Hearing an angry commotion, Mr. Pennell, ever chivalrous even when naked, aided Alice in pulling back down her skirts, then opened the window for her to climb out. He himself made the mistake of pausing to put his shoes on, providing the invaders the extra second required to snatch him as he tried to follow her.
Many eager hands pulled him back inside.
The Seventh Street neighbors, attracted to their windows by all the ballyhoo, watched open-mouthed as the refined Mrs. Alice Burdick tumbled disheveled out the first floor bedroom window painfully into the upward-turned branches of the bare hedges, then righted herself before running down the street, stumbling as she attempted to rearrange her costume mid-leap. She ran and ran, until finally reaching Holy Annunciation Church, where she entered to take sanctuary and tend to her bloody scratches with holy water from the marble font.
Arthur Reed Pennell endured his resultant beating like a man, hopelessly outnumbered as he was. His goal was to emerge from it as undamaged as possible so that he might finally put an end to the one and only obstacle to his true happiness.
Pennell had wearied of waiting and sneaking around, of taking what barren comfort he might in the swoon of romantic poems celebrating star-crossed lovers’ suffering and suicide. The ungodly act of self destruction was presented as a possibility that he and Alice had discussed. They considered carrying it out together, or so Pennell was led to believe by her. It would have interested him to discover that suicide was a folly that someone the likes of Alice Burdick would in no way whatsoever have ever allowed herself to be a participant, as befitted the high esteem in which she held herself.
Instigated by Pennell’s unstable ramblings on the subject, Alice Burdick wrote her lover a letter soon after this discussion and demanded he put up a bond of $25,000 for her as a substantiation of the seriousness of his commitment to her, claiming she feared he would never leave his wife for her. In fact it was an insurance policy of sorts, something to ease her through her contretemps in case he followed through on his deadly romantic delusion.
More recently though, concerning that particular undertaking, he had substantially amended his attitude, reasoning, if I’m prepared to kill myself, and to ask Alice to join me in the act, why not rather merely kill Ed Burdick and be done with it? Why should the good people be the ones to die?
March 5, 1903
“Well, I’m off to New York now, honey. What can I bring you back?” asked Jim Sullivan as he kissed Hannah goodbye.
Hannah nodded toward the baking pans and waiting ingredients, their resulting combination predestined for Jim’s birthday cake, now put on hold for the time being.
“Bring me? It’s your birthday, Jim! Don’t them people you’re workin’ with have no heart at all?”
“Can’t be helped, honey. It’s work. I’ll get you somethin’. Just tell me what you’d like.”
“Oh. Well…maybe just pick me up a little something from Tiffany & Co.?” she winked. “Anything that’s got a bit of sparkle to it.”
“Yeah, if I was goin’ to New York to rob a bank, I might just visit the Tiffany people on your behalf,” he coughed, “but…”
“Don’t forget this,” Hannah said, handing him his dogeared copy of the Official Guide of the Railways and Steamship Lines of the United States. “When will you be back, Jim?”
“I’ll be getting into Manhattan too late in the day today to meet with Boland, so I’ll see him first thing in the morning and if all goes as planned I could well be home tomorrow night. But I expect it’s probably more likely I may end up on the night train tomorrow, especially if that storm arrives as predicted. Don’t worry.”
“I always worry, Jim. You know me.”
March 6, 1903
After a big bacon and eggs breakfast around the corner at the Liberty Street Diner, Jim climbed the stairs at 130 Broadway and knocked on the door of the Mooney-Boland Detective Agency.
The Burdick murder and the circus surrounding it was the talk of Manhattan, with the Sun and the World both affording it screaming front page headlines, while the Times did its best to walk a gentler path somewhere acceptably midpoint between conservatism and exploitation.
Chief of Detectives Cusak had a few days earlier wired the agency to ask for particulars concerning the work the private detectives had done for Edwin Burdick.
Jim presented to Mr. Boland, as an introduction, Boland’s own telegram to Cusak. It read:
EMPLOYED BY BURDICK TO ACQUIRE GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE ACTION STOP SUGGEST YOU SEND MAN TO NEW YORK FOR DETAILS STOP
“Well, here I am Boland. In the flesh. Now what can you tell me?”
James Boland shook Jim Sullivan’s hand. He was a massive man—tall, rotund, imposing; a florid-faced fellow who appeared to be no stranger to the bottle.
The story that Boland related almost floored him.
“More than three months ago,” Boland said, pausing, trying to relight a cigar stub with some difficulty, “Burdick appeared here in my office and handed me a bunch of letters he said he’d found in his home. They were written to his wife, from a Buffalo lawyer named Arthur Reed Pennell. From what was in them it was pretty clear the two had been having a love affair for some time. Burdick came to me very distressed by his young daughter’s having followed her mother to what turned out to be a love nest, where the girl witnessed with her own eyes something unspeakable through a window.
“Burdick wanted me to come to Buffalo and secure solid proof of it, evidence which would enable him to get a divorce in this state.”
So Boland had done precisely that. He traveled to Buffalo and without too much difficulty was able to dig up verifiable facts which would convince any judge that the careless and blatant Alice Hull Burdick was indeed having an adulterous sexual relationship with Arthur Reed Pennell.
“For one thing, I was able to trail them to two different love nests, one on Whitney Street at the corner of Carolina, and the other at 123 Seventh St., which they maintained under false names. With this information in hand, Burdick charged his wife with her conduct and she got out—went to Atlantic City.
“Burdick then informed me of her whereabouts and authorized me to continue my surveillance over Mrs. Burdick at the New Jersey resort and anywhere else she might go.
“That proved interesting as well,” Boland continued. “I trailed her several times here in New York, where she used to meet Pennell at any of several hotels. One night Pennell was standing alone at the bar of the Hotel Roland, and I stood next to him and ordered a beer. He got in his cups and I heard him say to the bartender, ‘There’s this fellow up in Buffalo I intend to get—even if I go to the gallows for it.’
“I immediately notified Burdick about his threat, and he replied saying that henceforth he would go armed. When he sent me a check a few weeks ago he enclosed this note here,” said Boland, handing Detective Sullivan the paper, “saying he was about ready to put the whole matter in the hands of a lawyer, and that both his wife and Pennell knew of his intentions.”
Jim Sullivan listened with rapt attention. He was relieved. It seemed to him that Boland’s information just about tied up the case. Jim had been troubled from the beginning by Cusak and Wright both insisting on the pointless idea that a woman had killed Burdick, when he himself had quickly given up on that theory. It was clear to Sullivan that the most obvious assassin was gloating right there in plain sight.
All they had needed to do was go after the most logical suspect from the very beginning and the police department would have avoided a whole lot of grief and mockery. They’d had enough information about him to suspect his intent within twenty four hours of the crime, yet they failed to bring him in, instead obstructing genuine justice by chasing down some so-called mystery women, thereby bringing nationwide ridicule to the department. Newspapers from the Atlantic to the Pacific had mercilessly ridiculed the Buffalo Police. And all for what? To protect the man responsible for doing this? Why? Why invest so much effort to destroy the life of an innocent woman to p
rotect a killer? Who was the Department higher-up, or politician, protecting Pennell? Who was behind this crime to cover up another crime?
Jim began to wonder if Cusak and Wright were in on the conspiracy, so insistent were they as to their stupid working theories. And if so, why was he being kept in the dark?
Pennell, Jim decided, upon learning what private detective Boland had discovered, became desperate at the prospect of the impending public scandal over a divorce, and concocted some ruse to get Burdick to invite him into the privacy of his own home, the place he could most clandestinely carry out the deadly crime.
The detective wondered though, after all Burdick had found out, and after purchasing a revolver for self defense, why would he let this lunatic anywhere near him, much less near his family? Certainly Alice Burdick knew of Pennell’s plan. That she’d allow it to take place within bullet range of her own mother and daughters was absolutely chilling to Sullivan, he being in indeterminate mourning for his own sadly missed children.
Jim played out the likely scene in his mind, imagining Pennell employing his wily attorney ways, catching Burdick off guard with some persuasive proposal or false promise or bribe, completely surprising Burdick with the first blow, then rapidly walloping the life out of his reeling victim. After, realizing that no one in the home had been roused from their slumber, he staged the famous diversions to lead the police astray: the small luncheon, the open window, the entry door left ajar. Jim couldn’t imagine however any sound reason for rearranging the body the way it had been, or the removal of the clothing. But a man who had just killed another would most likely not be in his right mind regardless after such a thing. He in fact would be highly agitated if not panic-stricken, and his decisions at that moment might not make sense upon review later after the fact when a clearer head prevailed. Pennell had simply improvised as best he could on the fly.
Jim suddenly felt foolish, recalling that, when he and Cusak had shown up to speak with Pennell, how craftily Pennell deflected suspicion away from himself by making claims about the women whose names Jim and Pat Cusak themselves had offered him. The detectives had revealed their cards, offering ammunition for his lies, playing right into Pennell’s hands. The detectives provided Pennell with the very information he required in order to divert suspicion away from himself and buy some time in which to scheme, like any cunning attorney possessing his courtroom-honed skills indeed could.
Jim wired his Chief as to his discoveries and added that he would arrive back in Buffalo about noon the next day.
Birthday Boy
March 7, 1903
As the Burdick fiasco continued spinning wildly out of control, the reputation for corruption and ineptitude that was now an international mortification for the Buffalo Police Department continued to solicit derision and sardonic jabs in the press all across the country, and beyond.
Arriving in Buffalo a little past noon, Jim headed right over to Police Headquarters directly from the Terrace station, stiff and weary from the long journey and feeling every one of his fifty years.
“Hannah invited me to yer birthday party tonight,” Cusak brogued. “She told me not to be bringin’ anything, exceptin’ fer you, lad” he smiled. When he was talking serious business, Pat Cusak’s Irish accent was almost indistinguishable. But when the mood lightened up, the brogue flowed forth like beer on St. Paddy’s Day.
“That Hannah. What better way to guarantee I’m home on time tonight than to invite my boss along?”
“Crafty lady ye got there, Sully. But I’ll be bringin’ us a bottle anyways.”
“Wait ‘til you taste her cake, Pat…it’s moist as mornin’ dew, with lemon curd filling between all the yellow layers, covered all over in an inch of meringue light as air, and heaped heavy with handfuls of shredded coconut. It’s spectacular.”
Jim savored the approaching feast for a moment, then got back to business.
“But let’s first get movin’ on this Pennell thing right away now before any more time’s wasted. I’m absolutely convinced he’s the killer.”
“You have to be knowin’ somethin’ first, Sully. Because I’m about ready to chew me own moustache off. I took your dope to the Commissioner. Well, he was shocked at the thought of a man as prominent as Pennell being thrown into the jug. He warned me we better be careful. How’s that for politics?”
Jim searched his boss’ face for any sign that Cusak knew more than he was admitting to, hoping he was wrong about his friend.
“I’ve already asked Pennell for an alibi,” Cusak continued, “and what he gives me is pretty weak. Says he was home all last Friday evening, but there’s only his wife to back him up, and she’s a bit hazy about the whole thing.”
“Well, Pat,” said Jim, “let’s you and me pay another visit to the Commissioner. Now that I got first hand knowledge of all the dirt Boland was able to dig up, includin’ what he witnessed with his own eyes, we can’t just be allowin’ Pennell to skate away because the Commissioner’s fearin’ a little scoldin’ from his new poker pals down at the Buffalo Club.”
The two marched over to the Commissioner’s office together and Jim laid out everything that Boland had found out about the many various clandestine rendezvous conducted by the adulterous couple. Together the detectives urged the Commissioner to take Arthur Reed Pennell into custody immediately. The Commissioner reacted abruptly, even defensively, making the hairs on the back of Jim’s neck stand up. The bureaucrat claimed he was unsure despite all the damning statements, wary of the “consequences” and said he needed the weekend to think about it all.
“But Commissioner, he’s as guilty as sin and walkin’ the streets. We can’t keep embarrassin’ ourselves chasin’ ghosts. The Department’s a laughing stock! In New York they think we’re fools! We got our guilty man!” insisted Jim, as Cusak tried to shut him up with a look.
“I’ll let you know my decision first thing Monday morning, detectives. Be patient. We can’t afford to make any more mistakes,” evaded the Commissioner.
As they spoke, the Commissioner’s door was open a crack to the outer office where his secretary, the widow Peggy Shedler, pricked up her ears to hear what the detectives had to say. The moment the detectives left, she poked her head into her boss’ office.
“Commissioner, how about if I shut your door over for twenty minutes to give you some peace and quiet? I’ll keep everybody out of your hair for a while. Have yourself a little catnap.”
The Commissioner smiled in grateful agreement, and once he heard the door click shut behind her, he laid down on his divan. He closed his eyes, trying to figure a comfortable way out of this predicament.
Peggy picked up the telephone and dialed the house on Cleveland Avenue.
“Arthur, it’s me, Peggy. The Commissioner is being pressured into bringing you in for questioning, perhaps as early as Monday. I thought you should know, so you can prepare,” she warned.
“Thank you, Sis. Everything will work out. Don’t worry. Just you wait and see.”
“I wish Papa were still alive, Artie. He’d tell us what to do,” his sister said, sadly.
...
That evening the electric lights burned brightly at No. 16 Hamburg Street. Jim had no trouble blowing out all fifty candles blazing away on the towering layer cake to the boisterous cheering of all the salivating children.
The Alderman’s brood was wild with second helpings of cake washed down with Coca Cola, the younger ones running around playing cowboy and Indian with little David, the older ones slipping out into the backyard to sneak a quick shared smoke before the cold drove them back inside.
Gay music tintinnabulated from Jim and Hannah’s Victor Monarch Deluxe, which played flat-disc gramophone records. Not to be outdone, from next door the Alderman carted over his own machine, the competing Edison device that played phonographic wax cylinders. The Edison apparatus allowed the unprecedented ability for the consumer to record his own voice.
The Alderman was enthralled with his Edis
on, having fallen in love with the sound of his own intonations, not too surprisingly. His excuse to Annie for the expensive purchase was that he needed the machine to practice and refine his speeches. After all, he was continually being tapped to preside over various functions and festivities as toastmaster, not to mention reciting his many self-serving arguments in the Council chambers at the City Hall. But for his own amusement he had also taken to secretly recording himself singing popular songs of the day in the privacy of his office, hiding the guilty cylinders away in their protective cardboard tubes in a locked desk drawer.
And indeed, surprised at hearing his voice resonating a bit thin and a little high and sounding nothing at all like the same voice he heard from inside his own head as he spoke, he was able to use the device successfully to practice lowering his register and improve his speech making.
When the family had traipsed from next door to Jim and Hannah’s with the Edison tucked under the Alderman’s arm, Annie rolled her eyes at Hannah and shook her head dismissively, silently mouthing Sorry.
“I thought everyone would enjoy hearing my speech castigating the railroads!” JP enthused.
Annie took Hannah aside, fuming at her husband.
“Even at his own brother’s fiftieth birthday party he manages to find a way to make himself the main attraction,” she whispered.
Hannah whispered back, “I’ll take care of it.”
“There’ll be none of that here tonight JP,” Hannah stated definitively. “No work, nor any work talk, nor any related wink or nod will be tolerated around here tonight. That goes for everybody. Detective Cusak? Agreed? This here’s a family party.”
“But…” argued the Alderman.
“But nothing, JP,” responded Hannah, abruptly cutting him short.
Cusak elbowed Jim and chuckled. “Now I understand why yer so well-behaved.”
Fingy Conners & The New Century Page 31