Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 08 (27 page)

The funeral director, who was familiar with gunshot cases, also identified both wounds in Huey Long’s body as wounds of entry.

None of this was enough for the Louisiana State Police to reopen the case.

Then in 1991, a flamboyant but renowned forensics expert, Dr. James E. Starrs of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., took an interest in Huey Long and Carl Weiss. He convinced the Weiss family—Carl Jr. and Tom Ed—to allow him to exhume Dr. Carl Austin Weiss’s body. Although many argued that this was the wrong body to exhume (the right one being under tons of concrete and steel), Starrs was able to establish a number of facts that tended to show Dr. Carl’s innocence.

A hollow-point .38—undoubtedly from Murphy Roden’s gun, though no one said so—was found in the doctor’s brain case. Fibers from Dr. Carl’s white shirt were found embedded in the hollow point of the slug, which—along with bullets smashing into left wrist and right arm (apparent via skeletal damage)—indicated the doctor’s arms were up in a defensive posture when that fatal shot into his head was fired.

The skeleton, which was about all that was left of Carl Austin Weiss, also disclosed—through a study of trajectory of the twenty-four bullets that caused bone damage (those that passed through or into flesh without striking bone are lost in the mists of history)—that at least a dozen bullets were fired into the fallen doctor’s back.

Roselawn Cemetery, where Dr. Carl Weiss had been buried, wasn’t the only place the forensics expert made an important discovery. Starrs also tracked down long-missing, key evidence in the estate of the late Louis Guerre, head of the B.C.I. at the time of Huey’s death: the state police files on the investigation; and the “murder weapon,” Dr. Carl Weiss’s .32 Browning.

Also found among Guerre’s effects was a spent .32 slug, initially thought to be the “fatal bullet,” but ballistics experts soon established it had not come from Dr. Carl’s gun. Both proponents of Dr. Carl’s innocence and of his guilt found ways to use that bullet as ammunition in their arguments. In reality, it was just a spent slug among a deceased copper’s odds and ends, with no chain of custody to connect it with that Browning.

On February 21, 1992, Dr. Starrs presented his arguments, tending to favor Carl Austin Weiss’s innocence, at the forty-fourth annual meeting of the Academy of Forensics Sciences, which by coincidence was held that year in New Orleans. Four months later, the state police held a press conference declaring Dr. Carl Weiss the one-man, one-bullet assassin. Their conclusions were largely based on photographs (which had a poor chain of custody themselves) of the clothing Huey was supposedly wearing when he was shot.

There were indications, in the photos, of powder burns from a point-blank entry wound to the right abdomen. And of course, the police stated in support of their brother officers of bygone days, this meant Dr. Carl Weiss had to be the assassin. After all, he was the only one close enough to Huey Long to shoot him point-blank, leaving a powder burn….

Murphy Roden’s name wasn’t mentioned.

All of this latter-day attention to the case hasn’t served to do anything but raise the same old questions. If anything, things are more clouded now than ever.

When I saw Carl Weiss, Jr., a distinguished-looking man in his late fifties, speak on TV of his belief in his father’s innocence, I remembered a little boy playing with a Fresh Air Taxi and figured now was the time to come forward with what I know.

It doesn’t put anyone at risk, at this late date, not even me. But don’t you think it’s time people know that history
almost
got it right?

That a man named Weiss did kill Huey Long?

Despite its extensive basis in history, this is a work of fiction, and a few liberties have been taken with the facts, though as few as possible—and any blame for historical inaccuracies is my own, reflecting, I hope, the limitations of conflicting source material.

Most of the characters in this novel are real and appear with their true names. Any readers intimately familiar with the story of Huey Long’s life and death will be aware that I have focused on the key players, while omitting other, more minor ones, in an effort to streamline the narrative, and not overburden the reader with superfluous characters. For example, Long’s secretary Earle Christenberry is absent; as he served many of the same advisory (and glorified “gofer”) functions as Seymour Weiss, I considered his presence as a character redundant (several male secretaries and advisers are referred to here, in passing). Accordingly, some of Christenberry’s majordomo-type actions have been given to Seymour Weiss.

A similar liberty was taken in depicting Dr. Arthur Vidrine as performing the impromptu autopsy on Long at Rabenhorst Funeral Home; Dr. Clarence Lorio, who assisted Vidrine in the operation, was the man identified by undertaker Welsh. Similarly, while both Elmer Irey and Frank Wilson were indeed in New Orleans investigating Huey Long, it was another agent—Mike Malone (sometimes identified as Pat O’Rourke)—who went undercover at the Roosevelt Hotel. The agent
was
identified in the lobby by a Chicagoan with mob ties, who was hustled out of there by the agent, just as Heller is by Wilson m this novel.

The theory that Seymour Weiss orchestrated the assassination, using Murphy Roden as his triggerman, is my own, and, to my knowledge, new to this work. I do not mean to present it as the definitive solution to the mystery of Long’s death, but—despite its presence in a fictional work—it is rooted firmly in fact and fits the specifics of the case at least as well as any other theory.

Edward Hamilton is a composite character, but a fair representation of the “Square Dealers” leadership. Big George McCracken is also a composite, based primarily on Long’s bodyguard George McQuiston and “Big” George Caldwell, building superintendent at LSU. McQuiston did carry a tommy gun in a grocery sack (although some sources say the weapon was a sawed-off shotgun) and Caldwell indeed was mired in building scams and WPA malfeasance at the university.

Alice Jean Crosley is a fictional character, although she has a real-life counterpart; however, Long’s former mistress—disappointed by Long replacing her in Washington, D.C., with Earle Christenberry—married shortly before the Senator’s assassination, making the love affair between Alice Jean and Nate Heller purely fanciful. The notion that Huey’s former mistress (and the former Secretary of State, revenue collector, etc.) was bitter after her ouster by Long’s heirs, and that she was in possession of damaging pilfered documents, is based on material in
Louisiana Hayride: The American Rehearsal for Dictatorship
(1941), Harnett T. Kane’s classic, darkly amusing examination of Huey and his political heirs.

The story of Huey rejecting a bullet-proof vest from Chicago has a factual basis, as does the assigning of police liaisons to escort the Kingfish and his pistol-packing, deputized “Cossacks” to the 1932 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

Mutual Life Insurance Company
did
send an investigator to Louisiana in the last week of October 1936 to look into Mrs. Long’s double-indemnity claim. The investigator—the sublimely named?.?. Ponder—undertook an inquiry similar to the one Heller conducts in this book (the quotes from Heller’s report are near-quotes from Ponder’s seven-page document). Mutual did pay the double-indemnity claim.

Some authors contend that in 1936 Mutual considered death by assassination included under the umbrella of accidental death (which is apparently the case today), but this does not jibe with either logic or the facts: if such payment was automatic, why would Mutual have gone to the expense and trouble of sending Ponder to Louisiana to undertake a full investigation in dangerous, enemy territory?

My longtime research associate George Hagenauer did his usual stellar job of rooting out magazine and newspaper material (including Huey’s own, wildly outlandish
American Progress
). George also spent many hours with me, discussing this convoluted, fascinating, frustrating case; his feel for the more eccentric aspects of the American political scene was most helpful, and an overview of the case he prepared, exploring its political ramifications, was crucial to the development of this narrative. George is a valued collaborator on the Heller “memoirs”; I continue to appreciate his contribution, enthusiasm and friendship.

The relentless Lynn Myers dug out key material, including two vital early biographies:
The Story of Huey P. Long
(1935), Carlton Beals; and
The Kingfish: Huey P. Long, Dictator
(1938), Thomas O. Harris (journalist Harris is a minor character in this book). These contemporary accounts were crucial in this attempt to re-create a sense of the times, as was
Huey Long: A Candid Biography
(1935), Forrest Davis.

I was particularly fortunate to have the aid of one of the foremost collectors of Huey Long material, Michael Wynne of Pineville, Louisiana. Mike’s expertise was matched only by his friendliness: my constant, intrusive, impromptu phone calls, with lists of questions, got immediate detailed answers; and when Mike didn’t know an answer, he came up with it in a few days. He provided me with photocopies of rare, in some cases confidential, documents, about which I can say no more. My thanks, also, to bookseller Jim Taylor, of Baton Rouge, for putting Mike in contact with me…and for introducing me to the concept of lagniappe.

Another person was instrumental in the writing of this book: my talented wife, writer Barbara Collins, who accompanied me on a research trip to Baton Rouge and New Orleans in May of 1993. My son, Nate, was helpful, too, in our exploration of Huey’s fabulous art deco skyscraper capitol—even if he did break the rules and snap a photo in the House of Representatives (Huey broke his share of rules there as well).

A special thanks to Georgene Jones of Baton Rouge, who sent me articles on the reopening of the case, in the early stages of my research for this novel. Mystery writer Bob Randisi provided information on New York City, and my father, Max Collins, Sr., shared his reminiscences of the Hotel New Yorker.

Three nonfiction works focus on the assassination, and all are of considerable merit:
The Huey Long Murder Case
(1963), Hermann B. Deutsch;
Requiem for a Kingfish
(1986), Ed Reed; and
The Day Huey Long Was Shot
(1963), David Zinman. Deutsche’s work benefits from the author being an eyewitness to many of the events, and is flawed only by a too-ready acceptance of Dr. Carl Weiss as the assassin. Reed’s privately printed work broke extensive new ground, and his research and analysis were crucial in the development of this book. Zinman’s lengthy postscript, in the 1993 expanded edition of his work, provides a detailed look at the James E. Starrs investigation and the subsequent controversy; also, Zinman alone of the three authors spends as much time on the story of Dr. Carl Austin Weiss as he does on that of the Kingfish.

Huey Long: A Biography
(1970), T. Harry Williams, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning work with a grand reputation; certainly its wealth of detail was helpful to me, though its pro-Long bias (and Williams’s tendency to accept at face value the word of such dubious sources as Seymour Weiss and Long’s bodyguards) limited its usefulness. My purposes were better served by the much more balanced (and, to my thinking, readable) account,
The Kingfish and His Realm: The Life and Times of Huey Long
(1991), William Ivy Hair.

Long’s sketchy autobiography
Every Man a King
(1933) and his fanciful, posthumous
My First Days in the White House
(1935) were also beneficial. Dozens of books and pamphlets about Long were consulted, but the following were of the most use:
Hattie and Huey
(1989), David Malone;
Dynasty: The Longs of Louisiana
(1960), Thomas Martin;
Favorite Huey Long Stories
(1937), Hugh Mercer;
The Longs of Louisiana
(1960), Stan Opotowsky; and
Huey Long’s Louisiana: State Politics, 1920–1952
(1956), Allan P. Sindler. Two books on would-be American dictators were of help:
Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression
(1982), Alan Brinkley; and
Forerunners of American Fascism
(1935), Raymond Graham Swing. First-rate chapters on Huey Long were found in
Mainstream
(1943), Hamilton Basso, and
The Bosses
(1972), Alfred Steinberg.

The following books provided background on Earl Long:
Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics
(1991), William J. “Bill” Dodd; and
Socks on a Rooster: Louisiana’s Earl K. Long
(1967), Richard McCaughan.

The specter of Robert Penn Warren’s classic, Pulitzer Prize–winning novel
All the King’s Men
(1946) hovers over any book about Huey Long, particularly any work of fiction; I read the novel in high school and, because of it, developed an interest in Huey Long. But I made the conscious decision not to reread it before the writing of
Blood and Thunder,
not wanting to be either influenced or intimidated.

I did screen Robert Rossen’s award-winning 1949 film adaptation of the book, as well as Raoul Walsh’s 1953 film based on Adria Locke Langley’s Huey Long–inspired novel,
A Lion Is in the Streets
(1945). Surprisingly, in what I am aware is a minority opinion, I found the former film flat and artificial, particularly Broderick Crawford’s one-note performance, and the latter more lively and on target, with James Cagney capturing the huckster charm of a Kingfish.

Other films were more useful: Ken Burns’s excellent 1985 documentary,
Huey Long;
and the well-researched docudrama
The Life and Assassination of the Kingfish
(1977), from writer-director Robert Collins, who used many of the real locations. Also helpful were a 1992 segment of NBC’s
Unsolved Mysteries
that dramatized the viewpoints of both Ed Reed and Professor Starrs; and the 1965 David L. Wolper documentary,
The Longs: A Louisiana Dynasty,
written by Bud Wiser and directed by Alan Landsburg.

Huey Long’s connections to organized crime are documented in numerous sources, but I turned primarily to the following:
Mafia Kingfish
(1989), John H. Davis;
Uncle Frank: The Biography of Frank Costello
(1973), Leonard Katz;
Lansky
(1971), Hank Messick;
Double Cross
(1992), Sam and Chuck Giancana;
All American Mafioso
(1991), Charles Rappleye and Ed Becker;
The Grim Reapers
(1969), Ed Reid; and
Frank Costello: Prime Minister of the Underworld
(1974), George Wolf with Joseph DiMona.

Elmer Irey and Frank Wilson’s efforts to nail Long and his Longsters are detailed in Irey’s own
The Tax Dodgers
(1948), with William J. Slocum, and Wilson’s autobiography,
Special Agent: A Quarter Century with the Treasury Department
(1956), with Beth Day. Also helpful was
Secret File
(1969), Hank Messick. Thanks to Jim Doherty for providing further material on Frank Wilson.

The WPA Guides of the late ’30s and early ’40s are the backbone of my recreations of the era, never more so than with the
Louisiana State Guide
(1941),
New Orleans City Guide
(1938) and
Gumbo Ya-Ya
(1945).
The WPA Guide to New York City
and
New York Panorama: A Companion to the WPA Guide to New York City
were also helpful, as was
Oklahoma: A Guide to the Sooner State
(1941).

My attempt to re-create a sense of Louisiana in the thirties was dependent on the following sources:
Louisiana’s Message 1930–1931,
no date, no author, a guide issued by the state of Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Immigration;
Do You Know Louisiana
(1938), issued by the Louisiana State Department of Commerce and Industry;
John Law Wasn’t So Wrong
(1952), Hodding Carter;
The Louisiana Capitol
(1980), Ellen Roy Jolly and James Calhoun;
The Bayous of Louisiana
(1963), Harnett T. Kane;
All This Is Louisiana
(1950), Frances Parkinson Keyes;
A Self-Guided Tour of Baton Rouge
(1974), John P. and Lillian C. King;
The Louisiana Capitol: Its Art and Architecture
(1977); and
New Orleans in the Thirties
(1989), Mary Lou Widmer. Mary Jane Smith, at the Old Governor’s Mansion, gave me a gracious guided tour as well as a worthwhile illustrated pamphlet.

Information about the Stork Club came from
No Cover Charge: A Backward Look at Night Clubs
(1956), Robert Sylvester; information about radio star Phil Baker was found in
Tune In Yesterday
(1976), John Dunning. As is the case with previous Heller novels, pickpocket information came from the definitive
Whiz Mob
(1955), David W. Maurer.