A Death in Pilsen (A Snap Malek Mystery)

by Robert Goldsborough

  "That son of a bitch? No shit. Well, I guess he'll go to the chair now, huh?"

  "That's assuming he did it," I said quietly.

  "Who the hell else would'a done it?" he demanded as he stuck out his chin and turned to face me.

  "Good question. That's exactly what I've been wondering for the last several days, because my cousin is the last guy in the world who would kill anyone. He's so passive he walks around ants on the sidewalk rather than step on them."

  Voyczek seemed unimpressed. "It's those shy, quiet ones you gotta watch," he spat. "They keep stuff bottled up, and then they explode. Why anybody would want to hurt Eddie beats the hell out of me."

  "Sounds like you knew her pretty well."

  He hunched his shoulders, then let them drop. "'Bout as much as anybody in here. We all liked her. She was lots of fun, and a great singer."

  "Did she ever talk about her husband?"

  "Once in awhile," he said, his tone guarded.

  "I got the impression myself that they were having some problems."

  "Could be. That wasn't none of my business."

  "Of course not. I do know the guy was working a lot of overtime."

  "Leaving her alone in an empty flat every night," Voyczek remarked. "No wonder she came in here so often. The radio is only so much company."

  "Yeah. Empty homes can be damned lonely. I know, I've had that experience. How about you?"

  "Mine might as well be empty," he said without feeling, making circles on the bar with a fingertip.

  "Sorry to hear that."

  Another shrug. "My problem, nobody else's. I'll keep living with it. Have for years."

  "As my old Czech grandmother used to say, 'nobody ever promised that life was going to be a stroll in the park with violins playing.'"

  That brought the trace of a smile from Voyczek. "And my old Czech grandmother, who we lived with for years over on Sacramento when I was growing up, used to get all dramatic and say 'Well, that's it; we're all going to the poor house' whenever the mailman delivered a bill. Yet when she died, we found out she had over thirty grand stashed in about six different accounts in the building and loans along

  Cermak Road. Nobody in the family ever figured out where she got it all, but nobody in the family objected when they got a piece of it, either." "Maybe she robbed banks on the side."

  "Or building and loans along

  Cermak Road," he responded, again with the hint of a grin. "I've got a question," I said. "Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that my cousin Charlie did not kill his wife. Do you have any idea who might have?"

  "Why ask me? She was related to you."

  "That's true, at least by marriage, but I really didn't know her very well, not nearly as well as all of you in here. I only saw her a couple of times, when my wife and I had them over for dinner."

  He rubbed his chin with a calloused hand. "'Fraid I got no idea. Sounds like you're desperate to find somebody that the law can finger."

  "Maybe so," I conceded. "All I know is that Charlie Malek is no killer."

  "Seems from what I've read and heard, the cops think he is."

  "Yeah, I've talked to a few cops about it myself. I know 'em from my line of work with the insurance companies."

  "What do they tell you?"

  "That they think maybe they've got their man. But there's a lot of heat on them right now, what with the Degnan murder and all."

  He made a face. "They trying to pin that one on your cousin, too?"

  "Wouldn't surprise me. Hey, you were probably in here last Wednesday night, the night Edwina was killed. See anything that seemed–I don't know–different? Or anybody who was acting funny?"

  Voyczek screwed up his square face in thought. "Wednesday, let's see…Oh yeah, that was the night I had to mend a leak in the water heater in the basement of our six-flat. I'm the only guy in the building that knows how to fix anything. The landlord, he's worthless. Anything tougher than changing light bulbs, and he's out of his depth."

  "So you didn't stop by here at all that night?"

  "Nope. The damned water heater took me until close to eleven-thirty to fix. By then, I was too damned beat to feel like going any place."

  "Can somebody vouch for you all that time?"

  "I don't–hey, what the hell is that supposed to mean?" he snapped, lifting off his stool.

  "Just a question."

  "Well, I don't like the question, Malek. Who do you think you are, accusing me of…" He didn't finish the sentence, but he did keep glowering at me, his fists clenched on the bar.

  I held up a palm. "Hey, I didn't accuse you of anything, but you might want to think about whether anybody saw you that night, particularly in the early part of the evening, say around six to seven-thirty or so. The police may very well start rethinking Edwina's murder."

  "Damn you! You're willing to do anything to save your pathetic cousin's ass, aren't you? Eddie thought he was…"

  "Was what?"

  The increasing heat of our dialogue caused heads to turn in our direction. "Everything all right here?" Maury asked.

  "Fine, just fine. We're having ourselves a little discussion," I told him.

  "Well, we have always prided ourselves on running a peaceful, friendly establishment, Mister Malek," the bartender and part owner said pointedly. "And we would all like it to stay that way."

  "I couldn't agree more," I responded as the bartender pivoted, answering a bellow for bourbon from the far end of the bar.

  "Now, what were you saying about Edwina?" I quietly asked Voyczek.

  "Nothin'. Forget it."

  "She didn't much like her husband, did she?"

  "Look, Malek, I said all that I'm going to say to you."

  "No, you haven't. I'm not done yet. I think you were in love with Edwina."

  He generated a new glower in my direction. "That's really none of your damn business."

  "I suppose not. But finding who killed Edwina–now that I happen to have made my business. And if you were passionate about her, who's to say that passion didn't take a wrong turn last Wednesday night?"

  Voyczek scowled. "I don't have to sit here and listen to this crap."

  "No, and since you were here first, I'll go and leave you in peace. However, you might keep thinking about what I said. You had better find witnesses who can swear that you were somewhere on Wednesday night other than the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Malek. Good night."

  CHAPTER 15

  After the usual spirited chatter in the pressroom to kick off Wednesday morning, I made my way, also as usual, down one flight to the office of Detective Chief Fergus Fahey. "And how are you this fine morning, Mr. Malek?" Elsie Dugo Cascio bubbled as I strode into her minuscule anteroom.

  "Just what gives you the right to be so cheerful so early in the day?" I muttered with mock grumpiness.

  "Oh dear, did we have ourselves a long night?" she said, putting on her most sympathetic face. "And in answer to your question, I'm always cheerful when I see you. You brighten my little corner of the world just by showing up every day."

  "You take all the fun out of being a grouch," I replied, trying without success to stifle a smile.

  "That's what I'm here for–to take the grouchiness out of grouches."

  "Well, you've got your hands full with the man in there," I said, gesturing to the closed door. "He's a prime candidate for the Grouches' Hall of Fame."

  "Speaking of the man in there, he said you were to just go right in when you got here."

  "Without even knocking?"

  "Without even knocking."

  "I'll be damned. Is the fine old gentleman getting mellow in his twilight years?"

  "Don't let him hear the words 'twilight years'," she said. "He's sensitive enough about his age as it is."

  "As well he should be. But those words shall not pass my lips again," I told her as I opened the door to Fahey's cluttered office.

  "Reporting on time," I told him, dropping into one of his gu
est chairs.

  "Morning, Snap," he said, looking up from an official-looking sheet he was holding. "I've got some good news for you, of a sort."

  "What sort?" I asked as we both lit up Luckies from the pack I had tossed onto his blotter. Just then, Elsie entered with a steaming mug of coffee, which she set down on the corner of the desk in front of me. Fahey waited until she left and had closed the door behind her.

  "Your cousin has been cleared of the Degnan murder," he said. "It has been substantiated that he was at work during the time when she was abducted."

  "Well, I guess that's something," I remarked, "although as far as I'm concerned, the Degnan thing was never in question as far as Charlie was concerned."

  "Right now, you ought to be happy with small favors," Fahey observed.

  "Maybe. Fergus, as I think I mentioned earlier, I've been visiting that bar in Pilsen, Horvath's by name, where Edwina Malek spent a lot of evenings while her husband was working overtime for the gas company. As I also mentioned to you before, it seems there were a lot of guys there interested in her, and it also seems from what I've been able to ascertain that she didn't exactly discourage them."

  "Your point being?"

  "My point being that she apparently was something of a tease, and that she may well have been leading one or more of these guys on. One of them might just have gotten the idea that she was easy and tried something at their apartment while Charlie was out earning time-and-a-half. She held this guy off and maybe ran to the kitchen to get a knife. They fought with it and…" I turned a palm up.

  Fahey ground out the cigarette in his ashtray. "Ever thought of writing detective fiction, Snap?" he asked. "That is one of the most convoluted, improbable scenarios that I've ever heard. You're really, really reaching now."

  "Hey, I don't think that's such a reach."

  "And just how do you propose to get one of these lounge lizards to confess?" he snorted.

  "I haven't figured that out," I conceded. "Besides, I've only talked to two of the four gents who supposedly had the hots for Edwina."

  "Snap, the very fact that the dead woman was apparently a flirt who led guys on actually works against your cousin's case. What better incentive to get violent with a wife than to learn she's cheating on you–or at least acting as if she's cheating? Besides, you know damn well I don't like the idea of your conducting your own investigation."

  "Hey, please feel free to send some of your men to Horvath's to start really questioning these guys. I can supply their names. Shit, why don't you send that hotshot dick of yours, Jack Prentiss, over there to hammer away at them? He's tough as nails, right? Maybe he can pry something out of one of them. I know somebody from the department was in there right after the murder, but whoever it was–maybe Prentiss himself–just asked a few questions and left. That's hardly what I'd term a thorough investigation."

  "Actually, that was Prentiss," Fahey fired back. "The reason he went in there was because a neighbor suggested it was something of a hangout for the dead woman. He found out from the bartender that she was a regular–and the most popular person in the joint to boot."

  "So after this so-called in-depth interview with the barkeep, he left satisfied that Charlie Malek must have been the one to kill this personable, charming woman."

  "Ease off, Snap. Hellfire, you've already done your cousin one good turn by hiring the best damn defense lawyer in town for him. Let McCafferty deal with this. That's his business, for God's sake."

  "Even with McCafferty in Charlie's corner, it's a crap shoot, Fergus. It's too chancy."

  Fahey leaned back and took a drag on his cigarette. "So, what are you going to do next?"

  "I've identified four of the Horvath habitués who were particularly fond, shall we say, of Edwina Malek. I've already talked to two of them, and I plan to visit with the other two, one at a time."

  "I don't like it."

  "As I said, you're welcome to send somebody else over there, even Prentiss again, although I'm going to talk to these others myself anyway."

  "Listen, with the murders of the Degnan girl and those two women, my manpower is already stretched so thin that I've got dicks working double shifts."

  "So what choice do I have, if I want to get my cousin out of this goddamn mess he's in? Fergus, you really think he's guilty, don't you?"

  The grizzled copper fixed his light blue eyes on me.

  "Have you ever known me to work against the best interests of the department, or the public?"

  "No, I haven't."

  "Have you ever known me to bullshit you?"

  "No, again."

  "Well, I'm not about to start now. To answer your question…yes, from everything I've read in the reports and heard, I believe that your cousin killed his wife. But that's not for me–or you–to decide, as you know very well. That's why we've got courts. Now, I can't stop you from going out and conducting your own rogue investigation, although I strongly advise against it.

  "For some strange reason that I've never bothered analyzing, I like you, Snap. I haven't said that to very many other newspapermen over the years–none, that I can recall. But you've grown on me like a barnacle on the hull of a ship. And there's enough trouble in your family now without you going out and mixing it up with a bunch in some second-rate Pilsen saloon. I've seen enough of bar fights to know how tough some of these guys can be–I had to break up a few of those set-tos in my days on the street. I took a few punches, but I gave as good as I got." He leaned back and put his arms behind his head, a signal that he was about to reminisce.

  "I remember once, my partner Mulroy and I had to put down a brawl in a gin mill in Englewood, on Halsted a few blocks south of 63rd, it was. I can still remember it like yesterday–place called Herlihy's.

  "This miserable excuse for a saloon was always giving the precinct headaches–slugfests two, three nights a week. The lieutenant was fed up to here. Well, this one time, we decided we'd had enough. We walked in there in the middle of a melee and Mulroy, he was a big, burly former wrestler, picked up one of the scrappers over his head and threw him through the air against the back bar.

  "At least ten bottles, some of them the best whiskey in the place, ended up broken, as well as the big plate glass mirror behind them. And the guy who got tossed, a mean little bastard, was pretty well cut up and got himself a broken arm out of it. The barkeep went wild, said that we were destroying his establishment."

  "Which you were, of course."

  Fahey allowed himself a slight smile. "Not really. We dared him to make a stink about it, telling him that if he tried to claim we'd done it, we'd just say that's the way we found the place when we walked in. We knew damn well that the lieutenant would back us all the way. The upshot was that we never had to go back in there to break up another fight. It became a nice, peaceful corner bar after that."

  "That must have been way back when, in the dark ages before Prohibition," I said with a grin.

  "Okay, so I'm no spring chicken. Yep, that was just before the Volstead Act kicked in, back in '19, but bar life isn't all that different today. There's always somebody in a dive who's spoiling for a fight. We still see it all the time."

  "But in all the years I hung out at Kilkenny's up on North Clark, I never once saw so much as a scuffle. Well, except for the time back in '38 when Dizzy Dean bailed me out of a tight spot by bouncing a fastball off the noggins of a couple of hoods. Don't believe I ever told you about that episode."

  "No, as a matter of fact you didn't. But you're making my very point for me," Fahey said. "Wherever you go, trouble has a way of following close behind. You could walk into the most peaceful bar in the whole damn state, and before long there'd be a brawl or, at the very least, a shoving match."

  "But Fergus, I am the most peace-loving of men," I told him, holding up my hands in innocence.

  "Right, and I am just a humble parish priest, ministering to my flock. Snap, far be it from me to suggest you're a troublemaker by nature, but you have to admit that
you seem to find ways to get yourself into scrapes."

  "All in the line of duty and in the pursuit of the forces of evil," I said in my best radio-announcer voice.

  "Or in the pursuit of scoops," the chief remarked dryly.

  "Normally, I would agree with you on that point, Fergus, but that's not what's driving me this time around, as I think you know."

  "Yeah, blood relations count for a lot, as I'm aware. You just have to be careful that they don't blind you to realities."

  "If I didn't think Charlie was clean on this, I wouldn't be making such a big deal out of it, Fergus. You know me well enough to realize that."

  "I just don't know what else to tell you," Fahey said, throwing his hands up in a gesture of futility. "You're going to do whatever you want to anyway. All I can say is, for God's sake be careful, will you?"

  "Fergus, I promise to proceed with all due caution. I've grown increasingly fond of myself over the years, and I would like to hang around for a few more decades."

  "Well, that's more time than I'll be allotted," the chief grumbled, putting his head down and leafing through a stack of reports as the signal that I had been dismissed.

  "Wait a minute," I said as I started to get up. "There's something you can do that won't put much of a strain on your overburdened staff."

  "Yeah?" He looked at me, dubious.

  "I'll give you the names of these four guys from the bar, and you can get somebody in Records to run a check on them. That way, we'll at least know something more about their backgrounds. Might bring some interesting stuff to light."

  "Sounds to me like a fishing expedition," Fahey snorted.

  "As an old fisherman, you know that you can't catch anything without dropping your line into the water," I replied.

  "Okay, Snap, I'll humor you on this one," he said, "but only because we go back a long way."

  "That we do," I agreed, writing down the names of the four on a sheet from my notebook. I tore it out and handed it to Fergus.

  He took it from me and went back to studying the top report on his stack of paperwork.

  * * *

  I had not been back at my desk in the pressroom for more than five minutes when I got a call from Liam McCafferty.