Crossings (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 2)

by Robert Bruce Stewart

  “Semantics. She lived with him as his wife.” Then, just as I was about to fall asleep, she added, “Mrs. Ertel was acquitted.”

  I had several arresting dreams that night. In the morning, I tripped over the one box Emmie had managed to pack the evening before. Somehow, it had migrated to the foot of the bed. When I went into the kitchen, Emmie was there with Dorothy. Emmie’s eyes were red from crying. And Dorothy was looking at me as if it was now confirmed: I was a wife beater of the worst sort.

  We sat down to breakfast, and the tears started up all over again.

  “You’re so cruel, Harry.”

  Dorothy had gone to extra effort to serve me a meal that was even more unappetizing than usual. Both my flanks had been turned. If I didn’t want to be routed completely, a strategic withdrawal was in order.

  “All right, Emmie,” I said. “You can help on the case, if you agree to show restraint.”

  “Restraint in what way?”

  “Well, for instance, I don’t want to have to look about every ferry I get on to see if you’re following me.”

  “All right, Harry.”

  Her recovery wasn’t immediate, but by the time she came back from dressing she was her usual self. We took a Park Row car over to Manhattan together. On the ride I told her most of what she didn’t know. I described the poolrooms and resorts, but emphasized their all-male clientele. And needless to say, the Frauenverein went unmentioned. I asked Emmie to check the marriage and death records of Farrell and Barclay, getting whatever details she could.

  “Why are they important, Harry?”

  “I’m not sure they are, but we won’t know until you check. And remember, Emmie. No following me. I’ll be home for dinner and we’ll discuss things then.”

  “All right, Harry. But can’t we meet for lunch?”

  “No, I’m not sure where I’ll be.”

  Then we split up and I went down William Street, but when I got to the Bureau, I decided not to go up. I needed to think and I couldn’t do that with Little and Cranston in the room. So I strolled down to Whitehall and then took the ferry out to South Brooklyn and back.

  The problem with this case was that there were just too many coincidences. If Farrell and Barclay were killed for their insurance, then either their wives killed them or, more likely, had them killed. But that didn’t explain why the insurance would have to come from the same agent who lived across the river in Brooklyn. One explanation would be that William Huber was involved in some sort of scheme to relieve wives of husbands they’d grown weary of. But why use the same insurer? If the policies had been with different insurers, the case would have been closed with Huber’s suicide. Huber must have needed to use the same company. Why? Because he needed someone else to go along with him. The doctor.

  The one flaw with all of this was that while Huber had his faults, it seemed quite a leap from cheating on a college exam to participating in a scheme that led to multiple deaths. Of course, that made the gambling-debt theory even more likely. He needed money and somehow this opportunity presented itself. Maybe he was told the men were dying anyway and this was just the only way they’d be able to get insurance—if an agent and doctor covered up. He saw it as helping some widow. Then when he read about Barclay’s death, he knew. He couldn’t bear the guilt, and didn’t want to shame his family by exposing it.

  It was pretty contorted, but at least provided explanations. The alternative, that Huber just happened to meet Farrell and Barclay and then they both just happened to die in similar accidents—around the time he commits suicide—never was too easy to swallow.

  Back on land, I went up to the office and phoned Tibbitts. I was suddenly anxious to meet the girl he had spoken of the day before. There were certain parallels between the divorce racket he told me of and my hypothetical insurance racket. He was out and I left a message. Then I called Ratigan and asked him to check out Dr. Dibble. I went to lunch and came back to find a message from Tibbitts saying he was headed out again, but would be at his desk at six o’clock. Then I went up to Roosevelt Street. As I waited for the ferry, I scanned the crowd. I saw a woman a ways back who seemed to be likewise scanning the crowd, only she had opera glasses. When she finally walked off, she did so with a distressingly familiar gait. But I didn’t see her get on the boat. They were stringing the first cables between the towers of the new bridge and when we landed I had to wade through the crowd of onlookers. Then I took a car back out to East Williamsburg and the Tammany Club.

  I was a member now and saw several familiar faces. The small talk came easier and I had a long chat with a fellow who knew old Mr. Huber. It entailed listening to a lot of anecdotes about the old neighborhood, but eventually I brought the conversation back to William’s death. This fellow’s theory was a lost love.

  I rode the car back to the river and then went up to Greenpoint to the place where they had remembered Barclay. I was one of the fraternity now and even got a few tips, one of which paid off at fourteen to one. I brought up William again with a couple fellows and one told me he’d heard a rumor it was gambling debts that brought him to suicide. But I had a nagging sense the rumor he was repeating might have started with my poking around these places asking about Huber’s gambling. I may have become an impediment in my search for the truth, but at least the tips paid off. I was up $80 for the day. Feeling celebratory, I stopped by the Carleton House to buy a round or two for the fellows. Then, at six, I phoned Tibbitts.

  “I was wondering if you had spoken with that young lady you mentioned?”

  “Yeah. Elizabeth Custis. She lives over in Williamsburg now. Just tell me where and when you want to meet her.”

  For the lack of anything better, I named the dining room of the Carleton at one the next afternoon. When I arrived home, Emmie told Dorothy she could go and we sat down to dinner. But Emmie was too excited to eat.

  “Christopher Farrell and Anna Corbin were married in February, 1891, at the courthouse. The witnesses were Thomas Cassidy and Wilmont Smith. His death certificate read that he died by decapitation.”

  “I guess you don’t need an autopsy when the head is lying a few feet from the body.”

  “No, I suppose not,” she agreed. “It was signed by a Dr. James Symes. I looked him up, and he is at Roosevelt Hospital. Robert Barclay and Eliza Handford were married just two years ago at the Chapel of the Incarnation. The witnesses were Mrs. Barclay’s sister and brother-in-law, Cynthia and Edward Howell.”

  “How did you know Cynthia Howell was her sister?” I asked.

  “I looked up the Howells’ records as well. Her maiden name was also Handford. And they were married in the same church just a few years earlier. Barclay’s death certificate listed the cause of death as a fracture of the skull. It was signed by a Dr. Wallace Parmalee. He’s a police surgeon. How does any of that help, Harry?”

  “Well, I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. One thing worth noting is that the Barclays were married while the bucket shop was in operation. So she must have known about it. And not too long after, he served his four months. That’s probably when Mrs. Barclay moved in with her sister. And began having an affair with Howell. Then, when Barclay got out, he moved in, too. Must have seemed a little crowded.”

  “Maybe his moving in was Mrs. Howell’s idea? To put an end to the affair.”

  “If that was the idea, it didn’t work,” I said. “It was later that Howell was exiled to his club.” Then I told Emmie my theory about there being a ring that conspired to rid the world of unwanted husbands.

  “I was thinking along the same lines, Harry. That’s why I went to visit Mrs. Farrell.”

  “What do you mean you went to visit Mrs. Farrell?”

  “Well, it just seemed likely these men were killed for their insurance money, so I thought I should see what their wives were like.”

  “You agreed to show restraint, Emmie.”

  “I did, Harry. I was done at the Hall of Records well before noon. What was I supposed to d
o for the rest of the day?”

  “Come home and pack?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you, Harry? I hired a man to do the packing and moving. He said his men could do it in just a couple days.”

  “What did you tell Mrs. Farrell? That you’re the inquisitive wife of an insurance man and wanted to know the dark secrets of her life?”

  “Don’t be a gink, Harry. I told her I was an agent from the Widows Aid Society.”

  “Is there a Widows Aid Society?”

  “How on earth would I know that? Well, I told her we stop by and just make sure the widows are provided for. She said she had nothing. The neighborhood merchants were beginning to deny her further credit, and the landlord said she’d need to find a new place if she couldn’t pay the rent. I asked if she hadn’t received any insurance benefits. She said she probably would never get them. Why, I asked. Bad luck was all she would say. And she didn’t have any kind words for the late Mr. Farrell. Then she started crying about her state, and I gave her five dollars.”

  “That was very generous, Emmie.”

  “Well, as you’ll see, not so very,” she said. “I found it rather perplexing. From the way she spoke of her husband, it seemed likely the idea of killing him for his insurance would have had more than a little appeal to her. But she seemed resigned to never seeing the money. What do you make of all that, Harry?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe she just realizes the company is suspicious. But if there is a ring she conspired with, maybe she expects that they’ll take most of the $5,000 as a payment. They might have had a lot of mouths to feed. If you assume Farrell wasn’t aware the policy was written, they’d need a willing agent to write the policy and a doctor to write up a medical report for a visit that never took place. Then there’s whoever did the actual killing. And finally, the biggest piece of it would go to the ring’s leader. There might not be much left for the poor widow.”

  “But then what would be her motive? She would have deliberately driven herself into the poorhouse. She would have needed to really despise her husband.”

  “Perhaps he had a habit of humming the same tune, day after day.”

  “Perhaps,” Emmie smiled. “Next I went by the Howells’. I asked the girl for Mrs. Barclay, but she was out. So I asked to speak with her sister and she came to the door. I explained who I was, or who I was pretending to be, at any rate. And she went away and came back with ten dollars. I told her that she had misunderstood. That I came by to see if her sister needed anything. She said no, definitely not. She thanked me for my concern and then graciously, but purposefully, sent me on my way.”

  “But you kept the ten dollars?”

  “Well, I thought I needed to, to maintain my subterfuge.”

  “Sounds like a nice racket, Emmie.”

  “Yes, I thought so, too,” she agreed. “Didn’t you say Barclay was insured for much more than Farrell?”

  “Yes, fifteen thousand.”

  “So there would be substantially more money to achieve the same objective. I mean, there would still be the one agent, the one doctor, the one killer, and the one ring leader. There would have been much more left over for Mrs. Barclay.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And there was a second policy, for two thousand dollars—probably written when they were married.”

  “But why wouldn’t Mrs. Farrell just have had a policy made out for some higher amount also? Assuming the price of the killing was the same, if she had had a policy for fifteen thousand, she’d now have at least ten thousand dollars.”

  “Huber would have wanted to have the policies written for as little as possible. Five thousand was a lot for a policy on someone like Farrell. Not so much for a successful salesman maybe, but Farrell wasn’t all that successful, at least from appearances. Barclay was a stock broker. A fifteen-thousand-dollar policy on a stock broker isn’t extraordinary. It could also be the ring charged more for people of a higher social position.”

  “There is one other question,” Emmie said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I didn’t meet Mrs. Barclay, but assuming she isn’t terribly unlike her sister, I find it rather hard to fathom how her social circles overlapped with Mrs. Farrell’s. How would this ring publicize its services in a way which would be known to both the ladies in question? Or even publicize their services at all?”

  I had a theory on this point, but I was damned if I was going to voice it to Emmie. So I just agreed it was puzzling.

  The next morning, I asked Emmie to look into Barclay’s employment at Haight & Jensen.

  “Howell works there, and presumably that’s how Barclay got the job,” I said. “But I think there must be something else to it. One idea someone offered me is that Haight & Jensen wanted to develop their list of women clients.”

  “How should I go about it, Harry?”

  “Why ask me? You’re the master of disguise. Use your imagination.” Of course I regretted saying those words as soon as they left my lips. Emmie didn’t need to be encouraged to deploy her all-too-fertile imagination, and to do so was surely courting trouble. I had only wanted to keep her engaged on the Manhattan side of the river.

  I began my day by visiting Perkins at Sovereign Mutual. I told him about Huber’s gambling and the possibility that that had something to do with his suicide. He was flipping the letter opener and the pace seemed to quicken as I spoke. When I told him that I hadn’t been able to link Huber to the other two men, the pace slowed down again. I didn’t mention my theory about a ring of conspirators. I didn’t think his fingers were up to it. I simply told him I wanted to go through the procedures involved in writing and recording the policies. He left the room for a minute and I took the opportunity to hide the letter opener beneath his blotter. He returned with a young fellow named Jenks whom he assigned to walk me through the various steps.

  And he did, in painful detail. I wasted most of the morning over there, but I did learn the answer to the most important question I had—how the doctor was chosen. Arrangements with the doctor could be made either by the agent or by Sovereign. In small towns, it was usually the agent who took care of it. But in New York, doctors were usually, but not always, assigned from the head office, after the application had been received. An agent could always do so, if he chose a doctor from the list Sovereign maintained. In other words, to make sure their doctor got the assignment, the ring merely had to make sure Huber did the assigning. In the cases of Barclay and Farrell, the files indicated he had sent the forms to Dibble. I left there for Roosevelt Street and the ferry—and saw no sign of Emmie.

  8

  I sat down in the Carleton’s dining room at about five minutes to one. I had taken a table toward the back of the dining room, from which I could see the lobby. I wanted to see how familiar Miss Custis was with the Carleton. Tibbitts had spoken enthusiastically about her, and I had no trouble spotting her. She was a fairly tall, attractive blonde. And from the way she looked around when she entered the lobby, I’d say it was her first visit here.

  I rose and she came over and we introduced ourselves. She asked me to exchange seats with her, as looking into the sunlight bothered her. I happily did so, but from the way she kept peering over my shoulder, it seemed unlikely it was the sunlight that concerned her. The conversation was bound to be difficult, so I tried to make it less so by making use of euphemism.

  “I was wondering, Miss Custis, were your duties while working with Mr. Barclay’s endeavor of the same nature as when you were involved in your more recent… adventure?”

  “You put it so well, Mr. Reese,” she smiled. “My involvement with Mr. Barclay’s endeavor was of a limited nature. I only very rarely visited the parlor itself. You see, I have always had a sort of gift for broadening my social circle. I knew Edith Stauton, whose father had partnered with Mr. Barclay. It was through my friendship with the Stautons that I met Mr. Barclay. He appreciated certain talents of mine, and he made a proposal. It seemed rather an innocent thing. I was merely to speak
eloquently of the pleasures and profits I enjoyed during my visits to his parlor.”

  “Was the future Mrs. Barclay among those with whom you spoke eloquently?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid that’s so, Mr. Reese.” She gave a little frown of self-reproach. “It really is the one action I feel regret over. You see, any money these women lost would not be sorely missed. They would have frittered it away regardless. But with Miss Handford I was doubly deceived.”

  “You were deceived?” I asked.

  “Oh, most decidedly. You see, her resources were as limited as mine. Her father had died and hadn’t made sufficient provision for her. Her sister, Mrs. Howell, was trying desperately to find her a suitable match before her misfortune became known.”

  “And her second deception?”

  “Her profound simple-mindedness. Have you met her, Mr. Reese?”

  “Only briefly, but enough to have noted Mrs. Barclay’s limited faculties.”

  “You’re making me feel guilty, Mr. Reese.” There was another faux frown of a somewhat different nature. “But certainly her sister, who seems to have sole claim on the family’s cerebral legacy, should have found some way to prevent the disaster. Instead, she and her husband seemed to encourage it!”

  “Any idea why?” I asked.

  “I assumed they wanted her out of the house.”

  “Apparently, that didn’t work out. I would have thought Mrs. Barclay might have been a suitable client for your more recent endeavor.”

  “Oh, I suggested it, to Mrs. Howell. But she demurred.”

  “Well, if her sister was having an affair with her husband, perhaps she didn’t want her freed.”

  “Eliza was having an affair with Howell?”

  “Yes. At the time of Barclay’s death, he was staying at his club in penance.”

  “That’s the first I’ve heard of that,” she said.

  “In this more recent endeavor, I understand you had a somewhat greater role.”

  “Yes. I performed that same function, in helping to locate likely clients. But I also aided the investigation itself.”