Murder in the Ball Park

by Robert Goldsborough

  After escorting Charles Fentress down the hall to the front door and getting not so much as a thank-you or even a nod for my effort, I returned to the office, where Wolfe had his nose in one of his three current books, Crusade in Europe by Dwight Eisenhower. “Well, what do you think of today’s guest?” I asked. “Would you still term him a ninnyhammer?”

  Wolfe slipped his gold bookmark into the volume and closed it. “My initial opinion remains unchanged,” he said. “No, let me amend that: It is even lower than previously.”

  “Yeah, he sure hasn’t taken the time to read Mr. Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, has he? I find it hard to believe he can really turn on the charm when he’s wining and dining his agency’s clients at one of the town’s most expensive eateries.”

  Wolfe made a face. “From what the man indicated, he honors his wedding vows no more than his wife does hers. I hesitate to give you this assignment, given its distasteful nature, but can you ask Mr. Cohen if he or one of his army of minions can determine the identity of Mr. Fentress’s paramour?”

  “Sure, although there may be more than one.” That drew another grimace. We were now getting into perilous territory. As I mentioned earlier, Wolfe would not take divorce cases or investigations involving infidelity, and we were now skirting that taboo area, if not downright stepping across the line.

  Just before we went into the dining room for lunch, I phoned Lon Cohen. “Geez, Archie, that’s not the kind of question I usually get from the esteemed office of one Nero Wolfe.”

  “I know, and it feels strange asking it. But as somebody, don’t ask me who, once said, ‘drastic times call for drastic measures.’ ”

  “Well, this newspaper invests enough—probably too much if you want my opinion—in gossip columnists, so I should be able to come up with something for you and your boss to chew on, assuming these scandal mongers of ours are doing their job. Does this have to do with Madison Avenue’s Charles Fentress maybe being a murder suspect? Now that would be one hell of a story! I can see the headline already.”

  “Beats me, Lon. I doubt it very much, but then, I’m not privy to the workings of the brain of Nero Wolfe.”

  “Is anyone? Anyway, I’ll see what I can find out. Just try to remember who your friends are.”

  “How can I not? You remind me every day,” I shot back. “I eagerly await the results of your fact-finding expedition.”

  Lunch and the afternoon that followed were uneventful—until Wolfe came down from his afternoon session in the plant rooms. He had just gotten his seventh of a ton settled behind the desk when the doorbell rang. I went down the hall and saw a familiar blocky figure through the glass.

  “Cramer,” I said, returning to the office. “After what’s happened today, we’re going to have to dig a moat around the brownstone, stock it with alligators, and build a drawbridge to keep undesirables away. Well, do I let him in?”

  “Confound it, yes,” Wolfe grumped. I went back to the front door and swung it open, admitting Inspector Lionel T. Cramer, head of the New York Police Department’s Homicide Squad. “How nice of you to drop in,” I told him as he bulled by me and charged down the hall under a full head of steam like a locomotive running behind schedule.

  By the time I got to the office, Cramer had planted himself in the red leather chair at one end of Wolfe’s desk and had pulled out a cigar, which he jammed into his mouth, unlit as usual.

  “By God, you have done it again, you and Goodwin,” he growled by way of opening the conversation.

  Wolfe looked up from his book, expressionless. “I am about to have a beer. Would you like something?”

  “I would not! Don’t change the subject.”

  “I am unaware that a subject has been introduced, sir.”

  “Oh, stop playing dumb, Wolfe; it doesn’t become you, of all people. You know damned well what brought me here. Why is it that every time there’s a high-profile murder case in this town, you seem to be right there, Nero on the spot, ready to rake in a fat fee.”

  Wolfe closed his book and placed it on the desk blotter. He drew in air, exhaling slowly. “Sir, you have barged in here with no advance notice, which I concede is not unusual behavior for you, although it tends to inconvenience me. Now that I have been inconvenienced, you have my attention, at least for the moment. However, you remain here at my forbearance, and if you abuse your privileges as a guest, you will be asked to leave.”

  “I will be damned. That pretty little speech sounded almost rehearsed,” Cramer said, leaning forward in the chair and putting his hat on the floor. “Were you expecting me?”

  “I was not, sir,” Wolfe said, “although I must admit I rarely am surprised by your visits.”

  “And you know that the reason for this visit is the shooting of Senator Orson Milbank.”

  “I do now, because you just told me,” Wolfe said as Fritz entered with beer.

  “Still being cute, eh? All right, try this one on for size: A complaint came in to the department and got sent up the line to me because it may have some connection to the Milbank homicide. It seems that a Westchester County resident of some note named Jonah Keller—sound familiar?—got into a wrestling match in his office in White Plains with a man who identified himself as Archie Goodwin. This Goodwin, so Mr. Keller says, had come up to question him about Milbank’s death. Now what am I to make of this event?” the inspector posed, turning to me. Wolfe also turned my way, dipping his chin.

  “Let the record show that the aforesaid Mr. Keller attacked me and I was defending myself, although I would hardly describe our brief little set-to as a wrestling match. It lasted barely thirty seconds. If you are interested in the outcome, I won. It was no contest.”

  “More cuteness, huh? And just what might you have said that spurred Keller to violence?”

  “Enough of this,” Wolfe snapped. “Inspector, to move this discussion along, Mr. Goodwin and I stipulate that he indeed was in Jonah Keller’s office and that a contretemps ensued.”

  “Contretemps?” Cramer took the cigar out of his mouth, staring at it as if he were surprised. “All right, if that’s what you choose to call it. Now on to the real business here. Who is your client?”

  “Come now, sir,” Wolfe said. “You know me better than to ask that question.”

  “I know you better than to expect any cooperation at any time.”

  “We both are aware that clearly is not true, sir. In the past, we have shared a great deal of information with each other.”

  “Yeah, well, what have you got to share with me right now?”

  Wolfe flipped a palm. “So far, nothing. We are early in our investigation. What can you tell us?”

  Cramer frowned. “That is just how these conversations always seem to turn out. Most of what you call ‘sharing’ goes down a one-way street. I unload what I’ve got and you keep your lip zipped.”

  “On the other hand,” Wolfe said, “I think you will agree that on a number of occasions, I have been of some help to you in identifying individuals who later were incarcerated or—”

  “Or terminated,” Cramer said with a dry laugh. “Okay, okay, I will concede you that point. So you want to know where we are with the Milbank business.”

  “That might be helpful,” Wolfe murmured.

  “Probably not so helpful,” the inspector said, “because we aren’t much of anywhere. As you can learn from any newspaper these days, the fatal shot came from the left-field upper-deck stands at the Polo Grounds, so I assume you know that much. We found a shell casing between two seats up in those stands, .30 caliber.”

  “Just one casing?” Wolfe asked.

  “Yeah, the shooter needed only a single shot, which, as you know, hit Milbank in the temple,” Cramer said, “although any decent marksman should be able to nail a target from less than three hundred feet away. After all, the Polo Grounds has tha
t ridiculously short left-field fence, so the seats in those outfield grandstands, even the ones in the upper deck, are fairly close to where Milbank’s party was sitting near home plate. Our ballistics boys say the chances are good, but not a sure thing, that the shot came from a semi-automatic .30 caliber M1 Garand rifle because there are so many of them around. They were the standard service rifles for our soldiers and marines during the war. As you know, my son was stationed with the air corps in Australia, so he didn’t have need of a rifle. But, Goodwin, you were in the army; you may have fired one.”

  “I did, during a stint in officer training. It is a fine weapon, no question about it. In fact, no less than the late General George Patton was quoted as calling it ‘the greatest battle implement ever devised.’ ”

  “If Patton himself said that, it’s good enough for me,” Cramer stated. “Anyway, at the moment, we’re scrambling, and as you know, the whole department is feeling the heat, all the way up the line to the commissioner—and hell, to the mayor as well.”

  “What is the prevailing feeling about Mr. Bacelli as a possible suspect?” Wolfe asked.

  Cramer gave a shrug. “Part of me would like it to be him—that’s to stay in this room, you understand. I don’t know, though. I realize he had said some pretty rough things about Milbank when the senator eased up his stance on that road, but whether he’s the one behind the shooting is another matter altogether. Right now, it seems like he has got plenty of problems with the Feds without risking trouble over the assassination of an elected official.”

  Wolfe finished his first bottle of beer and opened the second. “Is it not true, however, Inspector, that the man has been able over a long period to orchestrate killings with impunity?”

  Cramer nodded, pursing his lips. “I’m sorry to say there’s no question about it, and that’s a point in the thug’s favor as a suspect. Our men have talked to him, and you won’t be surprised to learn that he has an alibi for the afternoon of the shooting, which means nothing, since he has probably never pulled a trigger himself, at least not since his earliest days as a wheelman for rum-runners with the Mob, back during Prohibition.”

  “May I ask who else you have questioned?”

  “Yeah, you can, but I expect something in return,” Cramer said. “I’ve changed my mind about a drink. I’ll have a beer.”

  Wolfe’s face registered surprise. “I thought you preferred bourbon?”

  “I usually do, but I’m in a beer mood. Yours looks good, and I’m thirsty.”

  “I’m on the case,” I said, heading for the kitchen. When I got back with an opened bottle and a chilled pilsner glass, Cramer was in mid-sentence. “. . . so one of my men spent almost an hour up in White Plains talking to Jonah Keller, who was offended that we would even dare to question him about his relationship to Milbank, let alone suspect him of murder. He got really riled, so it’s not surprising that he mixed it up with Goodwin a few days later. Paranoia had set in.”

  “Who else have you talked to?”

  Cramer took a swig of beer and set his glass on the small table next to him. “There’s another guy up that way named Ray Corcoran, who like Keller had no use for the senator. He heads up a business group and is a somewhat smoother customer than Keller. You may have heard of him.”

  Wolfe looked at me and again dipped his head a fraction of an inch. “We have more than heard of him, Inspector,” I said, picking up on Wolfe’s cue. “I have talked to him in his office up north, and I agree that he is a smoother number than Jonah the Jackass—maybe a little too smooth for my taste.”

  “Archie also visited a gentleman who heads up that anti-growth organization, Citizens Looking to Enjoy Arboreal Nature,” Wolfe volunteered.

  “Oh yeah,” Cramer said. “We’ve heard of that bunch, although I didn’t bother to have anybody talk to their honcho. They seem okay, and from what I know, he’s harmless, if a little on the strange side.”

  “I would say that squares with my impression of Howell Baxter,” I said, “although I found him to be quite pleasant, an engaging character who loves trees and parks and doesn’t have much use for wide new roads, no matter what route they take. As I’m sure you know, his small group generally liked Milbank, at least until recently, when the senator backed off from his total opposition to the parkway, and then they—or at least Baxter—called him a traitor. Baxter claims he’s a pacifist, and for all that I know he is. Most of the people from CLEAR, as they call themselves, are volunteers, including a bunch of coeds from Vassar.”

  Cramer drank more beer, then leaned back and pressed his palms to his eyes. “The heat is on us like I’ve never seen it before, never,” he groaned. “When the newspapers aren’t hammering on the department, the so-called better-government groups are. You probably read that there have been calls for the commissioner’s scalp, and if Humbert gets the boot, I’ll probably get tossed out the door and find myself out on the sidewalk beside him.”

  “Surely you do not believe your job is in jeopardy,” Wolfe said, sounding genuinely surprised.

  “Don’t be too sure of that. Over the years, I’ve survived the firing squad during some rough times, but as I just told you, this is the worst, and by far. In a way, I suppose I’d feel some relief getting out of the pressure cooker. I haven’t had a decent vacation in years. My wife’s been after me to spend a couple of weeks in Florida this winter, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve been fishing for anything more than a long weekend.”

  “You know that you’d go buggy after even a few days away from the office,” I told him.

  “Well, if the newspaper editorial writers and the holier-than-thou reformers get their way, maybe I’ll have a chance to find out before too long,” Cramer said, slapping his battered fedora on his head and rising to leave. “Thanks for the beer,” he told Wolfe. “If you learn anything you care to share, let me know.”

  “That’s the quietest exit he’s made in years,” I said when I got back to the office after seeing him out. “He came in like a lion but left like a lamb. He’s just not the same old grouch we have come to know. It’s sad, really.”

  “Mr. Cramer is being besieged on several fronts,” Wolfe remarked. “Nothing stirs mass emotions like the killing of a public figure. The inspector marched in angry because it has become a habit for him to behave that way in this house. It is as if he were an actor typecast in a role. And in this case, his behavior also was to cover his embarrassment at conceding that he is at an impasse.”

  I nodded. “You certainly were cooperative with him, offering up everything that we’ve got so far.”

  Wolfe raised his shoulders and let them drop. “Any why not? What we have is hardly of significance, and perhaps at some point Mr. Cramer will reciprocate.”

  “If he is still around to reciprocate, that is.”

  “Archie, we both are well aware the inspector is extremely honest and extremely good at his job, despite some inadequacies, examples of which we have seen over the years. I cannot believe the police department and the City of New York would be so imbecilic as to dispense with his services. They would be hard-pressed to find a suitable replacement.”

  “I hope you’re right. It may sound strange for me to say this, but I would miss his visits.”

  Wolfe chose not to respond, returning to his book.

  Chapter 13

  The next morning, I got off to a late start, having danced with Lily at the Flamingo Club until well past midnight. When I finally settled in at my desk following breakfast, it was after ten, and I had just begun to type Wolfe’s correspondence when the phone rang.

  “Good morning, Archie,” Lon Cohen said. “I certainly hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”

  “At the moment, I can think of nothing more important than a call from you. What news do you bring from the world of printing presses and deadlines and violent deaths?”

  “A p
air of items, of varying importance. First, a certain woman of your acquaintance is holding a press conference at noon today up in White Plains that I believe you will find interesting.”

  “Really? By all means, tell me more.”

  “Let me read you the key portion of a press release that got delivered to our office—and I assume to the wire services, all the other local papers, and radio and television stations—this morning: “ ‘It is with a sense of both humility and duty that I today announce my candidacy for the state senate seat that had been occupied so nobly and for so long by the martyred Orson D. Milbank. Having worked closely with this fine public servant for many years, I firmly and earnestly believe that I am uniquely qualified to continue his tireless and selfless work for the betterment of his many thousands of constituents.

  “ ‘There has been no finer champion of the public interest in this state than Senator Milbank, whose life was so tragically cut short by an assassin’s bullet. As for my candidacy, I am proud to say that the Empire State has pioneered in electing women to public office, having had females in the New York legislature since 1919. These women have been an inspiration to me, as has Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, who serves with courage and integrity in the United States Senate.’ That’s the gist of it, Archie, although it goes on, with Mrs. Fentress heaping further praise upon the martyred senator,” Lon said. “Do you want to hear more? There’s another full page.”

  “No, that will hold me for the present. What does your political editor up in Albany think of all this?”

  “He figures the comely Mrs. Fentress is a cinch to get the party’s nod and has a pretty fair chance of winning in the fall. The guy who would have gone up against Milbank—and will surely run against her—is competent but hardly exciting. What she has got going for her is the sympathy vote and the obvious fact that she’s a looker. You can’t overestimate that factor.”

  “I suppose not. You newspaper types are pushovers for glamour. I’ll be damned, Mona Fentress a senator.”