The Fruitcake Murders

by Collins, Ace;

  After grabbing the photo and slipping it back into her purse, Tiffany crossed the room and pushed the door open. The candlestick phone was on a small desk to her right. She dropped onto the corner of the desk and picked up the phone. “This is Tiffany and how did you know I was here?”

  “Some guy named Oscar at the paper told me where you’d gone. Anyway, Tiff, I was at a store looking for a present for you when I figured something out.”

  “There are places open on Sunday?” she asked.

  “A few,” he explained, “why, is that illegal?”

  “Maybe,” she chuckled, “but the cops often turn and look the other way at Christmas. Anyway, I hope you found something nice for me.”

  “I didn’t get that far,” he cracked, “but I do need to pick you up and take you to Elrod’s home.”

  “Why?”

  “I think I know where we can find some information.”

  “You and the cops tore that place apart.”

  “Tiffany, I now know what we overlooked. I’m 99 percent sure of that. Can you call Mrs. Elrod and arrange for us to get into the study?”

  “I’ve met her several times in the past,” the reporter quickly replied, “she’s a straight shooter. If it means catching her husband’s killer, I think she’ll give us access.”

  “Okay,” Garner suggested, “you do what you need to do to get us into that man’s study, and I’ll pick you up in ten minutes in front of the soup kitchen.”

  31

  Sunday, December 22, 1946

  8:30 P.M.

  Tiffany spent the half-hour trip across town catching Garner up on what she’d learned in the newspaper morgue and at the kitchen. After they drove through the estate’s large gates and up the paved circular drive, the investigator parked in front of the mansion’s front doors and posed a question about what he’d just heard. “So this Simon kid . . .”

  “Szymon,” she corrected him. “His name is a traditional Polish one, not like the game you likely played as a child.”

  “Fine, Szymon,” Garner grudgingly corrected himself. “Do you buy Joe’s rationale on why he couldn’t be the killer?”

  “Not for a second,” the reporter assured him. “I think it provides the perfect frame for real murder. After all, if all the fruitcakes at the factory were destroyed, the most logical place for any others to be would be at Lewandowski’s home. Thus, Szymon, who is unbalanced, would be not just the best suspect but likely the only one who might have kept the fruitcakes. I mean, think about this, the guy is crazy, and according to what I read in old newspapers, he is also violent. Who knows where he has been? Maybe he has been confined for years in an institution and has finally been released. All that time locked behind walls he’s been waiting for the chance to get back at the men he blames for his father’s death. He, therefore, gets the cop who caught his old man. He also murders the one man on the jury who might have saved Jan Lewandowski’s life.”

  “And,” Garner cut in, “he started with Ethan Elrod, who had nothing do with the case.”

  “Nothing that I’ve found,” Tiffany corrected him. “I’m sure there is a connection and we just haven’t come up with it yet. But, if you really know where there is some hidden information, maybe that part of the case will fall into place as well.” She smugly added. “Still, let’s make this exercise in snooping a quick one, because I need to get Lane using all his police resources to find the now middle-aged son of a man who likely was wrongfully put to death.”

  “You even talk like you write,” Garner cracked.

  “And what do mean by that?” the reporter demanded.

  He smiled, “You use too many words to say what’s on your mind. Just keep it simple. Say something like ‘I need Lane’s police connections to locate old what’s-his-name.’ ”

  “Now you’re sounding like Skipper.”

  “Hey, don’t insult me.”

  “Fine,” she grumbled, “but let’s make this quick. I have a case to crack and I want to beat the cops in unveiling who is behind this series of murders. I’d just love to see Lane as he picks up the paper and finds I wrote about the murderer even before he guesses who he is. In fact, I will probably just hand deliver the first newspaper off the press run directly to his office.”

  “Let me assure you,” Garner replied, as he reached for the car’s door handle, “that you won’t have to cool your jets for long. It will only take a minute to figure out if we have hit the mother lode or if this has been a dry run. If it is the latter, you can make fun of me all you want. Now, let’s get into the house and let me show what I discovered at a high-end gift shop.”

  A few moments later, Mary Elrod graciously welcomed the pair into the mansion and then ushered her guests to the study where she left them alone. Once their host closed the door, the investigator immediately walked over and tapped on the large wooden globe.

  “If you cut it in half,” Tiffany noted, “you could have two really large washtubs.”

  Garner spun the globe and observed it slowly turn until it stopped. Smiling he explained, “These babies were made for two things. The first is looking impressive.” As he spun it again he added, “The other has nothing to do with geography.”

  “So,” the reporter quizzed, her bland tone and bored expression giving away that she was unimpressed, “what’s the other use?”

  “No reason to waste words,” he teased. “Just relax and watch.”

  Garner twisted the top of the brass rod that served to hold the axis that secured the large wooden ball in place. He then put both hands on the top of the three-foot wide representation of the world and spun it to the left. He stopped the globe when he heard a slight clicking noise.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Tiffany assured him, “sounded almost like a gear snapping into place.”

  “You’re close,” he replied as he moved to the bottom of the axis and twisted a brass knob he found there to the left. He then slowly moved the large ball back in that same direction until there was another click.

  “And,” he noted, as he stepped back and admired the globe, “That should be all there is to it.”

  “To what?” she asked, her tone indicating she still was not mesmerized by his little show.

  “Lane and I figured,” he explained, “that Elrod must have stashed the information he’d gathered in a safe or perhaps even placed it in a small hidden room that would be found behind a bookshelf. We were wrong. There was no concealed safe or secret room. Then, tonight, when I was looking for a present to give you, I saw a globe just like the one here. After noting the item’s sky-high price tag, I asked the clerk how they ever sold any of them. That’s when he showed me the trick.”

  “The trick?” she asked.

  Garner leaned forward, pushed England with his index finger, waited for another click, and then placed his right hand back on the top of the axis and pulled. That action caused the top of the globe to open like a car’s alligator hood.

  “It’s hollow,” Tiffany pointed out.

  “It is made to hide important documents or even cash,” Garner added. “And if I am correct, what Elrod had on Delono might well be somewhere around Brazil.” As the pair peered into the two-by-two-by-two-foot hollow square carved into the bottom half of the globe, they spotted a file. “Why don’t you do the honors?” the investigator suggested.

  Moving to the large desk, a now smug Garner leaned into the top edge, folded his arms over his overcoat, and observed the woman stroll to a chair. After sitting down, she began to leaf through the pages. As he waited for Tiffany to unveil what was in the file, he used the time to study the case he really wanted to win. The woman might not have been the daughter of a diamond dealer, but she was a real jewel. Tiffany’s combination of grit and glamour put even the pinup girls to shame. He’d seen Carole Landis, Marilyn Maxwell, and Dorothy Lamour in U.S.O. shows and none of those movie stars could hold a candle to the reporter. She was not only beautiful but also bright and
incredibly intuitive. She was also as tough as nails, as gritty as a Marine gunner, but somehow still all woman. Though he hadn’t known her before this week, he was now sure she was who he dreamed of during those lonely nights in the Pacific.

  As she continued to study what they’d found, his eyes fell from her face to her form. Even a heavy, wool winter coat couldn’t hide her charms. She wasn’t lithe like a model; she was more the athletic type. Her body was toned and strong, but it was still so very feminine, too. He was admiring the way her pump hung from her heel, when the woman’s voice pulled his eyes back to her perfectly formed face.

  “What we’ve found . . .”

  “What I found,” Garner corrected her.

  “Okay, fine. What you found ties Jacobs to a former citizen of this city now retired and living in Florida.”

  He shrugged, “So, what you’ve got there doesn’t tie the judge to Delono?”

  “Not directly,” Tiffany noted, pulling her eyes from the material to the investigator, “but I would think this might help a bit.”

  “So this benefactor,” he asked, “now lives in Florida? What good does that do us?”

  “It might just mean that Jacobs made a deal with the devil,” the woman explained.

  “I don’t see what you’re driving at,” Garner announced, pushing off the desk and slowly crossing the room to where Tiffany sat. As he arrived at her side, she handed the investigator the file.

  “Take a look,” the woman suggested, “all that is here are a series of photos of Jacobs with Al Capone. They were obviously taken before Ness and his Untouchables, along with the IRS, got the mobster for income tax evasion and shipped him off to Leavenworth and later to Alcatraz.”

  His curiosity piqued, Garner glanced through the set of photos. The pictures, taken at various locations and over a series of years, proved the current federal judge was once a part of the crime boss’s inner circle. But what did that mean? Closing the file and handing it back to the reporter, the investigator cracked, “Even without the story behind these pictures, The Star would love to run them on the front page. Can you imagine the fallout? Imagine a federal judge who spent his younger days chumming around with old Scarface. That is big-time news, even if you didn’t have Jacobs considered a shoe-in for governor.”

  “Yeah,” Tiffany agreed as she rose from the chair, “and I’m betting Delono knew about these pictures, too. Maybe he even found them and gave them to Elrod as a part of the deal for the cash and the blonde.”

  “Okay,” Garner admitted, “I’ll admit these photos seem to be the nail in the coffin that could have spelled the end of Jacobs’s career and killed his chance for higher office, but if Elrod already had them, why make a deal with Delono? Why give him the blonde? What did she have to do with anything? The DA had what he wanted, so why sacrifice a human life?” Garner thought back to the way poor Sunshine had died, before sadly adding, “There has to be a lot more to this. If there isn’t, then Elrod is not much better than Capone and his cronies.”

  “Bret, we have to figure out who that blonde is.”

  He nodded, “And we need to do that before we confront Jacobs with these photos or before the press runs them. Can you sit on these and not give them to your paper?”

  She shrugged, “If they run now or next month, they will have the same effect. So, I’ll just hang onto them for a while.” Tiffany slipped them into her oversized purse before asking, “Now what do you have in mind?”

  “We need to go see a man who lives in a house in Cicero. It’s not too far from the Hawthorne Race Track.”

  “A friend of yours?” she asked.

  “No,” Garner admitted. “Delono mentioned him during one of our conversations, and I’ve done a bit of digging to find out more over the past two days. The guy’s name is William Hammer. He used to work for Capone.”

  “What makes you think he’ll talk to us?” she asked as she reached down and pushed her shoe back over her heel.

  Garner carefully watched the woman as he explained. “A year ago he likely wouldn’t have, but I’ve found out he’s dying of cancer now. So, he’s not going to be afraid to tell the truth. In fact, he might just be looking for a pretty reporter to share his story with. Especially one who can dangle a high heel like you can.”

  “You’re horrible,” she smirked. “Now, it’s a little late for a visit tonight, so let’s get some sleep and go over in the morning.”

  “When a man’s dying of cancer,” Garner shot back, “you don’t wait until tomorrow.” He walked back to the desk, yanked a drawer open, and pulled out a phone book. It took him less than a minute to find Hammer’s name and get an address. Then, after closing and relocking the globe, he barked, “Let’s go.”

  32

  Sunday, December 22, 1946

  11:30 P.M.

  One dim light was on in the small, red brick home, and that was all Bret Garner needed as an invitation to knock on the front door. Tiffany Clayton, who still felt it would have been better to put off this visit until the morning, stood a step behind on the small front porch, uncomfortably watching the investigator wait for a reply.

  “Emily Post would not approve,” Tiffany warned.

  “Then I’m glad she’s not with us,” Garner shot back as he knocked again. “Besides, she’d have made a lousy private eye. You can’t do what I do and get all hung up on manners.”

  “Yeah,” the reporter grumbled, “I’ve noticed the folks in your profession and cops seem to lack grace and tact, too.” After thirty seconds, when no one had come to the door, Tiffany leaned toward the investigator and whispered, “He’s probably asleep. Let’s come back in the morning.” The words had no more than escaped her lips when the front door swung slowly open.

  William Hammer had likely once been a big man, but the disease that was now ravaging his body had robbed him of both muscle and fat, leaving him with little more than skin and bones. Even the stooped, balding man’s face was rail thin, so it was not surprising his faded red sweater and blue dress slacks, which surely once fit, now all but swallowed him. Yet, as he flipped on the porch light to intently study his unexpected guests, there was life still evident in his eyes. They literally danced from the woman to the man and back to the woman and when they landed on Tiffany the second time, they lingered so long it made her uncomfortable. As Hammer continued to stare, much like a wolf sizing up a lamb, the woman shifted her gaze to something that didn’t have to beg for attention. In his right hand, the retired mobster held a forty-five Colt automatic.

  “I’m guessing you’re not here to sell insurance,” Hammer finally announced. While his voice was raspy and thin, his gun hand was rock steady. Sick or not, this man was not going to be a pushover.

  “No,” Garner admitted, seemingly ignoring the weapon and what it had the power to do. “In truth, we need some information.”

  The old man grinned, “Call the operator. I still don’t give information to cops. And I’m guessing that’s what you are. Cops have a smell all their own.”

  “I’m a private investigator,” Garner corrected Hammer.

  “Well, not quite as bad,” the man cracked, “but I still don’t really have anything you’d want to know. My glory days were a long time back. So . . .”

  “Mr. Hammer,” Tiffany piped up. When she was sure his eyes were again locked on her, she continued. “My name is Tiffany Clayton and I’m a newspaper reporter.”

  “I recognize your name,” he answered with a smile. “I’ve read your stuff in The Star, but I always pictured you as more of a fat broad.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” she returned.

  “I didn’t say I was disappointed,” he quipped, “just surprised. They’d sell a lot more newspapers if they put your picture on the front page. You are one ripe tomato.”

  Tiffany forced a smile before pleading her case. “Mr. Garner and I are trying to solve a mystery of two recently murdered people who were a part of a 1926 murder case in Little Italy, as well as the dea
th of one more man who might have been tied to that case. We believe the person executed in that 1926 case was not guilty, and the murders that are happening now are tied to the fact that the state killed an innocent man.”

  “You are one wordy broad,” the old man noted. “Besides, if the guy’s been executed, what difference does it make? You can’t bring him back.”

  “But,” Tiffany cut in, “maybe what you tell us can stop some innocent people from being killed. You don’t hit me as the type who likes to see folks murdered that don’t deserve to die.”

  His mode suddenly changed. Hammer scratched his head with his free hand, shrugged, moved to one side of the door, and pointed with the Colt to a burgundy couch on the far side of the room. As the two stepped out of the cold, the old man shuffled over to a well-worn, green overstuffed chair, sat down, and then covered his lap with a green, red, and tan Indian blanket. Once settled, his eyes followed his uninvited guests until they took their positions. Only when Tiffany pulled out a small notepad and pen did he speak.

  “I’m dying,” he began. “Have been for a long time. I’m seventy-six and have been shot five different times, and yet, the bullets didn’t get me. So I spent most of my life feeling like . . .” he snapped his fingers before adding, “What’s that comic book kids are always reading? There’s a daily radio show that spills out the guy’s adventures, too.”

  “Superman?” the reporter chimed in.

  “Yeah, that’s it. I felt like Superman. I thought nothing or no one could hurt me. And then a few months ago, I found out that something I can’t see is going to take me down for the count. Now ain’t that a kick?”

  “We’re sorry,” Tiffany said.

  “Don’t be,” Hammer snapped, “I didn’t deserve to live this long anyway. I’ve done some bad things in my life. If I were a Catholic, my confessions would cause priests to have strokes. I am well aware that my life, the mud I rolled in, is why I’m alone today. I’ve got no wife, no kids, and the friends I have require me to answer the door with a loaded weapon. Let’s not even talk about my enemies; there are enough of them to make an army unit.”