by Pascal Marco
“I didn’t know what to tell him. What to say to him. He was sobbing like a baby. He was so scared of Pick. I assured him we were still friends. That nothing could change that and not to worry. I said we could think of something together or maybe I could go to my daddy and ask him what to do.
“Clayton begged me not to do that. He said that Pick and his older cousin, Julius, were too dangerous to turn against. The second time we spoke he said he had just left a meeting of the gang at a local cemetery. That’s where they had planned the attack on Manny. Clayton said Pick was going to teach the old man a lesson for butting in when they trapped me in the wastebasket. Pick and Julius made everyone swear secrecy to not let the police or anyone ever know who was in on the plan. They reinforced upon all of them how Rangers don’t turn on each other, and to keep their mouths shut. If they didn’t, they’d never be safe in the neighborhood again.
“The last time we spoke he had called me from a pay phone right after the attack on Mister Fleischman. He told me Pick caught up with him and knew I saw them attack Mister Fleischman in the park, but Pick didn’t think I’d go to the police.”
Stan paused a full beat.
“What?” Maxine asked.
Stan shook his head. “Pick and Julius also said they’d kill me if I ratted them out again. And they told Clayton they’d make him do it as part of his final initiation into the gang.”
“That’s a conspiracy,” Brian said. “You know that, right?”
“I do now that I’m a lawyer. But what good does that do me now? Had I known that thirty years ago, well, maybe it could have been different.”
“But you knew—everything,” Maxine muttered.
The Jack Daniel’s had taken its full effect as Stan struggled to maintain his composure, but he could still feel the disappointment in his wife’s voice. He set his water bottle down on the table and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands.
“That’s why I decided to come forward the next day—because I did know everything. Mr. Fleischman’s story about how he held his secret about the Black Sox kept repeating over and over in my mind that night when I tried to go to bed. I had to go tell the police what I saw, I had to.”
“Why didn’t Clayton come forward, too?” Maxine asked.
“How could he, Max? He was in the gang. They would have killed him for sure. He had no one to protect him. Why do you think Clayton would have been safe?”
“Because the police could have protected him,” she replied.
“Police? Shit! What are you talking about? The police were almost one hundred percent white back then. To them, we were all just niggers—motherfuckin’ niggers. Don’t tell me you two don’t know all about that. Look what happened to me!”
Stan turned away and walked over to the kitchen sink. As he peered down at his reflection in the stainless steel basin, he barely recognized himself. He looked and felt like a man about to fall apart. He had never spoken like this before. Never to Brian and especially not to his wife. But for the last thirty plus years, he felt as if he were the lone black man in a white man’s world, always conforming, never expressing his feelings about how he was treated, or how he felt about the biases toward him in Arizona.
Not speaking for almost a minute, an uneasy silence befell the room. Then he turned and spoke again, looking at them both.
“I’m sorry about what I just said. You know I don’t really think you two—”
“I used to believe that, Stan, but now I’m not so sure,” Brian interrupted.
Maxine stared at her husband. He knew he had hurt her deeply and her next words proved it.
“You think that’s how I think, too, Stan? Do you really know how or what I think about you. Or how I feel about you? Do you really care? Do you think I’ve been insulated from all the stares and all the innuendos? Do you think it’s been easy for me to be married to a black man? And what about the stigma on our children?”
The liquor’s power made Stan suddenly unresponsive, although there was no mistaking the anger and hurt in his wife’s voice. Staring at Maxine, he blinked his eyes, trying to focus.
Then Brian broke the tense silence that had once again set upon the room. “We need to figure out what to do next. We need a plan.”
CHAPTER 33
Over the next several hours, fortified with many cups of strong coffee, Stan, Maxine, and Brian sat together at the kitchen table as Stan told them more of his memories of the murder trial, its painful outcome, and the surprising and swift relocation of the Overstreet family to Arizona. He recounted the dreadful story of the bungled police investigation and interrogations, and the prosecution’s assumptions and miscommunications, coupled with scores of occurrences of the mishandling of evidence and the improper execution of the rights of the juveniles in their custody. Those mistakes would eventually culminate in the handing down of a not guilty verdict for the five defendants accused of murdering Manny Fleischman.
But, the most intriguing part of the story came with the bombshell revelation that the Oakwood Rangers had not only conspired to kill Fleischman and cover up their crime and those that participated in it, but to kill anyone who squealed to the police.
“Where did you say they went those nights to plan your attack and Fleischman’s murder?” Brian asked.
“To a cemetery. I think it was called Old Woods or something like that,” Stan replied. “Clayton told me the P. Stones used the place for gang initiations at the base of some monument.”
Maxine jumped up from the table, startling both of them. “Wait.” She held up the palm of her hand. “Don’t say another word until I’m back.” She then ran into her home office just off the kitchen. She came back a few minutes later with an unbound manuscript in her hands. She dropped the stack of paper on the kitchen table and leafed through its pages. “What did you say the name of that cemetery was again?”
“Old Woods? No. Oak Woods. That’s it. I’m sure that’s the name,” Stan said. “Clayton told me they used to meet near a huge statue with cannons around it. I’d never been there, but Pick’s gang used the cemetery for their night meetings, knowing they’d be safe there.”
Maxine abruptly stopped flipping through the loose pages, scrolling down with her index finger to the bottom of the page. “Here it is. Oak Woods Cemetery. Chicago, Illinois. I knew that name rang a bell.” She read from the page as her voice escalated with excitement: ‘Site of the largest Confederate mass burial grounds outside the South. Dedicated by President Grover Cleveland, Memorial Day, 1895.’ I thought this place sounded familiar. Barbara Reyes discovered it doing the research for me on Chicago’s Camp Douglas for my latest book on Civil War prisons of the North.”
“Chicago had a prisoner of war camp during the Civil War?” asked Brian. “I never knew that.”
“Oh, yes. One of the most notorious,” she replied. “During the course of the war, it may have held up to twenty-six thousand prisoners. Nearly six thousand rebels died there. Douglas’s dead were all eventually interred at Oak Woods.”
“I remember that now. Mister Fleischman told me about that camp,” Stan said. “He said the apartment where our family lived at Thirty-Ninth and Ellis actually bordered part of the prison grounds. Stretched all the way to the lakefront.”
“Where Fleischman was killed?” Brian asked.
“No. Not exactly. He was jumped south of there. At Forty-Third Street.”
“It’s too bad they didn’t kill him on federal land,” Brian added. “Then maybe we’d still have a case against those two we’re holding now.”
“Why? What are you saying?” Stan asked.
“Well, I’m studying federal conspiracy cases right now in my evening law school classes,” Brian said. “Our teacher, Professor Stengel, discussed a rare federal case the other night about ongoing conspiracies and the statute of limitations. In this particular case he used as an example in class, the court ruled that there’s no statute of limitations limit on an ongoing conspiracy to cover up a crime com
mitted on federal land.”
Stan rubbed his chin. “Really?”
“Yeah. But, we’re out of luck here since the conspiracy wasn’t committed on federal land,” Brian added. “According to what you said Clayton told you, the gang planned everything at the cemetery. Probably privately owned or owned by the city, I’m guessing.”
“It’s private. But if my memory serves me correctly that’s what’s so unique about Oak Woods,” Maxine jumped in, spilling some coffee as she poured herself more. “As a matter of fact, we spoke to the management office of the cemetery a few months back. Barbara called them when she found their website after doing a Google search. I remember talking with her specifically about this burial site within their grounds and that is was managed by the federal government.”
“You’re sure of that?” Stan blurted.
“Yes. I’m sure the federal government is still involved somehow, but I don’t remember the details off the top of my head. It’s too late to call Chicago now, but I’m certain that Barbara added the complete notes in the file she created on the site about what she found out from her conversation with the cemetery manager. All the details from what she discovered should be in it.”
Brian gestured for her to refill his empty cup. “Do you still have the file?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I should. Barbara was meticulous. She kept all our research in password-protected files. But since she disappeared, I haven’t had time to check where she left off with everything.”
“Do you know where she might have kept the file and what she named it?” Brian asked.
“More importantly,” Stan interjected, “what the password is?”
“She would have only kept it in one master folder, and I assign the passwords since everything is on a shared external hard drive in my ASU office.”
“Take that coffee to go, babe,” said Stan, bolting up from his chair. He felt like a new man, revitalized after unloading thirty years of shame and guilt, but more so from the legal implications now churning in his mind. “Let’s go find that file and get the details of exactly what Barbara found out.” He turned to Brian. “Pardner, why don’t you get ahold of that professor of yours and pick his brain on this a bit more, make sure we’re on solid legal ground to possibly charge Pick and his crew on a federal conspiracy charge.”
When they arrived on campus, Maxine and Stan headed directly to the Social Sciences Building, a brown brick edifice that housed Maxine’s office in the History Department.
Standing at the elevator, she asked, “How’s your head?”
“Spinning.”
“Mine too.” They simultaneously grabbed for each other’s hand and held tight.
She pressed the up button and the lift’s doors opened, creaking all the way. As the elevator rose, the hum of its wire-rope cables, pulling the massive machine skyward, was the only sound she could hear besides that of her own pumping heart.
“I had Jimmy Nejo’s guys pick up Turner and DeSadier at the 4th Avenue Jail and take them to his lockup on the Gila Indian Reservation,” Stan blurted, breaking the silence of their ascent.
Not believing what she just heard, Maxine looked at him. Confused, she didn’t speak.
“That’s why I was down there. I went to see those two. To talk to them.”
“You did what?”
“I had to see them face-to-face, make sure it was really them.”
“You’re not supposed to speak to defendants without their attorney present are you, Stan?” She already knew the answer to her rhetorical question. Being the wife of a prosecutor, she understood the law better than some of her husband’s coworkers. She also was well aware that he and his Indian pal, Jimmy, were close friends and had helped each other before when in a jam. Jimmy would do whatever he could to help the “Lízhíní Lawyer,” Stan’s Navajo nickname used by all his Native Americans friends.
“Nope. You’re absolutely right. I’m not. But I don’t give a damn.” He pulled his hand from hers and waved it in the air. “As far as I’m concerned, they can rot in Jimmy’s jail forever.”
“You’ve got your friend Jimmy involved in this now. Does he know why he’s sticking his neck out for you?”
Stan shook his head. “All he knows is that I needed help.”
“So, what do you two plan to do with these guys? You both know this is illegal. Once their lawyer finds out, he’ll make a motion to release them, won’t he?”
“Their lawyers will have to find them first. Anyway, don’t worry about Jimmy. He’s a big boy. And besides, tribal police can do what they want, you know.”
“Well, what about your office? What happens when the County Attorney’s Office finds out what you two have pulled off?”
“If and when the County Attorney’s Office does find out, pulling them from the reservation will take a call to the president of the Gila Rez. And that just happens to be Jimmy’s cousin. Anyway, first they’ll have to find these two pieces of shit. Who knows, maybe these scumbags will just disappear? Stranger things have happened in Indian jails. Who would miss—”
As the doors opened, the elevator’s bell interrupted Stan’s words at the same time Maxine did. Barely able to get the words out, she choked back her shock in his revelation as they stood in the elevator.
“Stan? What’s gotten in to you? Even though I’d like to see these guys fall off the face of the earth, too, you can’t take the law into your own hands. If you do, then you’re no better than them.”
“No better than them? What the hell you talking about? These guys got away with murder. I saw them attack Mister Fleischman with my own eyes. They laughed as Pick pummeled him senseless and then got away with it. And because they were juveniles, their records were sealed shut forever, as if it never happened.”
Maxine glared at the back of her husband’s head as he walked off the elevator and into the hallway. But he wasn’t finished with his tirade.
“You call that justice?” he shouted to her over his shoulder.
“I call it revenge,” she yelled back, stomping behind him. She caught up and tugged on his arm hard, spinning him around. “I didn’t fall in love with a man who has revenge in his heart. Justice is one thing, Stan. An eye for an eye is another.”
Stan jerked away from her grasp. Without answering, he continued walking down the dimly lit corridor and stood at the door to her office. He waited for her to open it, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his pants.
She brushed him aside, unlocked the door, and entered her office. She flipped on the light switch, crossed the room, and booted up the computer on her former assistant’s desk. Stan came up and stood beside her, not speaking.
“I think you owe Brian an apology,” she said, breaking their brief silence as she clicked through a list of Word files now displayed on the monitor. “He’s been worried sick about you. You just don’t know how hard he’s worked to find all this out about you.”
Stan still didn’t speak.
“And don’t you think he feels bad, too, maybe even a little guilty, about what his dad and his partner and the Cook County Attorney’s Office did to you and your family?” Stan didn’t answer as she continued her search for the files. “I think this is it. Yes. Here it is.”
“Here’s what?”
“The goddamn information we came to get, that’s what,” she snapped.
“All right. Easy. I’ll apologize again to Brian if that’s what you want.”
She bolted up and looked him square in the eye. “Apologize to Brian? You think that’s all I want? How about apologizing to me? Your wife. How could you keep this from me all these years? I thought you loved me. How could you have never told me about all of this, not shared it with me? How could you possibly accuse me of not feeling the prejudices against you? Worse yet, you actually think I feel the same way others do. The way they feel down deep about blacks, don’t you?”
“Max. Please. C’mon.”
“C’mon, what, goddammit? I’ve been married t
o a man for almost twenty years who’s been in the goddamn witness protection program and I didn’t even know it.” She deepened her look. “And then, what you said earlier, to me and Brian. Do you know how that makes me feel? How deeply you hurt me?”
He didn’t answer, making her angrier.
Her eyes widened. “And what about the twins? Did you ever consider their lives? Their safety? Their future? You should have told me this the first time we met—”
“The first time we met? Right. C’mon. Would you have continued to date me if I had told you? Would you have even given me a second chance?”
“I loved you the first time I saw you, Stan. Or is it James? See what I mean? I don’t know who you are anymore. I—”
She stopped abruptly and turned away, but he pulled her to him.
“Maxine. I’m still just me.”
She struggled out of his grasp, brushed the tears from her eyes, sat back down, and went back to the screen.
“What are we looking for again?” he asked.
She hated when he could so easily change the subject like that. But she knew retrieving the information they had come here to get was more important than trying to correct his behavior. More than frustrated, she decided to just answer his question.
“We’re looking for the specific details Barbara recorded when she spoke to the folks at Oak Woods Cemetery.” She struggled to focus on the monitor’s display as she wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Here. This is what we’re looking for. I thought so.”
She read from Barbara Reyes’s notes in the Word document:
The cannon, shot, and shell ornamenting this government lot in which both Union and Confederate soldiers are buried were purchased by the War Department under authority of an Act of Congress in 1893. Two acres of government-owned property have been set aside and are maintained to this day by Oak Woods Cemetery personnel, holding the monument and graves of those that died at Camp Douglas.
Stan stared at her, his mouth agape. “Do you know what this means?” he blurted. “This means they committed their conspiracy on federal property. If Brian’s professor is right, then we might have found a loophole to retry these guys and finally send them all to jail.”
