The Fruitcake Murders

by Collins, Ace;

  “Yeah,” Jacobs wearily admitted, “a few years ago, when we were discussing the case and I told him I’d been the unwitting driver of the car that took the hit man to the crime scene, and the guilt for not coming forward was still eating me alive. Ethan shared that during that trial he was working as a clerk at the DA’s office and some kid had cornered him as he went to his job one morning. That young boy swore that someone other than the candy maker had committed the murder. The kid was raggedly dressed and looked hungry, so Ethan figured he was just trying to get attention and looking for a handout. Anyway, Ethan gave the kid a buck and sent him on his way. He never passed along the information to the DA. That omission ate at him, too. An innocent man died because he didn’t act on what a little boy told him.”

  Jacobs shook his head. “Miss Clayton, back in my office you asked me about the fruitcake. Everyone has long thought it was just a gag gift. It was a lot more than that. That cake came from the place Velma’s dad was killed and had been made in Lewandowski’s candy shop. Ethan and I both could have kept the wrong man from dying for that murder and yet we didn’t. That cake reminded us of our past sins and pushed us to never be cowards again. So, I swear on all that is holy, Ethan did not finger that prostitute for murder. He had some plan that would have kept her alive after he’d used her as bait for Delono. He had to have.”

  “We might never know that,” Tiffany soberly added, “but we do know that Elrod, a retired cop named Saunders, and a gun shop owner named Ogden were all killed in the same way. Now that we know the full story on Elrod, we can tie each of those men to the Lewandowski case. So if it wasn’t you who killed them, then who was it?”

  “I don’t know,” Jacobs admitted. “Maybe the candy maker’s kids. One of them was crazy.”

  With everything else off the table, that was about the only thing that made sense. As Tiffany studied Jacobs, now looking like a completely beaten man, she heard a deep, unfamiliar voice bark, “Lewandowski’s kids had nothing to do with this!”

  Jerking her eyes in the direction of the study door, she saw a man she didn’t know. He was about five-foot ten, perhaps one hundred and sixty pounds, clean-shaven, close cut, dark hair, intense and deep-set dark eyes. The stranger was holding a chrome-plated pistol in his left hand and a large sack in the other.

  41

  Tuesday, December 24, 1946

  5:26 P.M.

  His unvoiced theory proved correct, Garner calmly studied the completely unexpected guest. As their eyes met and the visitor flashed a sign of recognition, the investigator smiled and announced, “Stuart Grogan.”

  With the mere mention of the name, the others in the room must have been completely taken aback. For the past week, anyone who read the newspapers or listened to the radio knew that Grogan was dead, but Garner had never bought the story.

  The visitor smiled. “It’s been a while, Bret. The weather was a lot different in Honolulu than it is here.” He waved his gun a bit before adding, “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, and I’m a bit surprised you’re not surprised.”

  “You mean,” the investigator replied, “surprised to see the Ghost of Christmas Past or are you the Ghost of Christmas Present?” Garner shot the guest a dry grin before adding, “Stuart, the Japs thought you were dead and you came back to haunt them, so why should you treat us any differently?”

  The gunman shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I, indeed? Now in answering your first question, I think I am more the Ghost of Christmas Past. In fact, I think Dickens might have enjoyed this rewriting of his old tale. It has all the classic plot elements: revenge, retribution, and righting a wrong.” The visitor chuckled, “I think I just invented a new version of the three Rs.”

  “You were always clever,” Garner admitted. “You broke codes and figured out potential enemy moves much more quickly than the rest of us.”

  “I must have been a step ahead of you on this one, too,” Grogan observed, “and that’s not easy to do. Okay, I know the judge, but who are your friends?”

  “The blonde is a reporter for The Chicago Star, her name is Tiffany Clayton. The goofy-looking guy in the chair is a homicide detective named Lane Walker.”

  Taking advantage of being introduced, the cop jumped into what had been a two-way conversation. “This can’t be Stuart Grogan. Grogan’s dead. We’ve been fishing him out of the river one piece at a time for the past week, and Morelli tells me that the pieces we’ve found likely went into the water in late November.”

  The uninvited guest kept his gun aimed toward the judge and grinned, “Your timeline is right but, as you can see, it looks like someone put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.”

  Garner nodded. “I always figured Delono hadn’t gotten you. After all, even when the Japanese Army took out your whole unit they couldn’t kill you.”

  “Yeah,” Grogan grimly replied, “I do seem to have a number of lives. Maybe you should call me The Cat.”

  “You seem more the rat type to me,” Lane chimed in. “Whose body did you use to fake your death?”

  “About a month ago, Delono got wise to what I was doing,” Grogan explained. “He actually figured out that I was planning on taking him out. So, rather than hire it done, he pulled the trigger this time and watched me fall into the river. I was nicked but not badly injured. I pretended to sink as he fired a few more slugs at me. I then held my breath and swam. I still almost froze to death before I could get far enough down the river to come up for air. Then I headed for shore. As luck would have it, I found a dead bum that night under a bridge.”

  Tiffany chimed in, “Sounds like the bridge down by Division Street. A lot of hobos stay there. I’ve done a story on them.”

  “That’s the place,” the visitor assured her, “and the dead guy I found didn’t seem to mind changing clothes with me. Though I didn’t want to do it, I then went to work dropping him into the river piece by piece to assure Delono I was no longer his concern. But, you have my word, I didn’t kill him, he was already dead.”

  “Hard to take the word of someone who’s holding a gun on me,” Lane mockingly noted.

  “And,” Grogan noted, “speaking of guns, you all are likely packing. So, while I keep my weapon pointed at the woman’s head . . .”

  “The woman’s name is Tiffany,” the reporter reminded him.

  “Fine, while I keep my gun pointed at Tiffany, you men reach in and retrieve your guns with your left hands, drop them on the floor and kick them over my way. I wouldn’t want to have to shoot such a pretty lady, and Bret can tell you I’m a crack shot.”

  Garner looked over to Lane and nodded. Opening up his jacket, the investigator showed Grogan his gun before reaching out and pulling it from his waistband with his left hand. He then dropped it to the floor and used his foot to slide it toward the guest. Following his war buddy’s lead, the cop did the same thing.

  “Thank you, gentleman, I have no quarrel with either of you or Tiffany. I’m here to visit with the judge.”

  “What’s this about?” Jacobs demanded from his chair.

  “I’ve got a job to finish,” Grogan explained. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this.” The grin left his face. “Too long, I guess. When I couldn’t make things right back then, I pledged I would correct a wrong when I had some power in my hands.”

  Garner glanced to the judge and then back to the man with the gun. He knew the war had played horrible games with Grogan’s mind. When they’d served together, he’d seen the man lose it on several occasions. Back then there had always been a trigger, a song, a word, or seeing someone who looked like a member of his unit. What had pushed him over the edge this time and why was he directing his actions toward Jacobs?

  “Stuart,” the investigator said, “whatever this is about, you know as well as I do there is a right way to do things.”

  “They didn’t do it the right way,” the visitor explained.

  “Who didn’t?” Lane demanded.

  “Those who had the power to make a wron
g a right,” Grogan answered. “When they found me alive on that island, when they got me up and I looked around and saw all my buddies dead, the medic told me that I’d lived to even the score. That it was my job—to kill each one of the Japs who had killed my brothers. A few months later, I was in a group that overran the same Japs that had destroyed my unit. We had them cornered but I wouldn’t let them give up. Like that medic told me, I had a score to settle. I grabbed a machine gun and mowed them down. You know what the Marines did? They gave me a medal for that. They told me how proud they were of me.”

  Grogan’s eyes were misty and a tear ran down his face as he solemnly added, “Then I remembered I had another score to even up and another death to avenge.”

  “Why Chicago?” Garner asked.

  “This is where the battlefield is,” the man explained. “It’s where the enemy lives.” He smiled, “Bret did I ever tell you I was raised in Little Italy? My mom was actually born in the old country and came here as a child.”

  “You never mentioned that,” the investigator answered.

  “My childhood wasn’t all that great,” Grogan added sadly. “Anyway, when I got back here, I needed a job. I wanted to do something that would give me a way to accomplish two things. The first was to get near my targets. The second was to do something good. A few days later, I ran into Ethan Elrod. I’d met him a long time ago when I was a kid, but he didn’t remember me. Yet, when I told him I served with Naval Intelligence, he got real interested. When I shared that I was an expert marksman, he offered me a chance to do some work for him. He said I had the skills he needed. He wanted me to get close to Richard Delono, and thanks to Elrod putting out the word that the DA was looking for a former Marine who’d become a hired gun, through one of his underlings Delono sought me out. Once inside, it was my job to feed Elrod information that would help him bring Delono down.”

  “There had to be a guy on the inside,” Jacobs noted. “Ethan never told me about him, but he did share that he had an ace in the hole.”

  The gunman grinned. “I did a lot of little things to prove myself and then Delono gave me a big job. I was the guy who was supposed to knock off the judge’s ex-wife. I shared that information with Elrod and he figured a way to make it appear that I’d killed her, but I really hadn’t. That was all set up and then someone ratted me out and Delono took me to the river and pulled out his gun. I ran and got lucky.”

  Garner turned to Lane. “Did Elrod know that Grogan was supposedly dead?”

  “Maybe not,” the cop admitted, “we’d just discovered the first body part, complete with an I.D., the day the DA died. If he hadn’t read the afternoon paper or listened to the radio news, he could have missed it.”

  “Then,” the investigator said, “Sunshine was never supposed to die. Elrod wasn’t planning on sacrificing her. He was clean.”

  “Not totally clean,” Grogan cut in as he turned his eyes back to the judge. “You see, I was in the store that night Mr. Lombardi was killed.”

  “You were the little child in Lewandowski’s last words,” Tiffany cut in.

  “Yeah,” Grogan assured her, “And I was the kid Jacobs later gave the fruitcakes to, as well as the one who went to Elrod telling him what I had seen that night. Jacobs, you could have come forward, and Elrod could have accepted my information, but you didn’t. Both of you allowed Jan Lewandowski to burn for killing Geno Lombardi.” He shook his head before grimly adding, “You see, I watched Geno die. I was bent over him when the last bit of breath left his body. That’s not an easy thing for a little kid to absorb. I’d forced myself to forget what I’d seen until the war. Then it all came back to me. Then I knew what I had to do. I had to get even, just like when I mowed down those Japs. But this time I had to be clever.”

  The judge’s face turned ashen white as a foreboding silence fell over the room. Grogan, his gun now trained on Jacobs, dropped the sack he’d been holding in his right hand to the floor.

  “The last fruitcake is in there,” he explained. “There’s a knife as well. Once this job is finished, the score is even again.”

  “Wait,” Garner suggested. “Stuart, you’re trying to do the right thing, I know that, but you’re going about it the wrong way.”

  “It is all black and white,” Grogan answered. “They taught us that in the service. We take out those who are fighting against good.”

  “But you were working for Elrod,” the investigator pointed out, “he was on the right side.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” the visitor explained. “I only worked for him to get him to trust me. They taught us in the war the enemy had to pay for Pearl Harbor and they had to pay for Wake Island. You see, once you step over that line between right and wrong someone has to make you pay. No one else was going to make them face their crimes. So it was my job.”

  Grogan was even further gone than Garner had imagined. He couldn’t escape the training or the propaganda. He somehow saw himself as being an instrument of justice. Looking back to the man who’d once been his colleague, the investigator asked, “May I stand?”

  “Yeah,” came the response, “if you keep your distance. I don’t want to be forced to hurt you. But, take this as a warning, those who stand between me and my objective often have to pay the price, too.”

  Garner stood, slowly walked over to the edge of the desk, and leaned against it. After folding his arms, he noted, “I’m guessing you know a few things about Delono. At the very least you said the guy shot you.”

  “He did,” Grogan acknowledged, “but there is a lot of other stuff, too. When he drank, he liked to brag. He told me a lot because he wanted me to think he was bigger and smarter than Capone.”

  “How does Delono rank on the list of bad people you’ve known?” Garner asked.

  “At the top,” the gunman admitted.

  “Then” the investigator suggested, “stop trying to right a wrong from twenty years ago and turn your attention to bringing down a guy who is behind crimes today. Delono’s ducked the law long enough. Make him pay for those he’s killed and all the pain he’s inflicted in this world.”

  “After I finish this job,” Grogan assured his old friend, “I’ll be happy to share that information with you. I’ll sing like a canary.”

  Not bothering to ask, Tiffany stood and turned toward the guest. “Can I call you Stuart?”

  “Sure.”

  “Stuart, I understand you wanting to get Elrod. He didn’t act on your information, but why the cop?”

  The gunman looked toward the judge. “You want to tell her, Jacobs?”

  The oldest person in the room sighed. “I found out through one of Capone’s men that Saunders was on the take. He was watching the store that night. After the hit was done and the Falcon was gone, he was supposed to wait for someone to walk into that store. His job was to frame them for the murder.” He looked at the gunman and asked, “How did you know?”

  “About ten years later,” Grogan explained, “I was in a bar and everyone was talking about the good ole days when Capone ruled the town. Saunders bragged about doing jobs for Big Al, and even how he once got paid five grand to frame a guy for a murder that happened in Little Italy. I put two and two together.”

  Tiffany nodded, “Okay, that explains that, but why kill the man on the jury? There were eleven others who voted guilty was well.”

  “Ogden initially felt Lewandowski was innocent,” Grogan sadly noted, “and he wanted to do the right thing. He held out until he was offered enough cash to open his own shop. He was also promised the mob would come to him for their special purchases. He sold his soul just so he could own a gun shop. To him the value of a good man’s life was measured in a few thousand dollars.”

  “So,” Tiffany suggested, “everything was symbolic.”

  “First,” the gunman explained, “I got them to confess. Then I had them drink the drug so they wouldn’t feel the pain. I used one of Lewandowski’s fruitcakes because it was as close as I could get to an innocen
t man coming back from the grave to gain his retribution. The knife was the instrument that tied it back to Mr. Lombardi’s murder and symbolized betrayal.”

  “You can’t make that happen tonight,” Garner noted. “We won’t let you. You’re not alone like you were the other times.”

  With no warning Grogan moved forward. Lane was still on the couch, Jacobs in the chair, Garner ten steps to his left, and Tiffany three feet to his right.

  “I don’t need symbolism now,” the gunman explained as he stopped. “This is the final one. When I do my job tonight, the score is settled. Now, where do you want it, judge? And don’t worry, Bret, as soon as I know Jacobs is dead I’ll turn my weapon over to the cop. You see, my personal war ends here when the last guilty person pays for the crime. When this is finished, I will finally have peace on earth.”

  “Don’t stop this,” Jacobs announced as his eyes flashed to Lane and Garner. “In a strange sort of way, Grogan is right. I got caught up in a web and let an innocent man die. I was a coward.” The judge then looked to the gunman. “Give it to me in the heart.”

  Grogan shrugged, lowered his gun a bit, and tensed. As he prepared to fire, Garner, ignoring Jacobs’s orders began to move forward, but he was a bit late. Just as Grogan squeezed the trigger, a huge purse flew out of nowhere and Tiffany’s bag knocked the gun from Grogan’s hand. The bullet intended to settle the old score found the floor. As the gunman scrambled to pick up his weapon, the cop and the investigator jumped forward and subdued him. The holiday nightmare had finally ended.

  42

  Tuesday, December 24, 1946

  9:00 P.M.

  After Lane filed his report, Tiffany phoned in her story, and Grogan was sent to a psych ward, the trio piled into Garner’s Oldsmobile. Falling all over themselves in an attempt to appear noble, the men gave the reporter the chance to choose where to eat. She surprised them by asking to go to Sister Ann’s.