“That’s bad?” Nick Noble observed to his invisible insect.
(1954)
PART II
Conundrums for the Cloister
Coffin Corner
The young man stood tall and straight, but his voice was rising shakily with his emotion.
“So you can see, Father, why I’ve got to learn the answer. They look at the record and what do they see? I was arrested once for murder. Sure, I was released, never tried, but that murder is still on the books as unsolved. And until I’m completely in the clear I’d hate to bet on my chances for an air commission.”
“He’s right, Father,” the older man put in. He was old only by comparison with the dark youth beside him. In fact, he was in his early thirties, as tall and well-built as the boy, and at the moment even more anxious. “Before now it didn’t matter so much that the mess never got cleared up. No one who knew Jim ever seriously suspected him. But these Government investigators … they don’t know him.”
“It isn’t pride, Father,” the boy went on. “Being a buck private would be O.K. with me. But I’m a good flier, and I’d be more use to my country up there. I can’t let an unsolved murder stand between me and a Jap carrier.”
“I understand,” the priest said. “But what can I do? If the police have failed …”
“We thought …” the boy began. “Well, you might maybe—”
“We aren’t used to crime,” the older man explained. “Private detectives and that sort of thing scare us. We thought you might know who was honest and capable. I guess it’s just that every graduate of this university, Father, always leaves it thinking that you can answer any problem.”
“I’m afraid,” the priest smiled, “I’m better on economic or theological problems than I am on murder. I really don’t know …” He paused, and the smile deepened. “Just a minute. ‘Economic problems’ reminds me: do you know the Sisters of Martha of Bethany?”
The older man nodded. “They do good work.”
“They’ve asked me to lend them one of my economics professors to give a brief lecture course on inflation. Through their baby clinic and such works they have so much contact with the New Rich that Mother Flanner thought it would be a good idea to have some formal grounding in their problems.”
The two laymen exchanged looks of puzzlement. “But what …?”
“I know it’s hardly Christian to request favors in return for favors. But in exchange for my economist, Jim, I’m going to try to get the answer to your problem.”
The young man gaped. “From a nun?”
Father Pearson smiled. “You don’t know this nun, Jim. Want to come with me?”
Jim Echeverri frowned. “I couldn’t. I mean I’d feel so… Going up to a nun and saying, ‘Sister, will you sleuth for me …?’”
“You will though, Bob? Good. Between us I think we can tell her the whole story. And I hope, Jim, that she’ll keep you flying.”
Father Hubert Pearson, S.J., explained his inspiration to Bob Cassidy as they waited in the convent of Martha of Bethany. The early spring air was crisp, but sun brightened the adobe walls of the patio.
“I’ve met this Sister Ursula only casually, but I’ve heard a great deal about her. Her father was a quite noted chief of police someplace in Iowa. She had planned to be a policewoman until illness cheated her hopes of passing the physical standards.
“She took the veil, recovered her health, and became a most vigorous and useful nun, forgetting her early ambitions until she happened to be a witness in a curious, complex murder case, and startled the police in charge by solving it for them. Since then, I hear, she’s been an unofficial adviser to one police lieutenant in several other cases.”
“Sounds astonishing,” Cassidy commented.
But there was nothing astonishing in the appearance of Sister Mary Ursula, O.M.B., when she came into the patio to greet them. She seemed—no, not just like any other nun, but like the ideal of a nun such as you conceive but do not always find. Quiet, simple, human, with the unobtrusive but intense inner glow of the devotional life.
The preliminary business was soon dispatched. The nun seemed surprised to receive the Rector of Bellarmine University in person on such a matter, but accepted the honor gratefully, and efficiently hit on the most convenient arrangement for the lecture course.
She did not seem surprised when Father Pearson hesitantly suggested a quid pro quo. “I must confess, Father, that I have been waiting for that ever since I wondered why you had come yourself. But where can we nuns help you when your own fine university staff fails?”
“We have a problem …” Cassidy began, and balked.
“I sense,” said Sister Ursula, “that this is going to be a long story. Please go ahead. And smoke if you wish.”
“Thank you.” Father Pearson lit a cigarette. “I doubt if Mr. Cassidy’s name means anything to you.”
The nun’s eyes lit up as she turned to the layman. “You aren’t… you couldn’t be Coffin Corner Cassidy?”
He nodded, embarrassed.
“Heavens! Could I ever forget that Big Game ten years ago? Bellarmine trailing 14-13 with less than a minute to play. Bellarmine’s ball on the midfield stripe, fourth down and twelve to go. And you produced a fifty-yard punt that went out of bounds within the one-yard line and set the stage for Wozzeck’s blocked kick and the safety that gave Bellarmine the game 15-14. Mr. Cassidy, you’re wonderful.”
Father Pearson grinned. “I told you she was amazing, Bob.”
“We heard it,” she confessed, “on the radio. We almost sang a Te Deum afterwards. You have several loyal Bellarmine fans here. And tell me, do they still keep your old jersey framed in glass in the trophy room?”
The priest answered for the bashful hero. “Yes, Cassidy’s 29 is as historic to us as Grange’s 77 is to Illinois. No one’s ever worn the number since, in honor of the most highly educated toe in Western football annals.”
“It wasn’t anything so wonderful,” Cassidy protested. “Coach Leary and I just happened to realize why the game’s called football.”
“And what’s become of you, Mr. Cassidy? That sounds odd; but I mean, you never turned professional or went to Hollywood or …”
“I’m the Southern California manager of the Interstate Kitchenware Corporation—nothing romantic, but much more secure and restful than Hollywood or pro football. But what we came about, Sister …”
“I’m sorry. But meeting heroes in the flesh is distracting. To get back to your problem …?”
“I was thinking,” said Father Pearson, “of another connection in which you might have heard Bob’s name recently. But I think I had better save that for its proper place in the story.”
“If you are a Bellarmine fan, Sister, you don’t need to be told what the annual Bellarmine-Santa Juana game means. There are three great Big Games in West Coast football: Cal-Stanford, St. Mary’s-Santa Clara, and ours; and each means the total demoralization of the university and its community for at least a week beforehand. Nothing is conceivably so important to students as winning one of those Big Games.
“Whether that’s good or bad, I won’t attempt to decide. Sometimes, as rector, I feel obliged to protest against overemphasis; at other times I think it’s a healthy release of emotions—emotions that are now channeled into something bigger than any game. And approving or protesting, I have not missed a Big Game since I took office.
“That was last fall. We played up North at Santa Juana, and I went along. Bob here is a fixture of Big Games—they wouldn’t seem right without him on the bench—so he made the trip too.
“We went up on the Daylight Limited Friday to give the boys a good night’s rest. And especially we wanted a good rest for Jim Echeverri. You may have been following his career? He’s the greatest kicker we’ve had since Coffin Corner Cassidy, and a fine boy to … besides. I almost—forgive me—said to boot!
“The team’s attack that year was patterned along the punt-and-pray system, and
Echeverri’s punts, like those of a Cassidy or a Tipton, were not only a defensive but an offensive weapon. He was essential to the team; and that is essential to the story.
“Do you know the town of Santa Juana? It’s a small community whose chief industries are fruit orchards, vineyards, and the university. I spent a pleasant evening with brothers on the faculty, admiring as always the local wine, and after mass next morning worked a little in the library. While I was finishing lunch and preparing to leave for the stadium, a phone call came for me.
“It was from our coach Shawn Leary. I have never heard such frantic emotion in that harsh voice, not even in the dressing room between halves when Bellarmine was trailing by three touchdowns. It was hard to figure out what he was trying to tell me, but I finally managed to decipher that he was at the stadium with all the team—save Echeverri. Jim had gone out for a walk that morning and failed to return. Leary had finally been driven to phone the police, who said sure, they knew where Echeverri was. He was being held on suspicion of murder.
“I couldn’t believe it. I thought I must be misinterpreting him. But there was no misinterpreting the terrible urgency of his appeal. Jim and his captors, the police had said, were still at the scene of the crime. I agreed to meet Leary there in the fewest minutes possible.
“The scene of the crime turned out to be a night club called The Purple Porker, and there is nothing so dankly desolate as a night club in the daytime. A uniformed officer was polite to my cloth but anxious to hustle me away until I explained who I was. Then he was eager to admit me.
“‘You fix it so’s they turn Echeverri loose, Father,’ he urged. ‘We can lick your boys any day, but if Echeverri ain’t playing it won’t look so good. You fix it, Father.’
“Coach Leary arrived at almost the same time as I, and Bob Cassidy with him. The three of us were shown back to the elevator. And as the elevator boy opened the door, his eyes popped wide and he screeched (with several expletives which you will pardon my not repeating), ‘Them’s the other two!’
“The officer’s eyes hardened and said, Tell that to the sergeant, bud. And be sure of it.’
“Leary and Cassidy looked at each other with surprise and an apprehension that I did not understand. When he reached the tower room, the boy followed us out of the car and announced to another uniformed officer, Tell the sarge I brung him the other two.’
“Sergeant Hanlon was more than glad to see us. He beamed sarcastically and said, ‘So you two boys was here before. And you had to come back for another gander, huh? Well, we’ll show you—Oh, excuse me, Father.’
“I took advantage of my position. ‘Please, Sergeant, before you begin accusing us of something, can’t you tell us what the situation is?’
“He began to apologize and—but I can tell the story better in synopsis than by trying to reproduce my difficulties in drawing it out of the sergeant.
“In short, this tower room belonged to Pat Michaelis, the biggest gambler in Santa Juana. He owned The Purple Porker. Its second story was a gambling establishment, and the tower was his private office. It could be reached only by the one-car elevator.
“Around twelve-thirty the elevator boy had brought Jim Echeverri up there. Jim stayed perhaps three minutes. When he rang to come down again, he looked so worried and shaken that the boy grew suspicious. He crossed the hall to the office and found Michaelis dead at his desk. He had been shot through the chest with his own automatic.
“The boy took Jim downstairs, turned him over to some of Michaelis’s men, and called the police. The men weren’t necessary. Jim was too dazed to say or do anything. And before long Sergeant Hanlon had decided to hold him for murder.
“There was no possibility of suicide. As the sergeant explained it, there were no powder marks on the wound, no prints on the gun, and no something-or-other specks on the dead man’s bare hands.
“Michaelis was definitely alive at eleven-thirty, when he was seen by several of his henchmen downstairs in the bar. In the following hour, the elevator boy took only three men, aside from Jim, to the tower room. Two of them he didn’t know. One of those, he said, had the proper credentials, and the other had too threatening a right to disregard. The third was a small-time local racketeer named Rolfe Chasen, and more usually known simply as ‘The Beak.’
“The two unknowns had come first, so Sergeant Hanlon decided to disregard them. He was left with the choice of The Beak and Jim. Jim claimed that he had found Michaelis dead. The Beak, pulled in by a dragnet, at first refused to talk without a lawyer, then, seeing the sergeant’s growing suspicion of Jim, said that Michaelis was alive when he left him.
“Later The Beak was to swear that he had found Michaelis’s corpse. Obviously he wanted his relations with the Law to be as brief and pleasant as possible; his testimony is valueless.
“Two things made the sergeant elect Jim as chief suspect. One was the motive which the elevator boy supplied; more of that later. The other was the fact that Michaelis had been playing cribbage when he died.
“I can still see that office as Sergeant Hanlon showed it to me. The body had been removed, but I could imagine it slumped over that incredibly clear desk. It had been a fetish of Michaelis’s, I learned, to have his desk top completely clear of all pencils, papers, and such; he believed that the large blank space gave him a psychological advantage over the man on the other side.
“There was nothing at all on the desk but playing cards, flecked with blood. A pack of cards at Michaelis’s right with a five of diamonds turned up under them, four cards face down in front of him, four at his opponent’s place, and four more at his left. It was unmistakably the arrangement for cribbage.
“Sergeant Hanlon turned over the hand of the gambler’s last adversary. ‘Some luck!’ he grunted. ‘You play cribbage?’ The blood spots made the pips hard to read, but I saw what he meant. The hand was the fives of clubs, hearts, and spades, and the jack of diamonds. With the five of diamonds for a turn-up, that made the highest hand possible in cribbage, something as fabulous as thirteen spades at bridge.
“I turned over Michaelis’s hand. It was random and poor: ace, four, seven, nine of mixed suits, only two points with the turn-up. Michaelis’s luck was all bad that day.
“Now it was common Santa Juana gossip, the sergeant explained, that Michaelis liked cribbage, nonprofessionally. ‘It ain’t no sucker’s game,’ he used to say. It was also common knowledge that The Beak never touched cards; dice and the wheel were his sports. And Jim admitted that he played a fair hand of cribbage.
“That, with the motive, was enough for Sergeant Hanlon. If we had not arrived when we did, Jim would have been on his way to the station for booking.
“All this I learned over the constant protestations of Coach Leary. It was nearly time for the kick-off. He’d given instructions to his assistant Trig Madison; the boys could make out all right without him, but not without Jim Echeverri. He wanted Echeverri, as vociferously as ever a rooting section wanted a touchdown, and Bob Cassidy and I were almost equally demanding.
“But Bob and the coach were in the unfortunate position of being suspects themselves since the elevator boy had identified them as his two first passengers, and had to give an account of why they had come.
“Bob’s explanation was simple: he had forgotten to place an intended bet on the game before leaving the South. A politician friend in Santa Juana had recommended him to Michaelis and given him a card to insure his entree.
“Coach Leary’s was even simpler: He had heard that one of Michaelis’s boys had been hanging around the team. He was afraid of an attempted fix and had come here to put the fear of the Lord into the gambler. He had succeeded too, he thought.
“At last the sergeant took us in to see Jim. I would hardly have known that handsome Basque. His face was drawn and white, and the gleam was gone from his black eyes.
“‘Cheer up, Jim,’ I told him. ‘They’ll never be able to fasten a charge like this on you.’
“
‘It isn’t that, Father,’ he protested. ‘But they’re holding me. I’m going to miss the Big Game …’
“I tried to quiet him and finally got his story. He had motive enough, poor fellow. It might never have come out save for the elevator boy, who had brought Michaelis a bottle of whiskey the night before and found him at his desk, dealing out solitaire with his habitual deadly monotony, and listening to Jim Echeverri threatening to kill him.
“Now Jim explained. It was what Coach Leary had sensed, an attempted fix. Michaelis had something on him, and was trying to blackmail him into muffling those deadly punts. If Echeverri played a bad game, the odds were all in favor of Santa Juana.
“I never learned till much later what that ‘something’ was. A cousin of Echeverri’s was in this country illegally. She was one of the Catholic Basque Loyalists who suffered so cruelly during the civil war, and if exposed she would be sent back to Spain and doubtless to a firing squad. Through what underworld and underground connections Michaelis had learned this, I never knew; but the girl is safe now … if safety is the word for carrying on counterespionage for the Mexican government against Falangist agents.
“Jim had slipped out the night before, after a threatening note from Michaelis, and had the bitter quarrel with him which the elevator boy overheard. It was a painful problem in loyalties. Last night he had ended by consenting to betray his team rather than his cousin and her ideals of democracy. In the morning he was all confused again. He came back to try to talk Michaelis out of it, even with some vague idea of beating him out of it.
“He found the corpse. His problem was solved, but he was plunged into the midst of another. If he reported the murder, he would be held first as a witness, then, when the boy talked, as a suspect. And he had to be at the stadium. He couldn’t miss the Big Game, now that he was free to play it honestly.
“When Jim had reached this point in his story, Shawn Leary let out a yell of pure rage. He had been the first to hear the radio switched on in the next room and words, ‘They’re coming out on the field now, the Bellarmine Bearcats in their green-and-gold-striped jerseys …’
Exeunt Murderers Page 17