Shadow of the Bomb

Chapter 18

Dieter Schmid’s murder gave the local press something to sink its collective fangs into. In the minds of editors, two killings easily qualified as a “crime spree,” and they were not shy about referring to it as such in their pages.

The tabloid Times, not surprisingly, led the way with a banner headline that screamed 2ND PROFESSOR SLAUGHTERED! while Hearst’s Herald American was close behind with MIDWAY MAYHEM! The other three papers were somewhat more reserved, although each gave the murder its banner head, a rarity during the war.

In addition to extensive coverage of the killing itself, the dailies, the Tribune included, worked up sidebar articles about past crimes. These included crimes in and around the Hyde Park area, including the saga of the depraved Herman Mudgett, alias H.H. Holmes, who murdered uncounted women in grisly fashion during the summer run of the Columbian Exposition in 1893, and the Leopold and Loeb thrill killing of 14-year-old Bobby Franks south of the Midway in 1924. Only the oratorical skills of legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow saved that pair of youthful murderers from a trip to the gallows.

As MacAfee had suggested, the heat on the Police Department was intense. “People on and around the University of Chicago campus are living in terror,” a Daily News editorial intoned. “A great university in the heart of a great city is under siege, held hostage by a killer who for whatever deranged reason has targeted two respected and talented faculty members. Our law enforcement agencies must marshal all of the resources at their disposal to quickly apprehend this criminal and bring him to justice. Time is of the essence!”

The Tribune also editorialized, urging that the Police Commissioner assign as many personnel as possible to the case, concluding thusly: “The groves of academe are ideally a peaceful place of reflection, contemplation, and the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. These ivied enclaves cannot, they must not, be assaulted by such as this nameless, faceless slayer. He has to be stopped, and he has to be stopped immediately. It is that or anarchy.”

It was at times like this that I most enjoyed working at Police Headquarters. I missed the banter, the observations, and yes, even the pontification, of my fellow reporters in the press room at 11th and State. The good news, however, was that I was at the scene of the crimes, which promised the possibility of an exclusive story, if and when there was a break in the case. And there had better be a break soon, for the collective mental health of the thousands who were studying, teaching, and toiling on the Midway.

The morning after Schmid’s body had been discovered, a call came in to me at the Hyde Park precinct. “I feel like I’m your secretary lately,” Mark Waldron said with a sigh as he handed the receiver across the counter to me. It was Nate Lazar.

“I was wondering if you are free for lunch today,” the professor said.

“I am, but this time I insist on buying. Is the U.T. up to your standards?”

“It is indeed.”

“Do you mind sitting at the bar?”

“Not at all.”

Just before noon, I plopped onto what had become my usual stool at the U.T. bar. A somber Lazar slid in next to me a couple of minutes later.

“Well, what do you think?” I posed.

He shook his head. “I really don’t know. Everyone is devastated, to say nothing of being terrified. I’ve never seen the campus like this before.”

Chester came by with coffee for each of us. I ordered my hamburger plate and Lazar opted for a steak sandwich.

“Does anybody you’ve talked to have a theory?” I asked.

“No, not even Theo Ward, who came up with that nonsense the other day about Irene Bergman when we were at Hutchinson Commons.”

“Other than Irene, what did Bergman and Schmid have in common?”

Lazar ran a hand across his bushy salt-and-pepper mustache. “Well, all of us — Ward, Rickman, Overby, and me — have been increasingly convinced that both of them had been working under cover at the Met Lab on... whatever is going on over there.”

“Do you know of any others who are working at the Met Lab?”

“No.”

“And none of you know for sure what’s really going on in that lab?”

He sighed. “We don’t. As we’ve been telling you, security is really tight.”

“And what about the security and safety of everyone on the campus?”

He laughed. “We’re all very concerned about that, of course. For one thing, there are a lot more police cars patrolling the streets around here now.”

“I should think so. I called the school’s administrative office today, and they told me your president, Hutchins, is sending out a bulletin to be posted in every university building today urging all students and faculty to make sure their doors are locked at night, and that they don’t open them to anyone they don’t know.”

“That’s all well and good,” Lazar said between bites of his steak, “except from what we read in the papers, yours included, and hear around campus, both Arthur and Schmid likely knew the man who strangled them.”

“So it would seem. The question now is: Who will be targeted next?”

“A grim thought. By the way, I came across something curious yesterday that I haven’t mentioned to anyone, which is why I suggested we have lunch.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Well, as you know, several of the campus buildings have been boarded up and there are armed guards posted in front of them, suggesting some sort of secret activity.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“These are classroom buildings with laboratories in them, which seem like natural places to conduct experiments, correct?”

“Correct. I fail to see where you’re going with this.”

“Well, there’s another building that is boarded up and guarded, and it’s not where you would expect to see experimentation going on.”

“As I said, you have my full attention.”

“Stagg Field.”

“The old football stadium?”

Lazar nodded. “I walked by the west side grandstand the other day, and they have an armed guard, a soldier, posted at the entrance gate along Ellis Avenue.”

“It’s just a deserted grandstand, though, right?”

“Pretty much. But there are some squash courts down underneath the stands, although I’m not sure they are still being used. I don’t get over that way very often.”

“Seems like an unusual place for scientific goings-on.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Lazar said as Chester put our sandwiches in front of us. “So I played dumb, said I lived in the neighborhood and was just passing by. And I asked the soldier what was going on inside. He looked at me blankly and shook his head, then said he was just told to stand guard and not let anybody in under any circumstances. I couldn’t get another word out of him, even when I brought up the weather.”

Just then, something clicked in. “I seem to remember at the funeral that the minister, or whoever the speaker was, said something about Bergman being a big fan of the school’s football team,” I said.

“Strange as it seems, he was. I think most of the faculty, and probably most of the students as well, didn’t really care much when football got dropped here a few years back. But Arthur was an anomaly. He loved going to the games and was bitterly disappointed about the abandonment of the sport.”

“That might explain something he said to me at this very bar.”

Lazar gave me a blank stare. “Yes?”

“You may remember my telling you that when I voiced concern about how the war was going, he said something to the effect that ‘If you knew what I know, you wouldn’t be worried about us winning the war.’”

“I do remember. For me, that was one more piece of evidence that Arthur was somehow involved in what I am convinced must be research into a nuclear weapon.”

“Well, he said one more thing right after that, when I pressed him as to what he meant. His words were ‘At the place where we surrendered... that’s where we shall rise again.’ Does that suggest anything to you?”

“Typical of Arthur to be so cryptic and mysterious. But I’m afraid I’m not picking up anything from that comment.”

“Maybe I’m reading that riddle of his all wrong, but to me it says that ‘the place where we surrendered’ is Stagg Field, where football is no longer played. And that it also is ‘where we will rise again’ through the development of some sort of weapon that will win us the war. Which would tend to indicate that some sort of experimentation or research may be going on over at that football stadium.”

Lazar made a face. “That’s pretty far-fetched, Mr. Malek.”

“Agreed. I do have a tendency to let my imagination run away with me sometimes.”

“On second thought,” Lazar said after a pause of several seconds, “you may be onto something, although I don’t know how anyone would ever find out. Things are locked down so tightly around here.”

“True. But I think I’ll stroll by the field after lunch. Is there going to be a funeral for Schmid?”

“Not here. As I understand it, the body is going to be shipped back to Switzerland after the police are through with it.”

“Was there any suspicion — from you or from any of your colleagues — that Schmid might have been a German spy?”

“None whatever. He had been in this country for years, and he hated the Nazis — they apparently had jailed an uncle of his in Germany who is half-Jewish. Also, if I were to guess, I’d say Dieter had a security clearance. I’m almost positive he was part of that Met Lab group, given that we saw so little of him recently.”

After we finished eating, I walked over to the campus with Lazar and kept on going west to Stagg Field, which ran from 56th to 57th Street just east of Ellis. As I looked through a low fence at the south end of the stadium, I saw that the field itself was overrun with weeds and encrusted with the remains of a recent light snowfall. The grandstands that rose along both sides on the field were topped with castellated towers looming above like some sort of Gothic amphitheater, and weeds were even growing between cracks in the concrete where the seats once had been. A sad remnant of what years before had been a football powerhouse under the famous coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg.

I walked around to the gated entrance leading to the west grandstand on Ellis and, sure enough, there was a soldier in khakis, standing with his rifle at his side, as if awaiting an inspection.

“Hello, soldier, chilly day to be out here.”

“Yes sir.” No emotion in the voice, no expression on the young face.

I looked up at the Gothic façade. “You know, years ago, I worked as an usher at football games here. Hard to believe now, but this was a big-time college stadium, with maybe 50,000 in the stands on a Saturday afternoon, to see Chicago play the likes of Michigan and Minnesota.”

“Interesting,” he said, sounding not at all interested.

“Yes, indeed,” I went on, rubbing gloved hands together. “Haven’t been back for years, but this place holds great memories for me. Mind if I go in and have a look around, just for old times?”

“Sorry, sir, but it’s off-limits to the public.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Is that so? Now why would a poor old run-down football stadium be closed to the public? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. Orders, you understand.”

As we were talking, three men in overcoats and hats approached the entrance from the north, pulling out badges with their photographs on them. I recognized one from the day I had lunch at Hutchinson Commons — Enrico Fermi.

The soldier looked at the badges and waved all three of them through. “So some people are still using this place, eh?” I posed to the sentry.

“If they have the proper identification,” he said stiffly.

“So I can’t even go in and have a peek at the field?”

“No sir.”

“All right, soldier. Thanks anyway, and stay warm,” I said, tipping my hat and walking south on Ellis.