Headed for a Hearse

by Jonathan Latimer

  “Next time I see her,” Finklestein promised, “I’ll ask her.”

  “Ask her now,” Williams urged him. “Let’s don’t have any suspense.”

  Crane left them discussing the probable immorality of Miss Hogan’s friends, if any, and went into a phone booth. First he dialed Westland’s home.

  Simmons’ voice was unfriendly. “Who is it?” he demanded.

  “Crane.”

  “I don’t know any Crane.”

  “The detective with Mr. Finklestein.”

  “Yes?”

  “I wanted to ask you if Miss Martin came into the apartment at all on the day of Mrs. Westland’s murder.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Good-bye.”

  The second call was to Westland’s office. A fresh feminine voice said, “Westland, Bolston and Woodbury.”

  “Is Mr. Woodbury there?”

  “I will connect you with his secretary.”

  Miss Brentino’s voice was even and low pitched. She said, “Hello.”

  “Hello, baby. What’s the dope on Sprague?”

  There was no answer for a moment and Crane jerked the hook angrily, thinking he had been disconnected. Then the woman’s lifeless and somehow seductive voice said, “Sprague is dead.”

  “What!”

  “He was killed at eight o’clock last night by a hit-and-run driver.”

  Crane suddenly felt as though the fruit salad was disagreeing with him. He opened the glass door to let fresh air into the booth.

  “How’d it happen?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. The Lawndale police station has a report on it. All I know is that the body was left with an undertaker named Bascom on Crawford Avenue.”

  “We’ll look into it right away.” Crane wrote the name on a pad of scratch paper fastened to a ledge below the phone. “By the way, is Mr. Woodbury in?”

  “Yes. Would you like to talk to him?”

  “No, thanks. Good-bye.”

  William Crane had begun to sweat a little. He rubbed his face with a handkerchief and then felt around in his pocket for another nickel. “What the hell!” he said aloud. “What the hell!” He dialed the third number.

  Warden Buckholtz answered his private phone. “Hello?”

  “This is Crane. Have you a message for me?’

  “You’re to meet two men in Weber’s smoke shop on the corner of Randolph and Wells at three o’clock. They’re friends of Connors, and they’ll introduce themselves to you. Three o’clock.”

  “Thanks a lot, Warden.”

  “What progress are you making?”

  “Not so good.”

  “You better hurry—you haven’t got much time.”

  “Don’t I know it!”

  Crane returned to the table and told the others about Sprague.

  Finklestein said finally, “It looks as though somebody knocked him off. I can’t see any other answer.”

  “It’s goddam funny,” Williams said. “Particularly as a couple of torpedoes tried to knock us off at about the same time.”

  Crane had to tell Finklestein how the men in the car shot at them near the Detective Bureau. His narrative of their close escape moved him so much he ordered a double Scotch-and-soda from the waitress. Williams had the same.

  The attorney was upset. “But they can’t do that. First it was Grant, and then they tried for you, and now Sprague. They’re bound to run into trouble.”

  Crane drank half his liquor at a gulp. He began to feel very slightly better. He asked, “Why did they pick this time to kill Sprague?”

  “They knew he was going to spill something to us this morning,” Williams said.

  “How did they know that?”

  Finklestein wrinkled his forehead. “By God! It does look as though somebody in our group had been talking.”

  “The only other person who could overhear what we say,” Crane said, “is the warden.” He drank the rest of his whiskey and ordered another. “But I don’t think he’d take the chance of talking about our meetings. He’d be afraid of getting himself in a jam.”

  “Well, what are you going to do about Sprague?”

  “Doc and I will go out there. You see if you can find out where everybody was between seven and nine last night.” Crane accepted the whiskey from the waitress. “You might have somebody try and trace Sprague’s movements. Find out what time he left the office and if he did anything unusual during the day.”

  “All right.” Finklestein took the bill. “When will I see you again?”

  “I don’t know.” Crane tilted the whiskey glass and ran his tongue around the edge and added mysteriously, “Maybe never.”

  First they went to the Bascom Mortuary at 605 South Crawford Avenue and talked to an undertaker with licorice liver patches under his eyes.

  “I can assure you the deceased died from injuries sustained when he was struck by the automobile,” the undertaker repeated. “If you would like to examine the body, I will——”

  “Never mind,” Crane said. “We had an idea Mr. Sprague might have been murdered, but if you’re sure he wasn’t shot or stabbed, we’ll take your word for it.”

  The undertaker was aggrieved. “I prepared the body personally.” He was standing under a palm tree which looked as though he had embalmed it, too.

  “O. K.” Crane started to put on his hat, thought better of it. “You’re going to give him a nice funeral?”

  “Yes, sir!” The undertaker pointed at a sign hanging on the mahogany paneled wall beside a small and even unhealthier palm. “One of our Bascom Wonder Funerals.”

  This sign disclosed that a Wonder Funeral, including a handsome Lincoln hearse, three automobile loads of mourners (we can augment your own mourners if you desire), the use of our private chapel with the $8000 Barton organ and the Golden Isle Quartette, could be provided for as little as $217. There was also a choice of five distinctive caskets.

  “That’s mighty fine,” said Crane heartily. “I wouldn’t ask for a better funeral for my friend here.”

  “If you like,” said the undertaker tentatively, “we have a plan…”

  “When I croak,” said Williams, “it won’t be in Chicago.”

  The undertaker followed them to the door. “That’s all right. You can wire funerals anywhere in the United States now.”

  “My God!” said Crane. “Next you’ll be able to have a baby by telegraph.”

  The district police station was a weather-scarred brick building. They walked up the rickety stairs to the complaint room and asked the desk sergeant if they could see the accident report on the Sprague death. He tossed a heavy report book at them, and they finally found the place, but it wasn’t much good. Amos Sprague, sixty-seven years old, 4221 Harrison Street, a clerk, had been fatally injured by a hit-and-run driver as he was getting off a Madison Street surface car at Crawford Avenue. The body had been taken to Bascom’s. The report was signed, “Wallen.”

  Williams was about to ask the desk sergeant where they could find Wallen when the door to the captain’s office opened and Deputy Strom and another policeman came out.

  “You mugs again.” The deputy did not appear glad to see them. “I was askin’ the captain here if you’d been out yet.”

  “We just heard about it,” said Williams. “What happened?”

  “The captain knows all about it.” Deputy Strom turned and led them back into the office. “Captain O’Grady, this is Doc Williams, who used to be with the state’s attorney’s office, and Mr.—er——”

  “Crane.”

  “Glad to know you.” Captain O’Grady was a handsome old Irishman with craggy eyebrows and a straight back under his blue uniform with the gold braid. “Is it all right to give them what we have?”

  “Sure,” said the deputy. “Tell ’em everything.”

  “Well, it’s nothing to mention, anyway.” Captain O’Grady indicated seats for them, sat down behind his desk. “This Sprague w
as gettin’ off a Madison streetcar about eight o’clock last night at Crawford. He was just nearin’ the curb when a big sedan hit him. The conductor, Zimmerman——”

  Deputy Strom said, “A good Ulsteman.”

  “Zimmerman,” repeated Captain O’Grady, “stopped the street car and jumped out, but one of the two men in the sedan is already kneelin’ beside Sprague, feeling of his body. ‘He’s dead,’ says this man to Zimmerman, gettin’ up. Zimmerman asks him his name, and the man says, ‘To hell with you,’ and he climbs in his automobile and is off before a soul can stop him.”

  Crane asked, “Did anybody get the license number?”

  “That’s a very funny thing. It appears the car had no license at all.”

  Deputy Strom’s alert eyes contrasted with the impassivity of his heavy face. “It was dark, and the conductor and the passengers might not have been able to see the license plates.”

  Crane asked, “Then you think it’s an accident?”

  “I don’t know.” The deputy rubbed his chin. “I would have if you two hadn’t got me worked up with your wild tales last night.”

  “About as worked up,” said Mr. Williams, “as Rockefeller when he finds a new dime in his pants.”

  “Maybe I didn’t take much stock in your story then, but even a copper changes his mind. Of course, we have hit-and-run cases every day, but the drivers don’t usually stop at all. It looks queer. This Sprague was one of those people you had us look up, wasn’t he?”

  William Crane nodded his head.

  “How was he involved with Westland?”

  Crane told him of the old clerk’s promise to supply a motive for the murder of Mrs. Westland and how they had wondered where he was during the morning’s meeting.

  “Does old Buckholtz let all of you meet Westland every day?” asked the deputy.

  “Naw,” Williams lied. “He just lets his attorney, Finklestein, see him. We wait outside.”

  Crane spoke to Captain O’Grady. “Don’t you think the man in the sedan might have been looking to see if Sprague had any papers on him after he had made sure he was dead?”

  “He could have been, all right. At least, there was none at all found on the man.”

  The deputy drummed on the table with staccato fingers. “What d’you think Sprague had?”

  “I wish I knew,” Crane replied. “If he was murdered, it must have been something good.”

  “This is about as dizzy a case as I ever seen,” said Deputy Strom. “Why didn’t Sprague come to us a long time ago if he knew something? Why did he wait until a couple of days before Westland goes to the chair? And Grant. How does he fit in the picture? What’s a cheap crook doin’ with a lot of society people? It don’t make any sense to me.”

  Crane walked to the wall and examined a picture of the veterans of the Haymarket Riot, taken in 1893. The men looked strange with their handle-bar mustaches and long blue coats and rigid helmets with the gold numbers on the front. “The only way I can figure it out,” he said, “is that Grant was afraid to come to the police during the trial for fear they’d send him up for being in Mrs. Westland’s building on the night of the murder. Maybe he did a job in the neighborhood that night. Anyway, he must have seen Westland leave the apartment and say good-night to his wife, and so he could be sure Westland wasn’t the murderer. And when he saw that Westland had been convicted, he decided to take a chance with the police and give his evidence.”

  Deputy Strom shook his head, said, “As for Sprague…?”

  “As for Sprague, he probably thought Westland was guilty until he was called into our conference by Finklestein. The first question the lawyer asked everybody was: ‘Who could have had a motive for putting Westland out of the way?’ Sprague, thinking this over, suddenly remembered something that hadn’t meant anything to him before. So he investigated and stepped on the murderer’s toes, and got himself knocked off.”

  The deputy said, “All this is so if you believe Westland didn’t kill his wife but was framed.”

  “I have to believe that because I’m working for Westland.”

  “I think you are on the right track, my boy,” said Captain O’Grady. “Of course I’m not for being the great detective the deputy is.”

  Deputy Strom was pleased. “Now, none of your blarney, Captain. I’m just a flatfoot that’s lucky.” He rested a hand on Williams’ shoulder. “I still don’t see any reason to change my opinion of Westland’s guilt, but I’d hate to see an innocent man go to the chair. Is there anything I can do to help Crane or you, Doc?”

  Crane said, “Finklestein is checking on where everybody was at the time Sprague was killed.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “And he’s going to try to trace Sprague’s movements that day, but that will be tough for him. I wonder if you would have somebody try.”

  “Sure. I’ll assign a couple of men.”

  “And there’s one other thing.” Crane looked dubiously at the deputy. “Woodbury—that’s Westland’s partner—has a Webley automatic just like the one Westland had. They served in the British Air Corps together. I’d like to have Major Lee, the ballistics expert, look it over. He’s still got the reports on the bullet that killed Mrs. Westland, hasn’t he?”

  “He keeps all those reports. But I don’t know how I’m going to get the pistol from Woodbury. I’d need a warrant to get into his apartment. Still, Doc Williams and I have done worse things than steal a pistol. What do you want to know about it—whether it was used to kill Mrs. Westland?”

  “That and also whether it could possibly be Westland’s pistol. His had a name plate on it, and Major Lee could check to see if one had been removed or tampered with.”

  “O. K.,” said the deputy. “But I’ll leave the pistol with Lee in your name. I don’t want to be officially connected with this thing.”

  “That’ll be fine. I’ll get in touch with Lee tonight, and I’ll let you know what he finds out.”

  “You will if I can get that pistol,” said Deputy Strom.

  “Don’t worry, boss,” said the man whose name was Butch. “We can handle ’em.” He was a compact dark man with a nose which had been broken and badly set. His left eye was flecked with white spots; a jagged scar halved his forehead.

  Crane, Williams, Butch, and another man, called Little Joe, rode west on Madison Street in a black Lincoln touring car with side curtains. Little Joe was a stocky man with a wiry clump of reddish hair on his head, some of which clung to his neck below his gray cap. He drove the touring car with a casual disregard of the force of gravity, the traffic laws, and other motorists.

  Crane said, “They may not be tough, anyway.”

  “Listen, boss,” Butch said, “they don’t come any tougher than us.” He was not boasting, simply stating a fact. “We wouldn’t be runnin’ the Teamsters’ Union if they did. Ain’t that so, Joe?”

  “Yeah,” Joe said.

  Butch looked forbiddingly at Crane. “Connors musta told you about us.”

  “You bet he did.” Wind whipped the side curtains against the body of the car and whistled across the back seat. Crane shuddered, pulled his collar around his ears. “He said you boys could muscle your way into heaven and come out with a truckload of harps.”

  This was a lie, but it satisfied Butch.

  “Connors would have been all right,” he said, “if he could of left the coppers alone. It’s O. K. to knock off a hood or so, but you oughta be careful about shootin’ coppers. It makes the judge mad, and sometimes he won’t let ya fix the case.”

  They rounded the corner of Halstead Street with a scream of rubber on bricks and smashed into the rear end of a shiny sedan just pulling out of a parking place. A large man climbed ponderously out of the sedan and stalked toward Little Joe, who was already out and examining the damage. The man’s face was red, and he said:

  “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”

  Little Joe tested the front bumper on the Lincoln with his foot, nodded with satisfaction, and started back t
o the front seat.

  “Wait a minute, buddy,” said the man. “Wait a minute. You can’t get away like that.” He pulled at Little Joe’s shoulder.

  Little Joe swung around and faced the man, balancing on his toes. His arms looked oddly long for his blunt body. “You tryin’ to make somethin’ out of this, mister?” he demanded.

  The crimson bluster seeped from the man’s face, leaving it wan and frightened. He stepped back two steps, started to say something, and then didn’t. His arms bent at the elbows in front of him as though he wanted to push Little Joe away from him.

  “You’re lucky I’m in a hurry,” said the gangster, “or I’d paste your pan for you.” He climbed in the touring car, shoved in the gear, and drove off, leaving the big man standing on the brick pavement beside his damaged car.

  “One of those smart guys,” observed Butch.

  Little Joe said regretfully, “I would of socked him, only there was a cop on the corner.”

  They pulled up smoothly in front of Petro’s restaurant on Halstead Street, and all four of them went inside. Two Italians were drinking at the bar, each with a foot on the brass rail, and the small baldheaded bartender was drawing a stein of beer from a brass spigot. Butch paused at the door, snapping the lock so that it would fasten when the door was closed. The bartender leveled the foam on the stein with a discolored ruler, looked at them in surprise.

  Little Joe addressed the two Italian customers. “Would you guys like to go home on foot or in a hearse?” he demanded.

  Their soft brown eyes fearful, the men circled Little Joe, circled Butch, and passed silently through the door. Butch shut it firmly behind them.

  “Wassa matter?” demanded the bartender. “What you fellas tryin’ to do?”

  “Where’s Petro?” Crane asked.

  The bartender was still holding the stein in one hand and the ruler in the other. The foam on the beer had disappeared. “Wassa matter?” he repeated. “Wassa matter you fellas?”

  Butch walked around a slot machine on a tall table with twisted metal legs and reached over the bar and seized the bartender by the collar. He knocked the stein out of his hand and jerked him over the bar. The bartender’s feet hit the steins left by the two Italians, sending them crashing to the floor. The spilled beer made wet ovals on the wood.