Hunting a Detroit Tiger

by Troy Soos

  “Harry,” I said. I wasn’t sure how much he liked being called “Slug.”

  He paused from his grooming, looking surprised that I was in the room. I think he’d considered me part of the furnishings. “Yeah?”

  “Is anybody on the team working on the players’ union?”

  He tucked the comb in an inside pocket of his double-breasted suit. “Why? You want to shoot him?”

  “Funny.” I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he’d intended the question as a joke. “Is it Chick Fogarty?”

  “What, are you nuts?” He brushed his lapels and headed for the door. “See you later, kid. If you’re still up.”

  I could have used a beer or two myself, and wished he’d asked me along. Left alone, I elected to stay in for the night.

  I mulled over my meeting with Calvin Garrett. I hadn’t really learned much new from him. Maybe he heard a shot, maybe he saw somebody leave the back door of Fraternity Hall. All I’d accomplished by my visit to the Justice Department was to confirm what Karl Landfors had already told me: that the “Detective Aikens” I’d met at the murder scene was in actuality Calvin Garrett, special agent with the U.S. government’s General Intelligence Division. By talking with Garrett, he now knew that I was aware of his ruse. And he wanted me to help him find out who among the ballplayers were unionizing. On the whole, I thought dejectedly, I probably did myself more harm than good.

  Lying stretched out on my bed, I eventually came around to thinking that it had not been a waste of time. For one thing, it was worth checking that Landfors’s information was correct. For another, Garrett being at the scene meant that the GID was involved in the Siever case to some extent. I was convinced that Garrett had given instructions to the Detroit police to pin the shooting on me, which meant he was part of a cover-up at the very least. The question was: who were they covering up for? And why?

  As the night wore on, my thoughts turned to baseball. They were no more encouraging than the ones about Calvin Garrett. I thought about being benched. And that my 0-for-4 performance against Walter Johnson had sent my batting average plummeting down toward its usual level of .250. About Harry Heilmann not inviting me to go drinking with him. And about playing for a manager who didn’t remember what kind of play to put on.

  I started to think that Lou Vedder was the lucky one, and I began to nurture the hope that I might soon be traded.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Tigers team rolled into Michigan Central shortly after noon on Thursday, May 20. By twelve-thirty, I was back at my apartment; two minutes after that, I was on the phone to Margie. I’d called her every day during the road trip, but hearing her voice over a long-distance connection had a frustrating aspect—it emphasized that she was hundreds of miles out of physical reach.

  That was about to change soon. Our conversation was brief. Margie said that I must be tired from the trip and insisted on coming to my apartment. I argued that I’d rather go to her hotel; I gave in when I realized that the sooner I let her have her way, the sooner we’d be together.

  After a frantic cleanup which even included making the bed, and a trip to the bakery to buy cookies and an apple pie, I truly was tired.

  I’d barely made it back from the bakery when Margie arrived. I told her how much I’d missed her, gave her a one-minute tour of the parlor, forced some cookies on her, and told her again how much I’d missed her. She said she’d missed me, too, found some things to compliment about the apartment, ate one of the cookies, and initiated a long kiss. We then sat down on the sofa, which I’d covered with a blanket to hide the bare upholstery.

  Margie was smiling, and I started to get the sense it wasn’t only because she was happy to see me again. There was always a hint of mischief in Margie’s smile, but today it contained something else as well. In a way she reminded me of—a smirking Karl Landfors.

  “What is it?” I asked. “You’ve been up to something.”

  “The gun that Connie Siever showed us—the one that the police said her father was carrying ...”

  “Yes?”

  “I found out where it came from.”

  “You traced it! How?”

  “Well, I didn’t quite do as you suggested.” She looked toward the kitchen. “Do you have anything to wash these cookies down with?”

  Damn. I’d forgotten to pick up anything to drink. “Beer?” I offered.

  Margie laughed and agreed. After I’d poured us a couple glasses of the Canadian beer Landfors had left me, she went on, “Since it’s such an unusual gun, I thought that instead of starting with the manufacturer I’d start at the other end: see if it was used anywhere.”

  “How?”

  “I went to the Detroit News and talked to one of their crime reporters. He was very nice; he said he recognized me from my movies. I asked him if he remembered any crimes where a Webley-Fosbery was used. He said there was a notorious case two years ago in Grosse Pointe: a former British soldier shot and killed an elderly couple who caught him burglarizing their house.”

  “But what does that have to do with Emmett Siever?”

  “Well, then I went to the County Building to talk with the prosecutor who handled the case—the soldier was convicted and executed this past winter, by the way.”

  Why would I care about him, I wondered.

  She continued, “I told the prosecutor I was writing a movie about the case. He wasn’t much interested in talking to me until I said I was going to make him the hero of the story. Anyway, he let me see the files. And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “The gun that was used was the same one Connie Siever showed us. The serial number matched exactly.”

  Somehow, the weapon had gone from a burglar in Grosse Pointe to Emmett Siever in Fraternity Hall. “But the police must have had that gun in the property room,” I said.

  “Yes. I asked the prosecutor what they did with evidence and he said that’s where it would have gone.”

  “So it was taken from the property room and planted on Siever. It had to be the police who did it—who else would have had access to the gun?”

  “No one.”

  I was astonished at her success. “You did great. ” This was finally starting to come together. I’d figured the GID was covering something up. Now Margie found out who had carried out the cover-up: the Detroit Police Department. But how—

  Margie shifted closer to me and began running her fingernails over my thigh. “I have an hour until I have to leave for the theater.”

  An hour later, she was on her way to the Rex for her show, and I was contentedly asleep.

  Detective Francis “Mack” McGuire looked like a tin soldier that had been left out in the rain. He was the color of rust from his bulky tweed suit to his mass of freckles to his unruly hair.

  Although Detroit was in the midst of a warm spell, the slight detective huddled in his heavy clothes as if still trying to rid himself from the chill of winter. Bright Friday morning sunlight streamed through McGuire’s closed office window, making the room feel like a sauna.

  “Last time you came in,” he said, “you expressed some interest in the Emmett Siever case. I presume that’s the reason you’re here today?”

  It certainly wasn’t to enroll in the police academy. “Yes,” I said. “I found Detective Aikens. Had a nice talk with him.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s with the General Intelligence Division of the Justice Department. That’s where I talked to him—in D.C. His real name is Calvin Garrett.” I paused. “But you knew that.”

  “Did I?”

  “When I told you that ‘Aikens’ had showed me a badge and claimed he was a detective with the Detroit Police, you weren’t curious about who was impersonating a cop. You must have known who he really was.”

  A hint of a smile lifted McGuire’s freckled cheeks.

  “Was it Garrett who told you to plant the gun?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” McGuire’s tone was u
nconvincing.

  “You showed me a photo of Emmett Siever holding a revolver. Turns out that gun was a peculiar one: a Webley-Fosbery automatic. It also turns out that it came from the police evidence room.” McGuire started to protest. I cut him off. “I checked the serial numbers.”

  “You’re thorough,” he said with a smile. “Good quality in an investigator.”

  “I’m not an investigator. I’m a baseball player, and I don’t want to be an investigator. That’s your job.”

  He spread his hands. “I explained to you last time that my hands are tied after a case has been closed.”

  “That’s why you encouraged me to look into it on my own. And why you put such an unusual gun on Siever. You must have had plenty of guns to choose from, but you picked an oddball. You wanted to be caught.” I wasn’t sure if it was because McGuire wanted the real killer found or to spite Garrett in a jurisdictional dispute. When I’d reported the shooting at my apartment to Sergeant Phelan, I’d asked him about the feud between the police and U. S. Treasury agents; he’d told me that there was no way Detroit cops were going to take orders from “feds.” I pressed McGuire on this angle, “You don’t like being told what to do by the GID. Garrett told you to plant a gun on Siever, and you sabotaged him by using the Webley-Fosbery.”

  McGuire’s freckles sagged. “Let’s just say that I think the laws should apply to everyone the same. I don’t like a cover-up for whatever reason.”

  “You’re a fair-minded man.”

  “No, I’m a lazy cop. It’s a helluva lot easier to enforce the laws evenly instead of deciding who should be exempt from them.”

  I was sure that McGuire didn’t think that simply. He must have been breaking some laws or rules himself by telling me what he had and by showing me the photo of Siever. There had to be more to it. I went on to another question. “What kind of gun was it that killed Siever?”

  “According to the official report, you should know that better than anyone.”

  I wished McGuire would stop playing games. “How about according to the autopsy report?”

  “Well, let me see.” He opened a brown folder on the desk and looked over a sheaf of papers. “The bullet was a .38.”

  “What make of gun?”

  McGuire hesitated, then announced, “I gotta go to the can.” He closed the folder and patted it. Then he rose and squeezed his way out of the office.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, I picked up the file and started reading. There had been a .38 slug lodged in Siever’s spine—probably a Colt Special, according to the report. But that wasn’t all. Emmett Siever had been stabbed in the heart. I read a lengthy, technical description of the wound which was summarized: “such as might be produced by an ice pick or similar instrument.”

  Detective McGuire pushed into the room again. In mock anger, he demanded, “What are you doing reading that?” and grabbed the folder from my hands.

  I was reeling from the new information. As he took his seat behind the desk, I gave voice to my thoughts, “You might have covered up for the wrong killer. You thought Siever had been shot, you planted a gun on him, told the papers that I’d killed him in self-defense, and figured that was the end of it.” The date on the autopsy report was two days after Siever died. “By the time he was autopsied and it turned out he was stabbed, it was too late. You couldn’t change the ‘official’ story at that point. Is that another reason you pushed me into investigating—you don’t know who stabbed him?”

  “I don’t know who stabbed him,” McGuire said. “And the medical examiner isn’t certain which wound was the fatal one.”

  “But you do know who shot him.”

  “To say that I know would be stretching it. I wasn’t a witness to the shooting, so how can I say I know for sure?”

  I was getting tired of the way McGuire played around the edges without coming to the point. “Then who do you suspect?”

  He thought a moment. “No,” he decided, shaking his head. “Sharing my suspicions with you would be inappropriate. And like I told you last time, the case is closed.”

  “You also said if I find new information ...”

  “Which you haven’t yet, have you?”

  No, I suppose I hadn’t. It was new for me, but not for McGuire. So far, the detective had already known everything I’d found out. He had given me some more things to think about though. I tried to remember the list of questions I had wanted to ask him on this visit. There was only one more remaining: “Do you know where Leo Hyman was that night?”

  McGuire hesitated again.

  “You can’t have it both ways,” I said. “You can’t push me to do your job for you and then go silent on me when I need help.”

  The freckles twisted themselves into an expression that indicated he felt he could do whatever he wanted. But he chose to answer. “Hyman was at Fraternity Hall.”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  “All I know is that he was questioned there after the shooting.” McGuire stressed the word “know.”

  “Thanks.” I stood to go. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” said McGuire.

  On my way home before going to Navin Field, I felt almost relieved that I’d be riding the pines again. I couldn’t imagine concentrating on the game. My mind was wrestling with the new information I’d learned, trying to make sense of it.

  Why stab somebody and then shoot him—or shoot him and then stab him? Why not simply stab or shoot him repeatedly? The only sensible answer was that there were two killers. Two would-be killers, anyway, one of whom was successful. Okay, so there had to be at least two people involved in the kitting—perhaps three, depending on where Calvin Garrett fit in.

  I also wondered about Leo Hyman: when and where did he come from that night? Maybe he was the man Garrett saw slipping out the back door, and then he went back in through the front. But why would he kill Siever? And why would Garrett cover for him? I could understand if it had been Hub Donner, someone on the same side as Garrett, but not Hyman—why would the GID cover up for a Wobbly?

  When I got home, I called Leo Hyman. “You were going to try to find out where Hub Donner was the night Emmett Siever was killed,” I reminded him.

  “That’s right. Sorry I didn’t get back to you. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but he slipped our tail that night. Don’t know where he was.”

  Damn. “Can we get together tomorrow? My four weeks is up and I want to tell you what I have.”

  “Anything good?”

  “I’ll let you be the judge.”

  “All right.”

  “Where? Not that shack again, please. How about the movie theater?”

  “Stosh only works there on Fridays. You don’t have a game tomorrow, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Want to see one?”

  “Who?”

  “The Stars. At Mack Park.”

  “Sure!” The Stars were Detroit’s franchise in the new Negro National League, and I was curious to see how well they played.

  Hyman gave me directions to his house, and I agreed to meet him at noon the next day. I also made a promise to myself that I would be very careful when I got there.

  Chapter Nineteen

  My walk to Leo Hyman’s house took me into Detroit’s east side, an area called Black Bottom. It looked like something I’d only seen on “the other side of the tracks” in segregated Southern cities. Between Beaubien and Hastings was a shantytown, with dilapidated shacks packed closely together. City trash collectors apparently avoided the area; piles of reeking refuse often blocked my path. As crowded as the housing was, the density of peopte—aimost all of them colored—was higher. Swarms of children in ragged clothing congested the alleys, and groups of men and women gathered on the corners.

  Farther east, the neighborhood improved, although it was still never going to be mistaken for Grosse Pointe. The homes were small, single-family wood dwellings; they were modest, but well maintai
ned. Many had patches of trimmed lawn and a few had window boxes with blooming flowers. On the corners were sturdier brick buildings that housed barber shops, grocery stores, and doctors’ offices. Along the curbs were parked spotless automobiles, almost every one of them a Model T. There were few white faces among the people I passed, and I felt uneasy about being a minority.

  Leo Hyman’s house was on Monroe Street between Riopelle and Orleans. I thought there should have been a quarter moon cut in the front door—the place wasn’t much bigger than an outhouse, and not much prettier, either. Of all the homes on the block, his was the most in need of a paint job and some decoration.

  When Hyman let me in, the first thing I wanted to ask was why he chose to live in this neighborhood. I restrained myself, thinking perhaps he couldn’t afford any better. It probably wasn’t very lucrative to be a professional radical.

  The interior of the house was cluttered but not dirty; wires, mechanical parts, and disassembled machines and instruments were everywhere.

  “Any trouble finding the place?” he asked. Today he wore red suspenders that were barely visible against his shirt.

  “No, the directions were fine. I’ve never been in this area before, though.”

  “Neither has the American Federation of Labor.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re wondering why I live in Black Bottom, aren’t you?”

  “I suppose.”

  Hyman fluffed out his beard and seated himself on a stool in front of a small workbench. “I’m here because this is where the workers are.” With long tweezers, he maneuvered a tiny mast inside a bottle where a miniature ship was under construction. “Negroes have been here since the Civil War—this was the last stop on the underground railroad, you know.”

  “No, didn’t know that.”

  “Got fifty thousand living in the city now and thousands more arriving every year to make automobiles. This is the new work force, and the IWW wants them to join us. I figure if I live among them, they’ll get to know and trust me.”