Murder at Wrigley Field (14 page)

I
was tired and cranky by the time we arrived in Chicago and more than half-tempted to take a taxicab home from Grand Central Station. Going along with the war-time austerity program, I resisted the temptation and opted for the El with a transfer to a Lincoln Avenue street car.

From Lincoln, I trudged on foot to my house, with a satchel in one hand and a small suitcase in the other. It was a dry, hot summer morning; I was soon tired, cranky, and thirsty. My shoes kicked up little dust clouds that floated up and danced on shimmering waves of simmering air. I began to visualize a tall frosty glass of ginger ale. Then I figured since it was only imagination I might as well go all the way, and I changed the object of my fantasizing to an enormous glass of beer, dark amber with a thick head of foam.

As I turned from Herndon Street onto Wolfram, I spotted Mrs. Tobin on her front porch knitting away at the piles of yam. I hoped to get by with only a quick greeting and go into my house. I liked coming home from road trips and had a regular routine: check the mail, dump the dirty laundry from my bags, and sprawl out in the comfort of my own place with something cold to drink.

Not to be. Mrs. Tobin halted me by crying, “Mickey! I have something for you!”

Leaving my luggage to fry on the sidewalk, I approached her porch with as big a smile as I could muster. “That’s a fine-looking sweater, Mrs. Tobin. If they give a medal for best-dressed soldier, Harold will win it easy.”

With a beaming smile, she said, “Well, so long as he’s warm is all I care about.” She paused from her knitting to point one of the needles at a wooden crate on the other end of the porch. It was the size of a block of ice. “That come for you.”

After the minimum number of words necessary to be polite, I said good-bye and lugged the heavy crate home and into my parlor. I had no idea what was inside but was tremendously excited by the prospect. This was even better than mail! Before retrieving my bags from the sidewalk, I got a hammer from a cupboard and pried off the loosest-looking board. Inside the box, neatly lined up with their spines facing me, were Willie Kaiser’s Mark Twain books.

There was no note, no return address. Edna Chapman apparently had as little use for written words as she had for spoken. Her message, however, as always, was clear: she didn’t want me coming to their house to pick up the books. Nor for anything else, I was sure.

My spirits considerably dampened, I went to the kitchen, where I guzzled a glass of tepid tap water, then retrieved my bags from the sidewalk.

Back inside, I checked the mail and found a note from Karl Landfors. The letter said he’d be out of town for a week, but he thought he was close to getting the autopsy report on Willie Kaiser. There was no date on the note—Landfors must still be rusty in his reporting skills. The envelope was postmarked two days ago.

I’d completed my homecoming routine—read the few pieces of additional mail, dumped the contents of my bags on the bedroom floor, and collapsed into my Morris chair with a cold ginger ale—when the phone rang.

Grumbling about having to get up again, I went to the phone and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hello. May I speak to Mickey Rawlings please?” The light feminine voice was familiar.

“This is me.”

“This is Edna Chapman.”

Ah, she was going the formal route. At least she was still talking to me in some manner. “Uh, hi Edna. Thanks for the books.”

“You’re welcome. My mother wanted you to have them.” Sudden silence. I could picture her lips clamping shut.

I thanked her again and received more silence in response. Was she nodding or something? It was hard to get a read on Edna Chapman without being able to see her expressions.

She suddenly blurted, “Did you find out who killed my brother yet?” It came out sounding like, “Why is it taking you so long?”

“No. But I did make some progress, I think.” I added apologetically, “I wish I could tell you more, but it’s not easy to find out what happened.”

“You asked me about secrets...”

“Yes.”

“If Willie had any secrets...”

“Right.” This was more arduous than talking with her in person.

“There was one: he was seeing a lady.”

Willie? I didn’t believe it. I would have known. “He was?”

“Yes. He didn’t tell you because he thought you might tease him.”

Of course I’d have teased him. What are teammates for? Still, he should have told me. “Do you know who he was seeing?”

“Her name is—was—
is
Aggie.”

Jeez. Aggie O’Doul? “Did you ever meet her?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you anything else about her? Last name?” Not that I expected there could be very many girls named Aggie.

Silence.

I’d bet she was shaking her head. “Helloooo,” I prodded.

“No.”

“Okay. Well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll see if it leads to anything.”

“Are you still going to tell me when you know who killed Willie?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

Satisfied, she ended the conversation and hung up.

Willie Kaiser and Agnes O’Doul. I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t picture it at all. Might have been serious, too, if he didn’t want to be kidded about it.

I looked into the box of Mark Twain books, my only tangible mementos of Willie. Then I cleared space for them in my small bookcase, pulling out movie magazines and baseball guides to make room. Careful to maintain alphabetical order, I put the books on the shelf one volume at a time. I liked the way they looked—having books in the house really made it seem like a home.

It was about time to wash the dust of the road from my body, so I went to draw a bath. There was still no hot water. I called my landlord, who informed me that plumbing supplies were hard to get. “There’s a war on, you know,” he explained. I settled for a cold bath; it was more refreshing anyway.

Afterward, feeling fresher and cooler and wearing a clean robe, I scanned the titles of my new library. I picked out
Pudd’nhead Wilson.
I once knew a catcher by that name who played in a North Carolina textile league, with the Byerly Bobbins, I think it was.

Settling back in my chair to read it, I took another look at the title before opening the book. Pudd‘nhead. That could be a name for the new kid: Pudd’nhead Dillard. Hmm. Then again, maybe not. Piano Legs Dillard... Peanuts... Pepper ... Pickles... Pickles Dillard. I decided I’d try that one.

Monday night I was back at work in the chemical plant of the Dearborn Fuel Company. I was even getting proficient at my job. By using smaller loads of peach stones in the oven and stirring them more frequently, I improved the product considerably. The pits charred more evenly and I was able to do a larger total amount in less time.

Between shoveling in fresh loads, emptying the charcoal, and running the tines of my rake through the stones, I was kept hopping. Still, every chance I got, I kept glancing back over my shoulder to steal looks at Agnes O’Doul.

Her body was cloaked in the same baggy coveralls as before, with the safety mask held close to her face as she worked her cutting torch. I couldn’t really see her, but I remembered how she looked. And it wasn’t anything like the kind of girls Willie went to see in the burlesque houses. I knew, though, that the girls you prefer to look at aren’t often the ones you get to date.

During our ten o’clock break, I studied her up close as we sat next to each other on a couple of overturned buckets. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture her with Willie Kaiser.

Agnes rolled a cigarette, lit it with a match that she’d struck on the sole of her boot, and inhaled deeply. “How was your road trip?” she asked in her gruff voice.

“Good. Won seven out of ten. You a Cubs fan?”

She shook her head. “White Sox. Ever since the Hitless Wonders in ought-six.”

Well, better a Sox fan than not a baseball fan at all, I figured.

Agnes pulled off her striped cap and ruffled her short dark hair. “Must get kind of lonesome, traveling like that,” she said.

“Well, no. Not for me, I guess. Maybe for some of the guys who have wives and kids.” Or sweethearts. Reading women wasn’t my strong suit—is it any man’s?—but! I thought I was starting to see where she was going with this.

“So what do players do when they’re on the road?”

I gave her an expurgated list: “Oh, play cards, go to the picture shows. Talk mostly. Just sit around in lobbies and talk baseball.” Yup, a regular bunch of boy scouts we were.

Agnes took another deep drag on the cigarette and exhaled slowly. “That kid that used to work here, Willie Kaiser, you said you and him were roommates. Was
he
married ... or anything?”

“No, not married.” She waited for me to answer the “or anything.” “He was a real quiet kid,” I said evasively. “Kept his thoughts pretty much to himself.”

I had no doubt now that Aggie O’Doul had more than a passing interest in Willie Kaiser.

That was all I wanted to know for now. Before I ended up revealing to her that I was aware of their relationship, I changed topics. “What is that you’re building anyway?”

“I ain’t
building
nothing,” she snorted. “I’m salvaging. Taking that piece of crap apart for parts. Materials are hard to get with the war on.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

With half a minute left in the break, Curly Neeman joined us. He was chewing something that made the pincers on his face look like they were opening and closing. In silence he stood, staring at us, using his nightstick to tap out the passing seconds on his palm.

Agnes and I said no more to each other and nothing to Neeman. We stared back at him until the break was over and then went back to work.

Willie Kaiser and Agnes O’Doul. It was true.

What else had that kid been hiding from me?

O
ne month ago Willie Kaiser had been alive and I’d thought I knew him. Now he was dead and I was finding out all sorts of things I never expected.

The latest surprise was that he had a secret sweetheart. This revelation alone opened up several questions: What if Aggie had another suitor who was jealous of Willie? What if there’d been a lovers’ quarrel between Willie and Aggie? Not that I seriously suspected Agnes O’Doul of anything or that Willie had much competition for her affection, but it made me realize that I needed to be thorough, to explore all possibilities, if only to eliminate them. I had to be open to investigating all aspects of Willie’s personal history.

There was one chapter in Willie Kaiser’s past that I hadn’t yet given any consideration: the Union Stockyards. He’d worked there for several years, as recently as last winter, and had played ball for them last summer. Was there anyone there who’d had something against him? Could his murder have been the result of a long-standing grudge that had developed there?

First thing Tuesday morning, after another cold bath, I called my landlord again and asked if he had any houses that weren’t currently rented. On hearing his answer that he had many such vacancies, I asked him to give me a water tank from one of them. He agreed, for double the price. By now it was worth it.

The second thing I did was endure more than an hour on various segments of the Chicago transit system, working my way down Halsted Street. The final leg was the South Side El, which spit me out at Exchange Avenue.

This was a different part of Chicago: the South Side. Earthy and bold. Home of Charlie Comiskey’s White Sox, the University of Chicago, and thousands of recent immigrants, many of whom worked in Packingtown and lived in the dilapidated shanties “back-of-the-yards.” It was also a land inhabited by vast herds of livestock. More than ten million animals made a one-way trip to the stockyards each year.

Treading my way over a maze of railroad tracks, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the scale of the Union Stockyards’ operation. More than a square mile of Chicago real estate was taken up by the Yards, with most of the space being used for an endless sea of pens to temporarily house the hogs, sheep, and cattle brought there for slaughter and packaging. A steady stream of trucks and railroad cars transported the animals, other cars carried loads of hay to feed the creatures, and still others brought out their manure to be sold as fertilizer. I couldn’t help but be nauseated by the operation, either, for permeating everything was the worst stench imaginable, worse even than that of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal.

At Peoria Street was the imposing limestone portal that marked the main entrance to the Yard. It looked like a medieval castle, complete with turrets and archways. Chiseled into the stone above the central archway were the words:
Union Stock Yard Chartered 1865.
Above the inscription was a massive stone steer’s head projecting over the entrance; the head hung there like a hunting trophy on a wall. It detracted from the otherwise majestic image of the place. I couldn’t see why anyone would be so proud of killing a cow.

I had a story prepared for the friendly guard who halted me at the gate. I explained to him that I was on a scouting expedition for the Cubs. We were short of players, and I wanted to see if there were any hot prospects on the Union Stockyards’ team.

“Team?” the guard chuckled. “We got a whole league. There’s a hundred thousand people working here! I expect you should be able to find a decent ballplayer or two among them.”

“Oh. Well, let me start with whoever Willie Kaiser played for,” I said. “It worked out good with him, maybe there’s others on that team.”

“And who did he play for?”

I didn’t know. Neither did the guard, who seemed eager to be helpful if I could give him a starting point.

“Where did he work?” the guard asked.

“In the tannery. That was the last place he worked here, anyway.”

“Then he probably played for the Tanners. We go by departments here. Cattle drivers got a team, slaughterhouse got a team, tanners got one, and there’s a bunch of teams for the meatpackers.” While I waited outside, he stepped into a small office and made a couple of phone calls. He emerged with the information that the Tanners’ manager was Bill Pines and gave me directions to the tannery building, where I could find him.

Heading west on Exchange Avenue, I approached Packingtown, the processing section of the Stockyard. Here were the factories where Armour, Swift, Libby, and the other meatpackers turned cattle and hogs into corned beef, canned hams, and sausage. There were adjacent buildings for the manufacture of soap and glue, using those few parts of the animals that didn’t make it to the sausage grinders. The packers liked to brag that the only part of the hog they didn’t use was the squeal.

The tannery consisted of a group of large brick buildings near Packingtown. Their doors and windows were all wide open. It would have been futile to keep them closed—the smell of death and excrement penetrated everything and couldn’t be shut out. The best that could be done was to let the putrid air circulate, prevent it from collecting in any one place.

One of the buildings housed a collection of enormous metal vats and exuded sharp scents of chemicals, which added their own caustic quality to the atmosphere. Another contained rows and rows of skins hanging from hooks while workers scraped them clean. And in an adjacent structure, finished hides were being cut into strips.

I located the tannery warehouse where Bill Pines was a supervisor. Cowhides, sorted by color, were piled nearly to the ceiling. Thinking of all those living wide-eyed animals I’d seen in the pens being reduced to this was disturbing. It gave me the creepy feeling of having walked into a morgue.

“Got a call from the main gate,” Pines said, after introducing himself. “Hear you’re scoutin’ ballplayers.”

Still distracted by the surroundings, I said, “You got a whole lot of shoe leather in here.”

He shook his head. “Two years ago, it would’ve been shoe leather. Now it all goes to the damn government. Harnesses for army mules, Sam Browne belts for officers... and we don’t get paid nothing like we used to—” He caught himself. Complaining about the government, long a cherished American tradition, was no longer allowed. “Anyway,” he said quickly. “What about them ballplayers you’re looking for?” Pines could have been a player himself twenty or thirty years ago. Third baseman probably. He looked a bit like a gray-haired gorilla, built low to the ground with long muscular arms that poked out of his turned-up shirt sleeves.

“Well,” I said, sticking to my fabricated story, “you probably know that the Cubs are short of players. Keep losing them to the army. We figured since you’re the fellow who discovered Willie Kaiser, you must have a keen eye for talent. Thought you might have a couple more like him.”

“To give to the Cubs, huh?” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, our season ain’t over yet. And I gotta say my team ain’t nothin’ like it was a year or two ago. Too many boys going off to France.” He shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think I got anybody you’d be interested in. Hell, we’re barely hanging in there. Right now we’re only in third place.” He added in a gruff whisper, “And I got twenty bucks riding on us taking the championship.”

So that’s how it was. Allowing his players a chance at the big leagues wasn’t one of Bill Pines’s priorities. “Hmm. I would bet,” I said, after a little thought, “that your eye for talent can see all the way across the field to the other dugout. Maybe there’s somebody on the first or second place teams you think I might take a look at.” I gave him a hint of a smile.

His return smile confirmed that we understood each other. “Now that you mention it, there are a couple of players on those teams I think would do real well on the Cubs.”

Pines gave me a couple of names, which I jotted down in a small notebook, and directions on where I could find them.

“Before I go to see about these other prospects,” I said, “tell me about Willie Kaiser. Did he get along with his teammates?”

“Yeah, sure. He wasn’t one to go out for beers after a game, but he wasn’t a problem either. Quiet kind of kid. Kept to himself mostly.”

“None of the other players gave him trouble?”

“Nah. Thanks to Kaiser, we took the championship. Everybody on the team gets a bonus for that. Why you ask?”

“Just curious. No trouble in here either? His coworkers didn’t object to him playing ball while they had to work?”

“Hell, no. They were kind of proud of him, if anything.”

“His cousin works here, too, doesn’t he? Hans Fohl.”

“Fohl, yeah. He’s back...” Pines turned about, then pointed to Fohl piling hides in a corner of the building. “Over there.”

“Does he play on the team?”

Pines laughed. “Nah. I don’t think he knows nothin’ about the game.”

“Okay.” I offered my hand. “Thanks for the tip about those players. I’ll see they get a tryout.”

There aren’t a whole lot of improvements that can be made to the process of burning peach stones. After my innovation of using smaller loads, the job again became mechanical. My arms shoveled and raked while I thought about Agnes O’Doul and Willie.

During tonight’s break, I would tell her that I knew about the two of them. And, since he’d been telling other people things that he’d neglected to mention to his roomie and double play partner, I’d ask Aggie if Willie had said anything to her about someone who might have had a grudge against him.

The load of pits had charred to a uniform black, with only some of the edges burnt to flaky white ash. I pulled the tray from the flames and let it rest a minute on the edge of the oven door to cool. Once the wire mesh no longer glowed red, I picked up the tray in my gloved hands and dumped the coal into the bin at the left of the furnace. Then I shoveled up a fresh load of stones from the bin on the right side of the furnace to start all over again. It was as monotonous as the toe-touching exercises we had to do in spring training.

After sliding the newly filled tray back into the fire, I spread out the stones to make a thin even layer, then rested on my rake handle and looked back at Agnes O’Doul. I couldn’t picture Willie telling her anything that would prove helpful. Hell, he hadn’t been much for saying anything at all. But sometimes things slip out when you’re talking to a sweetheart.

I turned back to the oven. Poking the tines of the rake into the oven, I stirred the peach pits.

They suddenly exploded with a bright blinding flash. The oven boomed, sounding like the report of a cannon. The force of the blast sent me flying backward, my feet completely losing contact with the floor.

My tailbone was the first part of my anatomy to land on the concrete floor. The pain of that impact caused another explosion to rip along my spine.

When I was no longer in motion, I mentally took an inventory of body parts: it felt like everything was where it was supposed to be, though my smarting backside made it difficult to feel anything else. My right hand was up, palm out, to shield my eyes. But I couldn’t see it, couldn’t make out any shapes. And the only image my brain conjured up was of me standing in the batter’s box against Walter Johnson, totally blind. Then I realized I couldn’t hear, either. Only the roaring sound of a waterfall in my ears.

My hearing came back first. I hoped it was only the first of my senses to return. I heard the crackling sounds that still echoed from the oven like bursting popcorn and people shouting fragments of sentences that all started with “What the—”

Then the sense of touch returned to the rest of my body, mostly a tingling sensation in the limbs. I didn’t know if it was caused by the explosion or the shock of the landing.

Next, the feel of liquid in my right eye. I couldn’t yet see, though. I brought my hand slowly to my face, hoping desperately that there would still be an eye there.

There was. They were both there. My lids were closed, and my right lid was covered with something wet. I brushed it away; the wetness returned and I wiped a few more times, then gave up when it was immediately moist again.

“Are you all right?” I heard. It took a moment to recognize the voice as Agnes O’Doul’s.

“Don’t know. Think so.” Except for my eyes. They were wide open now and seeing nothing but sparkles.

I blinked a few times and got liquid in my right eye; it stung, causing me to blink more rapidly. I wiped at the eye and looked back up. Just as suddenly as the blast, Aggie’s face was in front of me. I don’t remember ever seeing anything so pretty.

“You look okay,” she said. “Just some cuts, I think.”

Curly Neeman’s voice was the next I heard. “What the hell happened here?”

Agnes O’Doul answered him, “Mick—Rawlings here almost blew himself up.”

Her words made it sound like I’d caused the explosion, and I didn’t think it was true. I forced myself to sit up, then stand. I was unsteady, but all the moving parts seemed to be in working order. To Neeman, I explained, “I put a load in the oven, started to rake it, and
ka-boom!
It just blew up on me.”