Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter

by Beth Fantaskey

  Because that would make her a liar. At least about that.

  “I haven’t seen it for a long time,” Robert said, telling me something he should have told Detective Culhane. But who could think straight when he glared at you? “Maybe she got rid of it,” he added. “She was anxious about having it in the house.”

  I thought anxious was a good word too.

  “The gun was my father’s,” Robert continued with a glance down at his bad leg. “Or used to be . . .”

  I wanted to hear what had happened to his dad, but before I could ask, Detective Hastings poked his head into the kitchen. “You better get going, kid,” he told me. “You don’t want to keep Detective Culhane waiting.” He rolled his eyes. “Believe me, I know.”

  I was liking Hastings more and more.

  “I’m coming,” I said. Then I squeezed Robert’s arm. “I’ll be back, okay?”

  The offer wasn’t much, but Robert jumped on it. “Promise?”

  I spit in my palm and held it out. “Promise.”

  Robert gave my hand a disgusted look right before we shook for a second time. I felt good about befriending a boy who probably didn’t have a lot of pals—until it hit me that I didn’t have a lot of friends either. I mean, sure, I knew people I sold papers to, like Miss Giddings and some other regular customers. But most of the time, I was just alone.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” I said, only to realize that I didn’t know where he’d be. “At your aunt’s house—or here?”

  Robert looked down at his bum leg again. “Probably here.”

  I hoped he was wrong, and that his aunt would watch out for him, but I said, “Okay. I’ll come here. Probably kinda late, after my mom goes to work.”

  “Miss Feeney . . .” Detective Hastings prompted me, but in a nice way. “Get a move on!”

  “Okay, okay.” I headed for the front door, ran out into the cold night, and climbed into the front seat of a warm, rumbling sedan. Detective James Culhane was waiting for me, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. At first I was just happy that the automobile had a heater, because I’d never been in one that fancy before. But when my chauffeur turned to look at me—heater or no heater—I got chilly inside to see his most profoundly unhappy expression so far. And that was saying something.

  Reaching blindly for the door handle, I started to say that I’d just as soon walk, even if I got shot or something.

  But before I could find a way out, Detective Culhane put the automobile in gear, and there was nothing I could do but brace myself for what was bound to be a very bad conversation.

  And yet that whole ride . . . it turned out different than I ever could’ve expected.

  Chapter 15

  WHILE I’D ANTICIPATED A LECTURE ON THE DANGERS OF getting mixed up in a murder investigation, it took me only about two blocks to realize that Detective Culhane could really make me squirm just by being quiet.

  He could do silent even better than Robert Giddings.

  Unfortunately, I could never shut up. “This is a very nice car,” I said, reaching for a knob. In a split second, Detective Culhane’s right hand snatched my fingers, stopping me.

  “Don’t touch anything,” he warned. Then he let go of me. “Please.”

  “Jeez, sorry!” I crossed my arms. “I wasn’t going to break anything.”

  We got quiet again—until he made what I thought was a wrong turn. “You sure you know where you’re going?” I asked, trying to be helpful.

  “Yes.” That little muscle in his jaw twitched again. “I think I know this city.”

  I shifted to get a better look at him. “You grow up here?”

  He gave me a quick look. “Yes.” That was all. Apparently, he didn’t like answering questions. Only asking them. “You’re out awfully late, alone,” he noted, returning his attention to the street. “Where are your parents? Your family? Why aren’t they worried?”

  “My mother cleans at night,” I told him. “She thinks I’m home.” I picked a stray thread off the hat on my lap. “And my dad died in the war.”

  Detective Culhane frowned at me—but not in his usual angry way. “Sorry.”

  He sounded sincere, and when he faced forward again, I studied his profile in the dark. He was probably about the age my father would’ve been if he’d survived the Great War, and forgetting for a moment that Detective Culhane wasn’t eager to talk about himself, I asked, “Were you in the war?”

  As soon as the words were out, I realized he probably wouldn’t answer. So I was surprised when he nodded. “Yes. Infantry. France.”

  That was all he said, and it was clear he thought even that was too much.

  I wanted to ask more because infantry . . . they were the soldiers like my dad, who’d actually done the fighting, from long lines of deep trenches dug into the earth. I’d overheard my mother say that infantry saw terrible things in those muddy burrows, and I would’ve liked to hear what it had really been like for my father.

  Maybe Detective Culhane had even met my dad.

  All of a sudden I got sick to my stomach because, although it was unlikely—thousands of soldiers had fought in France—it struck me that Detective Culhane might’ve served with my dad and even seen him die. Might know the whole story, and if my father had suffered, like from poison gas the Germans had used, or if he’d gone quickly, like from a bullet. Or if it had been really horrible, from a bayonet . . .

  I was glad when Detective Culhane changed the subject, asking in a grudgingly kinder voice, “Are you hungry, Isabel?”

  Of course I was hungry. I’d covered quite a few miles since eating those two slices of pie. But I was also tired and wanted to go home. Plus I wasn’t sure how long Detective Culhane would stay softened up, so I said, “Not really.”

  The sedan was dark inside, but I could tell he didn’t believe me.

  “Really,” I reassured him. “I ate some pie with Maude Collier.”

  He gave me a sharp glance. “What?”

  “I had to convince her not to make Miss Giddings look guilty,” I explained. “Because I read her stories, and she’s not very nice to criminals.” I needed to fix that. “I mean, to people she thinks are criminals. Which Miss Giddings is not.”

  “Oh, Isabel . . .” We’d reached my rundown old house—somehow he had found the way—and he stopped the car, turned off the motor, then sighed and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. Apparently I’d said something wrong again. He shifted to face me, and the lecture finally started. “You shouldn’t be speaking with reporters, however ‘pretty’ and ‘charming’ they may seem—”

  Whoa! Hold on there!

  “Are you sweet on her?” I blurted. Because, really—“pretty” and “charming”?

  “No!” he said too quickly, and I thought, Gosh, he really is!

  I fought the urge to grin while he composed himself. “My point is, you shouldn’t be insinuating yourself into a murder investigation,” he advised me. “This is not a game, Miss Feeney.”

  “I know it’s not,” I told him. “Miss Giddings could hang!”

  Detective Culhane got quiet again. Then he said, very seriously, “You’re correct, Isabel. She could be executed. Perhaps should be executed. But it’s unlikely. Women almost never hang in Cook County, Illinois.”

  “But she could. You just said it.”

  Detective Culhane didn’t argue. Instead, he surprised me by asking, “What do you really know about Miss Giddings?”

  I took a moment to consider that. “I know that she’s nice . . . and a good person,” I finally ventured. My answer sounded weak, even to me. “She always gives me a tip when she buys a paper. And she asks about me . . . really asks, not like most people do.”

  That all sounded flimsy too, and we both knew it.

  “I’ve seen a lot of cases like this,” Detective Culhane informed me. “And usually, the pattern is the same. A man and a woman fight—maybe often. Someone has a gun. Things end badly.”

  “It’s not
like that with Miss Giddings,” I insisted. “Robert thinks she might’ve gotten rid of the gun ages ago. And you said Charles Bessemer was a gangster. Maybe he got shot because of that!”

  Detective Culhane didn’t seem interested in my ideas. “Stay out of this, young lady,” he ordered me, as though I were Hastings. Then he nodded toward my house, dismissing me. “Good night.”

  “Good night,” I grumbled. I pulled the handle and opened the heavy door. “See ya.”

  “No,” I heard him say. “I won’t see you—”

  I slammed the door before he could make me promise to keep my nose out of Miss Giddings’s troubles, because I couldn’t do that. Especially after I went to sell my papers the next day, tired from being up too late, tossing and turning in bed, my nightmares filled with murder and polio and men fighting in trenches. I was pretty bleary-eyed, but I could still read the headline for a story on the front page of the Tribune. An article written by my friend Maude Collier.

  Oh. No.

  Chapter 16

  “PRETTIEST”

  SLAYER NABBED

  FOR ALLEY

  MURDER

  Single Bullet Kills Cruel Suitor

  —————

  by Maude Collier

  Cook County Jail’s infamous “Murderess’s Row” has a new and comely resident.

  Police last night arrested pretty department store clerk Colette Giddings after she was discovered kneeling next to the bleeding body of her boyfriend, smalltime gangster Charles “the Bull” Bessemer.

  The coroner attributed Bessemer’s death to a single bullet, fired at close range into his temple.

  Miss Giddings, between bewildered blinks of innocent brown eyes, was quick to distance herself from a gun found within convenient reach of her hand, which sported an impressive diamond, courtesy of Bessemer.

  The gun, meanwhile, sported Giddings’s fingerprints.

  “I don’t own a gun,” she insisted during questioning. “Guns are too dangerous. I only touched it because it was lying there, and I panicked!”

  Pulling a bloodstained fur—also a gift from Bessemer—more closely around herself, she similarly denied knowledge of “the Bull’s” connection to the head of Chicago’s infamous mob aristocracy, one Alphonse Capone.

  “I just thought Charles sold automobiles,” the guileless clerk claimed with a confused pout. “I didn’t know he dealt in alcohol!”

  Alcohol . . . autos . . . an easy mistake!

  Questioned by Detective James Culhane, Tribune newsgirl Isabel Feeney, first on the scene after the killing, said she’d seen the couple exchange angry words moments before the shot rang out in a dark, secluded alley off Wabash Avenue.

  Reporters and detectives laughed as Miss Feeney also pointed out that she frequently “pounded” a neighbor boy—but “it doesn’t mean I’d kill him!”

  Despite the girl’s persuasive argument on behalf of Miss Giddings, Detective Culhane nevertheless ordered the city’s latest man-killer to spend some restorative time in the Cook County Jail, where she awaits the results of a coroner’s jury . . .

  That was all I bothered to read. With steam coming out of my ears into the icy February air, I tore the story out of the paper and tossed the rest to the ground. But as I crumpled the article to jam it into my pocket, I noticed some photos, one of which showed Charles Bessemer with a snooty-looking girl in ribbons and bows, who must’ve been his daughter, Flora. And even though I felt sorry for her, losing her dad too, I couldn’t help thinking, No wonder Robert didn’t look too happy about getting a sister!

  I uncrumpled the paper and looked closer.

  But why did Flora seem familiar to me?

  Kneeling down, I grabbed the Trib again and turned a few pages until I found her where she always was—in an advertisement in the section meant for ladies, with stories about cooking and sewing. Flora was standing next to a pretty woman in an apron, both of them smiling in a sticky-sweet way. Flora held up a slice of bread, next to the quote, “Mommy only buys our family Bakery Pride Bread. It keeps me healthy and her young!”

  Gosh . . . Flora Bessemer was the Bakery Pride girl!

  She must be rich.

  Then, though I knew I might lose my job and be even poorer if anybody told on me for abandoning my corner, I left the whole stack of papers next to a lamppost and stalked off, headed for the massive new Tribune Tower building on Michigan Avenue to give Miss Maude Collier a piece of my mind about how she’d portrayed Miss Giddings.

  And this time, I wouldn’t be bought with a few slices of pie.

  Chapter 17

  I WAS FULL OF OUTRAGE—UNTIL I STOOD ACROSS BUSTLING MICHIGAN AVENUE, gawking at the soaring, spiky, brand-spanking-new Tribune Tower, which had to be the biggest and most beautiful building in the world. I knew from reading the paper that there’d been an international competition to design it, and the architect who’d won had modeled it after a famous cathedral in France.

  But I’d never seen a church that touched the sky the way the Tower did. God himself might’ve tripped on the thing if he was walking around up in the clouds.

  And I knew I’d find stones and bricks inside from the world’s most famous structures, like the Great Wall of China and the ancient Italian Colosseum. The Trib’s stories about construction had always mentioned those artifacts and bragged about how the Tower would be just as well-known as those foreign sites.

  I’m standing in front of history—and a place where history is made.

  In spite of how angry I was, I couldn’t help wishing, more than ever, that I could work in such an important building and make my mark on the city and the planet. Yet at the same time, that dream never seemed more out of reach.

  Dodging autos and delivery carts, I hurried across Michigan Avenue in my heavy boots, wondering how I, Isabel Feeney, who didn’t even go to school, could think about being a news reporter in a skyscraper with an arched entrance that was at least twenty feet high.

  Talk about dreaming too big!

  But of course I wasn’t there to apply for a job that day. I was there to give Maude Collier a piece of my mind.

  Taking a deep breath, I joined the flow of people going in and out of that doorway.

  It wasn’t until I was inside the grandest room I’d ever seen that I realized I had no idea how I’d find one woman in a building where it seemed like thousands of people were scurrying around, all of them seeming to know where they were headed.

  Gathering up all my courage, I grabbed the sleeve of the closest person, tugging hard to get noticed.

  Needless to say, that went wrong.

  Chapter 18

  “WHADDYA WANT, KID?” A GRUFF MAN DEMANDED, pulling the sleeve of his overcoat free of me. He scowled worse than Detective Culhane, and wasn’t half as handsome, so it came off even scarier, if that was possible. “Whaddaya doin’ here?”

  “Are you a reporter?” I asked. “I’m looking for—”

  He cut me off. “I’m an adman. Don’t know the reporters.”

  Gosh, was the place that big? And what was an adman?

  “Can you at least tell me where the reporters work?” I inquired, grabbing his sleeve again because he was starting to walk away, into the crowd of people who kept sidestepping us. “Please?”

  “We’re awfully busy here,” he said, prying at my fingers. “Let go!”

  “Walter!”

  A woman’s voice interrupted, and I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. Turning, I saw that a very pretty young lady in a modern short skirt, a ruffled blouse, and eyeglasses was smiling at the man named Walter. “What are you doing to this poor child?” she asked, hugging a big stack of papers to her chest. “Huh?”

  Walter blushed and got less gruff. “He’s just lost or somethin’ . . .”

  “Hey!” I pulled off my cap, letting my hair spring free.

  The lady was also correcting the mistake. “She’s a girl, Walter!”

  Walter’s face got even redder, but he didn’t apologize.


  “Go on,” the nice woman told him with a nod. “I’ll help her. You run along.”

  “Fine.” Walter shuffled off, grumbling about “kids” and “dames,” while the kind lady bent down, smiling again. “How can I help you, sweetie?”

  “I’m looking for Maude Collier,” I said. “I need to give her a piece of my mind.”

  The young woman reared back. Her eyes twinkled with amusement. “Is that so?”

  She might’ve found the whole thing funny, but I was dead serious. “Yeah. You know where I can find her—”

  “Miss Dalton,” she said. “My name is Lizzie Dalton. And you are . . .”

  “Isabel Feeney. Tribune newsgirl.”

  I added that last part so Miss Dalton might think I belonged in the Tribune Tower. And the announcement did make her smile wider. “Well, Isabel Feeney, Maude Collier is a very busy, and famous, woman. She’s one of the paper’s top reporters, you know!”

  “I think she’ll see me,” I predicted. “We’re kind of . . . friends.”

  Until I yell at her.

  “Oh!” Miss Dalton’s eyebrows shot up with surprise. “Well then, Isabel, come along with me.” Taking my shoulder again, she steered me toward a row of big gold doors. I knew they were elevators, even though I’d never been in one. “I suppose I can at least take you to the city room.”

  I glanced up, confused. “City room?”

  “That’s where Miss Collier and the other news reporters work.”

  “Oh.” I acted as if I already knew that—and allowed myself to be maneuvered into a closet operated by a man in a gold-buttoned suit, looking like he was in the army. All at once, as Miss Dalton and a few other people followed me, cramming into the box, I wondered just how high we were going and how strong the ropes or wires that would pull us were. I wasn’t too keen on heights, or tumbling out of the sky, for that matter. “Ummm . . .”

  But before I could ask if there was a staircase we could use, everybody, including Miss Dalton, started calling out numbers to the uniformed man, and the next thing I knew, the floor moved. It took me all of two seconds to get queasy, and I rested my hand on my stomach, thinking that Colonel McCormick, who ran the whole paper, probably wouldn’t like me messing up his elevator. How could Miss Dalton be so nonchalant?