Murder in Disguise

by Mary Miley

  ‘I would. Tell me, were there many people at the service?’

  ‘Ah, no. Seven or eight men from factory. It was said to me that he come here after war is over and work at Moon Motors. Not so many people know him. No wife, no children, no family. Only your mother. It is often so with immigrants.’

  ‘All the people who came to the service were men?’

  ‘Yes. No women, no children.’

  ‘Who paid for the burial?’

  ‘One man say he was distant cousin. He pay for coffin and donate to church for prayers. If he cannot pay, we still …’ He waved his hand to show that lack of money would not have prevented the funeral from taking place. I understood – vaudeville has more immigrants than native-born performers. Far from home, immigrants from the same country stick together for comfort, especially in death.

  ‘Do you remember the cousin’s name? I’d like to find him and talk to him.’

  ‘His name also is Jovanovitch. Victor, I think. Kind man, brown hair, brown eyes, looks like Jovanovitch, but younger. Perhaps cousin, perhaps same name but not very related. Jovanovitch is common name in Serbia, you know this? Perhaps your mother will know who is young man.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  I was piling up information, but none of it seemed unusual or particularly revealing. A shadowy immigrant community that looked after its own. A lone male who had lived in St. Louis since the end of the war. A young man who paid out of his own pocket for the funeral. The priest walked me out behind the church to the small graveyard where I learned nothing more. I thanked him, returned to the taxi, and set off toward Moon Motors, where Al Jovanovitch had met his maker.

  We pulled up to the five-story, red-brick building that housed the main factory, a factory, said my driver, where the Moon brothers had churned out carriages not so many years ago. He let me off at the entrance with a cheerful, ‘Take your time, miss. I’ll be here when you come out.’

  I replaced my cheery smile with a somber expression befitting my mission and greeted the middle-aged secretary at the front desk. ‘Hello, Miss Schmidt,’ I said with a glance at her name plate, ‘I’m Miss Jane Darling, come all this way from Toronto on behalf of my mother to learn about her brother’s death here last September. He was Al Jovanovitch.’

  Her brown eyes got big as plates. ‘Oh, gosh! That was an awful day! I remember!’ After dithering about her desk for a minute, she made a telephone call and moments later, another secretary came out of the elevator in a breathless flurry.

  ‘How do you do, Miss Darling. Mr Edward Nestor, our vice-president, would like to see you in his office, if you’ll follow me.’

  I expected to have to prove myself to someone at some point during this process, but everyone at Moon Motors seemed trusting to the point of naïveté. I gathered not many workers were murdered at the factory and the event had been distressing, not to mention embarrassing. Mr Nestor had been one of the men at the funeral. He was bent on describing the service in detail, and I let him.

  ‘Father Jokovic told me a young man paid for the coffin,’ I said, when I could get a word in edgewise. ‘Another man who was also named Jovanovitch. Was he employed here too?’

  ‘No, but I remember that man, only because he was the one person at the graveside who did not work for me.’

  ‘I’d like to find him. I know Jovanovitch is a common name in Serbia, but he may indeed be a relative, and my mother would appreciate it if I could talk with him.’

  Mr Nestor put on a pained expression. ‘I’m very sorry, Miss Darling. I had never seen this man before. The others at your uncle’s funeral I knew – they came from the factory – but this man was unfamiliar to me.’

  ‘I’ve been to my uncle’s apartment, which of course has been let to another family, but I was wondering what had become of his personal effects. Did anyone you know collect his belongings?’

  Now Mr Nestor’s eyes narrowed, and I fancied he wondered for the first time about my motives. To put his mind at rest, I hastened to add, ‘I’m sure he didn’t have much of value, a few dollars, perhaps, and some clothing, and it doesn’t matter where those things went, but I was hoping to come home with some family items that would comfort my mother. Photographs or letters or some family keepsakes.’

  His brow cleared. ‘I never gave a thought to his personal belongings. This other Jovanovitch must have taken care of that.’

  ‘Might I speak with the men from the factory who attended the funeral with you?’

  ‘One was our president. He’s in Chicago, but he didn’t know your uncle personally, so I don’t believe he would have anything to add. The other men worked on the floor with him.’ He rose to signal my dismissal. ‘I’d take you there myself, but I have a meeting in a few minutes, so if you don’t mind, I’ll get my assistant to escort you to the floor.’ He pressed a button on his desk. The buzzer brought an earnest young man into the office. Thin and shy, with an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball, he looked like someone I could manipulate to my advantage.

  ‘This is Raymond Fletcher. Raymond, Miss Darling here is the niece of Al Jovanovitch, the man who was killed in September. Please escort her to the factory floor and introduce her to anyone who knew her uncle, especially to those who attended his funeral.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He nodded at me and swallowed hard, as if gathering courage for the ordeal ahead. ‘This way, Miss Darling.’

  Into the bowels of the beast we went, assailed by fumes, sparks, and a deafening din. It was different only in degree from a film studio back lot, with workers hauling equipment to and fro, lifting large pieces of metal with ceiling pulleys, soldering, hammering, banging metal onto metal, shouting, and swearing. Dodging sparks and covering my ears, I threaded my way through the stations in Raymond Fletcher’s wake, removing my hands each time he stopped to comment. Even so, I could barely make out his words above the noise, and I soon realized I was watching his lips to get the gist of his remarks – something about Lockheed hydraulic brakes and six cylinders. ‘… seven thousand vehicles last year … on target for ten thousand this year …’ I pretended to care.

  Finally, we reached the far side of the floor where Fletcher motioned for two men to leave off what they were doing and follow us to a sheltered, slightly quieter spot against a brick wall where he made introductions. The men worked in grease-stained undershirts that left their powerful arms and shoulders bare. One pulled a soiled handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face and blackened hands. Cleaned up and dressed in colorful tights, either one could have been the Strong Man at the circus. If Al Jovanovitch had been this muscular, he would not have been easy to kill with fists or knives. It would take a gun.

  ‘Finney here worked with your uncle, Miss Darling, and went to his funeral. So did Schwartz.’ The two men gave me solemn nods.

  I gave them my spiel about Toronto. ‘I’m hoping you can tell me what happened that day, the day he was killed.’

  The two exchanged glances that seemed to ask who would speak first. Finney won. ‘It happened right over there,’ he said, pointing to a line of automobile bodies, each one with three men working on it. ‘Schwartz and me were there, working with your uncle. With Al. We weren’t paying attention to nothing but the cars. Then there was this man beside us. Don’t know where he come from. Outta thin air. He looked at Al and shouted something foreign that only Al understood.’

  ‘Serbian,’ said Schwartz.

  ‘Yeah, Serbian. Then he was holding a gun. I didn’t see him take it out; it was just there in his hand. He shot Al three times in the chest, bang, bang, bang. No one looked over at us because the noise drowned out the shots. We was both so shocked, we didn’t move quick enough to grab him, and he got away.’

  ‘I was on the other side of the car,’ said Schwartz. He seemed embarrassed that he’d been so ineffectual.

  I looked at the place where Jovanovitch had died, almost expecting to see some remnant of the violence. But any blood on the floor was long gone.

  �
�What did the shooter look like?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing special,’ said Finney. ‘Shorter than me, not a big guy.’

  ‘The police asked us that question later on, and all I could remember was he wore a cap,’ said Schwartz, ‘and had a mustache and beard.’

  ‘No, no beard,’ corrected Finney, ‘just a mustache.’

  ‘I say he had a beard,’ insisted Schwartz. Finney shook his head.

  ‘Did my uncle recognize him?’

  ‘Didn’t seem to. He understood the words the fella shouted, though. The words made him look sick. Afraid. Like he knew the man was gonna kill him even before he saw the gun.’

  ‘Who else saw him? Did the woman at the front desk notice anything when he came in?’

  ‘She told the police he didn’t come in that way.’

  ‘How did he get inside then?’

  Schwartz shrugged. ‘There’s other doors. Like over there.’ He pointed across the room. ‘Then he ran off. He ran that way and went into the johnny. Me and Finney followed, careful-like because he’s got a gun. We thought we’d trap him in the johnny until the police came. But just after he ran in, the cleaning woman ran out. She was in there cleaning. She tripped over her bucket and mop, screaming like the devil was after her, saying a man with a gun was climbing out the window. We went in then, careful-like, and the window was wide open. He was gone.’

  We walked to the men’s lavatory to have a look. Fletcher made sure no one was inside before he held the door open for me. The small room held two water closets on one side and a white enamel trough with spigots on the other. A double sash window opened onto an outdoor alley. An average-size man could have put his knee on the sill and jumped outside in a matter of seconds. We returned to the quiet spot against the wall.

  ‘I was hoping to learn a little about Uncle Al’s life here in St. Louis to tell my mother. Did he have any lady friend? Did you know him very well outside of work?’

  Finney said, ‘Him and me went drinking on Saturdays with some of the boys. We’d go to the fights. He liked the girls but he didn’t have no particular one. Never said anything about any family, except that he’d left all that behind in Serbia. He’d been in the war there.’

  ‘Was he new to St. Louis?’

  ‘Not so new. I think he been living here eight or ten years, he said.’

  ‘He worked at Moon Motors all that time?’

  ‘No, he worked here about … what, maybe five or six years? Before here he worked at another car factory. I don’t know which one; there’s lots in this city. And once he mentioned New York. But most foreigners come through New York, so that don’t mean nothing.’

  ‘Did he make any enemies? Was there some reason someone would want to kill him?’

  Finney shrugged his shoulders. ‘I didn’t know anybody who had a grudge against him. He was a good man to have at your back in a dustup, though, that I can say for sure!’

  ‘Did he have any debts?’

  ‘Not that he talked about. He played the ponies some, like everybody. Bet at the fights. Didn’t go in for cards much.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to his things? He must have had personal belongings at his apartment. I’m sure my mother would like to have any photographs or keepsakes.’

  The men shook their heads. ‘Never thought to ask,’ said Schwartz.

  ‘So you don’t know who got his things?’

  Finney turned to Schwartz and said, ‘You think it coulda been that man at the funeral, the one that didn’t work here?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Who was that?’ I asked.

  ‘Dunno his name, just that he didn’t work here.’

  ‘Someone must have paid for the coffin. Do you know who?’

  ‘Dunno. The priest, I think.’

  I turned to Fletcher, who had remained silent throughout most of this exchange. ‘I wonder if I might talk with the woman who was cleaning that day.’

  Fletcher shook his head. ‘She doesn’t work here anymore. She stayed long enough to give the police her story, then she quit, so afraid she was.’

  ‘Do you know where I might find her?’

  If he thought it curious that Al’s niece wanted to question the cleaning woman, he didn’t say so. ‘No’m I don’t. Her name was Hilda Something-or-other, but she hadn’t worked here long. A couple of weeks. The police said they didn’t need her any more, so she picked up what was owed her and never came back. Can’t say as I blame her for being scared, but nothing like this ever happened before at Moon Motors.’

  Pressed, Fletcher checked with a secretary about any employment records for Hilda, but she told us she threw out the file after a person had left. She remembered Hilda as ‘a quiet woman and a good worker. I tried to persuade her to stay, but she was that frightened, she couldn’t.’

  My driver took me next to the public library where I paged through a copy of the most recent city directory, looking for the cousin, Victor Jovanovitch. No such person was listed. It was possible, even likely, that he didn’t live in St. Louis but had come in for the funeral, in which case I’d have not the slightest chance of tracking him down this way. Another dead end.

  SIXTEEN

  So what was I supposed to make of all this? As I boarded the late afternoon train to begin the three-day trip home, I looked forward to sinking into the gentle rhythm of the rails and sifting through my thoughts to discover a nugget among the sludge in the prospector’s pan. I was determined to avoid thinking about David and the last time I’d traveled on this train. With him. But the monotonous clickety-clack of the wheels and the endless scenery blowing past the other side of the window turned my thoughts loose and I couldn’t help but slide back in time.

  A greeting from a porter as he passed me pulled my thoughts back to the present. What would I tell Carl Delaney when I got home? I needed time to wander behind the facts to find the hidden truths.

  Carl would surely agree with me that these three murders were related, even though they had occurred hundreds or thousands of miles apart. The three men killed were Serbian immigrants of similar age. They were acquainted. Whether you could call them friends depended upon your definition of that word, but they hadn’t been in touch with one another for many years. The death of one had sparked a reconnection. Each was shot three times with a handgun. Each was killed at his work place, not at home or in the street, which would have been safer for the killer. In fact, it seemed to me that the killer wanted an audience or he’d have chosen to waylay his victim in a dark alley.

  The New York cook, Jeton Ilitch, and the St. Louis factory worker, Al Jovanovitch, had been in the army. As soon as I got home, I would ask Barbara Petrovitch if her husband Joe had served in the army too, but I was pretty sure her answer would be yes. The question was, which army? While many immigrants served in the American army during the Great War, it didn’t seem possible that Al Jovanovitch had been among them – his friends said he’d been living in St. Louis for about ten years and before that, in New York for an unspecified length of time. Even counting his time in New York as only one year, that made eleven, and counting back eleven years put us at 1913. America hadn’t joined the Great War until 1917. I wasn’t likely to get any more information about the New York cook’s death, but I could see what Barbara had to say about Joe and when he arrived in this country. If she knew the answers. Maybe he had some immigration papers from Ellis Island stashed in a drawer somewhere.

  Al Jovanovitch and Jeton Ilitch could have served in a European army before they came to America. A Serbian one, perhaps? Everyone knew a Serb named Princip had pulled the trigger in Sarajevo that started the Great War in 1914, but I wasn’t sure which side Serbia had taken in that fight, the Allies or Central Powers? According to his friends, Al Jovanovitch was in America by then. Of course, there was always the possibility that he had lied about his military service when he came to America. He wouldn’t be the first man to claim wartime experience that he’d never had.

  I wondered how the t
hree men knew each other. Had they met in New York in the Serbian community, or had they been friends back in the old country? Were they distantly related? Had they come to America together, or had one come first and sponsored the others? I’d heard you needed an American sponsor and the promise of a job before authorities would let you off the boat at Ellis Island.

  Something else was picking at me. The killings had a theatrical quality to them. In each case, the killer – who was surely the same average-looking person – had walked onto the scene in a crowded place, shot his victim, and slipped away. There was nothing impulsive about these killings. They were not the passionate actions of a cuckolded husband or a jealous lover. They were meticulously planned. The murderer must have scouted the places in advance; otherwise he would not have known how to make his getaway through a bathroom window, out the back door of a kitchen, or into the balcony. He knew where his victims worked and he had visited the places at least once to learn the lay of the land. Perhaps he’d even passed by his victims in the process. That required cold-blooded nerve.

  I was pondering the killer’s motive when it hit me – what if he had no motive? No personal motive, that is. What if the three Serbs had been involved in bootlegging, helped themselves to some of the boss’s profits, and done a flit? Big city gangsters made it a point of pride to avenge disloyalty in highly public and vicious ways in order to intimidate others. The average-looking murderer who bumped off the three Serbs could have been a button man sent to kill them in a showy way that would make the newspapers and reverberate back home in New York or Chicago or Detroit. What would Carl say to that idea? It made a lot of sense. If true, there would be no chance to bring the killer to justice. Gangs always protected their killers with rock-solid alibis, threats to witnesses, or payoffs.