Murder at Fenway Park (11 page)

I expected that Peggy would respond with a very reasonable argument against taking on such a preposterous task. Instead, her eyes sparkled with excitement, and she offered, “Can I help?”

“You
want
to?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sure, I’d like that. But... There’s just one thing: I don’t know how to go about solving a murder.”

“That’s all right. Whatever we can do will be better than doing nothing.”

“Okay... so, what do we do?”

“I’m not sure either.”

We both sat in silence, with no idea of how to implement our good intentions. Finally Peggy suggested, “Maybe the first thing we should do is come up with a sensible plan for investigating the case.” Up to now, I had only a vague notion about finding out what happened to Red Corriden. When Peggy said “investigating the case” it suddenly struck me that this was going to be serious.

We agreed that we would each try to develop a plan while I was on the road. When I returned, we would then put together one strategy and see if we could find out who killed Red Corriden.

I felt that Peggy and I had become partners of a sort tonight, and I found it difficult to break away from her.

At eleven o’clock I rose to leave, and she walked me to the door. As we stood together to say good night, Peggy softly closed her eyes, and tilted her head back slightly. Oh my, this was not going to be just a quick peck on the cheek.

I
t took about a week, and we were halfway through the road trip, but I finally came up with a plan to solve the Red Corriden case. Well, not a plan, but a couple of steps toward developing a plan.

First I wondered whether I should call Corriden’s death a “killing” or a “murder.” I figured if Corriden was a random victim, who died at the hand of a robber or a madman, then it was a “killing”; if he was killed by someone who specifically wanted
Corriden
dead, then it was “murder.”

In the first case, if Corriden was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, anyone could have killed him. I had no idea how to pursue that avenue, so I decided to concentrate on the second possibility.

It seemed that the best way to start the investigation was to find out as much as possible about Corriden himself. Maybe uncovering something in his past—or in his personality—would reveal a reason why someone would want him dead. This then was my immediate mission: to gather every bit of information that I could about Red Corriden.

First I tallied what I already knew about him, and was discouraged to realize that it totaled only three facts: he briefly played third base for the St. Louis Browns in 1910, his only renown came from being mixed up in the batting race scandal that year, and he began this season with the Tigers.

For the sake of finding out about Red Corriden’s past, I wished that we were on a Western road trip. There should be more information about Corriden in the cities where he played. I could talk to his former teammates, see where he lived, and... well, do whatever else one did in pursuing an investigation.

In the Eastern cities, meantime, I would try to approach some of my teammates, and maybe some of the opposing players, too, and ask if they knew anything about Corriden.

We were two games into a four-game series with the Athletics by the time I decided on my plan of action. Since we had already finished the New York series, the opportunity to question Highlander players about Corriden was gone. Although I tried to make use of the remaining two days in Philadelphia, I completely struck out in trying to learn more about Corriden. At least the investigation provided me a chance to strike out—Jake Stahl hadn’t given me a single at bat in more than a week.

I first talked again to Clyde Fletcher. He knew nothing more than what little he had first told me.

Then on to questioning the Philadelphia players. I managed to speak to half a dozen of the Athletics players before the series ended. To a man, each said he didn’t know any Red Corriden. It bothered me to discover that not one of them even remembered Corriden as the ball player who had been killed. It seemed he was already forgotten just two months after his death.

I hoped to have better luck in Washington, my first visit ever to the capital. We came into Washington on Saturday night, giving me all of Sunday to explore the city and see the sights.

In the morning, I made the rounds of the White House and the Capitol building. I toured absentmindedly, giving only token attention to the standard attractions. After stopping for a sandwich at a lunch counter, I worked my way over to the Washington Monument. A few years before, when Gabby Street was with the Senators, he’d achieved instant fame by catching a baseball dropped from the top of the monument. Craning my neck to look up the structure, I couldn’t believe he did it—or that he’d be crazy enough to try it. Inside, I climbed the steps to the top, and looking down at the miniature people below, I believed it even less. Hell, the damn fool could have been killed. Killed . . .

What little hold the national monuments had on me vanished completely as my thoughts went back to Red Corriden’s death.

I picked out two more Boston players for questioning: Charlie Strickler and Billy Neal. It was still tricky for me to grill my teammates, since my rookie status would last the entire season and with it the unspoken injunction to mind my own business. Strickler and Neal were both veterans, but I had a slim margin of seniority over them as a Red Sox player, and so found them less intimidating. I picked Strickler as the one I would speak to first. I’d seen him pitch a few times when I was a boy, and that seemed to make him more approachable.

Monday afternoon, Charlie Strickler was given a spot start to open the series for us against Washington right-hander Long Tom Hughes. The Senators were still hanging right behind us in the league standings.

Strickler struggled his way to a 2—1 win, relying on the only weapon he had left in his arsenal: irritation. Between each pitch, Charlie would rub the ball, tug his cap, kick the rubber, hitch his pants, and shake off Bill Carrigan’s signs until they were repeated. Having thus nagged the hitter into a fit of impatience, Charlie would finally serve up the pitch: never a fastball, usually a combination of change-up and slow curve, always a tantalizing powder puff. More often than not, the batter would pull the trigger too soon, dribbling an easy grounder or tipping a pop-up.

After the game, I gave myself a chance to talk to Strickler. He was taking his time in the locker room, so I dawdled, too, timing my dressing to ensure that I’d be ready to leave the park with him.

Watching Strickler dress, I found myself wondering if his slow pitching tactic was by clever design, or if he was in fact putting all he had on his pitches and did the stalling to catch his breath. He had a roll around his middle that caused him difficulty when he bent over to tie his shoes. He was no longer in shape for baseball—probably not even for gardening—and though he won this day, he couldn’t win many more.

The final product of Strickler’s dressing was a man who would never be taken for a ball player. Under a misshapen suit that barely restrained his bulges, he wore a soft-collar shirt with no tie. His hair was so short that the graying stubble blended into the bald spot that capped his head, and his face had a droopy look of general resignation to it.

When Strickler started to leave the clubhouse, I joined him on the way out and told him, “Say, Charlie, I saw you pitch against Addie Joss once when you were with Philadelphia.”

“Oh. Did I win?”

“Uh, no. You pitched real well, though.”

“Mm. Thanks for bringing it up.”

“Well, there weren’t many who could beat Joss.”

“Yeah, he was tough. Shame about him getting sick like that. The good they die young.”

“Yeah, that’s what they say. Red Corriden, too, I guess.”

“Red Corriden, too, what?”

“Dying young.”

“Oh. Too bad. Who was he?”

“Uh, he was with you on the Tigers. This year... Third baseman... Got killed in Boston.”

None of this seemed to register with Strickler. “Don’t remember... Red Corriden, huh? Must have been a rookie...”

“Yeah, he was.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t notice a rookie.”

“Yeah, well, good talking to you, Charlie.” We were out on the street and each took off our own way. I knew I’d lose my baseball skills, too, someday, but I hoped I could hang on to my faculties longer than Strickler.

During warm-ups before the final game in Washington, Strickler and Billy Neal were tossing a ball on the sidelines. Professionally, Neal was similar to me—or what my career would be like after I had his ten years of experience. He was a journeyman ball player, never a star, who bounced around from team to team. Neal had one advantage over me though: catchers were always getting hurt, so Neal was always in demand to fill in for injured starters. It seemed every time I saw his name in the box score, it was listed for a different club. Since joining the Sox, he had gotten into only a handful of games, taking Stahl’s place at first.

When Strickler yelled, “That’s ’nuff,” and started walking to the dugout, I put myself in Neal’s path. I said, “I’m not loose yet. Feel like throwin’ a few more?”

“Yeah, okay.”

We started exchanging throws. I moved toward him a few steps, wanting to stay within talking distance. “Arm’s a little sore. Just short ones, ’kay?”

Neal shrugged his indifference to the range of our tosses.

“How you like playing first?” I began.

“Haven’t got to play much. But it’s okay. Rather catch, but Carrigan seems to have a lock on the job.”

“Yeah, he’s real solid. Plays no matter how bad he’s hurt. You do much catching with Detroit?”

“Enough to keep me happy. They gave me a chance at Detroit—not like that bastard Stahl.”

“Uh, yeah... Oh—wasn’t Red Corriden with Detroit?”

“Who?”

“Corriden. Red Corriden. Third base.”

“Oh yeah. Rookie, wasn’t he?”

“Think so. Did you know him?”

“Nah. Not really. He was just around a couple weeks. Heard he got himself killed.”

“Yeah, I heard that. Why the hell would anyone want to kill a guy like Corriden?”

“Damned if I know. Thought he got robbed or something. Why? What’s the big deal with Corriden?”

“Nothin’, I guess. Just wondering what happened to the poor guy.”

“Don’t know. Damn shame though. Seemed like a good enough kid.” Neal held on to my last throw and called a halt to the warm-up and interrogation. “Let’s get in. Almost game time.”

I jogged up to Neal and we walked back to the dugout together. One more question occurred to me. “You remember who he roomed with, Billy?”

“Who? Corriden?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm... Oh, sure. Charlie Strickler. He was always complaining how the kid drove him nuts.”

“Really? How so?”

“Damned if I know. But them two sure didn’t get along. What are you asking me for anyway? Strickler’s sitting right there. Ask him if you’re so interested.”

“Oh, I’m not! I was just wondering is all.”

“Uh-huh.”

So Charlie Strickler lied to me. There’s no way he could have forgotten Red Corriden after just a couple of months.

I felt betrayed—though not as much by Strickler as by the investigating process. It was difficult enough for me to figure out who I should approach for information and what questions to ask. If I wasn’t going to get honest answers, this could be really tough.

I
decided to hold back on telling Peggy about the progress I made. First I’d let her tell me if she had gotten anywhere—I expected she hadn’t. Then I’d impress her with my success in discovering a possible suspect: Charlie Strickler, Red Corriden’s roommate at the time of his death, who now denied even having heard of him.

We were again seated in her parlor, with coffee and chocolate cake on the table in front of us. I was comfortable and at ease. It no longer felt tantalizing, but instead homey and familiar to be in her house.

Peggy was trying to explain her approach to the case: “At first I got wrapped up with the notion that it was like a detective story—you know, somebody’s killed in a secluded mansion, the place is full of weekend houseguests, and they’re all suspects, and a detective figures it out, and he gathers them all together in the library to reveal the murderer. But of course real life isn’t like that.”

“No, that sure doesn’t sound like what happened to Red Corriden.”

“Then I just tried to think of it the way a detective would. The situation is different—no mansion and houseguests, and all that—but the way a detective approaches a murder case would be the same. Motive, means, and opportunity. That’s what they look for.”

“Motive, means, and opportunity?”

“Yes. To find a killer, you have to look for motive, means, and opportunity.”

“Okay... I understand motive. That’s the
reason
he was killed. That makes sense. But what about those other things?”

“Well, the means would be how it was done. So if he was shot, the killer would have to have a gun. Opportunity would be—well,
opportunity.
The killer had to have a chance to kill him. So if he was shot on a day when your suspect was in a different city, then he didn’t have opportunity, so he can’t be the killer.”

“But Corriden wasn’t shot.”

“No, but we can apply those same
principles
to this case.”

“Oh. I see. Well, we know the means. He was beat on the head with a baseball bat.” Peggy grimaced; that’s all right, it’s better than what I did when I saw the body. “So the means would be a baseball bat.”

“Right. Now: opportunity. It had to be someone who was there.”

“Wouldn’t it
allays
have to be someone who was there?”

“No, not always. You can give somebody slow-acting poison and be miles away when it takes effect.”

“Time out. I’m getting confused. Can we leave out guns and slow-acting poison? I think I’d be able to understand this better if we stuck to what happened to
Corriden.
”

“Oh, of course. You’re right.”

“Anyway, what was it about opportunity?”

“Well, it had to be somebody who was there. I went to the library and checked a newspaper for April twenty-seventh. It said there were a little over twenty-two thousand people at the game—”

“Oh great.
That
sure narrows it down. Twenty-two thousand. And how about the vendors, and the people who work in the ballpark? The players? The
umpires?
That brings it to what? Twenty-five thousand suspects?”

I must have sounded frustrated and hopeless. Peggy tried to be patient with me, but there was a hint of exasperation in her voice. “No. It doesn’t mean twenty-five thousand suspects. I didn’t check the paper to see how many suspects there were. I wanted to see if anything unusual was reported about the game.”

“Oh... Was there anything unusual?”

“No, not as far as I could tell. I thought perhaps there was a fight in the stands that could have carried over after the game, something like that. But there wasn’t anything.”

Peggy was dragging me along on this unfathomable tour of her detective logic. Trying to follow it and failing, I became skeptical about this whole detecting process. “I still don’t get it. How exactly do we find one killer out of
twenty-two thousand
people who were there?”

“Well, not everybody who was at the game is a suspect, of course. Motive, means, and opportunity all have to go together. It had to be somebody at the ballpark who had a reason to kill Mr. Corriden and could use a baseball bat to do it.”

“But even putting it all together, it still seems like it could be practically anybody.”

“No... How many people in the park that day even
knew
Red Corriden? And how many of them could have killed him with a baseball bat?”

“Oh, I see. They’d have to be strong. It wasn’t a woman, or a child—”

“That’s right! They wouldn’t have had the
means.
And opportunity: how many people would know their way through the corridors under the stands? Fenway Park is a new stadium. Most people have trouble just finding their seats. I think the key, though, is the motive.”

“Do you have any ideas who would have had a motive?”

Peggy shook her head. “No, not yet. I tried to think of the usual motives. Money is probably the most common. Does anyone benefit financially from Mr. Corriden’s death? Husbands and wives tend to kill each other a lot, too. Let’s see ... revenge, jealously, I don’t know what else. I gave a lot of thought to the motive possibilities. So I thought it would be helpful to find out about Mr. Corriden’s background, and then see if that could give us a clue to the reason he was killed. I started to find out a few things.” Peggy looked about the room, then walked over to a bookcase and took a notebook from a shelf. “Here it is. Let’s see what I have . . .”

She sat back down, and referring to her notes, proceeded to astonish me. “Okay. He was born in Indiana. Twenty-four years old this year. Not married. Average size. Five foot seven, hundred and thirty-five pounds. Right-handed.

“Let’s see... Began his career with Keokuk in the Central Association. Nineteen-eight. The next year, too. Nineteen-ten, the St. Louis Browns bought his contract. They sent him to play in Omaha, then brought him up to the Browns at the end of the year. Then what happened . . . Ah! The Browns acquired Jimmy Austin to play third base for them last year, so they released Corriden. He spent the year with Kansas City in the American Association. The Detroit Tigers bought him from Kansas City at the beginning of this year. They paid fifteen thousand dollars for him—that seems awfully expensive for a baseball player....” Peggy concluded with a satisfied look, “Well, that’s all I have.”

I hesitated a moment, then couldn’t help asking, “Where’s
Keokuk?”

She answered with a giggle, “It’s in Iowa.”

I was incredulous. “How did you find all that out?”

“Just a couple of telephone calls. I started with the Detroit Tigers office. Then the Browns. Then I called the
Sporting News
in St. Louis. That was it.”

“The telephone!
I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I was going to wait until we traveled West again to see what I could find out. Jeez ...” Maybe I really wasn’t cut out for this investigating business. This venture was starting to seem overwhelming. I tried to shake the confusion out of my head—to no avail. I thought coffee might help me think straight, and picked up the cup in front of me. The coffee was cold, but I gulped it down anyway. It didn’t help either.

The door knocker unexpectedly sounded out four evenly spaced taps. Peggy bolted up, exclaiming, “Oh! He’s early. I wanted to tell you first—” She swept to the door and pulled it open to admit a man I had never met.

“Who the hell is he?” almost blurted from my lips, but I swallowed it, mumbling only a garbled “whmph,” which went unnoticed.

Although handsomely dressed, the man didn’t look like much. A bookkeeper. No, an assistant bookkeeper. More like the errand boy of an assistant bookkeeper. In every aspect of his appearance, he was thin and wiry. From his spindly arms and legs to his tightly pursed lips to the sparse strands of receding brown hair plastered across his skull—even to the dainty steel-rimmed spectacles perched on his bony nose. If he were a baseball player he’d be penciled last in the batting order, after the pitcher. And when he was sent up to the plate, he’d be told, “Crouch real low and try to draw a walk.” I didn’t like him.

“Mickey, this is Karl Landfors. He’s a—was a friend of David’s. They worked together in New York. Karl, this is Mickey Rawlings.” “Mickey” suddenly sounded like a kid’s name.

Landfors distastefully stuck his hand out and I tried to shake it. Our flesh made barest contact as he quickly slithered his fingers out of my grasp. I imparted a brusque, “Hi. Mick Rawlings.”

“Yes, so I gathered.”

“Coffee?” Peggy asked Landfors.

“Yes, please. If it’s no trouble.” He used a different voice—almost tifelike—when he addressed Peggy.

She tried hard to sound cheerful and light, as if she were throwing an afternoon tea party. She babbled about something or other while she filled the third coffee cup that was on the tray. Another indication that I might not make much of a detective: I had noticed the extra cup earlier, and assumed it was a spare in case I broke one.

Peggy settled back on the couch, and Landfors slipped past me to take the spot next to her—where I had been seated minutes before. I had a choice of pulling him off the couch or sitting by myself in a chair. I reluctantly took a chair.

“I thought Karl would be able to help with the murder case,” Peggy said, in a tone that sounded as if she were still trying to maintain a tea party mood. “He does a lot of investigative reporting.”

“You told a stranger about it?”

“He’s not a stranger—I’ve known him for years. He and David used to write for the same newspaper. He’s very reliable and I trust him completely.”

“You’re a reporter?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

“So you’re planning to write about this. For a newspaper.”

“No. I promised Peggy that this would all be off the record. I only agreed to help as a favor to her.” He smiled slightly. “I don’t do routine crime-reporting anyway.”

I turned to Peggy. “What exactly did you tell this guy?”

“Of course if you don’t want my assistance,” Landfors continued, “I don’t intend to force it on you. But Peggy certainly seems to think you can use it.” Do I have to ask him to take his glasses off, or can I just go ahead and punch him?

Peggy answered calmly, “I told him about the murder, and about Mr. Tyler having the body moved, and that the police might think you’re a suspect—everything you told me. I think this whole thing has to be resolved. Once and for all, to get it behind you. And Karl could be a lot of help.”

I was furious that she would tell somebody about the murder, and about me, without first asking me. “Really? How is he going to help?”

“I have contacts, and I know how to dig up information.” Landfors ended every statement with a wispy sniff. I wished he’d either blow his nose or shut up.

Peggy continued to champion Landfors. “And Karl knows what will hold up in court. We can’t just guess at who the killer is. There has to be evidence, evidence to—”

“Evidence,” Landfors took over, “to obtain an arrest warrant, then an indictment, and finally to convince a jury.” I didn’t like him finishing her sentence. And I wasn’t sure what an indictment was.

“I already did some checking on your Robert Tyler.” Landfors addressed me in a slow, distinct way, as if he were explaining something to a rather dull schoolboy. “Did you know that he used to work for Ban Johnson—president of the American League?”

Barely holding my tongue and fists in check, I answered, “I know who Ban Johnson is. And yes, I know Bob Tyler worked for him.” This is supposed to be helpful?

Landfors went on unperturbed. “In fact, Tyler pretty much ran the New York office. Do you know how he raised the money to buy his share of the Red Sox?”

My silence told him the answer was no.

“It seems the New York American League team has a player who intentionally loses games—a Harold Chase.”

“Hal
Chase.”

“Yes, whatever. As I was saying, Chase loses games for gamblers who place bets on the opposing team. Do you know who Arnold Rothstein is?”

“No.” Get on with it already.

“He’s a gambler. One of New York’s more notorious. He pays Chase more money to lose games than the Highlanders pay him to win.”

“Everybody knows Chase throws games. What does this have to do with Bob Tyler?”

“What it has to do with Tyler is that a baseball player who is known to be dishonest is still allowed to play major-league baseball.”

“Yeah?”

“Charges have been brought against Chase a number of times—not in a court of law, but to the league office. Two of Chase’s managers, Norman Elberfeld—”

“Kid
Elberfeld.”

“—and George Stallings, have both filed complaints about Chase. The curious thing is that nothing was done to Chase, but both of those managers were fired.” Landfors paused, relishing my puzzlement before coming to the point. “It turns out that Arnold Rothstein paid a certain highly placed person in the American League office to ensure that Hal Chase could continue to play baseball.”

“Bob Tyler?”

“Very
good. And that’s where Tyler got the money to buy into the Red Sox.”

Jeez. “How do I know this is true? How did you get this information?”

“Getting information is my business. Of course I don’t really follow
baseball,
so I talked to Fred Lieb, one of our sportswriters. He filled me in on some of the details.” Landfors smirked with satisfaction. His revelations about Bob Tyler impressed me. He didn’t, the revelations did.

Peggy then threw a curve at me. “I had an idea. It may sound a little bizarre, but what if it wasn’t really Red Corriden? The body, I mean.”

“Sure it was,” I said, feeling on firm ground.
“
That’s the only thing that is solved. Jimmy Macullar said he and the cop moved the body to Dorchester. Remember? It was Corriden.”