The Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom

by A. E. Hotchner

  “Nervous?”

  “Well, um, yes, sir,” I admitted.

  “Don’t be. Just be yourself. If the assistant D.A. asks you something you have trouble with, just look at me and I’ll help you out.”

  The bailiff asked those who were there on subpoenas to come down to the front of the courtroom and sit on chairs arranged in front of the judge’s bench. I sat beside Lawyer Appleton who put himself at a desk in front of the chairs. Across from him was a similar desk where the assistant district attorney sat. He was a tall, skinny man with a thick black mustache, a pointy Adam’s Apple on a very long neck, and bushy sideburns. My stomach froze when I thought of him throwing questions at me.

  The bailiff said, “Everybody rise. The court will come to order. Judge Harley J. Honeywell presiding.”

  The judge was a short man with a full crop of white hair and a ruddy complexion. He smiled at us and told us to sit down. He wore a black suit with a red bow tie but no robe.

  “Good morning all,” he said.

  We all answered good morning.

  “This is an informal hearing,” he continued, “in response to Mr. Appleton’s writ of habeas corpus re the holding of one Frederick Broom as a material witness in connection with an action now pending re the fatal shooting of one Ted Dempsey. Evidentiary rules will not apply, hearsay will be permitted, the court will question witnesses along with Counselor Appleton and Assistant District Attorney Percy Quince. Bailiff, you may bring in Frederick Broom.”

  The bailiff opened the door behind the judge’s bench. My heart was pounding and I jumped to my feet as my father came in whiskered and wrinkled, accompanied by a uniformed cop but no handcuffs. I ran over to my dad and we hugged each other, holding on like we would never be apart again.

  Percy Quince got up and objected.

  “Object to what, Mr. Quince, a father and son loving each other?” the judge said.

  The cop took my dad to a chair just below the judge’s bench. Pop was a proper man, always clean-shaven and spiffily dressed, and I had never seen him in a suffering, browsy state like this.

  The judge told the bailiff to swear in all of us. The bailiff picked up a Bible and said everyone rise and raise your right hand and do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God.

  We all said I do.

  The judge said he had read the district attorney’s file on the case and was familiar with all the facts so that the only thing before the court was for Quince to prove that Frederick Broom was a necessary witness who must be detained.

  Quince went over to where my father was sitting. “Your Honor,” he said, “I think it’s important to note that Mr. Broom has had trouble with the law and has an extensive rap sheet. He has been arrested three times for theft of electricity, two warnings and the last time resulting in a thirty-day jail sentence that was stayed.”

  “How did he steal electricity?” the judge asked.

  “He jumped the meter in his apartment by unfastening the wires going into the meter and connecting them to the wires on the other side of the meter, thereby cheating the electric company of its charges.”

  My father spoke up. “We had no money to pay for electric, Your Honor, and—”

  “Mr. Broom, you will get your turn to speak when your lawyer questions you,” the judge said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Quince said. “Next, Mr. Broom has secretly vacated apartments he has leased without paying the rent that is owing. Next, Mr. Broom is in serious default on a Ford automobile that he refuses to surrender, defying the replevin court orders to do so. As for the current case, Mr. Broom was involved with the J & J killer in that he helped him enter the store and held his pouch while the killer filled it with the jewelry. Also, prior to going to the J & J store, Mr. Broom instructed his son, Aaron, who was in the aforementioned Ford, to be ready for ‘a fast getaway.’ ”

  My father started to protest but Quince cut him off. “Your witness, Mr. Appleton,” he said.

  Lawyer Appleton got to his feet. “Mr. Broom, did you know the man who pushed in behind you? Had you even seen him before?”

  “No, sir, I should say not,” my father said.

  “Did you ask your son to be ready for a fast getaway?”

  “Yes, if he saw the two repleviners and the Ford was about to be taken away.”

  “You are a naturalized citizen of this country?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is Broom your original name?”

  “No, when I came here I spoke no English and the immigration officer said my Polish name was too difficult and said I should change it and he made it Broom.”

  The judge turned his attention to the J & J people. “Grace Dorso, you were working in the store when Mr. Broom came in?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you hear or observe anything that would lead you to believe Mr. Broom knew the killer?”

  “Well…when the killer told him to hold the bag for him, Mr. Broom said something that sounded like ‘Okay George.’ ”

  “Anyone else hear that?” the judge asked.

  “I think I did,” Matt Pringle said. “It was all so fast.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Sol Greenblatt said. “Mr. Broom’s hands were shaking and he looked too scared to utter a sound.”

  “How about you, Bonnie Porter?” the judge asked.

  “Yes, yes I heard him say something but I was way too nervous to know just what he was saying.”

  The judge turned his attention to Roy Delray. “Who are you, sir? Were you in the store?”

  “No, Your Honor,” Roy said. “I’m her husband and I can tell you she was a bundle of nerves that evening and told me the killer and Mr. Broom were in cahoots.”

  “Aaron Broom,” the judge called out, causing me to nearly pee in my britches, “how old are you?”

  My voice felt stuck in my throat but I managed to quack, “Almost thirteen.”

  “You know you’ve sworn on the Bible to tell the truth?”

  “Yes, Your Honor, I always do.”

  “Good. Before he left the Ford to go into the J & J store did your father say anything about meeting someone to go in with him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did he say anything about getting some diamonds?”

  “No, sir. Just about selling some of his Bulova watches.”

  “Did he tell you anything about picking someone up in the Ford when he returned from the store?”

  “No, sir. Nothing like that.”

  Quince came over to me. “Did your father usually tell you about his plans, like who he was seeing for business?”

  “No, I only kept watch in the Ford but he just got this Bulova job so there wasn’t much to talk about.”

  “Had he made any sales?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “So your dad needed money?”

  “Sure, like everyone else.”

  “Did your dad talk about teaming up with someone to make some money?”

  Lawyer Appleton stood up. “Your Honor, I protest this kind of fishing expedition with a twelve-year-old boy.”

  “It is too vague, Mr. Quince,” the judge said, turning his attention to Justin and Joel. “Were either of you in the store when this event took place?”

  They said they weren’t. The judge asked them about the value of the stolen jewelry.

  “We’re working on that with the insurance company,” Justin said. “At least five or six hundred thousand.”

  “Mostly diamonds?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Mr. Broom,” the judge said to my father, “the detective on this case reports you are not cooperating with information about the killer who you aided in taking the jewels from the case. Therefore, in view of the testimony
from Grace Dorso, Matt Pringle, and Bonnie Porter that you seemed to be acquainted with the killer, I’m impelled to continue to hold you as a material witness.”

  I jumped up knocking over my chair. “Oh, no, Your Honor, please, can I, I mean, may I tell you some things that are very important? Please!”

  Lawyer Appleton put his arm around my shoulders. “Judge,” he said, “I took this case because this remarkable boy has applied himself and uncovered some things that I believe will affect the disposition of this case.”

  Percy Quince jumped up. “This is ridiculous, Your Honor, a twelve-year-old boy—”

  “Your Honor,” Lawyer Appleton said, “may I have a few moments to talk with my client?”

  “Go right ahead,” the judge said.

  With his arm around my shoulders, Lawyer Appleton guided me to the back of the courtroom and through the swinging doors out into the corridor. He squared me up and said, “Take five deep breaths.” I did. “Easy does it,” he said. Then he smiled at me and walked me back.

  Happening 34

  “Proceed, counselor,” the judge said to Lawyer Appleton when we returned. Then he turned to me. “Come up here, young man, and sit in this witness chair.”

  “Your Honor,” Lawyer Appleton said, “I’d like to request the presence of a court stenographer so that this testimony is on record.”

  The judge summoned a stenographer from an adjoining courtroom and I hiked up the steps and sat in the big chair that was behind a little gate. The judge told Lawyer Appleton to proceed.

  “Aaron,” he said, “please state your name, age, and address.”

  “My name’s Aaron Broom, I usually live with my mother and father at the Tremont but now I have a hammock at the Eads Hooverville.”

  “You’re there by yourself?” the judge asked.

  “Yes, Your Honor, the cops have locked up our apartment and my mom’s in the sanitarium.”

  The judge turned to the bailiff. “Lou, contact Juvenile Welfare on behalf of this young man.”

  A voice from the rear of the courtroom said, “We’re already on it, Your Honor. We tried but weren’t able to locate him.”

  “Who are you?” the judge asked.

  “Freda Muller, Juvenile Welfare.”

  There she was, marching down the aisle in her boogeyman outfit with her briefcase at attention. It was strictly up to me now to convince the judge to free my dad or Doomsday Freda’s going to get her hooks in me.

  “Good,” the judge said. He nodded to Lawyer Appleton. “Counselor, let’s proceed.”

  “Aaron, you came to see me about what you could do to free your father, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, and you told me the only sure way was to discover who the killer was and that’s what I’ve been doing—detectifying.”

  “You’ve been what?” the judge asked.

  “Investigating all these people,” Lawyer Appleton said, “connected with J & J jewelers where the killing took place to try to find anyone who may have been involved with the killer. So, Aaron, tell Judge Honeywell about your detectifying.”

  “I started with Sol Greenblatt, followed him to his places on the riverfront. He told me a lot of things about everyone at J & J and something else—that J & J had a panic button in back of the counter that went right to the police and if there was a robbery that was to be used, not a gun.”

  “What can you tell the court about Joel and Justin Jankman, the owners of J & J?”

  “I heard them say they took all the big important diamonds and put fakes in their place in order to make a good deal with the insurance company but that they were worried because the killer now only had the fakes and he could maybe make a deal with the insurance company but the brothers needed the money to pay off someone they were afraid of.”

  “No name?” Lawyer Appleton asked.

  “No name.”

  Justin and Joel jumped up and began to shout about needing a lawyer and I was just a snotty runt of a crazy kid, etcetera. The judge gaveled them and told them to sit down and shut up.

  “You may resume, counselor,” he said.

  “Aaron, did you find out who the Jankmans were afraid of?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “How it started I was on the sidewalk in front of J & J detectifying when a black REO sedan came by suddenly and pitched Justin out the door and into the gutter. He was all beat up and torn and Augie, who sold newspapers on the corner, helped me get him to Pete’s speakeasy back room. I found his wallet in the gutter and there was a card in it that said Catfish Kuger with a telephone number.”

  “What did you do next?” Lawyer Appleton asked.

  “We went to the Post-Dispatch morgue and looked at photos and right there in a photo of Catfish was Matt J. Pringle, well, not exactly, he had some changes to his face but it was him all right, with his real name on the photo—Anthony Aravista.”

  Pringle stood up. “Okay, yes, I was Catfish’s lawyer but I was disbarred and served time.”

  “And now he works at J & J?” the judge asked.

  “Yes, along with another person,” Lawyer Appleton said. “Grace Dorso. Continue, Aaron.”

  “Augie and I decided to go to her place and interview her but when we got there she wasn’t in but her place was open and we went in to look around.”

  Grace shouted, “It wasn’t open. They broke in.”

  “We didn’t break anything. We just looked around.”

  Lawyer Appleton asked me, “What did you find, if anything?”

  “There was a framed wedding picture of young Catfish in a tux with a young, pretty bride who could’ve been Grace before she beefed up and changed her face all around. I took off the back of the photo and tucked in there was a marriage license.” I took my notepad from my pocket and read: “Gaetano Cugavelo to Graciella Borsolini.”

  “Did you find anything else?” Lawyer Appleton asked me.

  “Yes, sir, in Grace’s desk we found the River Princess account book that showed a big dollar number for Roy Delray. When my friend Ella and I went to see his wife, Bonnie Porter, she said he often performed on the boat and we thought it might have been his pay.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “It was a little thing but I was on a trolley and I saw a big fat guy hurrying to get on, coming toward me, and I noticed the way he was walking. He was very fat, his fat legs rubbing together, not at all like the fat shooter at J & J who stepped very lightly behind my father and left the store quickly and springily. So it dawned on me maybe the killer wasn’t that fat.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Maybe he was a skinny guy in a fat suit like Santa Claus wears and a false beard and everything else. But this was no ordinary getup. It could have fooled anybody, the beard, hair, everything.”

  “Did you keep on looking?”

  “I had to. All that stuff about Catfish and Grace and Pringle didn’t turn up the killer and my dad would stay in jail until they found him. So I tried to locate the place where the killer may have gotten the fat suit and beard and all the rest. I went to Scruggs and found the department where they had recently sold a supersize shirt and overalls but the saleslady couldn’t remember who bought it.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Well, something lucky happened. I went with my friend Ella to interview Bonnie Porter. She’s married to the actor Roy Delray who was playing Falstaff at the Muny in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Her father was a big shot who had been the secret Veiled Prophet at one time in the past and Bonnie herself had been the Queen of Love and Beauty at the Veiled Prophet Ball. She gave us free seats. I had never seen this play but when Roy came on all decked out in Falstaff’s huge fat suit, a bell rang.

  “The Muny kept its costumes under lock and key so he couldn’t have gotten it there. I also went to the Veiled Prophet place to
find out about the huge Veiled Prophet costume but they were so secret they wouldn’t even talk to me.”

  Roy Delray stood up and walked to the bench yelling this was absolutely ridiculous, listening to a punk kid, why would he do anything like this, he had good income what with the radio program and acting and we are prosperous people!

  The judge banged his gavel and the bailiff went to Roy and led him back to his seat.

  “Not another peep out of you, Mr. Delray, this is not a free-for-all, understand?” the judge said.

  He turned his attention to me. “Young man, I know you want to help your father but—”

  Lawyer Appleton cut in. “If it please Your Honor, the witness has one last thing to relay. It’s something he told me this morning.”

  “All right. Final say.”

  “I was lying in my hammock last night,” I said, “looking at the sky when it came to me: The Veiled Prophet shut me out and said only Veiled Prophet members can come in but Bonnie Porter is a Veiled Prophet star, she was once the Queen of Love and Beauty, she’s certainly a member, so that’s how Mr. Delray got his fat suit and wig and beard—”

  Bonnie turned on Roy. “I told you they’d find out! You wouldn’t listen! They know! They know!”

  Roy jumped up, pointing his finger at Pringle and yelling, “It’s all his fault! He said that his goon would break my arms if I didn’t pay up pronto!”

  “You gamble on the boat and you pay or you pay the price!” Pringle shouted. “Catfish warned you!”

  “It was crooked! Cheats! A crooked, rotten boat! That’s why I had to steal the diamonds, to pawn them, to get your blood money—”

  “These were all orders from her!” Pringle shouted as he turned to face Grace.

  “It’s not me,” Grace said to the judge. “Catfish is the one who gives the orders when I go visit him. His goons keep an eye on me, making sure everything goes to Veronica.”