The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller

by Carol Baxter

  ‘What did Lancaster do then?’

  ‘He said, “Do you think I have been double-crossed? What do you think?” I said, “You can see for yourself.”’ Russell then informed the jurors that Bill had paced the floor and bit his lip and said, “I’ll get rid of him.” Russell added, ‘He must not have realised that I was there, for he checked himself and turned to me and said, “That sure is good of you, old man, to tell me this.”’

  ‘Did Lancaster head for Miami shortly after this?’

  ‘Very shortly, at ten or eleven o’clock the following day.’

  Carson’s cross-examination had barely commenced before the court adjourned for the day. The next morning, he asked Russell, ‘Who was the man who stood by your side while you testified yesterday?’ The man in question had been dressed in the distinctive uniform of a deputy United States marshal.

  ‘I have no way of knowing,’ Russell responded disingenuously.

  The spectators laughed. The bailiffs called the court to order.

  ‘Are you under guard?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, as if the marshal’s role was open to doubt.

  Again the spectators laughed.

  ‘You said yesterday that your permanent address was someplace in Miami Beach. Where is your temporary address?’

  ‘I have none.’

  ‘Where did you come from when you came into this courtroom?’

  ‘Twenty-one South.’

  ‘Is that the jail section of this building?’

  ‘So called.’

  ‘Are you serving a sentence?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be. I expect to be released soon.’

  Bursts of laughter had continued to erupt from the spectators as they wondered how long the state’s witness could slither away from admitting what was now obvious to all: that he was a convicted criminal imprisoned in the county gaol. His Latin American Airways roguery had caught up with him and he was serving a six-month federal sentence for conspiracy to smuggle aliens into the country.

  ‘Did you ever serve any time in Leavenworth penitentiary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What were you sent there for?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that,’ said Carson dryly, to the spectators’ amusement, ‘but what was the charge?’

  ‘For shipping a carload of hay from El Paso, Texas.’

  ‘There were a few Syrians concealed in the hay, weren’t there?’

  ‘I didn’t put them there,’ was the coy response.

  More chortling from the spectators forced the bailiffs to call for order.

  Carson then asked pointedly, ‘Did Lancaster know that you were in Leavenworth?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe he did,’ Russell admitted.

  Carson questioned him about the trip to Los Angeles, enquiring if he had any ill feelings towards Lancaster for abandoning him there after the federal authorities questioned him.

  ‘I hold no feeling against Captain Lancaster.’

  Carson then asked slyly, ‘Do you know the man standing behind you?’

  ‘I saw him this morning,’ was the evasive response. As Russell slithered away from further questions about the deputy marshal guarding him, and as the spectators guffawed as if they were watching a real-life Laurel and Hardy routine, Carson delighted in the knowledge that this key witness for the prosecution had managed to destroy his own credibility.

  Calling jailbird witnesses was always a roll of the dice, but Hawthorne hadn’t expected this one to turn himself into a laughing stock. Who would remember the critical ‘get rid of’ evidence when it was trumped by the image of Russell blithely driving a hay-load of Syrians?

  He held off calling his second jailbird witness. Instead, he had his team read out Bill’s diary entries from January to April 1932, explaining that these provided the context for Russell’s testimony.

  In the Miami Herald’s report, the journalist remarked: ‘The first word in the amazing diary kept faithfully day by day by Captain William Newton Lancaster was “Chubbie” and, throughout the scribbled volume, a deep, passionate devotion is etched in unmistakable terms for the woman flyer. Business matters, desperate struggles for funds to meet his and Chubbie’s needs, inconsequential data—all are in the volume and, running like a golden thread in a sombre tapestry, are the words which reiterate his love.’

  To Hawthorne though, Bill’s words contained more than evidence of his love and devotion. The ecstasy when he heard from her, the despair when he didn’t, suggested an obsessive love that grew desperate after Russell’s revelations of her unfaithfulness. To read the April entries was like hearing the thoughts of a tortured soul as he descended into hell.

  Hawthorne read out the surviving correspondence between the trio, including Haden’s letter to Bill explaining his love for Chubbie and urging him not to lose his head and respond violently. Hawthorne followed this with Bill’s telegram of 18 April, in which he insisted on being their best man and best friend.

  When the court adjourned for the night, the jurors were left pondering the fact that, the day after Bill sent the friendly telegram, he had purchased the gun that had killed his rival only hours after his return.

  Chapter Forty-One

  As Latin American Airways partner Mark Tancrel walked to the witness stand on Saturday morning, Hawthorne’s team hoped he wouldn’t prove as slippery as his jailbird mate. No one wanted a repeat of the Russell debacle.

  Tancrel was more forthcoming than his confederate, admitting from the start that he was in gaol under indictment for impersonating a United States naval officer. He testified that Bill had asked him if he’d seen Russell’s letters mentioning Chubbie and Haden’s relationship. He told the court that Bill had then said, ‘I’ll go back and get rid of that son of a bitch.’

  ‘Who was he talking about?’ Hawthorne asked, unaware that Bill was scribbling a note to his attorney, a note that Carson read with great interest.

  ‘He was talking about Clarke.’

  ‘Did Lancaster say how he intended to dispose of Clarke?’

  ‘No, he just said that he was going to get rid of that son of a bitch.’

  Hawthorne asked if Bill had ever mentioned his relationship with Haden.

  ‘Yes. In El Paso we were in the same hotel room together.’

  ‘What was the date of that conversation?’

  ‘I believe it was March 19,’ Tancrel said, which was only thirteen days after Bill left Miami. Tancrel declared that Bill was talking to a man named Joe Ince when he said something about not getting any letters from Chubbie and that he was concerned about her relationship with Haden. He told the court that Bill then said, ‘I don’t think Haden Clarke has double-crossed me but if he has, well, I’ve seen a lot of dead men and one more won’t make any difference.’

  ‘Do you know J.P. Moe?’ Carson asked Tancrel under cross-examination. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you know that he is the deputy United States marshal who met you at the train?’

  ‘I’ve seen him before,’ Tancrel admitted.

  ‘You know that he is the same man who brought Russell into the courtroom yesterday to testify?’

  ‘I don’t know if Russell was brought in to testify.’

  Carson put aside the subject of Deputy Marshal Moe for the time being—the man himself would be questioned when the defence presented its case—and asked pointedly,

  ‘How close is your cell to Russell’s?’

  ‘They put him in the same cell with me yesterday.’

  A burst of laughter erupted from the spectators. It was happening again. Tancrel had initially seemed more open about his ignoble circumstances but the same shiftiness was now revealing itself. Did he really expect them to believe that he didn’t know Russell had testified when they were sharing the same cell?

  Having heard from Bill that Tancrel was a chronic liar, Carson asked him if he had told Bill that he’d been a captain in the United States Navy—‘No’—and had
pulled out his paper hangers’ union card to show Bill that he was a member—‘No’—and had said that he’d hung thousands of square miles of wallpaper . . .

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Tancrel admitted defiantly. ‘In my home I have hung thousands of miles of wallpaper.’

  ‘Then you are a paperhanger?’

  ‘No. I’m not a member of the paperhangers’ union.’

  ‘Yet you’ve hung thousands of miles of wallpaper?’

  ‘Oh, not that many. No paperhanger in his lifetime could hang that much wallpaper. I’ve papered my own house many times.’

  As Hawthorne listened to the spectators’ chortles and realised that his second jailbird’s testimony had also turned into a farce, Justice Atkinson halted the line of questioning as irrelevant.

  With relief, Hawthorne called a more reliable witness, J.O. Barker, the man in charge of the police identification bureau. He asked if he had examined the gun for fingerprints.

  Barker said that all he had found were some smudged fingerprints on the end of the barrel. He added that fingerprints would normally be found on the trigger and handle but that they would be absent if gloves were worn or if the fingerprints were exposed to water or gasoline.

  While Barker didn’t specifically state it, and Hawthorne didn’t ask him to specifically state it, this fingerprint expert appeared to be suggesting that either the killer wore gloves or had wiped off the gun.

  Under cross-examination, Carson asked if there was any blood on the gun when it was passed to him. Barker responded that there wasn’t.

  ‘Could blood have been wiped off without wiping fingerprints off the gun?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you expect to find any fingerprints if the pistol had been wiped off?’

  ‘Depends on what parts of the gun had been touched during the wiping process.’

  Carson’s questions also suggested that he too thought that the gun had been wiped off. But while a killer could—and likely would—wipe off fingerprints, a suicide, for obvious reasons, would not. Carson returned to his seat knowing that his line of questioning would leave the more thoughtful spectators wondering where he was heading. A future witness would provide the necessary clarification.

  Hawthorne continued to focus on the forensic evidence when he called embalmer K.B. Bess to the stand and asked if he had observed powder burns on Clarke’s head. Bess said that he hadn’t seen any and that he had specifically looked for them because it was his funeral home’s practice to carefully examine the wounds in gunshot deaths in case the staff were called to testify in court.

  Hawthorne asked if he knew of any suicide cases from gunshot wounds in which there were no trace of powder burns.

  ‘On the suicide cases reported to us, if it is a gunshot case, there are usually powder burns showing.’

  ‘Do you recall ever seeing one where this was not true?’

  ‘None that I can remember.’

  Just before the Saturday session ended, Hawthorne recalled Officer Hudson and asked if there was blood on the gun when he found it on Clarke’s bed. Hudson said that there was. Hawthorne asked what he had done with the gun.

  ‘I placed a handkerchief over it and picked it up, placing it still wrapped into the pistol box, which I found on the table at the foot of Clarke’s bed. Later I gave it to Barker, fingerprint man at police headquarters.’

  Under cross-examination, Carson queried, ‘You didn’t put that gun in your pocket?’

  ‘Yes, after placing it in the box.’

  ‘Then you shoved the box in your pocket?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Carson returned to his seat knowing that, when court reconvened the following week, he would delight in revealing the truth.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Despite the detailed trial reports published in the local newspapers, many south Floridians still wanted to hear the testimonies for themselves. The news that Chubbie would again be called to testify on Monday, 8 August, spurred hundreds towards the courthouse. They began congregating on the sixth floor at 6 am, leaving those who arrived a couple of hours later looking at the crowds in dismay. Many were left outside clamouring to get in after the courtroom doors closed.

  Bill had been writing copious notes throughout the trial; however, as Chubbie walked to the witness stand, he stopped writing and gazed at her. He continued watching her, his pen still, as she began to testify.

  Hawthorne again questioned her about the night of Clarke’s death. His voice was hard and threatening, a deliberate ploy to put her under so much strain she might trip up and reveal something that implicated Bill. He then focused on the two notes, asking, ‘What was your belief when you were shown the alleged suicide notes?’

  ‘I had no belief.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell me in my office that you were positive that Bill didn’t write them?’

  ‘I don’t remember saying that.’

  ‘Didn’t you assert that Lancaster’s code of honour wouldn’t have permitted him to write such notes?’

  ‘Yes, I believe so.’

  It was the first breach in the armour of her stated conviction that Bill couldn’t commit such a crime. It revealed that she might not know her lover as well as she thought.

  Hawthorne drew from her that she discovered the notes were forgeries when she asked Bill about them after their release from gaol. The prosecutor then enquired, ‘If you had asked him if he had killed Haden Clarke and had received the answer yes, would that have surprised you more than the admission of the forgery?’

  ‘Most decidedly.’

  ‘Although you had stated to me previously that you were as positive Lancaster had not written the notes as you were that he had not killed Haden Clarke . . .’

  Not a sound disturbed the courtroom as he waited for her response. She remained silent.

  Hawthorne’s voice increased to a thunder as he demanded, ‘Do you still love Haden Clarke?’

  ‘No,’ she said, beginning to weep.

  ‘Do you love Captain Lancaster?’

  Tears poured down her face as she admitted, ‘No.’

  ‘When did your affection die for Captain Lancaster?’

  ‘About two years ago.’

  The spectators glanced at Bill and saw that he continued to watch her. She kept her own gaze averted.

  ‘Did it die a natural death?’

  ‘Yes. I am still intensely fond of him.’

  ‘Then did you deliberately betray him in every letter, telegram and telephone message to him? Weren’t you a traitor to him during all that time when he was sending every dollar he could beg, borrow or steal?’

  ‘You don’t understand the feeling which exists between Captain Lancaster and myself,’ she protested, as tears continued to fall. ‘We have been through hardships and misfortunes. What was mine was Bill’s and what was Bill’s was mine. We were pals, not ordinary friends. We trusted each other.’

  ‘You no longer have love for the memory of Haden Clarke?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have been completely disillusioned.’

  ‘By what?’

  ‘Proofs.’

  ‘Are you referring to his illness?’

  ‘Yes, and other things.’

  ‘Did he lie about his love for you?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘He lied to me about his age, his university degree. He told me that he had never had that malady before. He lied about things he had done.’

  ‘The principal thing that killed your love for Haden Clarke was because he was a liar?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hawthorne had her hooked and he went in for the kill. ‘You said that you admire Captain Lancaster because he is honest and courageous.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you know that Captain Lancaster went into court and was sentenced for a crime he did not commit to save you?’

  It was a humiliating reference to her drunken automobil
e accident, when Bill had lied to protect her. She had no choice but to say yes. ‘He always tried to save me, to help me.’

  ‘At all costs?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you would protect and defend him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Didn’t you make the statement that you would die for him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you lie for him now?’

  ‘No,’ she hurled back, ‘because you would know that I was lying to you.’

  The spectators burst out laughing. The judge rapped his gavel for order.

  ‘Then one of the principal things you admire in Lancaster is his code of honour?’

  ‘Yes. He is one of the finest men I ever knew.’

  ‘He’d steal for you, wouldn’t he? He stole chickens, in fact, didn’t he?’

  As Chubbie admitted with a laugh that he had, the comical juxtaposition of fine man and chook-thief elicited another chuckle from the spectators.

  ‘Did he steal rabbits?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he steal ducks?’

  ‘No . . . Yes, we did.’

  The spectators laughed so loudly the bailiffs had to join the judge in calling for order.

  Hawthorne changed the subject, turning to a more serious question. ‘Did Haden Clarke fear trouble with Lancaster on the latter’s return from the west?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t afraid of him.’

  Hawthorne then asked if Clarke knew that Lancaster was a polo player and bronco buster and boxing champion. After these allusions to Bill’s physical strength, he enquired again if Clarke was afraid of Lancaster. After Chubbie repeated that he wasn’t, Hawthorne threw in a few more questions about her feelings for the two men but the spectators were laughing too readily by this time for him to make any serious impact. He surrendered her to Carson for cross-examination.