Terror at the Fair (A Snap Malek Mystery)

by Robert Goldsborough

  "So of course with your interest in railroading, you came into town on the train, right?"

  "Did we ever," Kimball said. "In adjoining drawing rooms on the Super Chief, no less. Talk about luxury; those Santa Fe folks really gave us the royal treatment. We even got to ride up front in the engine for a while and Walt pulled on the whistle cord several times going across the desert. When we got back to our car, he just sat staring off into space. I've never seen him look so happy."

  Our drinks arrived, and both Disney and I lit cigarettes, he a Philip Morris and me a Lucky Strike. Kimball shot a disapproving look at his boss, then at me, but he said nothing.

  During drinks and our meal, Disney peppered me with questions about Chicago–its politics, its sports teams, and even the Dearborn Street subway, currently under construction. I gave him my thoughts, for what they were worth.

  "Do you feel the city is getting rid of its reputation as a crime capital?"

  "Maybe to a degree," I said, "although the Syndicate's still a force, no question."

  He looked thoughtful. "We understand there's been some bad trouble right here on the grounds."

  "Yes, three deaths." I proceeded to tell them about the circumstances and details of all three. "I can't see any connection among them whatever," I said as Disney torched another Philip Morris. "There's no evidence the same person was involved in each of them. It's a puzzler."

  The filmmaker pursed his lips as if in deep thought, remaining silent for half a minute. "If I were to hazard a guess," he finally said, "it would be one individual is somehow behind all of this mischief. And that individual has a grudge–clearly a most intense one–against railroads."

  "You mean railroads in general?"

  "I'm not about to trust my guess that far," Disney said, "but it's certainly possible. One death at the Rio Grande exhibit, another at the Illinois Central area, and the shooting at the pageant, where all sorts of railroads are represented."

  "Well, one thing is certain," I said. "The people running this show are jumpier than a circus clown on a pogo stick, and with good reason. But enough of this grim news. I'm supposed to be doing a feature on you for the paper. I think it's fair to say you're enjoying your visit, right?"

  "Immensely," the filmmaker said, causing people at nearby tables to turn and look our way. "As Ward told you, these fine folks have pretty much given us the run of the place. I was delighted when they let me drive one engine–the DeWitt Clinton, it's called. Dates way back to the 1830s, so they said. And this is the original train from those days, not a replica like some of the others in the pageant. I found it surprising just how easy the contraption was to operate."

  "What he's really saying," Kimball put in with a wink, "is he didn't derail the darn thing."

  "After your visit here, will you be heading back to Hollywood?"

  "Not right away. We're going to swing by Henry Ford's Greenfield Village over in Michigan. I've got an idea, Mr. Malek, for a sort of amusement park, something that's never been done before."

  "Oh, no, don't get him started on this," Ward Kimball said with a laugh.

  "No, please, go on," I insisted.

  Disney got a dreamy look in his eyes. "These last two days have really helped me decide what I'd like to do. I want to build a new type of park for…well, for kids. Although something adults will enjoy, too. Seeing all these different 'villages' at the fair–a New Orleans neighborhood, an Indian pueblo, a Florida setting, a Wild West town–has really spurred me to get started on this. And maybe I can get some more ideas at Greenfield Village."

  "Sounds pretty ambitious," I observed.

  "Ambitious, yes, it is," he said, nodding. "But it could be great fun, too. Like here, there would be trains. I could see us having one like the old-time western Gold Gulch Central Railroad you've got. I'd also like to have a Main Street with an open-air trolley car. I can picture train rides of one kind and another all over the place in my new park."

  "I warned you not to get him wound up," Kimball said, grinning and wagging an index finger at me. "All the way here on the Super Chief, he talked about a park, and I'm sure he'll also be talking about it all the way back to the West Coast, as well. But that's okay; I'm a good listener. Also, he is my boss."

  After lunch, Phil Muller met us outside the Chessie Club dining car and took some photos of Disney and Kimball. I shook hands with both of them and went back to the pressroom to crank out my feature story on their visit.

  I touched on Walt Disney's Chicago roots, then concentrated on his and Kimball's love of trains and their activities at the fair, particularly Disney's turn at driving locomotives across the stage in the pageant.

  I did not, however, write about his idea for an amusement park. It was clearly a wacky pipe dream floating around in the hyperactive mind of a man who should stick to making animated films.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I probably felt every bit as relieved as the fair's officials when Disney left Chicago for his visit to Henry Ford's famous museum over in Michigan. At least he wouldn't be the target of some madman. At dinner, I filled Catherine in on my meeting with the celebrity from Hollywood.

  "So what was he like?"

  "A decent guy, laughs a lot, seems to really enjoy life."

  "Is he young, old? I've never even seen a photograph of the man, as famous as he is."

  I gave her my assessment, including the part about him resembling what I thought of as a motion picture leading man slightly past his prime.

  "I wonder if he was at all worried about coming here, given what's happened at the fair lately," she mused.

  "If so, he certainly didn't show it. He just seemed so happy to be there. Both he and Kimball are absolutely batty about anything to do with trains, like two little kids who got turned loose in a candy store."

  "Nice to have such a hobby," Catherine said.

  "I suppose. We did talk briefly about the murders. He thinks somebody with a longstanding grudge against railroads is behind them."

  "What does your Mr. Fahey think?"

  "We really haven't talked much about a motive. In fact, with me out at the fair, we don't talk much at all."

  "I'll bet he misses your daily meetings."

  "I think what he really misses more than anything else is the free Lucky Strikes I doled out to him for years. My replacement doesn't smoke and wouldn't deign to feed someone else's habit. But you know, I really do believe Fergus sometimes uses me as a sounding board."

  "It also could be he trusts your judgment," she said as she began to clear the table.

  "Maybe. Or perhaps he just gets lonesome shut away most of the day with piles of paperwork and is glad for a little company, even if the company comes in the form of a wiseacre."

  "I think you should tell him what Walt Disney said."

  "You mean about a grudge against railroads in general possibly being a motive?"

  "Why not?"

  "You're right, why not, although it may already have occurred to him. I'll do it tomorrow. How 'bout you wash the dishes and I'll dry?"

  "I like the offer very much."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The next morning, I dropped into my desk chair in the fair's pressroom and immediately dialed Fergus Fahey's office. "Is he in his chambers this fine summer morning?" I asked Elsie.

  "He is indeed, and in none too good a mood, I might add," she said.

  "Why should this day be different from any other? Think he'll talk to me?"

  "I'd be surprised if he didn't, but we won't know until we try. Hold on."

  "Geez, you call so often it's like you're still working here," the chief grumped when he came on the line.

  "To think I felt you'd be just tickled to hear from me, Fergus. You know how I like to stay in touch with old friends."

  "Is that right? Well, it's not hard to figure out why you're really calling. I'm afraid I don't have any news for you."

  "Ditto at this end. But I do have a couple of thoughts, if you're interest
ed."

  "I'm willing to listen to them, if only to show you just how bad off things are around here."

  "I'll ignore that remark and plunge ahead. First, has anybody checked to see whether the actor who fired the shot and the actor who died had been competing for a role at some local theater?"

  Fahey made a growling sound. "You're suggesting somebody would kill over a part in a play? Snap, you've been reading too many detective magazines. Come back into the real world. Besides, how would that account for the other two deaths?"

  "Okay, I'll admit it seemed like a long shot, but any port in a storm, as they say. Next, what about the theory the killer is somebody who has a grudge against some railroad, or maybe against all railroads?"

  "Now whose theory would this be?" the chief demanded.

  "Nobody's in particular, but what do you think about it?"

  After a long pause, Fahey swore. "Okay, I admit I've played around with that theory, too, and I suppose it's as good as anything else I've heard, although how in God's name you'd ever locate somebody with such a grudge is beyond my simple mind. That last is off the record."

  "Of course it is. Your mind is a lot of things, but simple is not one of them. All right, I just wanted you to know I'm trying to help."

  "So noted. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a commissioner to meet with."

  Next I dialed Hazel, the longest-serving staffer in the Tribune reference room, or morgue, as it is widely known in our business. Each Christmastime, I give her a bottle of her favorite single-malt Scotch, an investment that has paid off many times over. And its cost is not hidden somewhere in my expense account, but comes directly out of my own battered billfold.

  "Good morning, oh noble guardian of the archives," I said when she answered. "I trust your day is going well."

  "I haven't been here long enough this morning for things to be really screwed up yet, Snap. What can I do for you?"

  "I'm so glad you asked. I'm looking for somebody who doesn't like railroads."

  "Doesn't like–oh, right, you're out at the Railroad Fair this summer, aren't you? I suppose this has something to do with all those croakings you've had, huh?"

  "I've always liked your use of the vernacular, Hazel, m'dear. It's so…so you."

  "Aw shucks, Snap, I'm just a simple country girl who got lured to the glamour of the big city from the farmlands of the great state of Nebraska. You can take the girl out of the boondocks, but you can't… Well, you know the rest of the saying."

  "Right. Anyway, here's what I'm looking for: railroad accidents, wrecks, mishaps with fatalities and/or controversy."

  "Just how far back would you like me to go, laddie?"

  "Oh, say twenty years or so."

  "Also, are we confining ourselves to the Chicago area?"

  "Not necessarily, but I think that's where I'll find what I'm looking for–if it's even there at all."

  "I suppose you need the stuff sometime yesterday?" She sighed.

  "Well, let's just say the sooner the better." I gave her my phone number at the fair.

  "Only for you would I do this. I assume you're going to swing by the Tower after I get stuff pulled together."

  "As usual, you assume correctly, Hazel. Have I told you lately what a gem you are?"

  "Can the sweet talk, buster. I'm on the case for you, although heaven knows, it may take a while. I do have a few other duties around here from time to time, you know."

  "Ah, but you love these special assignments. They add spice to your day."

  "Your definition of 'spice' is interesting, Snap. Sometime, you ought to spend a few hours here diving into file drawers, poring through grubby envelopes, and pulling out yellowed clippings that look like they're about to come apart in your hands. It's really exciting, yes sir, it is."

  "Now, Hazel, there's no call for you to get sarcastic. Consider you may very well be furthering the cause of justice."

  "I'll hold the thought close to my heart. Sorry to cut this delightful conversation short, but I have those other duties I mentioned, strange as that may seem to you."

  I excused her with profound thanks and prepared for my next interview, with the man who operated the thirty-five-foot Paul Bunyan robot at the Chicago & North Western Railway exhibit.

  The robot moved, shook hands, and talked about its exploits as a fabled lumberjack in the great northern forests of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Upper Michigan, regions where the railroad operated. With the fair's run not yet half over, I saw myself running out of story ideas.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I have been spending time lately walking along the shore, Papa. So much of the fair runs right down to the water's edge, and in the case of the Cypress Gardens Thrill Show, Lake Michigan itself gets to have a starring role. It is now the moment for the grand old lake to play a bigger part in our own plans, too, yours and mine. The next time you hear from me, you will understand what I mean and I know you will applaud my actions…

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  To my pleasant surprise, the "voice" of Paul Bunyan turned out to be an entertaining interview. The old fellow, named Nils Ericsson, had himself been a lumberjack, hewing away in the forests of Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota beginning in the early years of the century.

  Ericsson, who looked like he could still swing a mean axe, seemed a born storyteller, and despite being "in the neighborhood of the upper seventies"–he resolutely declined to give his exact age–had a strong, clear voice with a slight Scandinavian tinge, an asset for one acting as Bunyan's alter-ego and describing the fictional giant's adventures to fairgoers.

  "My daddy was a lumberjack too," he declared as we talked at a picnic table under a tree near the Bunyan exhibit. "He died at ninety-four, still as strong as a bear, but he almost didn't live to see thirty-five."

  "Hmm. Something to do with a falling tree, I suppose?"

  "No, no," he rumbled, waving my question away with a meaty and calloused hand. "He was too smart for anything like that to happen. It goes back to the fall of '71, same year as the big fire you had down here. Well, Wisconsin had some powerful strong fires of its own at the very same time. The worst one happened in a little place called Peshtigo, horrible thing. Said to be the deadliest fire in American history. Some claimed as many as 2,500 may have died, nobody ever knew for sure. Lots of them got buried in mass graves.

  "Anyway, my daddy happened to be in the very same neck of the woods at the time, working for a big lumber outfit out of Appleton, I think I heard him tell. They did some cutting up north of Peshtigo, near the little burg of Menominee, Michigan. Well, at first it seemed as they were at a safe distance from the fire, but then the wind shifted and the flames moved north fast, and I do mean fast. Daddy and his crew of three or four had all they could do to get themselves on foot over to the shore of Green Bay about the time it started to get dark.

  "A fishing boat lay about a quarter-mile off shore. My daddy said the fishermen on board watched the flames. He and his men hollered and waved their arms and jumped up and down until the boat finally came in and picked them up. Not a moment too soon, you might say. Them flames eventually went right up to the shore, and it was said the water in Green Bay got downright uncomfortable."

  "A close call."

  "Yessir, very close. They was among the lucky ones."

  Ericsson spun more tales–about his life as a lumberjack, a general store owner, a semi-professional wrestler, and the operator of a small carnival that moved from town to town around the Upper Midwest.

  "Them carnies can be a mean darn bunch sometimes," he said, "but they never messed with me, I can tell you. I made sure they knew about my wrestling days as 'Sven, the Savage Swede.' I had a beard back then, and I dyed it yellow, along with my hair."

  "You must have been quite a sight."

  "Or quite a fright," he said, roaring at his own cleverness.

  Now that Ericsson had been wound like an alarm clock, he kept on going, regaling me with tales of his wrestling adventures and the
bizarre cast of characters he had to ride herd on while running his ragtag carnival. I finally told him I had plenty of material, plus a deadline coming up fast. I had asked for a photographer, and sure enough, it turned out to be none other than Phil Muller, who made some shots of Ericsson grinning, hands on hips, with the Paul Bunyan robot looming behind him and wearing a grin of its own.

  "Somehow you look different today," I told Muller.

  He grinned. "Took you a while to notice. Shaved off my mustache. The wife got tired of it, said it made me look like an old-time movie villain."

  "I think she had a point. It seems like you're around almost every day now," I told Muller after Ericsson had gone back to spinning yarns at the North Western exhibit.

  "Snap old pal, I saw what a damned sweet deal you have out here, so I decided to hitch my wagon to your star. Besides, I grew up around trains; I come from a railroad family."

  "I guess I never knew that."

  "Yep, my late father worked as a brakeman, both on the B&O and the Milwaukee Road."

  "You might say my late father had a train connection, too, in a sense. He was a Chicago streetcar motorman for close to forty years."

  "Hope he got treated better by his bosses than my old man did," Phil said quietly, packing up his gear. "Keep finding good feature subjects here, Snap, and I'll find ways to wrangle the assignments. We make a good team, you know. A damned good team."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  This one was a little harder for me, Papa. First I had to sneak up behind him. I did not want to have to look into his face. As he did each night, he worked cleaning up garbage along the shore–fair programs and hot dog wrappers and such, and putting it all into a gunnysack. Fortunately, I think he may have been somewhat hard of hearing, and I wore soft-soled shoes. He didn't make more than a slight groan when I hit him with a hammer.