Fair Play

by Deeanne Gist

  Things had been quiet in the neighborhood and on the playground for weeks now. With no more signs of any miscreants, the police officers had quit coming, leaving the supervision of the grounds to Hull House volunteers who taught the immigrant children games and American customs. As an extra precaution, though, Miss Addams had insisted two supervisors be on the grounds at all times during operating hours.

  With it being Sunday and the only day off for most families, Billy saw patients after church, then took her turn at the playground with Miss Weibel just before dusk. She’d welcomed her men patients with a good deal of satisfaction. They appreciated her services and never once hinted at any impropriety on her part.

  Still, Hunter’s words rang in her head.

  Maybe it’s clinical from your perspective, but I can guarantee it’s not that way for the man.

  Perhaps it had been different with him because of his attraction to her. Nevertheless, she didn’t want any patients misconstruing her actions. So she now requested the wives or mothers that stay during all exams she had with the men. She couldn’t help but resent it, though. Her male counterparts had no such limitations.

  A child in one of the baby carriages lining the fence whimpered. Mothers had parked them all along the perimeter, then disappeared. But they always came back to fetch them before feeding time.

  She walked alongside them, looking for the one who’d fussed. She tucked in blankets and brushed dust from around their eyes. With each face, she couldn’t help but hope one would be Joey’s. But, of course, they never were.

  An ebony-skinned tot of perhaps four sat beside the carriages, hugging a sibling a few inches shorter than herself. The girl was perfectly content to hold the little cherub and watch the others.

  “Would you like me to take him for a bit so you can play?” Billy asked.

  Her eyes lighting, she nodded.

  Billy tucked the baby close. “Run on, now. I’ll take good care of him.”

  Scrambling to her feet, the child headed straight to the area with cedar building blocks, her chubby little legs pumping. Billy smiled. Perhaps she’d grow up to be an architect like the one who’d designed the Woman’s Building.

  Bouncing the babe in her arms, she tickled his chin. “How do you do? I’m Dr. Tate.”

  Gurgling, he smiled in return, a drop of drool escaping his lips. Chuckling, she lifted a corner of his dress and dabbed his mouth.

  “Doctor!” A woman down the street hurried toward the playground. “Doctor!” she screamed. “Come quick!”

  The children quieted. Billy turned. The little black girl appeared at her side, her arms upraised. Giving the girl an apologetic look, Billy handed her brother back to her.

  The hysterical woman, her brown hair wild, clasped a threadbare shawl about her arms and burst through the gate. “My husband. He’s collapsed. Come quick!”

  Oskar Zimmerman’s wife. She recognized the woman now. Billy had treated her husband last week for coughing up blood. It had been a very small amount, and Billy had attributed it to a swallowed nosebleed or forceful coughing. But if he’d collapsed, she needed to see to him immediately. She looked at Miss Weibel.

  “Go on,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  But Billy couldn’t leave her. Not alone. “Miss Addams has been adamant about two of us being here at all times.”

  “This is different. This is an emergency.”

  Billy scanned the area surrounding the playground, then sucked in a breath. Down the street Kruse and his friends lounged in the shadows of a closed cigar shop.

  Her pulse increased. She turned to Mrs. Zimmerman. “Perhaps you should go see if Dr. Young is home.”

  “What?” The woman’s face registered shock. “There’s no time. You must come. Now.”

  “She’s right.” Miss Weibel shooed her. “Don’t worry. I’ll explain it all to Miss Addams.”

  “There’s some young men down the street.” Billy lowered her voice so the children couldn’t hear. “They’re the ones who held the playground hostage.”

  Miss Weibel glanced at them, then swatted the air with her hand. “We’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll stay with her, doc.”

  Billy turned to see Derry behind her. His eyes narrowed as he watched Kruse and the other boys. She looked again toward the cigar shop. Kruse took a long draw on his smoke, an orange glow lighting its end. Then he threw it on the ground, mashing it with his toe.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry Mrs. Zimmerman, but I can’t leave.”

  Miss Weibel pushed Billy toward the gate. “Nonsense. Mrs. Zimmerman’s husband is the one who needs your attention, not us. We’ll be fine. If it will make you feel better, I’ll close the playground.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, either. Besides, the babies won’t be picked up for another thirty minutes.”

  Miss Weibel clucked. “I won’t leave them. And the older children will alert their mothers.”

  Mrs. Zimmerman locked an arm through Billy’s and hauled her through the gate. “Come!”

  Billy could either go with her or be dragged.

  Miss Weibel clapped her hands for attention, then held the gate open. “We have to close early, children.”

  After a few moans of disappointment, the children began to head to the gate.

  “That’s it. No pushing now. Everyone file out peacefully. Be sure to tell your mothers to come fetch their babies, though.”

  With one last glance at Kruse, Billy lifted her skirts and concentrated on keeping up with Mrs. Zimmerman.

  Sensing Billy’s cooperation, the woman finally released her. They wove down two alleys, then across a street.

  “He’s in the Brass Rail.” Mrs. Zimmerman pointed to a saloon toward the middle of the block, but headed toward another alley.

  “Where are you going?” Billy asked.

  “We need to go round to the back.”

  Women were strictly forbidden to enter through the front door. Even those who lived above stairs had to enter from the alley.

  “Nonsense.” Billy forged ahead and went right through the front door.

  Cries of outrage came from the men inside. Taking advantage of their momentary shock, she pushed them aside, then knelt by Mr. Zimmerman. He lay on the floor, still wearing his Sunday suit. She knew without even touching him that he was dead. Still, she took his pulse, then placed her mouth against his bearded one and blew her own breath into him.

  Mrs. Zimmerman rushed through the back door and sank down beside her.

  After several minutes the bartender touched Billy’s shoulder. “He’s dead, doc. Anyone can see that. Come on now and let me and the boys get him back home so he can be laid out proper.”

  Pausing, Billy checked again for a pulse. As she suspected, there was none. With a heavy heart, she asked for a small glass of whiskey.

  The bartender lifted his brows, but did as requested.

  “No!” Mrs. Zimmerman cried. “He was fine this afternoon.”

  The bartender handed Billy the whiskey. Suppressing a shudder, she rinsed her mouth with it, then spit it back into the cup.

  Mrs. Zimmerman knocked the glass from Billy’s hand, sending it and the dark liquid across the dusty floor. “I’ve seven mouths to feed and only two dollars. He can’t be gone. He can’t.”

  Billy sat back on her feet, her shoulders sagging. She hated losing a patient. Not only for the pain it caused the family, but because of the helplessness she felt. The reminder that she was not God, but only a mortal like everyone else. Feelings of inferiority quickly followed a tremendous dose of guilt.

  She shouldn’t have hesitated. She should have come immediately. Would he still be alive if she had?

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Zimmerman,” she said. “I’m so—”

  “This is your fault!” The woman pulled at her own hair. “You should have come when I called. What good is a doctor who refuses to come when a husband is dying? You’d never see a man doctor watching over a playground. Yo
u’d never see a man doctor refuse to come when called.”

  “I didn’t refuse, I—”

  “You did!” she screeched. “I had to drag you. You were more concerned about a bunch of children playing than—”

  Four loud bangs reverberated from outside.

  Eyes widening, Billy looked to the bartender.

  “Gunshots!” he shouted.

  She was on her feet and out the door before anyone could hold her back. Saloons up and down the block emptied and men raced toward Polk Street, where the sound had originated, Billy right behind them.

  A crowd of yelling men on the playground closed their ranks around Fredrick Kruse, his three friends, and Derry. A red-bearded man jerked Derry by the arm.

  “Derry!” she screamed.

  “Doc Tate! I didn’t do nothin’.” He struggled, but his fierce captor refused to let him go.

  “I didn’t do nothin’,” Derry yelled. “It was them who—”

  “Doc! Over here!” someone shouted.

  The men parted for her. Derry’s voice faded into the noisy commotion. Billy’s stomach dropped. Miss Weibel, her dark curly hair spread out behind her, lay dead in a pool of blood.

  POLICE PADDY WAGON33

  “The officer locked the cage, his square jaw set, his eyes hard.”

  CHAPTER

  38

  He didn’t do anything!” Billy screeched.

  “I’m sorry, miss.” The police officer lifted Derry into the wagon with Kruse and the others, then shut the cage. “You weren’t here. You don’t know what happened any more than the rest of us. So the boy goes with me.”

  “He was trying to protect her.” She gripped the man’s arm, her hands and fingernails stained with Miss Weibel’s blood.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Get your hand off me.”

  She snatched it back. “He’s only nine. You can’t take him to that horrid jail. You can’t.”

  He locked the cage, his square jaw set, his eyes hard. Then he circled round toward the front.

  “I’ll lose my job.” Derry grabbed the bars, his panic palpable. “Help me, doc.”

  She nodded, keeping her emotions in check so as not to scare him further. “I’ll speak to the fair officials.”

  “No! You can’t tell ’em I’m in the pokey. I’ll never get a job again.”

  She touched his hands, the blood on hers mingling with the blood on his.

  “Try not to worry,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “What about my papa? He needs my pennies. He’ll give me a whupping, for sure.”

  “I’ll make sure they know it wasn’t your fault.” She made no promises about getting him out, though. For she knew she had no power there. But the thought of where they were taking him sickened her.

  The officer climbed into the driver’s seat and snapped the reins. The wagon gave a jerk, then pulled away, breaking their contact.

  Derry pressed his face against the bars. “Don’t let ’em take me, doc. Don’t let ’em take me.”

  She swallowed. “Stay strong, Derry. I’ll do everything I can.”

  “Sit down and quit your sniveling.” Kruse cursed the boy and called him deplorable names.

  She gasped at the crude slurs, at once incensed and distressed. She prayed Derry wouldn’t be in a cell with those four.

  The undertaker’s wagon pulled out behind them. Nothing more than a glorified delivery wagon, it held the remains of Miss Weibel. Tears rushed to Billy’s eyes. She shouldn’t have left the girl alone. She knew Kruse was there, watching the playground like a wolf, just waiting for a lamb to be separated from the flock.

  And now, a life had been snuffed out. The life of a bubbly young woman whose only ambition had been to elevate the poor and help the unfortunate. A young woman whom Billy had come to care a great deal for. Miss Weibel was a favorite of Derry’s, too, and other boys who were members of her Young Heroes Club.

  Billy pressed a handkerchief to her mouth. What would the reaction of the neighborhood’s elderly men be? For Miss Weibel had organized a club especially for them as well, dedicated to the study of Plato.

  Extinguishing any innocent’s life was unfathomable. But when that innocent was Miss Weibel, it was beyond all comprehension. And Billy was to blame. If she’d stayed, none of this would have ever happened.

  The tired clip-clop of the undertaker’s horse reverberated inside her. Who would be the one to knock on the door of Miss Weibel’s home back East and tell her father, a passionate abolitionist, and her mother, a founding member of a women’s seminary, that their beloved daughter was gone? Senselessly killed by boys who carried a grudge against those who’d destroyed their home, pitiful though it had been.

  And though she’d explained Derry had been attempting to protect Miss Weibel, there’d been no convincing the men who’d first arrived, nor the police officer.

  Miss Addams wrapped a chain around the gate of the playground, then locked it. “I think it best if we close it. Indefinitely. Until we can find out what happened and why.”

  The lump in her throat grew. “Of course. I’m—I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.”

  Miss Addams nodded, a watery sheen filling her eyes.

  Billy sucked in a choppy breath. If she could only go back. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything.

  Miss Addams reached over and squeezed her arm. “Perhaps you should stay with us tonight.”

  Billy’s lips parted. The offer was so unexpected and of such a forgiving nature, emotion rushed up her throat. “Thank you, but I think I’ll go speak to Derry’s parents, then go home. I . . . I need to be alone.”

  “I understand, dear.” Supporting Billy’s elbow, Miss Addams turned them toward Halsted. “You needn’t worry about Derry’s parents. I sent Miss Starr to speak with them. She’ll tell them what you told us and that he’s not to blame.”

  Miss Starr had been alongside Miss Addams from Hull House’s very inception, when it was nothing more than an idea, and Billy trusted her implicitly. “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure.”

  But by the time Billy made it home, instead of offering solace, the dormitory hemmed her in. Its walls threw accusations. Remonstrating with her for abandoning Miss Weibel. There were other physicians Mrs. Zimmerman could have called. Maybe not quite as close, but certainly within reach.

  Billy could have, and should have, either waited to leave the playground until someone from Hull House came to replace her or sent Mrs. Zimmerman to another doctor. But the man had collapsed. The time it would have taken for a replacement or another doctor could mean the difference between life and death. How was she to have known he’d be dead before she arrived?

  She covered her ears, trying to stop the voices. Why did she think she was the one who always knew best? The one who could solve all the problems? The one who could do all things better than anyone else?

  And what about Derry? Was she to simply sit by and take no action? She’d done that with Joey and look what had happened.

  Just once, I’d like you to come to me first before you go off half-cocked.

  She stopped in the middle of the floor and hugged herself. Hunter wasn’t hers to go to anymore.

  There are a few things us men can do that you can’t.

  She thought of the tangle she’d gotten into with Nefan’s jailer. Yet when Hunter went, he’d been able to get the boy out. Could he do the same for Derry?

  Grabbing her jacket and muff, she headed out the door. It was well past dark and she had no idea where Hunter was, but if she had to storm the guards’ barracks, so be it. Better that than leaving Derry in jail.

  Feminine boot heels clipped across the bridge leading to Crockett’s island. Hunter rolled up off the animal skin he’d appropriated, unbuttoned his trousers, and tucked in his shirt. He figured he’d only been asleep a couple of hours.

  The footfalls slowed once they reached the section of the island without lampposts. He quickly redid his buttons.
r />   “Hunter?” she whispered.

  “Billy?”

  She stepped into the clearing, moonlight throwing shadows against her face. A short, dark jacket masked her figure, but it didn’t keep his exhilaration at bay. Just the sheer pleasure of seeing her again brought a moment of complete euphoria, chased down with a quelling shot of sorrow.

  “The night guard at the Woman’s Building said I might find you here.”

  She didn’t move and he didn’t invite her closer.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Is everything all right?”

  “Miss Weibel’s been murdered.”

  He sucked in his breath. He knew it had to have been dire for her to seek him out, let alone in the middle of the night, but he’d never expected this. “When? What happened?”

  “This evening. On the playground.” Her voice wobbled as she tried to choke back tears. “There’s more. Derry’s been arrested for it, along with Kruse and his cohort.”

  “Derry? Derry? Why?”

  She told him of the shooting, the events leading up to it, her heartbreak over the loss of Miss Weibel’s life, and her anguish over Derry’s arrest. He wanted to go to her. To hold her, comfort her. To take her pain onto himself.

  But that was no longer his privilege, so he stayed where he was. “Did anybody witness it?”

  “I don’t know.” She swiped her eyes, her tone rising in distress. “It was chaotic and I had to see to Miss Weibel. By the time I was done with that and the undertaker arrived, the men who’d first arrived at the playground had already convinced the police Derry was involved.”

  “What was Derry’s demeanor like?”

  “Frantic. Distraught. Panicked. He cried, begging me to help him. Telling me he hadn’t done anything, that it had been the others. Which, of course, I already knew. But I wasn’t able to talk with him privately, and the men who’d accused him are not very fond of Italians. They wouldn’t have it any other way than to have Derry arrested along with the rest of them.” She swallowed. “Me being a doctor meant nothing to them. At that moment, I was no more than a woman. A woman easily ignored.”