Murder at Wrigley Field

by Troy Soos

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Karl Landfors promised he’d get me the information by eleven o’clock Wednesday morning. He said he’d been in town long enough to have established the necessary contacts and promised me a dinner if he failed to make it on time. I didn’t want dinner. I wanted to know the kind of gun that was used to kill Bennett Harrington.

  It was now a quarter past ten. I’d been up for several hours waiting anxiously for his call.

  If the bullet was intact, Landfors would find out what type it was. And I was hoping with all my might that it wasn’t from a Model 1892 Colt .38 revolver. At least let the slug be too badly mangled to be identified, and I’d forget about the whole thing.

  The call came at ten to eleven. I grabbed the phone on the first ring and clapped the receiver to my ear. “Karl?”

  “Got it!” he trumpeted.

  “Was it.... Was it a Colt thirty-eight?”

  “Close, as far as caliber. But no. A nine-millimeter Parabellum.”

  “A what?”

  “Bennett Harrington was shot by a nine-millimeter ‘Pistole ought-eight.’ A Luger.”

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely. Two slugs were left in the body. Both of them were nice and clean, easy to identify.”

  “A Luger. That’s German.” Was Harrington killed by Germans?

  “German manufacture. But they’re popular souvenirs. A lot of soldiers brought them back here. Actually, Lugers aren’t being used in combat much anymore. They jam in trench warfare. See, they have this toggle mechanism, and when they get muddy...”

  Landfors was flaunting his recently acquired expertise again. I wasn’t interested in the effects of mud on German side arms, so I tried to cut the conversation short.

  “Wait!” he yelped as I was about to I hang up.

  “What?”

  “I checked on Terrapin Park in Baltimore, like you asked, which was quite confusing, I’ll have you know. Terrapin Park was built across the street from Orioles Park. When the Federal League folded, the Orioles moved into Terrapin Park but renamed it Orioles Park, so now there are two Orioles Parks right across the street from each other!” Landfors sounded outraged, as if this had been done solely to make things difficult for him. “By the way,” he added, “I was wondering. Are these the same Orioles that were famous twenty years ago?”

  Karl Landfors had some serious gaps in his education that I felt obligated to fill. I gave him a concise history lesson: the famous “old Orioles” of the 1890s were a National League team that was jettisoned when the league cut down from twelve teams to eight after the 1899 season. The 1901 formation of the American League included a Baltimore franchise that played under the name “Orioles” until they moved to New York in 1903 and later became known as the Yankees. The current Baltimore Orioles were in the International League, a minor league.

  “Oh,” said Landfors, sounding like a less than avid pupil. “Anyway, Bennett Harrington owns a company that owns the land on which the new Orioles Park, formerly Terrapin Park, was built. So you’re right about him. He was involved in the Federal League.”

  “Thanks Karl.”

  I didn’t care about Bennett Harrington’s business dealings now. I was simply relieved that it wasn’t Edna Chapman who’d killed him. I was sure that if she had, she’d have used Otto Kaiser’s gun, the one Willie was so proud to possess.

  I was also puzzled. If it wasn’t Edna, then who?

  By early Friday morning, I came to the realization that I might have been only a little bit wrong—right string, wrong yo-yo.

  Late Friday morning, I made a visit to the Chapman home.

  Edna greeted me with polite indifference and led me into the parlor, where a battered black sewing machine on a chipped oak cabinet was positioned in the middle of the room. I hadn’t seen it before. “That new?” I asked.

  “New for us.” She sat down at the machine. “Mind if I keep working? I promised Mrs. Schafer I’d have this dress finished for her tomorrow.”

  “Uh, no. No, I don’t mind.” Edna must have started to take in seamstress jobs to make up for the income Willie could no longer provide. I briefly debated offering financial help, but she’d probably be insulted so I said nothing.

  She started to rock the treadle with her foot; the machine squeaked and squealed as the needle flew up and down through the hem of a green serge skirt. I grabbed one of the dining chairs and sat across from her.

  I watched her work for a few minutes. “Your mother upstairs?”

  She nodded. “Sleeping.”

  I pulled my chair a little closer. In a low voice I asked, “You remember when Willie and I moved your things upstairs? When you gave the dogs your bedroom down here?”

  Edna nodded while keeping her eyes on her task. With deft hands, she smoothed the cloth and guided it through the machine, producing a perfectly uniform stitch pattern.

  “You have a strongbox—I remember carrying it up there—like the one Willie had in his dresser, where he kept his father’s things.”

  The rise and fall of the needle slowed. A warm flush rose in her high cheeks. “Yes, what about it?”

  “Could you bring it down and show me what’s in it?”

  She sat for a long minute staring at the mass of cloth. Then, without uttering a word, she went upstairs.

  The box was already unlocked when Edna brought it down. She handed it to me, then took her seat at the sewing machine and methodically resumed work on the dress.

  I creaked open the lid. “It’s in there,” Edna said softly.

  The contents of the iron box were similar to those of Willie’s: mostly papers and photographs. There was also a medal attached to a striped silk ribbon of blue, yellow, and green; the bronze disk was stamped “Mexican Service, 1911– 1917” and featured the image of some kind of plant—a cactus, I assumed. Lying on top of everything was a dark tarnished pistol with a skinny little barrel and a raked-back handle. A Luger.

  I carefully removed the weapon and began to examine it. Karl Landfors had mentioned that Germany had supplied weapons to the Mexican army. I realized that Edna’s father might have sent home a captured souvenir from Mexico the same way doughboys were now sending them back from Europe.

  Attempting to check if it was loaded, I fumbled with the latch that would release the clip. Edna Chapman put a quick halt to my efforts. “There are two missing,” she said. The sewing machine slowed to a stop, and Edna folded her hands in her lap. After a deep breath, she added, “I shot Mr. Harrington.”

  It was what I’d suspected, but as soon as I heard her utter the words, I wished she hadn’t told me.

  “How did you know where to find him?” I asked, placing the Luger back in the strongbox.

  “Some people were watching him for me. They told me Mr. Harrington had a regular poker game at the La Salle Hotel. I met him after the game. And...” Her voice trailed off; she concluded with a shrug.

  “Who were the people watching him?” I assumed it was some of Hans Fohl’s acquaintances.

  She gave me a baleful look that said I should know better than to ask her such a question.

  I tried a different one. “You just walked up to him and shot him?”

  “I had the gun hidden in a muff. He didn’t see it until it was too late.”

  “And you just shot him?”

  “I introduced myself first. ‘I’m Willie Kaiser’s sister,’ I said. Then I pulled out the gun and shot him. Twice.”

  I didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to ask—didn’t want to hear—anything more. I recalled her telling me once that you had to share a secret with somebody. Why the hell did she have to share this one with me?

  “Are you angry?” she asked.

  “No.” Confused, surprised, sad. But not angry. “I think...” I picked up the weapon again. It was an ugly thing. The only pretty gun I’d ever seen was Bennett Harrington’s revolver. “I think I’d like to take this with me. That okay?”

  “What are yo
u going to do with it?”

  “I don’t know.” I really didn’t know. But no matter what, she shouldn’t be keeping it.

  “If you like,” she agreed.

  I put the Luger in my jacket pocket; it made an unsightly bulge and felt heavy against my hip.

  The good-byes were brief. Edna resumed her sewing, and I showed myself to the door. I felt uncertain about everything, somewhat dubious that I could even find my way home.

  Stepping down from the Chapman’s front porch, I met a big blond fellow coming the other way. We looked at each other for a few seconds, trying to recall where we’d seen each other before. I remembered first. “Uh, hi Gus,” I said.

  He stared a little longer before guessing, “Rawlings?”

  “Yeah.” This was the man from Hans Fohl’s church, the one who’d said I didn’t belong there. We exchanged awkward nods and moved on.

  When I reached the sidewalk, I looked back, suddenly aware of what he’d been carrying: red roses wrapped in white paper. I was sure they weren’t for Edna’s mother.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I’d been up all night, sitting alone at my kitchen table, staring dull-eyed at the darkness outside the window next to it. The latest cup of coffee had been in front of me for about two hours. Now and then I took a sip of the cold, bitter brew, but I didn’t need it to stay awake. Thoughts of Edna Chapman mingled with memories of Willie Kaiser and Curly Neeman and Bennett Harrington, were all that were necessary to prevent me from sleeping.

  In my heart I felt that Edna was justified in killing Bennett Harrington, and in a way I admired her for it. The admiration was mingled with frustration; Edna’s action had relegated me to a minor role in the matter. After all this time worrying about not doing anything for her, it turned out she didn’t need me at all.

  And because she admitted to me what she’d done, I was now in the position of having to make a choice: keep her secret and do nothing more or turn the Luger over to the police and tell them who killed Bennett Harrington. Some choice.

  I wanted there to be laws and rules, but I wanted them to be fair and reasonable. I wanted them to be effective, to take care of people like Bennett Harrington so that an eighteen-year-old girl didn’t have to commit—. According to the law, what Edna Chapman had done was murder. The dilemma for me was whether I was willing to be what I think they called an “accessory after the fact”—whether I was going to align myself with the law or with a more pragmatic justice.

  I looked out the kitchen window through a porthole of clean glass that I’d produced by rubbing hard on the dingy pane. The moonless night sky was as black as my coffee, with only a few stars twinkling dimly. I estimated that there was still an hour, maybe two, until Sunday dawn. Fall was approaching; the days were getting shorter and sunrise was coming later.

  A light went on in Mrs. Tobin’s house. Its glow lit up the narrow space between our homes and cast a yellow sheen on my window. She probably hadn’t been able to sleep much after getting the news about Harold. I remembered what Mrs. Chapman had looked like after Willie’s death and could imagine what Mrs. Tobin was going through.

  I couldn’t fathom why I should feel any concern about Bennett Harrington’s death. Harold Tobin was somebody to mourn. So was Willie Kaiser. But Harrington? No.

  Not that I really grieved for Bennett Harrington. His death didn’t strike me as any more of a loss than Curly Neeman’s. So what was it exactly that had me so troubled? Perhaps it was disillusionment that the rules I wanted to believe in had proved useless. And if I went along with what Edna had done, I’d be giving up on the way things were supposed to work.

  I wasn’t going to bother trying to fall asleep in what was left of the night, so I put on another pot of coffee and pretended that I had just gotten up extra early in the morning.

  Sipping on a hot cup of the fresh brew, I sat back down. Perhaps it wouldn’t mean giving up on the system to let Edna Chapman get away with it. Maybe the Harrington case qualified as one of those “extreme situations” that Landfors talked about, like the Civil War when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus or whatever it was.

  Mrs. Tobin’s light shut off. My train of thought jumped rails from the Civil War to the present war in Europe and all the lousy things that were being done to promote it. I didn’t like the propaganda, but if I let it keep me from going to fight for the things I did believe in, I was letting it control me the same as it was influencing people like Curly Neeman and the Patriotic Knights of Liberty. I told myself that in all things I needed to focus on the ideals, keep them in view, not be distracted or dissuaded by the imperfect means sometimes used in struggling for them.

  Maybe what was really bothering me was the knowledge that after this season I would never again be able to ignore what happened outside the ballpark. There was more to life than baseball, and many new things, most of them complicated and some of them troublesome, would be part of my life.

  The sky grew brighter as I pondered, but answers became no clearer.

  A loud clanking noise and a rumble of muffled curses echoed from the alley. The sounds shook me loose from my tangled musing. I sprang up from my chair and went to the back door, drawing aside the curtain far enough to peek out.

  Two scruffy boys of about fourteen or fifteen were hauling a hot water tank out of a neighbor’s cellar. They must have dropped it and were moving quickly to take it away. Leaving the cellar door open, the boys staggered with their unwieldy load to another house four doors away down the alley. A man’s arm opened the back door for them and they slipped inside with the tank.

  I mentally marked the location of the house, then grabbed my coat.

  Minutes later, I was knocking on that same door. There was a flurry of movement within the house, then a young voice called, “Who’s there?”

  “Me,” I grunted. What the hell, I thought, that’s the answer most people give.

  Footsteps approached the door. The curtain started to move, and I leaned away to avoid being seen. An unintelligible exchange of words took place inside, then the door cracked open a cautious inch. I immediately gave it a hard shove, forcing my way in.

  I was met by no physical resistance, but my nose was struck by a smell nearly as vile as that of the Union Stockyards. It was the sickly sweet odor of something fermenting.

  The boy at the door stared at me with his mouth agape. Equally surprised were his two accomplices: the somewhat younger boy who’d helped carry the tank and a gnarled, gray old man. They stood at the far end of the kitchen, next to the stolen water tank. No one spoke for a minute, giving me time to survey the filthy residence. A wall had been crudely torn down between the kitchen and parlor to make one large room. It was an uninhabitable room, cluttered with plumbing fixtures, metal pipes, and several other hot water tanks, one of which, I was sure, was mine. Tin washtubs along one wall were filled with the brown liquid responsible for the noxious fumes.

  Slamming the door shut, the boy behind me said in a tone that he tried hard to sound threatening, “What should we do with this guy?” I turned my head and gave him a look that warned he better not try doing anything to me.

  The old man wiped his hands on his stained undershirt and growled, “Depends on who he is.”

  “Mickey Rawlings,” I piped up. “Believe you have something of mine.” I nodded at one of the tanks and noticed the spiral of copper tubing attached to the top. I’d seen something like it once in Texas. Scattered about the place were boxes of yeast and bags of sugar and cornmeal; many were broken open, with their contents spilled over the dirty floor. They were moonshiners!

  It was obviously a bush league operation. The scene looked like the aftermath of a pie-throwing episode in one of Mack Sennett’s slapstick comedies.

  The boy next to the old man said, “We better do somethin’ about this guy. Make sure he don’t talk.”

  I recalled that amateurs often did very stupid things and momentarily wished that I’d thought to bring the gun I’d acquired in Bennett Ha
rrington’s office. It was hidden next to Edna’s Luger behind my Mark Twain books.

  The old guy relieved my worry somewhat when he boxed the kid’s ears. “Goddamn idiots. Shouldn’t have let him follow you.”

  Ignoring the boys, I directed myself to the man, hoping that he’d acquired enough wisdom in his years to be a little less stupid than the boys. “Look,” I said. “I don’t care if you want to set up a still and brew a little corn whisky. But don’t go stealing stuff from my house to do it.”

  “Well, I didn’t like having to,” he grumbled. “We ain’t thieves.” He smacked the boy in the head again. “If we was, these damn kids would be a helluva lot better at it.” He turned to me. “We’d buy what we needed if we could, but it’s hard to get plumbing supplies these days. There’s a war on, you know.”

  Why did people always tell me this as if it was news? “Then buy bootleg booze,” I said. “What do you have to make your own for? This is Chicago, for chrissake. A drink ain’t exactly hard to find.”

  He ran a hand over the tank and gave me a sly wink. “It will be,” he said. “When Prohibition passes. And we’re gonna be set up to make a killing selling our home brew!”

  I couldn’t keep from laughing. They sure weren’t going to be good businessmen. “Then you’re really stupid to be stealing from your neighbors,” I said.

  The grin vanished and his brow furrowed. “Watcha mean?”

  “You’re going to need these people as customers. You go stealing from them, word gets around, and you’re out of business.”

  “Hmm.” He rubbed his unshaven chin and said thoughtfully, “Man has a point boys.” With a shake of his head, he added, “But ain’t no other way to get the equipment.”

  “Got a pencil and paper?”

  He punched the kid in the shoulder, and the boy went to another room. He returned a minute later with the writing materials.

  I scribbled down a name and phone number. “This is my landlord,” I said. “He’s got vacant buildings and he’ll sell you the tanks and plumbing from them. It’ll cost you, but you’ll be better off doing it that way.” I held out the slip of paper, and the old man walked over and took it from my hand. “You’ll also pay him thirty dollars for the one you stole from me. Tell him to apply it to my rent.”