by Pascal Marco
“Our parks must be safe for da children and for all da people,” Mayor Richard J. Daley proclaimed in his terse Chicago-ese on the local TV news the day after Manny Fleischman had died. “We will not stand for dis type of ting in our parks or in our streets or in our neighborhoods where old people—all da people of Chicaga—are not safe to move about dis byoodeeful city of ours.”
The faithful who voted for Richard J. Daley the last six elections referred to their mayor as “King Daley.” Such was the place of honor he had achieved, running the city with big shoulders. This was his city. Under his reign for nearly the past quarter century, Chicago had existed as its unofficial motto implied, “The City That Works.” Within the Daley regime, that’s all that mattered. “Hizzoner,” another one of the pretentious nicknames given to him by his undying constituents, would not tolerate murder in his Chicago parks. The Fleischman slaying had occurred less than three months after his record sixth inaugural address, one that focused on promising a crime-free Chicago. Yet the fact of the matter remained: Daley’s city was not safe.
There was another untold story, though, roiling in Chicago’s political underbelly; a way of life unspoken about but all too real. In Chicago, where whites still outnumbered blacks, the unwritten law stated blacks killing whites would not be tolerated.
The mayor himself took a special interest in the Fleischman murder since he, too, like the slain former ballplayer and retired public school teacher, lived on Chicago’s South Side. The Mayor’s home was just a few short miles due west of the violent crime scene. The murder of an elderly white man by black street thugs so close to his own family’s home in the safe and tidy neighborhood called Bridgeport did not go unnoticed by Hizzoner.
The political fire flared even higher with the revelation the murder victim was the last surviving member of the infamous Chicago Black Sox. City officials knew this murder could make national headlines, or at the very least, be a byline on sports pages throughout the country. This scarlet-lettered team, and the ill-chosen actions of eight of its star players, had forever left a blemish on the City of Chicago, upon its baseball sports scene, and, for that matter, upon America’s pastime.
And now, the last survivor of the ball club, a heretofore unknown and obscure player by the name of Manny Fleischman, who played a mere four games during the 1919 season, had been murdered in one of Mayor Richard J. Daley’s “byoodeeful” parks near his own backyard.
The Chicago Tribune, Stick thought, would have a front-page spread about his case in tomorrow’s paper. No doubt they’d reprint headlines from the 1920 trial of the eight ball players covered that year by the same illustrious newspaper. “Fucking Cubs fans will have a field day with this,” he swore to himself.
Stick had sent Timbo to Mercy Hospital to speak with the staff there and to meet with the victim’s family. After dropping off James, he radioed his partner to tell him first the news about the bat and then to tell him about learning of the eyewitness’s and the victim’s close friendship. Not only had James known the victim, Stick told a stunned Timbo, but the boy worked with Fleischman at Hyde Park Foods.
How did we miss that?
Good cops looked at every angle during a murder investigation, trying to make the connection between victim, killer, and witness. Stick realized he hadn’t been doing as thorough a job as he should investigating a crime of this magnitude. Maybe it’s because I’m so fucking tired from working nonstop the last three months. Too, his initial interview with James had been shortened after his difference of opinion with his partner on the motive behind the Overstreets coming forward. Stick didn’t like the fact he needed to question his own work and the weak job he was doing on the case so far, yet he didn’t want any more surprises either. I wonder if there are any more connections between everyone involved here?
With plenty of summer daylight still left, he headed to the crime scene to meet rookie Patrolman Sal Abbatti. According to what Stick had read after Lieutenant LaFrance had handed him “the runner”—the name given in the Homicide unit for the paperwork file of a murder case—Abbatti had been the first officer on the scene. He also read that CCR, the Central Communications Room, had taken the inbound call on the city’s recently deployed 9-1-1 system.
Abbatti’s patrol area, Beat 2122, covered the section of The Prairie where the crime had been committed. According to the Youth Division reports, it also happened to be within the beat where four of the alleged perps lived—the Olander Housing Projects at 41st and Lake Park Avenue.
“A jogger said he found the victim’s body near the bike path,” the first-year cop told Stick as they walked together along the park’s asphalt path toward the scene of the crime.
“What time was that?” Stick asked.
“The call came into CCR at ten twelve a.m. They dispatched Chicago Fire and those guys arrived here on the scene at ten twenty-two.” The patrolman pointed to a nearby telephone booth along Lake Shore Drive not far from where Fleischman’s body lay lifeless when Abbatti had arrived. “The caller dialed the new nine-one-one number from that pay phone.”
“Where’s this jogger now and what’s his name?”
“Don’t know. But CCR said the voice sounded like a very young male, presumably black. The caller didn’t give a name. Said he was out running, saw a man lying on the ground, called it in, and then hung up the phone.”
“So much for Good Samaritans.”
“I was on patrol near Thirty-fifth and Lake Shore Drive when the call came in from dispatch. I was here within three minutes of the jogger’s call. I saw Fleischman, went to him, checked his pulse. It was faint. He was alive but unconscious. His head was covered in blood. I was certain it was no accident by the extent of the damage. He had to have been beaten. From what his skull looked like, it was probably some type of blunt instrument. I radioed a supervisor and cordoned off the area.”
Stick nodded as Abbatti relayed his details. The rookie had done everything by the book, and from what Stick saw, the scene hadn’t been compromised.
“I made a sketch,” Abbatti said, handing over his notepad to the detective.
Surprised at the rookie’s thoroughness, Stick smiled as he looked at the patrolman’s drawing. Abbatti had indicated the location of the body in relationship to some stationary objects nearby in the park—a light pole to the south and west of the body, the phone booth due south, two park benches due east, and a playground with a basketball court to the east and north of where the victim lay.
Just like they taught us in dick school.
“Hang on to that in case I need it,” Stick said, handing the rookie’s notepad back to him. “Did you show this yesterday to Detectives Dimmick and Sternberg?”
“Nope. But from what I hear, those two couldn’t find sand if they were in the desert.”
Stick wasn’t surprised at Abbatti’s comments about the two detectives who had first arrived on the scene after being notified by 21st District dispatch that a suspected attack had taken place in the park. The two veterans hadn’t cleared a case in over six months, and Stick was certain that’s why LaFrance had handed the case to him and Timbo. Near 90 percent, Stick and Timbo’s clearance rate was the highest in Area 1.
Stick then looked in his notepad and read from the notes he had taken during the interview with James earlier that day. The detective walked the area, noting some of the key points James had mentioned, like the footbridge he had crossed to enter the park at 43rd Street, and the park bench he had hidden behind. Stick’s gut told him something didn’t add up.
“Is this where you found the body?” Stick asked Abbatti, pointing to a bloody spot on the asphalt.
“Yep. Right there,” Abbatti said, pointing to the same spot as he walked over to where Stick stood. “The vic’s body was laying here with his head facing southwest, toward Lake Shore Drive.” Abbatti oriented his own frame to show the direction. “His clothes were blood soaked as was the asphalt bike path beneath him.”
Stick shook his head. So
mething wasn’t right with the description of how far James was from the scene after he came down from the overpass. The park bench he said he had hid behind was no more than fifty feet from where Abbatti found Fleischman’s body. James had clearly said in his interview he was about a half block away. “That’s more like fifty yards,” he mumbled.
“Excuse me?” Abbatti said. “Did you say something, Detective?”
“You’re sure this is where you found the body?”
“As sure as I’m standing here,” Abbatti replied.
Maybe the boy just made a mistake, Stick thought. He was probably scared shitless. He must have meant feet. But if he was fifty feet away, he would have gotten so close he would have certainly put himself in harm’s way. Something’s just not adding up.
Stick stared north, looking down the bike path toward the Chicago skyline, five miles away. The sight was nearly identical to any one of a number of picture postcard versions a tourist could pick up as a wonderful memory of their trip to the magnificent city along the lake. With Lake Shore Drive winding gracefully along the western edge of Burnham Park, landmark Chicago skyscrapers in the distance, and a grassy shoreline, hugging the azure lake, it was a view like none other in the world.
A car and pedestrian overpass four blocks north at 39th Street, followed by a twin structure four more blocks north at 35th Street, gave ample access to park enthusiasts. The 43rd Street footbridge, the bottom of which Stick and Abbatti stood at now, gave additional egress to the lakeshore park.
“The boy said the gang ran north over the next overpass from where they attacked Fleischman. He must have meant this one,” Stick said to Abbatti, pointing to the 43rd Street footbridge.
Abbatti read more notes from his pad to Stick, telling him that there were no signs of a struggle in the immediate area. He saw no ripped turf in the grass on either side of the path, nor had he observed discarded material of any kind, although he did notice something on the victim’s jogging suit, which consisted of a blue pair of pants and blue windbreaker.
“His wallet and money were still on him, but he had grass stains all over his shirt and pants,” Abbatti said. “Do you think it’s possible they dragged him?”
He scratched his head after Abbatti’s last remark, then replied, “Let me do the detective work, okay, Rook.” Looking full circle at the crime scene, Stick went on. “Wallet and money still on him, huh? So they killed a helpless old man for a fucking bicycle.”
Flipping his notepad closed, Abbatti gave a terse reply, “Looks that way, Detective.”
Paramedics on the scene, emergency room nurses and doctors who had treated Fleischman—as well as the intensive care staff who spent only a brief time with him once he had arrived up on the Fourth Floor West ICU—detailed for Homicide Detective Timothy Boscorelli the severity of the victim’s beating. Not easily shaken, Timbo nonetheless winced as Four West head nurse Francine Mulcahey described the trauma Fleischman had suffered and the victim’s condition when he was admitted. She and her staff had provided what little treatment they could for him as they tried to comfort his devastated family.
“You’re gonna catch these little nigger pricks, aren’t you Timbo?”
“We’ll catch ‘em, Fran,” he replied, as he placed one of his fat, thick hands on her shoulder, sincere in his intent.
She inched closer to him. “That was fun the last time we were together. When we gonna do it again?”
“Not now, Fran. I’m on duty and all I want to do right now is catch these little niggers.”
Timbo had seen many beating victims in his years in Homicide, but after seeing Fleischman’s smashed skull later in the hospital’s morgue, coupled with his hangover from drinking too many beers at Fox’s Pub after last night’s softball game, he got sick to his stomach. Anger swept through his convulsing body as he hurled a bacon and egg breakfast into a nearby slop sink. After regaining his composure, he left the morgue and got in his unmarked Impala, driving to the nearby Hyde Park home of Fleischman’s family members to interview them.
Bobbi Fenton, Fleischman’s daughter, answered Timbo’s knock at the door of her three-story brownstone. After he identified himself, she invited him into the living room. Timbo offered his condolences to the trembling middle-aged woman. She then proceeded to tell him how she and her husband had kept vigil outside Mercy Hospital’s emergency room and later by her father’s bedside after hospital personnel had transferred him to the Four West Intensive Care Unit.
X-rays taken immediately upon the victim’s arrival at the hospital showed severe swelling in his cerebral cortex, making his condition critical, Fenton told Timbo. Emergency room doctors attending the octogenarian had decided surgery was out of the question until the swelling in his brain subsided. Unfortunately, the intense beating her father had suffered proved insurmountable, even though the tough old man had clung to life for nearly a day. He had died, she said, without recovering consciousness early the next morning.
“My father didn’t have an evil bone in his body. You know that, don’t you, Detective?” said Fenton, as Boscorelli squeezed himself into one of the room’s overstuffed chairs. “He wouldn’t have hurt a fly. He was a calm and peaceful man. He had relatives who died in the Holocaust, yet still he held no animosity in his heart for those who killed his own family.”
Timbo, still pale from his viewing of her father’s crushed head, nodded. Fenton spoke softly to him as they sat in the expansive parlor that faced Cornell Avenue, three blocks from the University of Chicago, where she and her husband, Lars, both taught.
“He loved to ride his bike in the park,” Fenton went on. “He often rode fifteen, twenty miles a day and never had a problem. But I worried about him all the time. I told him, ‘Papa, be careful where you ride. Please be careful.’ He paid me no mind. He would always say to me, ‘Who would want to hurt a little old man on his bike?’ He was right, you know. Why would anyone want to hurt him, Detective Boscorelli? What did he ever do to them?”
Timbo waited for Fleischman’s red-haired daughter’s sobbing to subside before he continued his questioning, notebook in hand and ballpoint pen to paper. “Can you tell us any more details about your father than we already know? We want to know if he had a particular route or a special routine you’re aware of? And if so, was it the same every day?”
“He only worked the midday shift, from ten thirty in the morning until two thirty in the afternoon,” she replied.
“A creature of habit is what you’d call him, Detective,” Lars interrupted, handing Timbo a cup of coffee he had carried in from the nearby kitchen. “My father-in-law was a creature of habit. He always left his Prairie Shores apartment precisely at nine forty-five every morning—never later, never earlier.”
“Did you find his cap?” Bobbi Fenton asked. “He always wore that silly gray cap.” She shook her head, a small smile appearing as she spoke.
“No, ma’am, we haven’t found it yet. But we will. I know this may sound odd, ma’am, but did your father ever have any problems with anyone? Any incidences or run-ins with anyone at work?”
She nodded and began to cry again. “He told me about some boys at the park—those black boys who had put James in that garbage can.” Timbo raised his brow and immediately jotted a note. Lars moved closer to her and hugged her as she sobbed. She wiped her eyes and softened her next words to the detective.
“He did love that boy, James, though,” Fenton added. “My father talked about him all the time. Papa had been depressed for so many years, especially after Mama died. That boy gave him new life.” She wiped the tears away from her eyes again, this time with a hanky Lars handed her.
Timbo shook his head, holding his anger back, wishing he wasn’t causing this anguish for the survivors by interviewing the victim’s family but rather out catching the killers.
“I can’t imagine what James will do,” she added, “how he’ll react when he finds out his friend, Manny Fleischman, was murdered in the park they both loved so much.�
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Timbo realized, as he listened to her words, that she didn’t know James had allegedly witnessed the murder of her father. Not sure whether he should release this information to her at this time, he chose at the moment to keep that bit of news to himself.
“Who will tell him, Detective Boscorelli?”
Not exactly sure what to say next, he gave her a puzzled look.
“Papa said the boy called him ‘the old Jew-man.’ Who’s going to tell James Overstreet that his friend, Manny Fleischman, the old Jew-man, is dead?”
At that point it was clear to Timbo that it would be best if he did tell her. “Mrs. Fenton, James was in the park when your father was attacked. He saw the whole thing. He’s our eyewitness.”
CHAPTER 16
Based on an eyewitness who had positively identified five of the six alleged attackers of Manny Fleischman and with the assurance of his witness’s willingness to participate in a lineup and testify in court, Stick Hanley phoned Felony Review at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. He told them he had probable cause to request a warrant for the arrest of Monroe “Ice Pick” Clarke and his gang.
On-call for the Felony Review Office that night was second-year Assistant State’s Attorney Norbert Dushane. Since Dushane had only been an ASA for two years and never been involved in a heater case, he immediately called his supervisor, Assistant State’s Attorney Ronald Spencer. Heater cases had a tendency to become unwieldy beasts from the moment they happened. Every agency’s respective protocol called for every t crossed and every i dotted when handling one of these hot potatoes.
An hour later, Dushane and Spencer went before Cook County Night Court Judge William F. Peters, requesting warrants for the arrest of the five boys James had IDed via the photo array produced by Youth Division Officer Michael T. Murphy. Based upon the police work performed so far, the nature of the crime, and the positive identification of an eyewitness, Peters granted the warrants.
