Dead Lock

by B. David Warner

  I had never seen Blades Larue in anything other than an open collared shirt before and apparently he hadn’t either. The narrow end of his blue and white striped tie hung three inches below the wide one. His baggy sport coat hung on him like a bed sheet. I could tell by the redness of his eyes that Shirley’s death had had a profound effect on him.

  Blades had closed for the morning, and his entire crew was in attendance. I recognized Mrs. Miller’s daughter Felice even though I hadn’t seen her since she was in junior high. I waved, making a mental note to say hello to her after the funeral service.

  I finally worked up enough nerve to approach Shirley’s casket. I said a silent prayer and turned away.

  G.P., Andy Checkle and Carol Olson stood in a corner near the door to the chapel and I walked over to join them. I hugged G.P., who expressed his condolences to me as if Shirley had been my sister, which she nearly was. I hugged Andy, whose face turned a bright shade of red nearly matching his hair. I reached out my hand to Olson, who took it.

  Just as we started to speak, a dark suited employee of the funeral parlor made an announcement and people began moving into the chapel. The lid was closed over Shirley and several young men grabbed the casket by the handles and carried it in, setting it carefully in front of a small altar covered with flowers.

  An organist played softly as the four of us sat near the rear of the room: Olson, G.P. and Andy in the chair next to me. Andy leaned over and whispered to me. “I feel awkward, Kate. I’ve only been to one other funeral, my grandfather’s. And I was just a kid then.”

  I patted Andy on the knee. “You’re not alone, Andy. Funerals are always tough.”

  Especially when it’s your best friend lying in the casket. I couldn’t help seeing Shirley’s laughing face in my mind. We had had such fun just two nights ago. She had been so alive. I dabbed at my eyes with a tissue I pulled from my purse.

  The chapel was filling up. It seemed half the town was there. Shirley had many friends from our days in high school, and she had made more since moving back last January. I noticed a couple who looked to be in their fifties sitting in the front row. I had never seen them before and wondered if they might be Shirley’s relatives. I knew she had an uncle and aunt living somewhere in the Upper Peninsula.

  Just as the organist was finishing the prelude, Jack Crawford came in and sat in the empty chair beside me. He smiled and, surprisingly, reached over and squeezed my hand.

  You could have knocked me over with a hymnal.

  I heard quiet voices behind us and turned around to see Scotty Banyon enter the chapel. He took a seat in the last row.

  The service itself went by fairly quickly. The young pastor of the Presbyterian Church Shirley had attended officiated. In his eulogy he remarked how Shirley had made it to Sunday morning services even when she had worked until closing at Blades’ restaurant the night before. He drew a laugh from the crowd when he good-naturedly mentioned that Shirley hadn’t always been able to stay awake during his sermons.

  Rock of Ages, one of Shirley’s favorite hymns concluded the service and we walked out into the lobby. Shirley would be buried later, so there would be no procession to the cemetery.

  Scotty came over to join our group. He shook hands with the men and smiled at Carol Olson. He leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek before apologizing that he had to get back to his work. Given what he had told me about his relationship with Shirley, he might have felt awkward about being there.

  After Scotty left, I tried to locate the couple I had spotted in the front row, with no luck. They had apparently left via a side door immediately after the service. But just as I started to leave, Mrs. Miller’s daughter Felice caught up with me.

  “I thought that was you, Felice,” I said. “You’ve changed a bit since Junior High.”

  “You haven’t changed at all,” she said. “Mother said she saw you the other evening. I wonder . . . could we talk outside?”

  What was this about? “Sure. Let’s go.”

  We stood in the parking lot, Felice waiting until most of the crowd had filed past us on the way to their cars before speaking.

  “I read the story about your interview with Corporal Cummins,” she said finally. “You really believe he’s innocent?”

  “I do. I’m convinced he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “If I tell you something, will you promise not to write it or even talk about it to anyone?”

  “I’m a reporter, Felice. I never reveal my sources when they want to remain anonymous.”

  “I don’t mean that,” she said. “I mean you can’t write about what I tell you. Or tell anyone else about it.”

  “In journalism we call that background. It may be the foundation under a story, but it’s not reported per se. Is that what you mean?”

  Her lips pursed. “I guess so.”

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “Corporal Cummins couldn’t have killed Shirley,” Felice said. “When Shirley was murdered . . .“ Felice paused, looking down at the pavement.

  “Yes?”

  “Roy was with me.”

  53

  Felice’s words caught me by surprise.

  “You were with Corporal Cummins?”

  “Roy and I were seeing each other. We’d go for walks and talk. We seemed to have so much in common.”

  I nodded, urging her to continue.

  “He had been a teacher before he went into the Army. That’s what I want to do. I’m trying to save money for college.

  “He was so caring, so willing to help others. He could have made a lot more money coming back home to Michigan to teach. But he stayed in Louisiana, knowing the people there needed him more.”

  “Were you in love?”

  Felice paused again. “I can’t speak for Roy,” she said finally. “But I know how I felt about him, and . . .”She choked back a tear. “Yes, I was falling in love with Roy. And now he’s in jail. It isn’t fair. He wouldn’t hurt a soul. And he couldn’t have killed Shirley. He was with me.”

  “Tell me about that evening.”

  Felice couldn’t have been more than nine or ten when I last saw here. I had graduated from Sault Ste. Marie High School and moved back to Detroit. She had to be at least 20 now, and had a presence beyond her physical age.

  “We always went for our walks in the same place,” she said. “Along the beach two miles or so west of town. We’d take off our shoes and walk in the sand. We knew we’d be alone.”She added quickly, “We had to be, of course.”

  “And that night?”

  “It was right after the riot started downstate. The fighting between races affected Roy terribly. It was spreading to his old neighborhood and he knew it wouldn’t be long before his friends and family would be involved.”

  She pulled a handkerchief from her purse and wiped her eyes. “We hadn’t walked very far when Roy stopped. Just stopped. I asked him what was bothering him.” Felice stopped talking as three people walked by us on the way to their cars. We both nodded a greeting to them.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “Roy said he thought we were being foolish. The riot had convinced him we were living a fairy tale; and that fairy tales don’t work in the real world.”

  There was more silence as Felice wiped her eyes. “And then he walked away from me. I tried to follow, but he shooed me away. I got in my car and caught up to him; tried to convince him to get in . . . to come back to town with me.

  “But Roy just kept walking. He went down farther toward the water where I couldn’t follow.”

  “So you drove back home?”

  Felice nodded. “And the deputies must have picked him up a short time afterwards.” She began to sob. I reached my arm around her, trying to comfort her. A couple walked by us, staring, but kept on going.

  Felice finally looked up at me. “Have you ever loved someone you found you couldn’t have, Kate?”

  Ronny! It was my turn to pause.
“Yes. Yes, I have Felice. I know exactly what you’re going through.”

  “Is there any way you could get a note to Roy for me? I mean, can you get into the jail to see him?”

  “I guess I could ask for another interview. But I can’t guarantee anything.”

  That answer was good enough. Felice took a pencil and small slip of paper from her purse and spent the next few minutes writing. Finished, she folded the paper and handed it to me.

  “Please don’t read it,” she said. “I’d be very embarrassed.”

  “What you wrote is between you and Roy,” I said. “I wouldn’t dream of reading it.”

  I turned to walk to my car when Felice called after me.

  “Kate, do you think it will ever be possible for us all to get along? I mean white and colored. To live together?”

  I stopped and turned back to her.

  “I hope so, Felice. I really do.”

  54

  Sunday, June 27

  Funerals have a way of making you appreciate just being alive.

  The next day I attended services at the tiny Presbyterian Church where Shirley had been a member since our high school days. The minister, who had conducted Shirley’s funeral service the day before, delivered the sermon. He mentioned Shirley’s name several times, reciting how she would be missed and repeating how often she attended church despite working late hours the night before.

  Afterwards it was time to see if I could talk my way into the Sault Ste. Marie jail for a visit with Roy Cummins.

  It turned out to be much easier than I thought. The deputy at the front desk, while in his fifties, seemed to be new at this job. He gave my credentials a cursory look, accompanied me back to Cummins’ cell, and left me with the corporal.

  “I don’t have anything more to tell you,” Cummins said when we were alone. He stood at the cell door, his forearms resting on the bar.

  “I have something to tell you,” I said. I spoke quietly to avoid eavesdropping from the white prisoners in the cell to the left, or the colored prisoners just beyond them. “I had a conversation yesterday with Felice Miller.”

  The news startled Cummins. He had been gazing at the floor. Now he looked up; I had his full attention.

  “I know why you couldn’t possibly have stabbed Shirley Benoit.”

  “You can’t use that,” he said.

  “You’re facing a murder charge. Michigan doesn’t have the death penalty, but you could spend the rest of your life in prison.”

  “I’ll deny everything. I won’t involve Felice in this.”

  “She’s your only alibi.”

  “Then I’ll have to depend on my attorney. The Army is providing one.”

  “I hope he’s good,” I said. “He’ll have to be.”

  Corporal Cummins was bull-headed, to be sure. But I left the jailhouse with more determination than ever to help prove his innocence.

  55

  At 1600 hours that Sunday afternoon Claus Krueger walked to the closet in his bedroom and retrieved a trunk hidden back against the wall.

  He reached inside the trunk and carefully removed the Enigma machine. Closing the lid, he placed the coding machine on top.

  The Wehrmacht Enigma consisted of a combination of mechanical and electrical systems working together. The mechanical mechanism included a keyboard and a set of rotating discs known as rotors. The rotors enabled the Enigma to vary the substitution of letters, making the decoding of an intercepted message extremely difficult. Sometimes the letter C would be substituted by the letter N, for instance, other times it was M or X. The machine receiving the message would decode it automatically.

  Krueger turned on the Enigma and it began typing out a message almost immediately.

  Bestaetigen Sie: Operation Todschlag, punkt 1500 Uhr.11.Juli. Verify Operation Deathstrike set for 1500 hours, July 11.

  Krueger typed his answer: Bestaetigt. Verified.

  He then asked a question to assure himself of safe passage back to the Fatherland via U-boat once the mission was accomplished: Bestaetigen Sie termin am Treffpunkt, 0500 Uhr, 13.Juli. Verify rendezvous at checkpoint, 500 hours, July 13.

  Momentarily the machine replied: Bestaetigt. Aber zeit fenster ist knapp, Sie haben nur 20 minuten. Verified. But the window of time is short. You will have only 20 minutes.

  Krueger replied: Verstanden.

  He waited a few minutes for further messages. Satisfied there were none, he closed the machine and placed it back in the trunk.

  Despite the Enigma code, each transmission bore a certain amount of risk and there would be no further communication unless something went terribly wrong.

  The mission was on.

  56

  Monday, June 28

  I had spent the weekend mulling over the events of the last two days.

  Felice’s confession confirmed what I had felt all along. Corporal Roy Cummins had nothing to do with Shirley’s death. The Sault Ste. Marie jail held an innocent man, and I was the only one besides Felice and Corporal Cummins who knew the real story. I had to convince authorities of Cummins’ innocence without exposing the fact that he and Mrs. Miller’s daughter had been together that evening.

  But who had murdered Shirley? And why? It seemed obvious, at least to me, that her death was no random killing. The perpetrator had left Shirley’s purse behind containing $21, a week’s pay.

  Whoever attacked her wanted her dead for some reason. I couldn’t help feeling the key to finding out who murdered Shirley lay in discovering why she was killed.

  By the time I reached the office Monday morning, I had decided to take my suspicions to Jack Crawford. But it turned out I might as well have been whistling Dixie. Or maybe Tommy Dorsey’s new tune, Sing, Sing Sing.

  “Leave it alone, Kate,” Crawford said. “Sheriff Valenti is convinced that they have the right man. His opinion is good enough for me and it ought to be good enough for you.”

  “The coroner says Shirley’s murderer was right handed,” I reminded him. “Corporal Cummins is left handed.”

  “Right handed, left handed, what difference does it make? Maybe he grabbed her with his left hand and stabbed her with the right. How do you know?”

  “What difference does it make? It makes a hell of a lot of difference to an innocent man locked up in the jail for a murder he had nothing to do with.”

  “That’s a job for the sheriff and the courts. Your job is reporting. And you turned in an excellent job on that interview with the corporal.”

  “Thanks. But I’m still determined to prove Corporal Cummins is innocent.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “By finding the real killer.”

  “That’s fine,” Crawford said, “as long as you don’t do it on the newspaper’s time. I want you covering the progress of the new lock.”

  “I thought that was Andy’s territory.”

  “It is, but with the dedication getting closer, I want you both on the assignment.”

  I’d wanted to cover the story of the new lock all along. But I left Crawford’s office with the sneaking suspicion he was offering the assignment to keep me too busy to investigate Shirley’s murder.

  57

  It was nearly five o’clock when I finally had time to myself and get back to my thoughts of finding Shirley’s real killer.

  Shirley and I had parted company right after high school. She enrolled at the University of Michigan, while I traveled east to the Columbia University School of Journalism. We ran into each other on occasional visits back home, but for the most part had gone our separate ways. During our last conversation together a few days ago, Shirley had mentioned dropping out of the U of M during her sophomore year in Ann Arbor.

  That’s where my investigation into her death would begin.

  I called Sam Murphy, an old friend and colleague of mine at the Times. As the newspaper’s Education Editor I knew he had good contacts at most of the major universities. After we exchanged a few pleasantries I g
ot to the point.

  “I’m going into the background of a woman who was murdered here at the Soo,” I said. “Can you use your contacts to see if there is a record of where she went after she dropped out of the U of M?”

  “I can try,” Sam said. “Give me the dates she attended classes there.”

  I told Sam we had graduated from Soo High together in 1928, and she would have enrolled in the fall of that year. If she dropped out of college during her sophomore year, that would have been ’29 or ’30. He told me he’d check with his sources at the University and call me back.

  What he found shocked me.

  58

  Tuesday, June 29

  Sam Murphy got back to me just after lunch the next day. I took the call at my desk.

  “Shirley Benoit graduated from the University of Michigan with high honors in the spring of 1932,” Murphy reported. “Her major was accounting.”

  Graduated with high honors? During our conversation, Shirley told me she dropped out of college. Why would she have made up a story like that?

  “You got me,” Murphy said. “But I know my information is correct. It came right from the registrar’s office. I just got off the phone with a woman I know who works there.”

  “Is there anyone there who might know where she went after she graduated?” I asked.

  “I seriously doubt it,” Murphy said. “Remember there were some ten thousand students at the University of Michigan when your friend Shirley left the Ann Arbor campus. With that many people they just can’t make a rule of following each one after graduation.”

  “What about a counselor?” I asked.

  “You could try. The name of her counselor would be on her records at the registrar’s office.”