by Pascal Marco
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t make it. That rookie, Vallis, did,” Timbo replied, picking up the morning paper. “So if you gotta complaint, go see him. Anyway, don’t try and change the subject. Whadja expect over there at Comiskey last night anyhow? A convent full of nuns? All you Sox fans are crazy assholes.”
“Just because all you homos root for those pansy-ass Cubs in that pansy-ass Wrigley Field—”
“All right you two. Knock it off. Don’t you guys ever get tired of that Sox-Cubs bullshit?” The interruption came from Area 1 Homicide/Sex Division Lieutenant Jim LaFrance. “Listen up. I got a kid out here in the hallway says he saw that old guy get whacked with the bat yesterday in Burnham Park over in The Prairie. Report is the old man’s still in a coma. He’s at Mercy. Since you two seem to have nothing better to do than to argue about fucking baseball, take this one.”
“C’mon, Jim. I’m juggling six cases right now. My wife and kids haven’t seen me for more than eight hours straight in three weeks,” Stick pleaded.
“And I got a foot-high stack of case reports on my desk,” Timbo added.
“Sorry. Got nobody else. Bufano’s on sick leave and Tumpich has been put on temporary assignment with the mayor’s office. That leaves you two jokers,” LaFrance rebuffed their pleas. “Anyway, you guys know you’re my A team, so get at this one while it’s still fresh. Victim’s family’s already posted a reward. Stick, you’re the lead on this.”
Without any hesitation, or another word or a gesture of any kind, Stick took his notepad from his desk and tucked it under his arm. He then refilled his White Sox coffee mug and headed for the double doors that led out into the hallway. His husky partner followed right behind him.
Timbo punched his buddy in the back between his shoulders. “Fix your collar and tie for crissake.”
Stick ran an open palm through his hair and clumsily pulled up on his tie.
“How does your wife let you out like that in the morning?” Timbo added. “Doesn’t she dress you like the rest of the kids?”
Once they arrived in the corridor, Stick observed a black boy about eleven or twelve, he guessed, dressed in a neat pair of navy slacks and a crisp-pressed, powder blue dress shirt, complete with a clip-on navy blue tie. His feet were encompassed in a pair of shiny black shoes. Had it not been for a tattered, sweat-stained baseball cap on his small head, standing out like a sore thumb, the boy looked like he could have just come from, or was just going to church. A well-dressed man and woman, also black, flanked the boy on each side. All three sat like park statues, motionless, on the long, wooden bench right outside the busy investigators’ office as uniformed police officers marched several handcuffed individuals back and forth in front of them.
With coffee cup in hand, Stick approached them and asked, “Are you the boy who saw the attack yesterday in Burnham Park?”
“Yes, he is,” replied the black man, standing as he addressed the cops, his fedora in hand. “I’m Earl Overstreet. This is my wife, Eva. My son, James here, says, well, he—”
“Mister Overstreet, is it? Why don’t we just let the boy speak for himself? Okay?” Timbo interrupted.
“Of course. Excuse me,” replied Earl, lowering his head. “I understand. Of course.”
Stick looked directly at the boy. “James is it?”
James nodded.
“Well, James. Why don’t we just step in here and you can tell us in your own words what you saw? Okay?” Gesturing with his coffee mug, Stick motioned toward a door to the left of where the family sat.
James didn’t respond to the tall cop’s request but rather looked up at his father, still standing and clutching his hat in his hand. His father nodded his approval.
“We’re going in there with him,” Eva Overstreet stated, as she sat on the bench, an arm clutched tightly around her son.
“Of course. No problem,” replied Timbo. “Are you his mother?”
Patting moist eyes with a white, lace hanky, Eva nodded and stood up with the boy. While they conversed, several more police officers hustled prisoners, both male and female, through the cramped corridor.
“This way,” Stick said, directing them through the commotion into the room. “It’s more private in here.”
The Witness Interrogation Room, a rectangular room more wide than deep, had one six-foot blond wooden table in the middle. The backside of the table had a chair tucked under it while the front side held two. A row of identical chairs lined the back wall. Waist high, bar-covered windows bookended that same, dirty-white wall. Bolted shut, the windows looked as if they had not been open since Prohibition, making the dingy room seem more depressing than it already was.
Chicago lay gripped in a longer than usual July heat wave, coupled with oppressive humidity. The air in the room was stale and thick. A large industrial-type fan stood in the corner, noisily dominating the dank space as it whirred away, oscillating on its aluminum stand. Fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling, buzzing, making the shabby green painted walls appear even drabber.
A screech echoed in the room as Stick pulled out a chair, scraping it against the worn linoleum floor. He motioned for James to sit down.
“We wanted to come in as early as possible, Investigator, but—”
Timbo interrupted the family patriarch in a superior tone, “Actually, we’re detectives, Mister Overstreet. The title investigator—”
It was an honest oversight for the man to call them investigators, which they were, but a sore point with many cops like Timbo in the Aggravated Assault Unit. Memos went out recently by police brass proposing to change these cops’ official titles to “investigators” since some other major cities were adopting this term, too.
Stick knew Timbo thought the idea was horseshit, hence his terse retort to the father. In order to keep things on track, he interrupted. “Why don’t we let James start telling us what he saw now? Okay?” Stick smiled at everyone in the group, including Timbo. “Please. Everyone have a seat.”
Timbo effortlessly lifted two chairs from the back wall and set one on each side of the boy for his parents. The cops then took seats opposite the three of them and they all sat down.
Stick started the questioning, flipping open his notepad. “Now, James. Where would you like to begin? What happened? What did you see?”
Stick Hanley and Timbo Boscorelli had interviewed eyewitnesses to felonies hundreds of times before in their short but illustrious careers. Their first order of duty: make the witness feel as comfortable and calm as possible, yet at the same time look and listen for signs of truth or falseness in the story told. Good cops searched for inconsistencies.
“Can I get you a cup of water, James?” Stick asked, grabbing his own coffee mug and taking a sip.
James shook his head.
“Maybe a bottle of orange Fanta? I even have some Green River,” Stick offered, knowing his own kids loved those drinks. “I got some right in the fridge across the hall.”
James said, “No.”
Timbo butted in. “Okay then. Well, let’s get on with this. So, what happened yesterday in the park? Just what did you see, kid?” After making a few scribbles, Timbo turned his eyes up to look right at James, then flipped to a clean page in his notepad.
James watched him, and following a long pause, he swallowed once, took a deep breath, and spoke in a meek voice. “I was travlin’—” He stopped, cleared his throat and said, louder this time, “I was travlin’ to the lake, like I do every day, ’cept when I stopped by my best friend Clayton’s, like I usually do, there was no answer.”
Timbo jotted as James spoke. “Yeah. Go on,” Timbo said, not looking up from his pad.
“So, like I said, I went alone, like I been doin’ a lot lately. And I was walkin’ this time ’cause I wasn’t ridin’ my Ted Williams—”
“That’s his bicycle we got him for his birthday last year,” Earl interjected.
The investigators nodded their heads in unison. Stick took simultaneous notes, too, whic
h, along with Timbo’s notes, he’d later combine to become part of the official General Progress Report, or GPR, which every lead investigator was required to keep on a case. As he listened to the boy’s story, Stick continuously moved his eyes up and down between his notebook page and across all three of their faces. Timbo did the same but kept his eyes especially glued on James.
“Yeah, my bike,” James continued. “I left it at home and walked to Burnham Park. When I walk I always go across LSD, over the footbridge at Forty-Third Street, ya see, ’cause I can get down to the lake faster that way.”
“When you say, LSD, you mean Lake Shore Drive, James? Is that correct?” Stick asked.
“Yes, sir. Lake Shore Drive. I was headed to the playground there, at Forty-Fourth Street. When I got to the top of the footbridge, I saw them messin’ with the old man. They had his bike—his red Huffy.”
“Who is ‘they’?” Timbo asked.
Lifting up his head, James went on. “Ice Pick and his gang. They had the old Jew-man and his bike and they started messin’ with him. Next thing I see is Pick—that’s what everyone calls him for short—he has a bat and takes a whack at him while the old man is still on the bike. I knew the old man was in trouble then.” James turned and looked right at his mother. “It all happened so fast, Momma.”
Eva, whimpering now, wiped her eyes.
“Take your time, James. Just go slow and tell us exactly what you saw,” Stick said. “Did you know the man they stopped?”
“Yeah. The old Jew-man. Mister Fleischman. Everybody in the park knows him. The old man sticks his arm up to block the bat. He must have known Pick was going to hit him ’cause he timed it so sweet. But Pick hit him so hard—”
James paused again.
“—he hit him so hard that the old man fell from the bike screaming. Then he just laid there. The other guys, they hop on that bike and start to ride it around the old guy, whoopin’ and hollerin’, while he’s just lying there, on the ground, not movin’. He looked dead.”
“What happened then, James?” Timbo asked.
“Well then … then next thing I see is that Mister Fleischman’s not really dead. I mean, I guess he musta’ been playin’ possum. Because he grabs Pick’s ankle and won’t let go. I mean, he’s holding him real tight. I was happy to see he wasn’t dead and all, but I could see Pick spinning, trying to get away from him, and he can’t. He can’t break away ’cause Mister Fleischman is holdin’ him so tight and this time he won’t—”
Eva grabbed her son. “Please don’t make him talk about this—please!”
“Eva. James wanted to do this. Remember?” The husband’s reply was a clear indication to Stick that Eva and Earl were not in agreement on being there this morning.
“James, are you sure you don’t want a glass of water?” Stick asked.
The boy shook his head back and forth and looked at his mother, “It’s okay, Momma.” He turned back to the two detectives. “That’s when Pick really hit him. He just raised that big bat over his head and came down on the old man like … like he was crazy or something. He hit him again—and again.”
“What were the other boys doing?” Timbo asked, jotting notes as he spoke.
“They just stopped what they was doing and watched Pick beat him.” James stared, looking between the two cops. “I never seen nobody get beat like that before.”
“What happened next, James?” Stick interjected, knowing that the next bits of information would be crucial to finding the killers.
“While all this was goin’ on, they didn’t see me but I had come down off the overpass and hid behind a park bench right on the path that goes by the playground. The old man was just lyin’ there, all bloody an’ everything, but then he sticks his arm toward me and I’m pretty sure he sees me behind the bench. They looked like they were both starin’ right at me just before Pick hit him for the last time.”
James stopped his story and became silent for a moment. He swallowed hard.
“How far away were you then?” Stick asked him.
“Less than a half block away. I can show you.”
“That’s not necessary. We can do that later,” Timbo jumped in.
Timbo’s dismissive tone surprised his partner. Stick looked at him then turned back to his notepad and jotted with his pen. Stick picked up the next question. “And then what? What happened next, James?”
“That’s when I think they saw me. I think they know I saw what they did but I’m not sure.”
“So what did you do?” Timbo asked.
“I didn’t move—didn’t budge. I waited to see if they’d come after me.”
“What did they do next?” Stick asked.
“They started to run toward the Oakwood Boulevard overpass. I watched them until I couldn’t see them no more. Then I got outta there as fast as I could. I came right home, same way I got there,” James replied.
“You mean you didn’t help the man they attacked? Go over to him to see if he was dead or alive?” Timbo’s voice rose with each question.
James shook his head.
“He was frantic when he came home. He just kept saying, ‘They gonna kill me, Momma. They gonna kill me.’” Eva cried harder, her voice rising louder, “You gotta protect my child!”
Earl got up and went over to his wife, embracing her and kissing the top of her head.
“Nobody’s gonna hurt your child, folks. That’s why we’re here, to take animals like these off the street and put them away for good,” Timbo instructed them matter-of-factly.
“Could you identify all of these boys if you saw them again, James?” Stick asked.
James nodded that he could. “I know five of them for sure, but the other one I didn’t see real good ’cause he ran away when the whole thing started.”
“Is that so?” Timbo said, writing in his book.
“Would you folks please stay here? We’ll be right back,” Stick said, pushing his chair back from the table and standing up. Timbo did the same. The detectives left the room and stood outside in the hallway. Stick looked at Timbo as his Italian partner placed his pen inside his coat pocket.
“So, whadya’ think, coomba? This eyewitness should make it easy for us to solve this old guy’s mugging. If this kid can positively ID the attackers, we got ourselves a dunker. We could use one right now. We need some clearances and I need to get home to Katie.”
“Yep.” Timbo answered without looking up, flipping through his notes. “That is—” He stopped before finishing his sentence.
Stick knew his partner was holding back and prompted him for a reply. “That is what?”
“That is, if you can believe this little nigger.”
“C’mon, Timbo. I heard the tone of your voice in there. He’s a goddam kid for crissake. Why don’t you fucking believe him?”
Timbo looked up from his notepad and looked his partner in the eye. “It’s all too rehearsed. He’s too cool. He made it sound too easy to tell us. And you heard what LaFrance said. There’s a reward out for the fuckers who did this. A nigger’ll turn in their fuckin’ grandmother if they think there’s something in it for ’em. This little shithead’s folks probably set him up to do this. They probably have the fuckin’ money spent already.”
“Christ, Timbo. You are one sorry son of a bitch. Why the hell would this kid turn in somebody’s who’s not guilty? He ain’t gonna get no fuckin’ reward if we don’t find somebody guilty.”
“Well, that may be. But, shit, don’t tell me you’ve turned into some kinda goddam nigger lover all of a sudden.”
“Fuck you. You know that has nothin’ to do with it. If this little kid saw that old man get whacked in Burnham yesterday then we gotta treat him as our goddamn eyewitness. Period.” Stick punched his own notepad with the tip of his pen to emphasize his point.
“All right, all right. Don’t get so defensive. I’m on your side for crissake. What the hell’s eating you anyway? Katie cut you off again? Let’s just find out if the victim c
an talk yet—if he’s come out of his coma. Why don’t you go to Mercy and see what you can find out and I’ll stay here with the kid and the parents.”
Stick knew that Timbo knew him better than anyone. Only his long-time partner was aware of the fact that Stick and his wife, Katie, were having serious problems, something he’d kept hidden for months from the other Homicide dicks. Stick loved his big, fat Italian partner, but he also knew Timothy Boscorelli was one of the most prejudiced sons of bitches on the Chicago police force. He raised an eyebrow to Timbo’s comment, knowing better than to leave his partner alone with the Overstreet family.
“Don’t worry,” Timbo said, “I won’t fuck with your little spook. Like I said, why don’t you go over to Mercy and check on the old man’s condition.”
He looked right at his partner and said, “No, LaFrance made me the lead on this case. You contact Mercy. I’ll stay here with the eyewitness. But first, I need to take a leak and piss out this shit you claim is coffee.”
Timbo watched Stick walk down the hallway and turn into the men’s room then went back to his desk in the detective’s office. The big cop plopped himself down in his swivel chair, picked up the phone, and dialed Mercy Hospital. He identified himself and inquired about the Burnham Park beating victim. The hospital operator connected him to a nurse’s station.
“Four west ICU, Mulcahey,” the voice on the other end of the line crackled through Timbo’s receiver.
“Hey, Fran. It’s Timbo.”
“Hey, Timbo. How’s it hangin’, big guy?”
“Just the way you like it, darlin’.”
“So, you calling to pick me up when my shift’s done? How is it you can tell when I’m so hot for that Italian sausage of yours?”
“Not now, babe. Later. Okay? This is police business. I’m calling about the guy brought in there yesterday. The old man that got mugged in Burnham. Fleischman’s the last name. I understand he’s up in your ICU. When do you think we’ll be able to talk to him?”
“Oh, jeez, Timbo. I’m sorry. Didn’t you guys get a call? He died about forty-five minutes ago.”
