Murder at Ebbets Field Read online

  I went into the kitchen. “With cream, if you have it,” he called after me.

  I knew I didn’t have any. I opened the ice box anyway to appear as if I was making an effort. It contained just three bottles of ginger ale. “Sorry, all out,” I reported.

  “Oh. Well, black then, I suppose.”

  There was enough in the pot for one cup, if I included the dregs. I did, emptying the pot into my other coffee mug. No steam came from it. I dipped a finger in—tepid, at best. I must have dozed off longer than I thought. Well, it would have to be good enough for Landfors. It was too hot to start another fire.

  As I brought him the mug, I asked, “You still working for the Press?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “I thought you might have left after your book came out.” Landfors, a muckraking reporter for the New York Press, had published Savagery in the Sweatshop, a volume that was supposed to expose sweatshops the way The Jungle had revealed the horrors of the meat packing industry. “I bought a copy.”

  “So you’re the one. What did you think of it?”

  “It was ... uh ... different.” I’d only gotten through the first three chapters. Karl Landfors was no Upton Sinclair.

  Landfors availed himself of the cleared couch. I set the coffee in front of him, then settled into my chair. He took a sip and his face curdled. When it recovered, he asked, “Did you see today’s paper?” I guess we’d finished catching up on the last two years and were now onto today’s news.

  “No...” Uh-oh. Was Florence Hampton already a newspaper story? If she was, I hoped I wasn’t in it.

  “Here.” Unrolling the paper, he handed it over to me. “Hot off the press.”

  It was an EXTRA edition of the New York Press. A banner headline screamed

  Germany Invades France, Declares War on Russia.

  This explained Landfors’s dazed look—it was the sort of thing that interested him. I wasn’t sure what it had to do with me, though. I knew war was awful, but it was too remote for me to feel affected by it. “Well... it looks like there’s a war starting,” I said, summing up my grasp of the situation.

  “Page three,” he grunted. “Top left.” His conversational skills hadn’t improved any in the past two years.

  I flipped to page three. And there it was.

  Florence Hampton Dead!

  a two-column headline announced. Below that, in smaller type:

  Motion Picture Actress Found Drowned

  on Coney Island Beach.

  I murmured, “I saw her. Just yesterday.” I chose not to add that I’d also seen her this morning.

  “I know. That’s why I’m here.”

  “What do you mean you know?”

  “It’s in the article.”

  I skimmed it and saw in the third paragraph:

  On Saturday afternoon Miss Hampton completed her last motion picture, Florence at the Ballpark. According to the Vitagraph Company, the picture features popular Vitagraph leading man Tom Kelly as well as baseball players Casey Stengel of Brooklyn and Michael Rawlings of the Giants...

  “It’s Mickey, ” I muttered.

  Elmer Garvin, Miss Hampton’s director at Vitagraph, says, “Her final picture is also her finest. We plan to release it as soon as possible so her fans can see her and say farewell.”

  “Let me save you some time,” Landfors said impatiently.

  “Okay.” I sat back, lowering the paper.

  “She was found dead at about six this morning. Presumed drowned. Presumed to be an accident.”

  Whatever Landfors was driving at escaped me. Why was he so interested in the death of Florence Hampton? “No offense,” I said. “But why did you come here to tell me this?”

  “Because I’m not convinced it was accidental.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just a feeling. There’s something the paper didn’t say: she was nude.”

  I already knew that. “Was she... you know... attacked?”

  “I don’t know yet. There were no obvious signs, but the medical examiner hasn’t done an autopsy yet.”

  He hadn’t answered my first question. “But why tell me?”

  “I’d like you to look into it.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You’d be perfect. For one thing, she was involved with baseball... and baseball players. For another, you saw the people she was with just before she died. And you’ve had experience in investigating matters of this sort.” He paused before adding, “And you found her body.”

  “You know? Was it in the paper?”

  Landfors shook his head. “I talked to the police and the hotel clerk. They gave me your name. Ten bucks to the cop and five to the clerk got their promise not to give it to any other paper. Then I made sure we didn’t use it either. I thought you might prefer not to have it known.”

  I said, “Thanks,” but I wasn’t sure he’d done it strictly as a favor. More likely as leverage to get me to help him.

  “No problem,” he said. “Anyway, about helping with the investigation ...”

  “Yes, of course I’ll help.” I would have agreed even if he hadn’t had anything to hold over me. I already owed him. The “matters of this sort” Landfors referred to was a murder case, one that involved Fenway Park, one that he’d helped me solve when I was about to be framed for it. The least I could do for him was ask some questions about a drowning. “From what I saw, there’s nothing to investigate, though. There wasn’t any blood and no bruises or anything. I think she just drowned.”

  “We’ll see,” Landfors said doubtfully.

  I still wasn’t sure why he wanted my help. I thought he only covered politics. “Why are you interested in this anyway?” I asked. “For a story? You want to find out something the other papers don’t?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s to prevent a story.”

  I said nothing, hoping the silence would prompt him to continue.

  He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. Then he placed his hands together as if in prayer and hooked his chin over the peak of his fingertips. “Have you heard of James Bartlett?” he finally asked.

  “Mmm... no.”

  Landfors nodded, not surprised. “He’s a politician. One of the good ones—and there aren’t many. He’s with the District Attorney’s office in Manhattan. Assistant D.A. And he’s running for City Council. I want to see him win.”

  “He’s a Socialist?” I remembered that Landfors had voted for Eugene Debs.

  “No, but he’s a Progressive. And he’s opposing Tammany Hall.”

  I was still missing the point. “How does this connect with Florence Hampton?”

  “Miss Hampton’s romantic entanglements weren’t limited to baseball players. She was... she was involved with Bartlett.”

  “And if it got out, that would hurt him in the election.”

  “It would kill his chances. Bartlett’s married, with three kids. The Tammany hacks would smear him.”

  I didn’t feel much sympathy for Bartlett. “Sorry, but I don’t see that he’s such a great guy if he’s cheating on his wife and kids.”

  “Bartlett’s a good man. His judgment just failed him. I understand Miss Hampton has... had some very enticing qualities.” He understood right. “Bartlett is the best chance there is to clean up city government, and I don’t want to see him shot down because of a personal indiscretion.”

  I decided I’d still help, but only as a favor to Landfors, not to help James Bartlett. “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  “Nothing for a couple of days. I want to see what the medical examiner finds first. I’ll get in touch when I have some more information.” He grabbed his hat and stood up. There was no pretense that this had been a social call, so with his business completed he was ready to leave.

  I walked him to the door. Just before I closed it behind him, he said, “Thanks, Mickey.” His voiced cracked when he said it.

  Chapter Five

  The top of the Vitagraph smoke stack was
hidden in the heavy ash-gray Monday morning haze that blanketed Flatbush.

  Marguerite Turner told me that the studio began work at dawn to take advantage of the light, so I got up before daybreak to be there by seven o’clock.

  Karl Landfors had told me not to look into Florence Hampton’s death until I heard from him, so I decided to start immediately. If things worked out as I expected, figured I’d have the investigation wrapped up by the time he contacted me again.

  I walked up the driveway to the studio entrance, lugging a satchel with my uniform in it for the afternoon game at Ebbets Field.

  The Vitagraph guard, a large fit man of about forty, stepped in front of me. He spread his feet and crossed his hands behind his back in a rigid military “at ease” position.

  “I’d like to see Marguerite Turner please.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said in a voice that was more genial than his appearance. “The studio’s closed today. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “Closed?”

  “In memory of Miss Florence Hampton. It’s a day of mourning.”

  “Oh. Well, would you have Marguerite Turner’s address?”

  “I can’t give that out.”

  Through the gate, I could see lights glowing in two windows of the building across the courtyard. “Isn’t anybody else here?”

  “Well... there’s some work being done in the laboratory ... editing Miss Hampton’s last picture, I believe.” He sounded as if he felt even this much activity was disrespectful to her memory.

  “Oh! Is Mr. Garvin here then? He knows me. I was in that picture.”

  “You were, huh?”

  “Yes. My name’s Mickey Rawlings, I play for the Giants.” That didn’t seem to be enough to convince him that I was a ball player. I opened my satchel and pulled out my uniform jersey. “See?”

  The guard hesitated, then said, “Come with me.” He opened the door to his tiny booth and waved me inside. He followed, filling the booth beyond its capacity. I was pressed against a small desk that dug into my hip.

  My host took the receiver off a wall phone. Next to the phone was a large photo of Teddy Roosevelt in his Rough Riders uniform. On an adjacent wall was a smaller picture of the guard as a young man in the uniform of the NYPD.

  “Mr. Garvin,” the guard said into the phone. “This is Joe Gannon at the front gate—yes sir, I’m sorry to bother you. But there’s a young fellow here—” He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and asked, “What’s your name again?”

  “Mickey Rawlings.”

  He repeated my name into the phone. “Says he was in the baseball picture,” he added. “He’d like Miss Turner’s address.” After listening a while, Gannon said, “Yes, sir. Good idea, sir. Sorry to have bothered you.” He hung up, then reached past me to a desk drawer.

  “What did he say?” I prodded.

  Gannon pulled a small ledger from the drawer and began leafing through the pages. “He says the picture will be finished tomorrow and the premiere will be Wednesday night. At the Vitagraph Theatre, probably. And he’d like you to be there.” Gannon started copying from the ledger onto a slip of yellow paper. “Call back tomorrow and he’ll give you the details.”

  He handed me the paper. It had Marguerite Turner’s name, phone number, and address on it. “Meanwhile, you might want to find yourself a date for Wednesday,” he suggested with an encouraging grin.

  I hopped off the trolley at Third Avenue and First Street, just outside the left field fence of Washington Park.

  When I was a boy, I often came to see the Dodgers play in the ramshackle wooden stadium. I was almost a regular in 1900 when Wee Willie Keeler and Iron Man Joe McGinnity led the Dodgers—then called the Superbas—to the National League pennant; since there were no other major leagues at the time, it made Brooklyn the century’s first world champions.

  Across the street from the ballpark, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit power plant was spewing dung-brown smoke into the low-hanging sky. Behind the power plant was the Gowanus Canal, an open sewer that saturated the air with its vile stench. As dreary as Pigtown was, it was more attractive than the east end of Red Hook.

  I found Marguerite Turner’s address a block and a half away on Whitwell Place, a street with more potholes than cobblestones. Her apartment building was a sagging four-story structure of dull brown brick. Someone had once put a coat of bright red paint over the bricks, but only a few scattered flecks still clung to them. The air had probably dissolved the paint job.

  I climbed the front steps, taking care not to touch the rusty wrought iron railings. A weathered piece of flimsy wood was nailed to the door where a pane of glass had once been. I thought of the many “Homes of the Stars” photo spreads I’d seen in the movie magazines—none of them ever looked like this.

  In the hallway was a row of mailboxes, one of which had a handwritten card on it that read “M. Turner, Apt. 23.”

  Now that I was inside her building, I was having second thoughts about being here. She’s not expecting me.... I should have called first... she might be too upset over Miss Hampton’s death to want company...

  My eagerness to see her finally won out. I knocked gently on the door of apartment 23. In less than a minute it was pulled open.

  Marguerite appeared in worse shape than her building. What looked like a hair explosion had left long frizzy locks hanging across her face and about her shoulders. Her nose, not exactly dainty to start with, was red and swollen and chafed around the nostrils. And her heavy-lidded eyes were puffy and wet.

  I could tell this was not a good time for me to visit.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, with as much enthusiasm as if I’d come to collect the rent. “Come in.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry about Miss Hampton. I know you were friends.”

  “Huh. Some friend I was.” She looked like she was about to burst into tears, and I was wondering what to do if she did. She waved me toward an overstuffed chair. I left my bag and boater next to the door, then took the seat. Marguerite sat down cross-legged on a straw-colored sofa. She was wearing baggy brown corduroy pants that looked too heavy for this heat and a red-checked gingham shirt with its long sleeves rolled back at the cuffs.

  The apartment had a similar layout to mine, with one big difference: hers looked inhabited. There was comfortable furniture in the parlor, fringed throw rugs were on the floor, and white lace curtains—one of the few feminine touches—diffused the sunlight from the windows. The place wasn’t especially neat, but it was clean and in better repair than the exterior of the building; what disorder there was—some clothes on the furniture and records on the floor—just made it seem all the more homey.

  Marguerite pulled a billowy white handkerchief from a shirt pocket and blew her nose with a resonant honk.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Nooo ...” was her barely audible answer. She folded her hands in her lap and looked down as her fingers twisted and squeezed the handkerchief. Her slim tanned wrists looked smooth and feminine in contrast to the masculine clothes. “She was my friend and I couldn’t help her,” she said plaintively.

  “There was nothing you could have done.”

  “I could have talked to her. I tried for a while, but then ... I just gave up.”

  I wasn’t sure how talking to someone could save her from drowning. “What do you think happened?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure ... she just changed after her husband died. She wouldn’t talk to me anymore.”

  I’d meant what happened the night she drowned, but if it made her feel better to talk about her friendship with Miss Hampton, that was okay with me. “The two of you were close?”

  “I thought we were. We used to talk about everything. Just after I started with the studio, Vitagraph went on location to Port Jervis. Beautiful mountains and forests there. We made westerns and Indian pictures and anything else we could think of to use that scenery. The whole company stayed at the Caudebec Inn, and L
ibby and I shared a room. She took me under her wing—”

  “Who’s Libby?”

  “That’s what I called Florence. It was a wonderful time. We’d stay up until two or three in the morning chatting like schoolgirls.”

  “When did you start in the movies?” I thought it might be a good idea to steer the conversation away from Florence Hampton for a while, at least until she looked less likely to break into tears.

  “Three years ago. Three years.... I never thought the picture craze would last this long. Someday I’m going to show up for work, and the studio will be closed. Something new will catch the public’s fancy and my career will be over. Like Libby’s ... hers is all over. Everything is over for her.”

  Changing the topic sure didn’t work. Maybe it would be better to let her go on about Florence Hampton and get it out of her system. “You said Miss Hampton changed after her husband died?”

  “Mmm ... yes. Could I call you Mickey?”

  The question caught me by surprise. “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. And I’m Margie. Elmer Garvin makes us call everyone Mr. and Miss at the studio—he keeps trying to make us behave respectably, improve our reputation. Actors are thought to have low morals, you know. Oh, but you must run into the same thing, being a baseball player. Anyway, it sounds so unfriendly to me. So please don’t call Libby Miss Hampton.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t think it proper to refer to her by Margie’s private nickname for her though. “How’s Florence?” I suggested.

  Margie’s face froze and she stared into the air. “She’s dead,” she said. Then she burst into humorless giggles. And then the giggles turned to harsh heaving sobs. I just looked at her, sympathetic but powerless to stem her sorrow.

  Sudden shouts from the apartment next door came through the thin walls. Then a door slammed and a picture on Margie’s wall slid askew. Dozens of framed portrait photographs, showing the kind of grim-faced people who wouldn’t be displayed unless they were relatives, covered the wall. They were all crooked.