THE BARREL MURDER - a Detective Joe Petrosino case (based on true events)

by MICHAEL ZAROCOSTAS

  “We disagree, and that’s what we’d like to talk to you about.”

  “Well, I can’t talk. I’ve got a new case. You might’ve heard of a man being butchered with dirks and stuffed in a barrel on the East Side?”

  “I’ve heard quite a lot about the barrel tragedy. But then again, I have all sorts of colleagues with their fingers on the pulse of the latest crimes.” Steffens put his hand on Petrosino’s forearm. “I could be a great asset to you, and you to me.”

  “The mafia, huh?” Petrosino took a drag of his cigar. “You know, there are hill people in every country who hold vengeance as their only way of justice.”

  “Like the mountain folk of Kentucky and West Virginia with their ‘blood feuds.’”

  “That’s my point, Steffens. Sicilians have a long history of being oppressed, so they distrust the law and take justice in their own hands. But the real mafia died a long time ago. I’d say nowadays it’s like a mountain feud or a sort of local Tammany Hall in its worst form.”

  “What you just said,” Steffens whispered, eyes brightening like oil lamps, “that’s exactly why we want to meet with you, Detective. I can’t say much more here.”

  Petrosino contemplated it. The certainty in Steffen’s eyes and the mystery of the proposed meeting swayed him. Before Petrosino could answer, Schmittberger walked up, carrying a rucksack that undoubtedly held a variety of restraints and weapons for Dr. Primrose’s capture.

  “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Lincoln Steffens,” Schmittberger said, “the grand muckraker late of The Post and The Commercial Advertiser? I thought they canned you a long time ago?”

  “Hello Max, good to see you again, old friend.” Steffens held out his hand to Schmittberger, who grudgingly shook it. “Still handsome and taller than I’ll ever be.”

  “And you’ve lost more hair since I last saw you, Steff. Shouldn’t you be in another town writing about the ‘shame’ of this or that politicker?”

  “Ahh, so you’ve read my articles in McClure’s?”

  “Not a damn one.” Schmittberger grinned. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come back to my dear old New York. It’s a great big swimming hole to me. Every day I can dive in and swim around to see what or who I can get, to make a story of them.”

  “Like you did with me?” Schmittberger’s grin still there, but wolfish now.

  “I treated you square, Max, you know that.” Steffens patted Schmittberger’s shoulder. “You should read my new articles. I’m achieving some fame writing about government and police corruption. You must have heard of The Shame Of Minneapolis? Or the latest one, The Shamelessness of St. Louis? I can get you copies.”

  “No thanks, Steff. I don’t have the education to read your ten-dollar words, and we’re all stocked up on toilet papers at home.”

  Petrosino tried not to laugh. “Steffens, maybe you could speak to Max about your story.”

  “I’d love to bend Max’s ear some time,” Steffens said uncomfortably, “but my boss sent me out to catch hold of you, Petrosino. You and you alone. No offense, Max.”

  “None taken. In fact, I’m glad I’m not the subject of any more tales written by you.”

  “Our office address is on the card I gave you, Detective.” Steffens tipped his hat to them and quickly walked away down the street.

  “Son of a bitch.” Schmittberger spat in the street. “What are you talking to him for, Joe? Are you giving that wormy muckraker a news beat on the barrel murder?”

  “No.” Petrosino looked down at the linen business card. He memorized the Washington Square address and pocketed the card. “He wants to talk about the mafia society for a story. Did you read his articles?”

  Schmittberger nodded. “Of course I did. But I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.”

  “What’s with you and him?”

  “It goes way back. From before you and I knew each other.”

  “Lexow?”

  “I’ll tell you another time, but you’d be wise to be careful with Lincoln Steffens, Joe. He thinks he knows everything and, worse, he aims to prove it.”

  “Don’t worry, I will. I think it’s high time we visited River Crest Sanitarium.”

  “Swell idea.” Schmittberger pulled out the sleeve of a strait jacket from his rucksack. “Our mad doctor will be traveling in the finest of criminal gent’s fashion.”

  They took a ferry from Manhattan to Astoria sitting by themselves in the last row of a starboard bench beneath advertisements for Pabst Malt Extract. Ships were lining up at every pier circling the island with masts and smoke stacks piercing the sky. The river lapped at the ferryboat’s hull, and Max kept giving him that Cheshire cat smile.

  He pointed his long finger. “You’ve got yourself a woman, don’t you?”

  Petrosino shook his head adamantly, but smiled at Max’s intuition.

  “Yes, you do. That’s why you’ve been distracted. No matter. You’ll confess in due course. Then I’ll want details. Perfume, bosom size, whether she does the French whore’s suck.”

  “You’re demented, you know that?” Petrosino said, trying not to laugh.

  “Well, I hope she is, too.” Schmittberger nudged him. “When I came up, I worked a Negro district. One time, a prostitute comes out and presses a ten-dollar bill in my hand. I was so green I didn’t know what to do with it. I asked an old bull who said, ‘The Cap put you in a fat district so you can make a little on the side. He likes you, wants to fatten you up.’ I was so damn foolish I took the money to the Captain and said, ‘I’ve had plenty to eat today and don’t need fattening up, sir. This money’s for you.’”

  “What did he do?”

  “He was madder than a wet hen. He shouted, ‘I don’t take chicken feed!’ Then he cooled down and told me it was just a tip, part of the job. Next time I see that Negro girl, she giggles, waves me upstairs. Here I am expecting another tip, but she gives me a different kind. Or I guess you could say I gave her the tip.” Max grinned.

  “You’re off your damn rocker.” Petrosino turned away, looking at the mist hanging over the East River. It smelled of garbage. “I don’t have a girl. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

  “Sure. You know, Piper used to be a real Casanova with the gals.”

  “Was that in olden times when you were children together?”

  “Oh sure, we went to Sunday school together with George Washington. I’m younger than he is, you bastard.”

  Petrosino laughed. “I never came across him much, but I’m glad he’s with us.”

  “Duff’s a red-headed St. Nick. You know the story behind his limp?”

  Petrosino shook his head. “He said he was in the War.”

  “He was, but no,” Schmittberger said as the ferry bounced over a ripple, nearing Ward’s Island and the rough tidal strait. “After the War, he started out as a cop in Satan’s Circus. One night, a man was pistol-whipping a prostitute when Piper came on the scene with his nightstick. The man takes his .22 and shoots Piper in the leg, but Piper still manages to crush the man’s skull with one billy blow. Drops him dead. Then, leg bleeding to hell, Piper carries the girl to a hospital. Almost had to amputate it he lost so much blood. Here Duff was, survived the War without a scratch, then almost dies on the job from a goddamn pimp.”

  “That’s a hell of a story.”

  “And get this: the whore in the story is… Missus Gertrude Piper. Nice Christian society lady nowadays, even introduced me to Sarah at a maypole dance. Now you know why Piper understands us rank-and-file men. Keep that between us, Joe.”

  “What was Piper saying about his wife’s medicine in the bath house? She sick?”

  “Ah that.” Schmittberger sighed. “Poor old Duff and Gerty tried like hell to have kids. Nine times she got pregnant, and nine times she had a miscarriage. If you ask me, it had something to do with her working days in Satan’s Circus.”

  “So they’ve got no kids at all?”

  “Nope. That’s why he dotes on t
hat big fat nephew of his. And Duff’s poor wife is still so broken up about never giving him kids that she weeps all day and takes morphine to go to sleep at night. That’s the medicine Duff was talking about.”

  “That’s a shame,” Petrosino said.

  “Yeah, he’s had it rough, and now he’s toothless as a house cat in his old age. Hates Tammany. He fears what I fear: that we’ll be beaten soon and Tammany will come back.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “My gut. But if Piper gets us a gold star and a raise for this collar, I don’t give a damn about the why or what for. As long as we ram a hot poker up McClusky’s ass.”

  “I don’t think Tammany will come back, Max, at least not like before.” Petrosino sighed, doubting himself, wondering what would happen to the cops who played the Reform game.

  They navigated the curve around Pot Cove and landed on a pier near Hell Gate, about the same distance north as East 100th Street in the City, only they were on the eastern shore of the East River now. It smelled different here, the salt smell of the sea. The City’s horse manure and garbage scows were a faint memory. Ward’s Island was directly west of them in the middle of the river. Petrosino got off, stared back across at the island and further off at Italian Harlem in the distance. The sun was beginning to crawl down to the shanties and the gunmetal grey horizon. Schmittberger looked at the darkening sky, too, and checked his pocket watch.

  “You afraid to go to the madhouse at night, Joe?”

  “I am.” Petrosino waved at a cab driver, and they climbed inside the hansom.

  The carriage ride was only a few minutes to River Crest Sanitarium. Dust kicked up from the roads, and long planes of soft green grass and rows of sycamore led up a gentle hill to the estate on Merchant and Wolcott Avenue. New saplings had been carefully arranged in a semicircle on a crest overlooking the East River.

  Schmittberger said, “Hell, this place looks more like the Ivy League than the loony bin. Look at all the fancy buildings and flower gardens. It must cost a fortune to be crazy here.”

  Petrosino scanned the grounds. There were seven buildings that looked like guesthouses or hotels and a main office building in the center that looked more like a private estate with red gables and a white painted porch running all the way around. Their carriage slowed and arced around the horseshoe driveway, stopping at a whitewashed sign: Welcome to RIVER CREST, A Sanitarium for Mental and Nervous Diseases. They got out, and Petrosino read the smaller print on the sign: Separate Buildings for Alcoholic and Drug Habituation. Physician Wm. E. Dold.

  Schmittberger had one hand on his rucksack and another on his hip, admiring the bucolic scenery like a hunter before the fox is released. “By God, Joe, would you look at that?” Max pointed at curved swaths of woodland and manicured greens with flagsticks. “They’ve got a damn golf course.”

  “And we haven’t seen one guard yet. Something’s fishy in Denmark.”

  A squat man in a uniform flew out of the main building and down the front porch.

  “Spoke too soon,” Petrosino said. “Maybe they’ve got guards after all.”

  The hospital guard waved his arms at them. Petrosino noticed that he had a freshly broken nose and ringlets of blood caking in his nostrils. They hurried across the front circle, and the guard stumbled as if he were fresh from a boxing match that didn’t go his way.

  “Are you the law?” the guard asked, panting.

  “We are.” Petrosino nodded.

  “Thank the Lord!” The guard tripped on the first porch step and righted himself, saying woozily, “Dr. Dold just sent word. He got loose.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Schmittberger said.

  “Primrose is loose, and he’s got the devil in him.”

  River Crest Sanitarium

  Chapter 7

  “Where the devil are the rest of you all?” That was Dr. William Dold’s first question. He dashed onto the front porch of River Crest Sanitarium in a whirlwind of silver hair, eyebrows, and sideburns. With a honeyed drawl, he said, “In his current condition, he’ll be more of a load than any two men can handle.”

  “If that’s so,” Petrosino said, “then why don’t you have more than two guards here?”

  Dold hemmed and hawed.

  “Is the only way off this place by ferry, doc?”

  “Yes,” Dold said, “and the next one isn’t due for hours.”

  “We heard Primrose confessed to you. What did he say exactly?”

  Dr. Dold hesitated. “Gentlemen, there’s no time for this. Duncan is in a psychopathic state, and we must find him for his own sake.”

  “Just tell us what else you know about this loon, and make it quick so we can snatch him up and leave this country club. Go on, spit it out, goddamn it.”

  Dr. Dold stopped pacing and pointed at Petrosino. “I am the physician in charge here, and I don’t take kindly to blasphemy. The patient was duly committed here by court order, and we certainly are not a ‘country club’ as you say. I was a Valentine Mott medalist, and I am a renowned alienist in this-”

  “Valentine Mott,” Schmittberger interrupted, “well hell, why didn’t you say so?” Schmittberger put his long hand on Dold’s shoulder and leaned over him like a preying mantis on a fly. “I don’t give a sewer rat’s tits about your medals or your golf course or how much money you make from this racket. All I want to know is what this killer was doing here, and what happened? Now sing before it gets dark, for shit’s sake.”

  Dold shrunk back into the cocoon of his white coat and spoke quickly, “I was asked by the judge and the family’s defense attorney to conduct an inmate psychopathic evaluation of Dr. Primrose. Duncan was transferred here on Easter Monday. I was told he had killed a servant, a carriage driver, I believe. Evidently, Duncan said the body had been mutilated because his wife had cuckolded him. However, I hadn’t-”

  “Wait,” Petrosino said, “did you get his confession in writing?”

  Dold shook his head. “No, I hadn’t completed my psychopathic report yet.”

  “So no signed confession. Did Primrose describe how he killed his driver?”

  “He said he ‘castrated the little Dago.’” Dold gave Petrosino an apologetic smile. “His words.”

  Schmittberger said, “What else? Did he say he used a stiletto or a kitchen knife or a spoon? Did he go to the poor fellow’s home? Did he drug him first? Did he have help?”

  “He may have mentioned something about subduing his victim, about knocking him out.”

  “Aha.” Schmittberger poked Dold’s shoulder. “But the coroner didn’t find any trace of drugs in the victim’s system nor a lump on the head.”

  “What difference would it make? He was just some poor Dago… I mean, an unfortunate fellow from the Ghetto.”

  “Just another Dago, doc?” Petrosino said.

  Dold’s face flushed as he hissed, “Shouldn’t y’all be searching the grounds now?”

  “What the hell is your hurry?” Schmittberger said. “There’s only one way off, and he ain’t swimming the East River.”

  The sanitarium’s front door opened, and Dold seemed relieved by the interruption. He waved over a pale and bloodied duo that shambled onto the front porch. A nurse and a sturdy guard. The nurse had the furry face of a rabbit and pink handprints on her shriveled white neck. The guard was holding a sopping wet, red towel against his right ear and whimpering.

  “This is my staff who tried to subdue him,” Dold said and turned to the nurse. “Miss Anna, tell these lawmen what happened.”

  “He was locked in his room during the after-luncheon nap,” Miss Anna said calmly. “The windows are locked tight, but he must have jimmied one open. I was in the staff office when I heard a man shouting, ‘I’m the Czar of Russia, you can’t keep me bottled up in here!’ I went outside to the porch and saw him standing right here in his nightshirt and patent leather shoes. I held his arm, trying to calm him down, and said it was a nice time for a walk. He said, ‘All right
, you little Jap.’ We walked up and down the porch for a quarter of an hour. Then I told him it was time to return to his cot. That’s when he loosed his arm from me and threw me to the ground like so much chaff. I started screaming, but he choked me.”

  Petrosino imagined this old nurse trying to control a grown man. She was small enough to walk beneath Schmittberger’s outstretched arm.

  Petrosino looked at the guard and asked, “Where were you?”

  “I heard a rumpus and run out to help. He tossed Miss Anna aside and came at me. Look what he did.” The guard removed the towel and showed them a bloody hole where his right ear was supposed to be.

  Petrosino grimaced and waved at the guard to put the towel back.

  “Duncan is strong, he was a crack Harvard jumper,” Dold said, almost admiringly, “and, in his current state, he has the might of five men.”

  “And he has a knife now, too?” Petrosino said.

  “I don’t know what it was,” the guard said, sobbing. “We still ain’t found my ear.”

  “For shit’s sake, stop the waterworks,” Schmittberger said. “This nice lady here got strangled, and she ain’t crying. Now which direction did he go? And what’s he look like?”

  “Clean and fair, average height, build,” the guard said, trying not to whine. “He doesn’t look like much, but he’s wild. I think he was headed to the river bank again. It’s near the Gas Works, just below us. Kept saying he was going ‘home.’”

  Petrosino turned to Dr. Dold, “Why wasn’t Primrose in a strait waistcoat?”

  “I didn’t see the need for a strait jacket. When he was admitted, I gave him heavy opiates. They must have had no effect, which is unusual because they worked well before.”

  “Wait a second,” Petrosino said. “Your guard says Primrose went for the river ‘again,’ and you call him ‘Duncan’ like you’re old chums and now you say he’s been here before?”

  Dr. Dold paused, looking down as if he’d stepped in manure. “Duncan has suffered from ‘nervous prostration’ in the past and usually took the ‘rest cure.’ So it was no surprise he was sent to us for treatment and for a psychopathic evaluation after this latest episode.”