms out. "Uh-uh, Fergus, no can do. He's a regular source for me, and if I gave you his name, he wouldn't be any more."
"Breaking and entering, Malek. Breaking and entering."
"We steered you to a murder. That has to count for something. And besides, I didn't touch anything in the apartment."
"But you wiped your prints off doorknobs and light switches, I'll bet."
"Yes, but–"
"'Yes, but,' my ass. When you wiped those down, you could also have erased the killer's prints."
"Fergus, did you find any prints other than Bergman's in the apartment?"
He scowled. "Way too early to tell. Our guys are still going over the scene."
"You know darn well you won't find any. Whoever it was surely used gloves."
"You've got an answer for everything, don't you?"
"No, I don't. For starters, here are three questions that need answers: Did Bergman really know about something, about some weapon maybe, that could win us the war? And if he did–granted, that's a big if–was he killed because of it? And if so, why?"
"I think you're reading more into this killing than it warrants," Fahey insisted.
"Okay then, let's hear your theory. I think we've already disposed of the burglary idea, unless your boys find out differently as they comb the apartment. But I'll bet you a crisp fin that they'll find Bergman's billfold undisturbed. And, no, before you say something, I did not take a peek inside his wallet. After less than a minute in there, I was ready to throw up. I couldn't get out fast enough."
"Serves you right. Okay, I'll concede the point on burglary, or technically robbery, since it was face-to-face. The guy didn't figure to be loaded, not on an associate professor's salary and living in a three-room flat."
"Okay, Fergus, next, let's go back to the possible homosexual angle. Except for his shirt, Bergman was fully clothed, and he even had an undershirt on. Hardly seems like your typical queer sex crime."
"Could have been just the work of a deranged sadist," he said, pulling a Lucky out of my pack and firing it up.
"Could have been," I agreed. "But why was Bergman the target?"
"Snap, you've been around the police world long enough to know that a lot of killings don't make any sense whatsoever. Maybe the killer saw Bergman in that bar and followed him home. Maybe a student in one of his classes had a grudge. Maybe it was a husband whose wife was having a fling with the professor. Give me twenty minutes and I can come up with a lot more 'maybes.' You know damn well there are hundreds if not thousands of people in this town who don't have all their marbles, and all they need is some minor event to set them off. Maybe it's a snub, an insult, an unintentional jostling on a sidewalk, you name it.
"We had a case several years ago where two guys in a bar on
Dearborn Street got in a shouting match over whether there were any buffaloes left in the U.S. One of them snapped. He whipped out a revolver and shot the other one dead, right there on his barstool, like it was the goddamn Wild West. Some actions simply can't be explained." "Maybe not. But I still think there's a more complex reason for this killing."
"Just don't try to do our work for us, okay?" Fahey growled. "You've muddled things up enough already."
"Come on, you know me, Fergus."
"That's exactly what I'm afraid of."
Chapter 8
Over the next two days, the dailies gave the "Hyde Park Murder" varying degrees of coverage, ranging from the Times, with its PROFESSOR GARROTED! screamer, to the resolutely sedate Daily News, which ran the Bergman story at the bottom of Page 1 with a headline reading "Police Seek Suspects in University Slaying."
"Exciting stuff, Antsy," Packy Farmer sneered, flipping a copy of the Daily News onto the floor next to his desk. "Your editors really know how to make murder sound dull. Or, wait…maybe, just maybe, it's your writing that puts your paper's headline writers to sleep. Could that possibly be?"
Masters cleared his throat. "I can only work with what I am given by our noble comrade here from the Tribune," he said, swiveling to face me, palms upturned in a gesture of helplessness.
"Aha," Dirk O'Farrell chimed in. "So our Mr. Masters, who is content–as I fear we all are–to let Brother Malek cover the Detective Bureau for us, now complains that he's not gleaning good material from said Malek. And yet, Mr. Metz here seems to get the story top play in his publication."
"Yes, but his publication is not the Chicago Daily News," Masters countered with irritation. He stressed the last three words as if they were worthy of worship.
"Well now, ain't that just the cat's pajamas," Eddie Metz said in a rare burst of self-expression. "Anson, here is one great story, any way you slice it. A prof, or an associate prof–what the hell difference does it really make?–is killed in his apartment right in the middle of a goddamn university community full of wiseheads who have forgotten more than any of us will ever know. An ivy-walled campus is hardly the place you'd expect this sort of thing, right? Of course we're going to give it top-of-the-page play, for God's sake. Seems to me we're in this business to, one, report the news, and two, sell newspapers."
O'Farrell clapped four times, spacing them for effect. "Nicely done, Eddie, nicely done indeed. Didn't know you had it in you. Take that, Anson."
I stayed out of this little go-round, mainly because the Trib was in the same boat as the Daily News, underplaying the murder with placement off of Page 1 and bland headlines such as "Search Continues for Campus Killer." My editors' lack of interest in the case, however, was no reason for me to slack off. The Bergman funeral was to be held Saturday at a church just off the university campus, and I figured it might be worth my while to slip in and play the anonymous observer.
The stone church on
57th Street looked solidly traditional to me as I approached it from the east. Being a lapsed Catholic and a nonchurchgoer myself, I have had very few occasions to enter a house of worship, particularly one that is not associated with the Vatican. The service was scheduled to start in five minutes when I went into the sanctuary at 10:55 and took a seat at the back. Less than two dozen people, almost all of them men, were scattered among the folding chairs in the vaulted Gothic sanctuary, which looked like the interiors of European churches that I had seen in photographs. As viewed from behind, most of the mourners seemed to be in their thirties and forties. There was no casket at the front.
I thought some other reporters might have shown up, but apparently the papers, or at least their editors, had little interest in the murder anymore. We sat in silence–no music–until a tall, gaunt figure strode to the lectern from a door at the front. He wore a baggy black suit, a thin, dark tie, and a somber expression on a long, narrow face with prominent cheekbones. His sparse, reddish hair was combed across his scalp in a futile attempt to forestall the baldness that lurked no more than a half decade away. He peered out at the gathering over horned-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose, nodded, and cleared his throat.
"Good morning," he intoned, expressionless, as his bony fingers gripped the lectern. There was no response.
Another throat-clearing. "We are here this day to pay tribute to the life of Arthur Bergman. A fine gentleman and a fine teacher." More throat noises and a pause.
"I wish that I had known Mr. Bergman," continued the speaker, who never chose to identify himself. "I know, from what I have heard from some of you here"–he dipped his head toward hi
s small audience–"that I would have found him fascinating company, as I know that so many of you did. And I also know you will continue to remember him and his gifted and creative mind.
"In addition to his scientific brilliance, several of you have told me of his unwavering loyalty to this school." He spread his arms wide, turning to his left and then to his right, as if to encompass the entire university. "Not that he agreed with everything that was done here." A slight smile and what passed for a chuckle.
"From what I have been told, he never forgave the school's administration for dropping the football program. He was an avid fan of the team, his team, his Maroons. And at every home game, he could be found cheering from a seat near the fifty-yard line at Stagg Field, a stadium now overrun with weeds."
The speaker–was he a minister?–went on for a few more minutes, talking in platitudes about Bergman as if filling time, which probably was the case. He closed with a rambling prayer about the eternal nature of life and death, and invited everyone to stay for a reception in the social hall downstairs.
We all filed down a stone stairway into a cheerless and dimly lit basement room where two smiling, matronly ladies stood behind a long table with coffee, tea, cakes, cookies, and sandwiches arrayed on it. Hardly like the spirited wakes I had attended, where the drink-mixer was the most popular figure.
I stood at the rear of the room, surveying the gathering. There were only two women, one a striking, willowy blonde who would turn heads in any setting and who, I later learned, had been Bergman's second wife. The other, a generation older, turned out to be an aunt from Minneapolis. The balance of the assemblage of less than twenty were men, most of whom looked to be contemporaries of the deceased. They were a varied lot, several in herringbone sport coats that apparently were a popular uniform on the campus, and a few of them sporting beards.
Shadow of the Bomb (A Snap Malek Mystery) Page 5
