A Death in Pilsen

Chapter 12

When I got to my desk in the Headquarters press room at nine on Monday morning, I was hoping that nobody would ask me about Charlie’s situation. I didn’t like being personally involved in a news story, even in the somewhat peripheral role of cousin to a murder suspect. Besides, there was nothing new to report at the moment anyway.

I needn’t have been concerned, however. This being the first week of the new season, it was only natural that baseball was the prime topic of discussion.

“Hey, I’ve got a great idea for a pool,” Packy Farmer rasped between puffs on one of his grotesque little hand-rolled smokes. “We all throw in five bucks and write down where in the standings we think the Cubs are going to finish. In October, the one who’s closest wins the fins.”

“And just what happens if more than one of us picks ’em in the same spot, Einstein?” Dirk O’Farrell asked.

“Very simple, my good man,” Farmer answered, tapping the side of his head. “Given my superior brain-power, I have anticipated your query. There’s a tiebreaker, see? Everybody writes down the number of victories they think our Wrigley boys are going to get. The one who picks them in the right spot and is closest in the win column goes home with the dough. Nothin’ to it.”

“Wonder if anybody will pick them to finish first?” O’Farrell asked.

“Doubtful, Dirk,” Anson Masters proclaimed. “Sure, they won the pennant last year alright, but none of their starting lineup had to go off to war. Cavarretta, Pafko, Nicholson, Lowery, Merullo, Passeau, Borowy... they were either 4-F or too old to get drafted. Other teams had some of their best players in the service, and those boys, like Musial of the Cardinals and Williams of the Red Sox, among others, will be back playing this year.”

“As much as it pains me to say so, you’re right, Anson,” I put in. “Hell, the Cubs would have won the World Series last fall if the Tigers hadn’t got that guy Virgil Trucks back from the war just in time to pitch in the Series and win one game. As it was, our boys took the Tigers all the way to seven games before losing. Without Trucks back with them, we probably would have won the whole thing.

“But there are a lot more like Musial and Williams and Trucks and DiMaggio coming back from the service to play this year. Our boys will be fielding pretty much the same squad as last year. No improvement.”

“Yeah, there’s no possible way the Cubs can win it all,” Eddie Metz of the Times agreed. Eddie never had an original thought... he usually waited until somebody took a position and then agreed with it.

“Well, are you all in or not?” Farmer demanded.

“Sure, why not,” O’Farrell said, taking a five dollar bill from his pocket and waving it. “In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. But I want an impartial observer to hold the dough and the predictions. I vote for Nick here, our City News friend. On his salary, we won’t push him to join the pool, but he can be the keeper of the ballots and the greenbacks.”

“Fine by me,” Nick said. “Do you want me to put them in a locked drawer?”

“Damn right,” I said. “Who knows if one of these miscreants here might take to peeking at the others’ picks along about September and alter his own selection?”

“And that includes the well-known rascal Snap Malek of Colonel R.R. McCormick’s Tribune,” O’Farrell said. I thumbed my nose at Dirk and wrote down my prediction, handing it to Nick along with five singles. (For the record, I would end up winning the pool in October, picking the Cubs correctly for third place, and beating Eddie Metz in the tiebreaker by coming within one of the number of victories they recorded.)

After the balloting was concluded, we all dispersed to our beats around the building, which meant I walked down the usual one flight and presented myself to Elsie Dugo Cascio, guardian of the gate to Chief Fergus Fahey’s office.

“My goodness, is it that time already?” she said, looking at her wristwatch. “How the minutes do fly by around here.”

“Only when you’re really having fun,” I replied. “I trust that his eminence is on the premises this fine morning?”

“He is indeed. I will announce your arrival.” She mouthed my name into the intercom and he made a groaning sound, which meant he was girding for my invasion.

“Morning, Fergus. Nice to see you in such fine fettle, whatever that means,” I said, sitting and flipping a half-full pack of Luckies onto his blotter. “Have a good weekend?”

He looked up from a stack of paperwork and said something that sounded like “Grmmph.”

“I’ll take that to mean yes. Anything going on that Chicago’s newspaper readers are simply dying to know today?”

“Far as I’m concerned, not a damn thing,” he snarled, pulling a cigarette out of my pack and lighting up.

“Which means, of course, that there’s nothing new on the Degnan case?”

“Correct.”

“What about Edwina Malek’s murder?”

“What about it?”

“Are your boys doing any further digging?”

Fahey leaned back and closed his eyes long enough that he might silently have been counting to ten. “Snap, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no earthly reason that they should be.”

“Meaning, of course, that it’s a foregone conclusion that my cousin is a murderer.”

Fahey turned a hand over. “After all, he has been arraigned.”

“There happened to be a batch of guys hanging around a saloon who were interested in Edwina Malek, who was known to frequent the very saloon herself. Any one of them could have done it.”

“And how, if I may be so bold as to ask, do you happen to know this?”

I knew he wasn’t going to like my answer. “I’ve been spending time in said saloon in Pilsen where she used to hang out.”

“Goddamn it, Snap! Haven’t you got yourself in enough trouble over the years by playing amateur copper? You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Charlie didn’t do it, Fergus, and somebody has to find out who did. Looks like that’s going to have to be me.”

“Not that you’re likely to take my advice, but your best bet right now is to go out and hire a good lawyer for your cousin.”

“I already have — Liam McCafferty. See, Fergus, sometimes I really do take your advice.”

“McCafferty, eh?” He whistled. “That’s gonna be costly. Your cousin have that kind of dough?”

“He’s getting some help,” I said.

“Hmm. Now I wonder who from? Well, you can’t do much better than the glib Irishman. Shit, with him on the job, I’d say your boy’s chances are starting to look pretty good.”

“But not good enough for me,” I shot back. “For one thing, even the great McCafferty loses cases, albeit on rare occasions. For another, even if he were to get Charlie off, there would always be the suspicion that he really was the killer, and that the only reason he was walking around free was that he had a brilliant mouthpiece on his side. I plan to nail the murderer, with or without the help of Chicago’s finest, and it looks like it’s going to be without.”

Fahey scowled. “I suppose it does no good to tell you to be careful.”

“Why, Fergus,” I said with a tight smile, “you know that I always listen to you.”

He muttered something unintelligible and returned to his never-ending paperwork as I got up and left.

Back in the pressroom, I dialed McCafferty’s office. This time, the ever-so-cool woman who answers the phone was actually borderline pleasant and put me right through when I gave her my name. Ah, the joys of being a client.

“How did your second talk with my cousin go?” I asked him.

“A marginal improvement,” he answered dryly. “I must say, though, that the lad still doesn’t seem overly interested in his own future.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Well, while you’re working on his defense, I’m trying to find out who else might have done the killing.”

“Just how might you be going about that?” he asked warily.

“There’s this bar down in Pilsen where Edwina spent a lot of evenings, as Charlie may or may not have told you. Turns out she drew quite a crowd of would-be swains around her there. It seems there was what might be termed a spirited competition for the lady’s affections.”

“That so?”

“Indeed. And I’m in the process of getting to know some of these Lotharios.”

“Well, I have a few freelance investigators of my own that I find occasion to utilize from time to time. Would they be of any help to you in this endeavor?”

“Right now, I think I’ll keep pushing on myself. Thanks anyway, though.”

“Well, be careful,” the lawyer cautioned. “Saloons often draw an unsavory lot, as I’m sure you are aware.”

“You’re the second person who’s urged caution to me in the last ten minutes, and I assure you that I appreciate the advice. We’ll talk soon.”

The rest of the morning was uneventful. I had a sandwich with Packy Farmer at a little café a block from headquarters and got back to my desk a few minutes after one. I was about to call Marge Blazek at her dress shop and set up a plan for that night in the hopes of meeting another of the men who found Edwina beguiling. I had just begun to dial when Anson Masters of the Daily News picked up his own ringing phone.

“What? My God,” he barked into the mouthpiece with what for him was uncharacteristic emotion. “When? Jesus, that’s terrible! Just awful!”

Everyone had turned toward the pillar of the pressroom. “Well, it’s outside the department’s jurisdiction, but of course I’ll check to see if they’re sending any technicians or medical people out to the site. Yes, I’ll get back to you right away.”

He cradled the phone, and took a deep breath. “My city desk. There has been a disastrous railway crash far out in the western suburbs, in Naperville. Two streamlined Burlington passenger trains. One rammed the other, apparently at a high speed. Tore it all to pieces. Bodies all over the place along the tracks. The desk says it looks like one of the worst train wrecks on record.”

Before any of the others in the room could react, my phone rang. It was Hal Murray, the Trib’s day city editor. “Malek, there’s been a railroad smashup out in Naperville — a real big one. Lots of fatals.”

“I know. I just heard the word.”

“Listen, we’re really short-handed here,” he barked in his typical machine gun-style cadence. “I got three guys down with that damned flu that’s going around now, and a couple of others are at a three-alarm fire in a plant out on the northwest side that’s getting bigger. I need you out in Naperville to do the feature stuff. Eyewitnesses, human interest, that kinda thing, you know. Unless you’ve got something really hot going on there.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Good. We’ve already sent Phillips to do the Page One piece, although he’s probably not out there yet. You can grab a ride with Cappelitti. He’s just heading out the door to his car now. I’ll catch him and have him pick you up in front of Headquarters.”

“I’ll be waiting for him.”