Murder at Fenway Park (13 page)

Fletcher didn’t approve of my drinking technique. “That ain’t an ice cream soda, kid.”

“Yeah, I know. I like the foam.”

“Suit yourself.” Fletcher downed half his glass in one big swallow.

I gave up on eating the foam and followed his example, gulping most of what was in my glass. I was surprised at how nicely it went down. It seemed the best thing in the world to pour down one’s throat after a hot dusty ball game. About a minute after guzzling the brew, a soothing warmth slowly rippled up through my stomach. I
like
this stuff.

“I tell yuh, kid, you oughta do this more often. Might improve your hitting.”

“Beer
will improve my hitting?”

“I said ‘might.’ Then again, might not. But look at it this way: you don’t really drink, you don’t smoke, don’t chew, don’t chase broads, and don’t gamble—and you still can’t hit over .250! I tell yuh, kid, you’re the kind of guy gives clean living a bad name. Take it from me, do some more drinking now and then, run around a little—it’ll loosen you up. Put another twenty points on your batting average. Maybe.”

I was pretty skeptical, but then after my third draft it didn’t seem out of the question that a few beers now and again could enhance my hitting skills.

Into my fourth beer, I started to get maudlin. “Jeez, Fletch, I’m really gonna miss you. How the hell can Stahl let you go after that home run?”

“Don’t worry ’bout it, kid. It ain’t the first time. At least I got a chance to get that hit. Sure got Warhop’s goat didn’t it? Jake said they were gonna release me anyway, but he wanted me to get in a game first. Hell, I got no hard feelings against Jake.”

“Still, it don’t seem right. What do you think you’re gonna do?”

“I’ll get picked up by somebody. If not, what the hell, I’ll play semipro or something. Don’t worry ’bout me.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Again?
What are you? A goddam sieve?” His amazement at my frequent trips to the toilet was exceeded only by my own astonishment at his not going at all. Where the hell was he storing it?

After I arrived back at the bar stool, Fletcher asked, “Hey, kid, you know why beer goes through you so fast?”

I shook my head no, and lifted a fifth glass to my lips.

“Because it don’t have to stop to change color! Hah!”

Tingly beer shot out through my nose as I burst into laughter. It seemed the most hilarious thing I’d ever heard.

“That one has whiskers on it, Fletch.” Billy Neal’s voice came from over my shoulder. I looked behind me to see Neal along with Charlie Strickler and Bucky O’Brien. Except for Bucky, this was turning into a bench-warmers convention.

Neal suggested we all get a table together. He gave us the news that Strickler had just joined Fletcher among the ranks of former Red Sox. This would be a goodbye party for both of them.

But before I’d toast Charlie Strickler, I had something to get straight with him. Fletcher and I got off our bar stools, but instead of walking to a table I tapped Strickler’s arm and said, “Lemme ask you something.”

He stayed back from the others with me, asking, “Yeah? What?”

“You’re a liar.”

“You’re drunk. And watch who you’re calling a liar.”

“You told me you didn’t know Red Corriden.”

Strickler smiled. “Oh, that.”

“Then I found out you and him were roomies. You lied.”

“Yeah, I guess I did at that. Look, kid, when you asked me about him I figured you were a friend of his. So I figured you were one of
them.
”

“Bible-thumpers. That kid was always preaching at me ’bout what a sinner I was. Just ’cause I take a drink now and then, or maybe play a little cards. Goddam kid drove me nuts. Judging from your breath, I guess I was wrong about you being a pal of his. Let me buy you a beer.”

We joined the others at a table, and I let Strickler buy me the beer. I made it my last. Bidding Fletcher an affectionate goodbye, I left him with the other Sox and staggered home alone.

I snuck back into my room, careful not to make any noise. I hoped that I wouldn’t encounter Mrs. O’Brien. She didn’t seem the type of landlady who would tolerate drunken boarders.

I felt euphoric after my outing with Fletcher, not least of all because of the newly discovered fact that I could down half a dozen beers and keep them down.

After wrestling off my clothes, I fell heavily into bed. Maybe the beer had me energized somehow, because I couldn’t seem to lie still. Then I realized I
was
still, but everything else was moving. The bed swayed and bobbed as if it were on springs, the walls of the room rotated like a panorama, and my pillow quivered as if it were made of jelly. Feeling that I might be tossed out of the bed, I spread my arms to brace myself against the motion.

Eventually the various movements of the room subsided. I started to drift in and out of a fitful doze punctuated by disjointed thoughts and bizarre fragments of dreams.

Suddenly, amid the strange and convoluted images passing through my pickled mind, an inspired thought jumped to the forefront. It told me who killed Red Corriden.

I still retained enough rational thought to realize that I wouldn’t remember the murderer’s name in the morning. I needed to write it down. With intense effort, I pulled myself out of bed. As I stood, the bobbing sensation returned. With my equilibrium all but gone, I groped my way around the room until I felt a pencil stub on top of the writing table. I felt around and grabbed one of the articles I had clipped out after the holiday doubleheader. Unable to see what I was writing, I carefully formed the name of the killer near the edge of the clipping and stumbled back to bed.

I awoke late in the morning, convinced that either my eyeballs had grown during the night or their sockets had shrunk. My eyes felt tightly gripped, and throbbed with pain from the pressure around them.

I tried hard to remember what happened last night. I believed that I had a good time, but if I did, why did I feel so wretched now?

I tried to retrace last night’s activities and conversations in my mind. As I worked my way through the muddled recollections and vague impressions, I remembered that at some point I lit on the identity of Corriden’s killer. Did I really, or did I just think it came to me? And if it did, who was it?

I had a feeling that I wrote down the name. Painfully, I pulled myself out of bed. After my legs started to feel as if they had enough rigidity to keep me erect, I began a labored tour of the room. Sure enough, on my writing desk was one of my clippings with a name scribbled in the margin:
Cobbb.

The handwriting was shaky—or my eyes were blurry—but that’s what it said.
Cobbb.
As in Ty Cobb.

Jeez, I must have been drunk.

So, according to this scrap of paper, Ty Cobb was the killer. This “solution” promptly raised more questions than it answered.
Why was
it Cobb? Or why did
I know
it was Cobb? Or why did
I think
I knew it was Cobb?

Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on my part. A murderer has to be nasty, and who was nastier than Ty Cobb? But this wasn’t really a solution. There wasn’t any evidence, just the ramblings of a drunken mind.

I put the clipping in a drawer and decided that I might think about it after my head cleared up—optimisticaHy hoping, but not entirely sure, that it would someday again be clear.

I
could really be on to something here. It seemed unlikely that a credible idea could emerge from the random wanderings of an alcohol-abetted imagination, but maybe it was so. Maybe Ty Cobb did murder Red Corriden.

The Red Sox team was journeying West for a short road trip to St. Louis and Chicago. I had tried to shake off my crazy Ty Cobb dream or hunch or whatever it was, but it kept coming back to me, each time stronger and more insistent. Finally I figured, what the hell, it’s a long enough train ride. I’d let myself consider this Ty Cobb idea, and just let the notion play itself out. But once I dropped the restraints on Cobb and let him loose in my thoughts, the idea that he was the killer of Red Corriden moved beyond the realm of drunken rambling and turned into a compelling theory.

I looked at the situation analytically, as I knew Peggy would. Means, motive, and opportunity.

First, means and opportunity: Ty Cobb fit both of these requirements. He was in Fenway Park with Corriden, he had access to baseball bats, and he certainly had the strength and temper to put a bat to violent use.

Then motive. Why would anyone want to murder a young baseball player from Indiana? According to Peggy, husbands and wives often killed each other, but she’d found out that Corriden wasn’t married, so that possibility was out. Money was a popular motive, but a rookie ball player was unlikely to be rich. Of course, he could have been killed for his pocket money—but then we’re back to it being a mugging.

Revenge then? Revenge for what? Did Red Corriden ever do something so terrible that it warranted such severe retaliation? Perhaps... to one man’s point of view.

As far as I knew, the only suspicious activity that ever involved Red Corriden was the final day of the 1910 baseball season, when he played out of position to let Nap Lajoie lay down cheap bunt singles. It almost cost Ty Cobb the batting title. The league exonerated Corriden, but did Cobb? Ty Cobb seemed to have his own view of right and wrong. He also seemed to find no shortage of people who had wronged him.

It seemed farfetched on the surface, but I had to look at it from Cobb’s point of view. Ty Cobb—a man who feels justified jumping into the stands in midgame to attack a cripple. Would he have any qualms about going after a man who, in his view, almost cost him a batting championship and a valuable automobile?

The more I thought about it, the more my Cobb theory seemed to make sense. Maybe just plain meanness should be added to the standard list of possible motives, a contribution from Ty Cobb.

As I became confident that I was correct about Ty Cobb, I became more sure of myself in this whole investigating business. Perhaps I wasn’t as methodical as Peggy or Landfors would be, but I did seem to have an instinct for crime-solving.

I began to entertain myself with highly satisfying daydreams, envisioning Peggy’s proud reaction to my success and Landfors’ outrage at being shown up by a mere ball player. And the publicity—a famous baseball player nailed for murder, the crime solved by Mickey Rawlings. This will be bigger news than Harry Thaw’s murder of Stanford White!

Then my confidence disintegrated as two other characters injected themselves in my thoughts: Jack O’Connor and Harry Howell. Ty Cobb had a revenge motive, but what about O’Connor and Howell? Cobb
almost
lost the batting title and the car. O’Connor and Howell did get booted from baseball. Did one—or both—of them blame the banishment on Red Corriden?

Not all of Peggy’s ideas were useless. Following her example, I went to the
Sporting News
office when we arrived in St. Louis. I talked to an editor of the “Baseball Bible” who was delighted to let a ball player use their research library—he said I was the first. I pored through the last five years of
Reach Baseball Guides,
and found that Bobby Wallace had been with the Browns when O’Connor and Howell were with the club. I hoped he might have an idea of where O’Connor and Howell were now.

Before the second game of the series in Sportsman’s Park, I spotted Bobby Wallace playing a fast-paced pepper game behind third base with four other Browns. When we came to St. Louis in May, Wallace was managing the club; he’d looked weary and his talents seemed to have faded. Then, a month into the season, he gave up the managing chores. Now his skills seemed restored, and he was clearly loving the renewal. He fielded more deftly, and laughed more loudly than his teammates. Managing makes a fellow be an adult, it makes baseball a job. Bobby Wallace was back to being a boy again and playing a game.

I drew closer to the pepper players, enjoying the spectacle and waiting for the game to end. When the players broke to take batting practice, I approached Wallace. It was almost like walking toward a mirror; we had the same infielder build, the same lean facial structure. Other than his hair being darker, he could have been my older brother.

“Hey, Bobby,” I called. “I’m Mickey Rawlings. I’ve seen you play for a long time. It’s good to be on the same field with you.” Flattery always helps.

“How you doing, Mickey.”

“I was wondering... since you’ve been here quite a while I thought you might know... I’ve been trying to find Jack O’Connor and Harry Howell. You have any idea where they went after they left the Browns?”

“You a friend of theirs?”

“No, never met either of ’em. We, uh, we have a mutual friend. Promised him I’d try to look them up if they’re still around.”

Wallace looked like he was seriously searching his memory. “Howell may still be around. He liked St. Louis, I don’t think he’d have left. Haven’t seen him since he left the team, though. Oh! You might try the Everleigh Club. He spent a lot of time there, I seem to remember.”

“Everleigh Club? Where’s that?”

“On Market Street. Shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“How ’bout Jack O’Connor?”

“You got me there.”

“That’s okay. If I can find Howell, maybe he’ll know. Thanks.”

As a visiting player, I had a practical appreciation of the facilities at the new ballparks: they all provided dressing rooms for opposing teams. With the older parks, visiting players had to dress in the hotel and show up at the field already in uniform. Then worse, they’d have to leave after a game, sweaty and filthy, with no chance to shower and change until back at the hotel.

So after the morning game, I was able to take a quick shower and slip out of Sportsman’s Park to head directly for the Everleigh Club. The first cabbie I asked said he knew where it was. He drove me to 2200 Market Street where a large two-story white house sat between a pool hall and a closed-up vaudeville theater. The house was farther back from the road than its neighbors, and was partially shielded by four willow trees.

At the front door, I rapped a rose-shaped brass knocker and waited. And waited. I rapped again, louder, with diminishing patience. Then I grabbed firm hold of the rosebud and hammered the wood forcefully.

I finally heard a pit-a-pat of footsteps and the door opened a cautious few inches. A doll-like colored girl in a maid’s outfit looked me up and down, then slowly shook her head. “You is an eager one, isn’t you?” she said, not seeming to expect an answer. And I wouldn’t have known what to answer. I stood frozen, trying to remember why I knocked so hard if I didn’t know what I wanted. “Well,” she said, “you come on in. I’ll fetch Miss Evelyn.” The girl let me in to the entrance hall and walked off to climb a staircase that curved upstairs.

As I waited, I heard soft piano notes coming from the parlor. A tall, lean man with coal-black skin, dressed in the same black and white colors as the piano, sat erect in the piano seat. He played with a minimum of movement, gently laying his long fingers on the keys to sound the notes. It looked as if his dark fingers were trying to mesh with the black keys of the keyboard. He played a quiet march, with an alternating rhythm that started my head swaying back and forth to the tempo.

“Business hours don’t start until four,” a husky female voice said. I looked back at the foot of the staircase. “Why don’t you come back in a couple of hours. I’ll make sure you’re taken real good care of then.” Miss Evelyn stood on the bottom step of the staircase, wearing a dark blue gown over a colossal body. The material cascaded straight down from her immense bosom, cloaking any possible trace of a figure. She looked a little like Clyde Fletcher in a dress. Her left hand rested on the bannister, poised to pull herself back upstairs.

“I only need a couple of minutes,” I said.

She frowned and repeated with distaste, “A couple of
minutes?”

I suddenly noticed that the carpeting of the stairs and hallway was red. I glanced back at the parlor, and saw that the chairs, couches, and drapes were all the same scarlet. And I suddenly realized what Everleigh meant, and what kind of club this was.

Blushing and burning, I said, “Uh, I’m not here for uh ... for uh ... I was just looking for a fellow I heard used to come here. He was a baseball player—with the Browns. Harry Howell? Do you know him?”

“Know him!” Miss Evelyn exploded. “That bastard worked here for almost a year. He was broke when he got booted out of baseball, so I took him in—he was always hanging around anyway, even without money to spend. I figured he was strong enough to take care of any customers who got out of hand, so I gave him a job as a bouncer. But he was like a drunk tending bar. Made demands on the girls—
unnatural
demands. They were going to quit if I didn’t get rid of him, so I fired the bastard.” She squinted at me. “You a friend of his?” It sounded like an accusation.

“No, never met him. I was just looking for him to uh ...” I wasn’t exactly sure exactly
why
I was looking for him. “Uh, do you know where he is now?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. Just as long as he never comes here again. And you—you can show yourself out.” She started back upstairs.

“Are you sure you don’t know where I can find him?” I called to her. She shook her head no as she kept climbing the steps.

Defeated, I turned toward the door. Three fast loud chords from the piano halted me. I turned my head to see the piano player beckon me with a nod.

I warily walked into the parlor as the pianist went back to a slow rippling march. I stood behind him to his right. He didn’t face me, didn’t change the tempo of his playing. He said without emotion, “Harry Howell. He a barber now. Roselli’s Barbershop. Twelfth Street.”

“You sure?”

“Yup.”

“Thanks. Uh ... why? Why tell me where he is?”

“You mean to bring him something bad.”

“What makes you think so?”

“You say you ain’t a friend of his, and I know he didn’t have no kin. So if you trying to track him down, it’s to bring him some trouble. And I like that just fine.”

“Did he do something to you?”

“That girl that let you in. She don’t do no entertaining here, she just do cleaning and such. And she
mine.
Harry Howell, he tried to force hisself on her when the girls wouldn’t take him no more. You settle your score with him, but leave some for me. I’ll be making Mister Harry Howell a visit sometime.”

I promised to leave some of Harry Howell—and expected to leave all of him—for the piano player.