Murder at Ebbets Field (20 page)

When the doctor finished, he said, “That should do it. Now if you feel dizzy or have trouble with your eyes, let me know.” After packing his bag, he left the room muttering about Elmer Garvin providing him with too many patients.

Margie squeezed my hand.

“How bad does it look?” I asked.

“It’s not bad,” she said, trying too hard to sound convincing. “Like a little bald spot is all. With one, two . . . nine stitches in it. Uh ... you might want to wear a hat.”

I chuckled at the number of stitches—nine, a good number for a baseball player. It felt good to laugh at something, but it brought a worried look to Margie’s eyes.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not going crazy.”

No, I wasn’t going crazy. In fact, my brain was working surprisingly well. It had just generated one of the most promising ideas I’d had lately. “Could you leave me alone for a minute?” I asked her. “I want to get up and walk around a bit.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. I’ll be right out. I need to get out of these clothes.”

She left the room, and I had a minute to collect my thoughts. I stood up and shuffled to the mirror. I couldn’t see what the back of my head looked like, but after tearing the false mustache from my lip I was reassured to see that I looked as handsome as ever from the front.

I then peeled out of my hick outfit, much of which was now soaked with blood.

Fifteen minutes later, I stepped back into the studio, dressed in my street clothes, my boater set lightly on my head, and generally feeling pretty pleased with myself.

The studio had gone back into production with pies flying everywhere. Margie was the only one waiting for me outside the door.

I pulled her back in the dressing room for a long kiss and a longer hug, then took leave to go to the game.

W
ednesday evening was our next chance to have dinner together, and Margie and I were finally able to take advantage of it. There were no candles or tablecloths though. Since we were both tired from work, we didn’t bother to look for elegance. Instead we settled for a quick supper at a Bond Street luncheonette near Loeser’s department store in downtown Brooklyn.

One advantage of the informal setting was that I could leave my hat on to cover up the shaved patch on my scalp. The pain was gone by now, but the skin itched like crazy.

I’d played in yesterday’s and today’s games, with no ill effects from the blow to my head. In fact, it might have helped—I went five for eight with a triple as we split the last two contests of the series to leave us one game behind the Braves. Although even if I’d gone eight for eight, I had no intention of getting my head broken again.

I’d also had forty-eight hours to try to figure out what to do about Florence Hampton’s killer. My first impulse was to announce it to the world and let justice take its course. Then as I thought about it, I realized I didn’t really
know
all that much and could prove even less. A premature accusation would only serve to forewarn the murderer.

After a little more thought, I decided I shouldn’t tell Karl Landfors, either. How would he react if I told him the identity of his sister’s murderer and said there was no proof? It wouldn’t surprise me if he tried to even the score on his own and get himself jailed or killed as a result.

The same with Margie. Her tie to Florence Hampton wasn’t as strong as Karl’s, but she was even less likely than him to let her friend’s death go unavenged.

So I decided to say nothing for now and vowed that I would get enough evidence to bring to the police. Once they took over, Karl and Margie would be safe.

Over ginger ale and liverwurst sandwiches, Margie finally told me where she’d been on Sunday. “I talked with Esther Kelly again,” she said.

“By yourself?” That didn’t sound like “together.” But considering what I was keeping from her, who was I to complain?

Margie nodded. “I asked her where she really went after the party at the Sea Dip Hotel. I told her that I knew she didn’t go home until late that night—”

“But I promised her maid not to say anything. I don’t want to cause trouble between them.”

“Don’t worry.” Margie patted my arm. “I didn’t tell her that we learned anything from
Bridget,
”she said with a smile. “I said that somebody from Vitagraph saw her out with a man who wasn’t her husband, and I wanted to hear from Esther what it was about so I could try to stop any rumors.”

“Oh.” Not a bad story, I thought. “So what did she say?”

“She broke down. She felt guilty.”

“Why? What did she do?”

“She didn’t know. She said she couldn’t remember. I’ve heard people say that Esther drinks and that’s what cost her her career. She told me she tries not to drink at all now, but since she couldn’t remember what happened that night, she assumed she must have been drunk. That’s what she felt guilty about. But she was
sure
she
hadn’t
been drinking. Esther seemed torn up with herself.” Margie added, “I don’t think she’d do anything to hurt anyone. That’s what my gut says.”

“Sometimes that’s the most reliable guide.” I thought for a bit. “Who do you think took Esther Kelly home that night?”

“I
really
wish I knew,” Margie said. “I’m sure it was innocent, but I still want to find out . . . more than ever now.”

“Why’s that?”

“Esther kept asking me where she was seen. She really wanted to know.” Margie shook her head. “And I couldn’t tell her. I wish I hadn’t lied to her like that.”

“She remembered things from a long time ago,” I said. “My aunt was like that, could remember things in detail from years ago but could hardly remember what happened the day before. People used to kid her about it. Sometimes my aunt would show up unannounced at the house where she grew up, as if she still lived there. The people who owned it eventually got used to it, and they’d call my uncle to come and get her. Then it got worse, and nobody kidded her anymore. We just knew she was sick somehow. She died when I was fourteen.”

I pulled out my watch and flipped open the back cover to reveal a picture of two people. “This is her,” I said. “And my uncle. They raised me.”

“They look like nice people,” Margie said.

“They were.”

We sat for a few moments in silence. This investigation didn’t seem to be doing anyone any good, nice or not. Margie and I had almost been killed, Florence Hampton—Karl Landfors’s sister—
had
been murdered, as had an innocent twelve year old boy. And we were telling lies to people, causing them grief, to get them to talk.

But as cruel as it might seem sometimes, we couldn’t stop now. There was still a killer to be caught.

“It’ll be all right,” I finally said and picked up the check.

“Would you like to come over . . . for coffee, or something?” Margie asked in a tight voice.

“Yes.”

We decided to walk and were strolling hand in hand on Pacific Street toward Third Avenue, when Margie pulled up short at a second-hand bookstore. “Could we stop a minute?” she asked.

I agreed and we went over to the bins of used books and old papers stacked outside the store. One bin was crammed with old photographs. Margie started rifling through the photos while I scanned a rack of magazines not looking for anything in particular.

Margie pulled out one of the pictures. “Ooh! This is a good one,” she said.

I walked over to see the creased photo of a lean bucktoothed young lady. “Who is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But she has a good face, an honest face. I like her! She’ll look good on my wall, I think.”

“With your relatives?”

“Oh, those aren’t relatives. Not that I know of anyway. The only relative I have is my brother.”

“Then who are they?”

“People like her,” she said. “My brother and I were adopted as babies. We never knew our parents and don’t know of any relatives. So I collect people who look interesting, people I might
like
to have as family.” With that explanation, she paid two cents for the picture.

There certainly were some things about Margie Turner that I didn’t understand. Fortunately, I didn’t have to understand her to like her.

We turned south on Third Avenue and were soon in her apartment. Inside, we quickly passed her adopted relatives in the parlor and almost sprinted past the kitchen with no thought of having coffee. That could wait until morning.

I found the Century Theatre on West Forty-seventh Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. It was a burlesque house now, the kind that gives burlesque a bad name. In the harsh light of Thursday morning, it looked seedy and rundown.

The marquee headliners were La Petite Aimee “from Gay Paree” and comic Izzy Pickle. Also advertised were Madame Fong’s Oriental Dancers and “a Bevy of Beautiful Chorines.”

I was here on a long shot, a hunch. If it went nowhere, nothing was lost. But I had two reasons for hoping it would work out: one was to see if I could put Esther Kelly’s mind at ease, to make up for the worry we’d caused her; the other was a test to see how my luck was running. I knew I’d need a lot of it, since I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get much hard evidence against Florence Hampton’s murderer.

No one was in the theater’s ticket booth and no amount of hammering on the front door could arouse a response.

I went to the alley door and pounded away at it. From inside came a muffled yell, “I’m comin’, I’m comin’, dammit!”

The door popped open with a squeak and a scrape. The man in the doorway was old and gaunt, with drooping skin that hung loose from his throat. “What you want?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “We don’t open till two.”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “My name’s Mickey Rawlings. I play for the Giants . . . baseball . . .”

“So?”

Okay, he’s not a baseball fan. “I’m a friend of Esther Kelly.”

“Who?”

“Esther Kelly, the actress. She used to be Esther Nielson.”

His face warmed up. “Esther,” he repeated with a smile. “You a friend of hers?”

I just said I was. Wasn’t he listening? “Yes, I am. She told me she used to act here. A long time ago. I was wondering if I could take a look around.”

“Yeah, sure, what the hell. Come on in.”

He let me in, and I followed him through the back stage. I noticed he had a pronounced limp—an encouraging sign.

“I didn’t catch your name,” I said.

“Frank Roche.” He offered his hand. “There ain’t much to see. It ain’t like when Miss Esther performed here. No more real acting at all. Goddamn hootchie-kootchie dancers and shimmy-shakers is all we got now. Almost as bad as the houses in Union Square.”

“You the owner?”

“Hell no. I’d show plays if I owned this dump. Nah, I’m just the stage manager. Now I’ll show you what this place used to be like.”

He led me to a small office, its walls covered with more photographs than hung in Margie’s parlor. Taking a scrapbook from a desk drawer, he laid it open and said, “This is what it was like when Miss Esther was performing. Here’s the first show.” He pointed at a cast photo.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
was lettered in white paint at the top of the photo. “There she is,” he said. “Little Eva.” Esther Kelly was easily recognizable, looking not much different from the way she did now.

In the bottom right corner of the picture, the white paint said 1876. That’s . . . thirty-eight years ago. If Esther Kelly was six when she appeared in
Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
she must be in her mid-40’s now, at least ten years older than I would have guessed.

“Is this date right?” I asked.

“Sure is. That’s what gave the theater its name. The U. S. of A. was a century old that year.”

“Do you ever see her anymore?” I asked.

He didn’t answer for a minute. “She comes around sometimes.”

“Like she did a month ago?”

“Yeah. She gets a little . . . well, lost sometimes. And she comes by. This is no kind of place for a lady like her. So I take her home.”

I thanked him for his time and left.

My hunch had paid off. I hoped I still had enough luck left to snare Florence Hampton’s killer. If luck was a bat, I’d just used up a hit.

I
didn’t want to go west. Not now.

Even though it would be a relief to get out of the line of fire, away from attempts to poison me or bash in my skull, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay in the city until the murder of Florence Hampton was resolved. I was so close to wrapping it up. All I needed was proof.

It was Saturday morning, eight-thirty, and I had an hour to get to Grand Central Station for the start of the road trip to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis. We would be away from New York for two weeks . . . two weeks away from Margie.

I tried to call her at the studio, to hear her voice again before I left. She was tied up and couldn’t be bothered. The kind of scenes she did, “tied up” could be literal.

Then I called Karl Landfors at the
Press.
He was starting to be a good second choice when Margie wasn’t available. Landfors wasn’t tied up, and I got through.

“You see the
Public Examiner
today?” he asked.

A rock blossomed in my stomach. “No.” In fact, I’d made a point of not looking at that paper anymore.

“Interesting headline,” Landfors said wryly.
“What Does He Have Against the Dodgers?
it says.”

“Is the ‘he’ me?”

“Yes, indeed. Another article by William Murray. Appears he found out that you were with the Dodger batboy in a pool hall ‘where you went to stir up trouble just before he was killed.’ ”

“That was a
week
before he was killed!”

“That’s not the way the story reads. Anyway, he makes an interesting connection. He ‘reminds’ people that you’re a suspect in Florence Hampton’s death and that she owned part of the Dodgers. Then he suggests you killed the batboy. And finally he predicts you’re going to kill a player if you’re not stopped. Says it’s because you can’t beat them on the field.”

“I’m going to kill
Murray
if
he
isn’t stopped!”

“Calm down. Nobody takes him seriously. None of the mainstream papers have picked up on this. By the way, he says Casey Stengel is your next target.”

Jeez. What a load—

“Actually,” Landfors said, “you won’t have to worry about him much longer.”

“Why not?”

“When my sister’s murderer is caught, he can’t continue to call you a suspect.”

How did Landfors know I was on to the killer? “Uh ... what do you mean?”

“Let’s just say that you don’t need to do any more investigating.”

“You mean
you
know—”

“Yes, I do.”

“Who was it?” I wanted to know if we’d come to the same conclusion.

“I’d prefer not to say yet. Not until I have proof.”

“Tell me. We can put the information we have together.”

He paused. “No,” he decided. “I’m planning to take care of it myself.”

Fine. You don’t tell me your murderer, I won’t tell you mine.

We were at an impasse, so after a little more fruitless back and forth we hung up.

Then I wondered what he meant about planning to take care of it himself. If he tried something stupid . . .

Now it wasn’t just Margie that I wanted to stay in town for. I wanted to get Florence Hampton’s killer behind bars before Landfors got himself in trouble.

Those quiet, harmless-looking guys. They’re the ones you have to watch out for. When they get riled, they can really go berserk.

That night, as we rattled west through Pennsylvania, I struggled my way into the upper berth of a Pullman sleeper. I fidgeted in the bunk, simmering in the heat and absorbing the aromas of its previous occupants. Pullman beds were notorious, apparently designed for maximum discomfort. Now it seemed worse than usual, as I thought about having Margie next to me. I never felt so alone as I did lying sleepless in the sleeper car.

Eventually, I began to imagine the curtain-shrouded berth as a cocoon, where I was shielded from the outside world. I used the isolation to gather my thoughts on the Hampton investigation, organizing them where they fit together and mentally cataloging the missing pieces I had yet to fill in.

I already was two for four: I knew who killed Florence Hampton and who poisoned the champagne I drank.

Then there were two murders I wasn’t so sure about: William Daley’s and Larry Harron’s. I wasn’t sure in my head, anyway, although my gut was certain. I had to work backward with those deaths; instead of establishing means, motive, and opportunity to identify the killer, I had to start by knowing who the killer was and then trying to figure out how and why.

And there were those “accidents”—the spotlight that almost killed Margie in the pool and the bottle that smashed over my head. The spotlight had had a string tied to its leg. I knew that was no accident. And I wasn’t sure about the switched bottles being a mistake. What bothered me about these incidents was the change in method. Although Karl Landfors said a murderer might change tactics if he was desperate. Maybe the killer knew I was getting close.

So I continued to think.

By the time the train arrived in Pittsburgh, the only conclusion I’d come to was that lying alone in a Pullman berth was torture compared to being in a bed in Brooklyn with Margie curled up next to me.

Monday was Labor Day. For many, it signaled the end of summer, and men would soon be discarding their straw hats. The tradition was to buy a new boater every Memorial Day and destroy it after Labor Day. I measured summer differently and had my own tradition: I put on a new hat when the opening game of the baseball season was played and continued to wear it until the last out of the World Series. Except for the ones I left floating in the Luna Park swimming pool and covering the pale dead face of Florence Hampton.

On this day, however, I wasn’t thinking of death. My thoughts were solely on baseball as I sat in the visitors’ dugout of Forbes Field, the only ballpark in America named after a British general. We were playing a holiday doubleheader against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

My teammates were anyway. Determined to keep pace with the Braves, John McGraw decided he would play only the regulars, no utility players, and was limiting the pitching rotation to three men: Mathewson, Tesreau, and Marquard. I was a spectator. And, though I would never admit it to McGraw, that was okay.

I got to sit back and watch Honus Wagner, the old Flying Dutchman, play baseball. For two games, eighteen innings, the forty-year-old Wagner put on an exhibition of how the game should be played—slashing line drive hits, stealing bases, snaring everything hit to him at shortstop. I never could understand how a man so awkward looking, so bowlegged and ham-fisted, could play the game’s most elegant position so superbly. But those bowlegs carried the Dutchman around the bases with the same dash and brilliance as Ty Cobb. And those huge hands of his would shovel up any grounder hit to the left side of the infield; he’d scoop up about a bucketful of dirt with the ball and throw most of it along toward first, but he’d nail the runner. And through it all, he had as much fun as a kid playing a sandlot game. His rough homely face—much like Casey Stengel’s, only more so—was lit up with the sheer joy of playing.

With Honus Wagner leading the Pirates’ attack, Pittsburgh swept both games. We took no consolation from the fact that the man who beat us was the player McGraw himself rated as the best in baseball history. The Boston Braves had won both ends of a doubleheader at home. Their first-place lead was now three games.

At the hotel, I tried telephoning Margie again. Again she was busy at the studio. We didn’t connect until later that night when I reached her at home. “How are things at the studio?” I asked her, though I didn’t care about the studio.

“Crazy. I think Mr. Garvin has lost his mind.”

“Why? What’s he doing?”

“It’s what he’s not doing. You remember he couldn’t do anything with the scenes we shot at Coney Island?”

“Yeah . . .”

“It’s the same with the pie-throwing movie. He just doesn’t know how to do longer pictures. So you know what he’s going to do now?”

“Uh-uh. What?”

“He’s actually going to let Mr. Carlyle film his
Hamlet
movie. Shows how desperate Mr. Garvin is. Well, it’s sweet in a way, I suppose. Mr. Carlyle’s a ham, but he’s like a little kid having his dream come true. So, that’s a long answer, but the studio’s been crazy. How are you?”

“Oh, okay. I’m not playing, we’re losing, and . . . and I miss you.” What was in my head just slipped right out of my mouth.

After a second, she said softly, “I miss you, too.”

Then we were quiet. I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t want to get mushier and I couldn’t go back to small talk. So I promised to call again soon.

The road trip went on. One more game in Pittsburgh, which we won, then to Cincinnati, where the last place team swept us. The Braves had a five and a half game lead over us, and we knew it was almost over.

I continued to miss Margie, despite calling her every other day. And I fretted over what Karl Landfors might be up to.

There was one advantage to being away from New York: with no chance to question people or get evidence, I made the most out of reviewing every bit of information I already had. The picture slowly became clearer to me, and my mind continued to work over the crimes, trying to answer the questions that remained.

After dropping three out of four games to the Cubs, the team gathered at the Illinois Central station on Randolph Street. We waited on the platform for the train that would take us to St. Louis, our last stop. I sat on my suitcase, feeling grateful that it was a short enough trip that we didn’t need a Pullman train.

And one more piece of the puzzle slipped neatly into place.

When we arrived in St. Louis, I made two phone calls and had just about all of it figured out.

It was three days before we’d be back in New York, and I was worried about Landfors. I tried calling him at the Press to see what he was up to. I decided that if he sounded close to doing something reckless, I’d tell him all I knew.

He wasn’t there. A secretary at the paper told me he hadn’t been in for a week. What was that guy up to?

Landfors was forcing me to act. I wasn’t going to get much more evidence. Could I get the killer to confess? Set a trap maybe? I’d have to try.

I called Margie. This time she was second choice for a phone call. She gave me the daily news: Arthur Carlyle’s
Hamlet
was starting production, the Brooklyn Tip-Tops were on a six-game winning streak, and she wished I’d be back soon.

What I told Margie was far less routine. I didn’t tell her everything but enough for now.