Hunting a Detroit Tiger (10 page)

On the walk home from the ballpark, I entertained the notion of dropping my queries into Emmett Siever’s murder.

I wondered if it might be best to do exactly what I’d claimed to Donner and Navin—concentrate on baseball and stay out of labor conflicts. If I stopped nosing around, showing that I was on no one’s side, then perhaps both sides would realize that I wasn’t a threat and leave me alone.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that wishful thinking wasn’t going to make my problems disappear. What had me in trouble wasn’t what I was going to do in the future, but what people thought I had done to Emmett Siever last week. The IWW would still want revenge—to throw me from the train, as the phone caller had phrased it. Nor did Hub Donner appear likely to let go of the change to capitalize on Siever’s shooting by using me for antiunion propaganda.

The only way for me to get in the clear was to find out who really killed Emmett Siever. That should satisfy the Wobblies, Hub Donner, and my teammates. It struck me as odd that the police weren’t on that list. The police should have been the most interested in solving his murder, but they were the only ones content to leave the case alone. More than that, they’d gone to the trouble of planting a gun on Siever so they could dismiss me as having killed him in self-defense. Why would the police care about me? Why plant the gun? Why invent the self-defense story?

When I entered my apartment, Karl Landfors was sitting primly on the sofa, one hand holding a hardcover book close to his face. He lowered it enough to peer over the top. “I think it’s obvious who killed Emmett Siever,” he said, smirking.

I hung my jacket on a nail in the back of the door and hooked my straw boater over the resulting lump. “Not to me,” I said. I stepped into the kitchen and was annoyed to discover that there was no ginger ale left in the icebox. In its place were bottles of Moxie that Landfors must have bought. I opened one of them and brought it into the parlor. Seating myself in the rocking chair, I took a long swallow. It tasted like carbonated vegetable juice—the perfect beverage for Karl Landfors, I thought.

My houseguest used a dust-jacket flap to mark his page and put the book on the coffee table. Looking exasperated, he said, “Aren’t you going to ask who it is?”

I twisted my head to see the title of the book:
Main Street
by Sinclair Lewis. “That any good?”

“Yes.”

Landfors was getting peeved, and I felt pleased at having brought that about. He was such a natural irritant, that it was fun to outdo him now and then. But I wasn’t cruel enough to torment him for long. “Okay, Karl. Who done it?”

His face made a rapid transition from peeved to smug. “Aikens. Or whatever his name really is. Except for you, he was the first person in the back room after it happened—he probably just stayed there after he killed Siever. And there’s no real Detective Aikens on the police force. Why would he impersonate an officer if he didn’t have something to hide?”

I took another sip of the Moxie and craved a beer. “I don’t think it’s him, Karl, whoever he really is.” I’d already considered the possibility of Aikens being the shooter.

“And why not?”

“Two reasons. For one thing, if he shot Siever, why didn’t he just leave? There was a back door. Why didn’t he use it to get away? If you murder somebody, I’d expect the natural impulse is to get away as fast as possible. Why stay around with the corpse?”

“Maybe the door was locked.”

“Don’t see how. There was a crossbar on the door—on the
inside
of the door. I saw it when we were there with Leo Hyman. That would keep people from coming in, not from leaving. All the killer had to do was lift the bar, and he’s out.”

Landfors frowned. “You said ‘two reasons.’”

“The second thing is that Aikens must be some kind of official, even if he’s not with the Detroit Police.”

“And how did you deduce that?”

“How else did the cops know to pin the shooting on me? Aikens was the only person who talked to me after it happened. He must have been the one who told the cops I was back there.”

“Oh.” Landfors picked up
Main Street
and cracked it open. With thorough indifference, he asked, “Did you win today?”

“No. We got clobbered.” His attention had already gone back to Sinclair Lewis. “Say, Karl . . .”

“Yes?”

“You said Emmett Siever has—had—whatever—a daughter living here.”

“Yes. Constance.”

“Could you take me to see her? I’d like to tell her that I’m sorry about her father, and tell her I didn’t have anything to do with his death.” I also wanted to find out if she knew anything about the gun that her father supposedly tried to shoot me with.

“Sure,” said Landfors. “I think she lives in Hamtramck.”

“You
think?
You said you were going to pay a call on her. Haven’t you seen her yet?” It had been ten days since Siever’s death and Landfors had been in Detroit for five.

Landfors pushed up his eyeglasses and looked sheepish. “Actually, I’m not very good at that sort of thing.” That was true, I expected; Landfors generally exhibited the social graces of a cigar-store Indian. Laying down the book, he stood and rubbed his hands together. “Let me phone her and find out if she’ll see us.”

At Landfors’s insistence, we stopped for a light dinner at Kelsey’s Cafe next to the hat shop downstairs. Since I didn’t cook, I’d already come to think of the little restaurant as my dining room.

This evening, struggling to think of a way to convince Constance Siever that I hadn’t murdered her father, I had little stomach for the pea soup and ham sandwiches the waiter served us. Landfors managed to eat twice as much as me while doing three times the talking.

He drew up short when I told him what I’d learned from Hughie Jennings about Siever’s past. Chewing thoughtfully, he said, “Perhaps some men make better martyrs than they do human beings.”

“How long did you know him?”

“Actually, I really only knew
of
him. I’d only met him once or twice”

“You told me you and him were friends.”

“I suppose I did exaggerate our relationship a bit.” Landfors dabbed a napkin at the corners of his mouth. “I’d heard good things about Siever, that he was a clever strategist, an articulate speaker, and was completely dedicated to the cause.”

“The ‘cause’ being the ballplayers union of the IWW?”

“That’s
the point,” Landfors said, crumbs falling from his lips. “There is no difference! Working people are working people, no matter what their trade. That’s what I admired about Emmett Siever: he was willing to use whatever prestige he had as a baseball player to help not only ballplayers, but anyone else who labors for his bread. One big union. That’s the only way for
any
worker to protect his rights.” Pointing to my sandwich, he asked, “Going to eat that?”

I told him to finish it and resumed my efforts to compose what I would say to Siever’s daughter. I wondered if I should bring her flowers, and if so what kind. What blossom do you bring to a woman who thinks you killed her father?

Unable to resolve the flower question by the time we caught a streetcar for Hamtramck, I gave up on the idea. All I would give her would be my sincere condolences on her loss and an emphatic denial that I’d had anything to do with creating that loss.

As the swaying trolley rolled north, Landfors explained to me that Hamtramck was an independent village embedded within the city of Detroit. Traveling up Joseph Campau Avenue, Hamtramck’s main business thoroughfare, Landfors pointed out the massive Dodge Brothers automobile plant to our right; the sound of its machinery was audible over the clatter of the trolley and brackish fumes billowed from its forest of smokestacks.

We hopped off about ten blocks past the plant and walked west into a residential neighborhood of small, single-family dwellings. According to Landfors, they were occupied primarily by Polish immigrants who worked on the Dodge assembly lines.

Near the Lumpkin end of Wyandotte Street, we found the Siever home, a well-kept clapboard bungalow painted a pinkish beige with white trim and red awnings.

Landfors paused at the door to check his watch. “Five to eight.” He continued to stare at the watch face. When I realized that he intended to wait the five minutes, I rang the bell myself. Somewhat startled at the departure from the schedule, he snapped the watch shut and tucked it in his vest pocket.

The door was opened by a tall, lean woman wearing an ankle-length green plaid skirt with a white shirtwaist buttoned up to her long narrow throat. The woman’s fair face, though not unattractive, was sharp and angular. The short style of her ash-blond hair made her appear even taller than the five-nine or five-ten I estimated her height to be. “You’re early,” she said.

Landfors shot me a look of reprimand.

“Well, no harm. We were just about to break, so come in.” Her manner was brusque and businesslike.

We followed her into a small foyer. I noticed a small black emblem pinned above her left breast; to determine what it depicted would have required a closer inspection than politeness permitted. Landfors and I removed our hats, and I waited for him to make the introductions. He seemed stalled, so I nudged his ribs to get him started. “I’m Karl Landfors,” he said. “Are you . . . ?”

“Constance Siever. Call me Connie.” She shook his hand firmly, then turned to me. “And you must be Rawlings.”

“Mickey,” I said, offering my own hand. She ignored it.

“As I said on the telephone,” Landfors began, “Mickey would like to talk to you. About your father.”

“Very well.” She poked her head into the parlor, where about a dozen ladies were seated around a long dining table. “Let’s break now,” she said to them. “We’ll resume in ten minutes.” To Landfors and me she said, “We’ll talk in the kitchen.”

The Siever kitchen had all the hominess of a Woolworth’s luncheonette: utilitarian furniture, institutional stove and icebox, plain white crockery. We sat at a small table next to a window overlooking a barren backyard.

Connie Siever didn’t offer any refreshments. She said to Landfors, “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve always wanted to meet the man who wrote
Savagery in the Sweatshop.
A truly great book—right up there with
The Jungle,
in my opinion.”

Landfors flushed.

Somewhat incredulous, I said, “You read it?”

“Several times.”

I couldn’t stop myself from blurting, “All the way through?”

She laughed and nodded.

I was impressed; I’d tried many times to work my way through the ponderous, muckraking tome and never got beyond the second chapter.

Landfors didn’t appear to notice my reaction to her literary achievement. His eyes were riveted on Emmett Siever’s daughter. I nudged him again. He coughed and finally spoke up, “Mickey has something to tell you, Miss—uh, Connie.”

She turned to look straight at me. “Then why doesn’t he do it?” Her eyes were a vivid green and fairly glowed with the light of intelligence.

I began hesitantly, “I know the newspapers say I’m the one who shot your father, uh, Miss Siever.” It seemed too familiar to call her “Connie.” “But I want you to know it’s not true. I never even got to talk with him. I did hear him give a speech, but that was it. He sounded like a smart and decent man. And I’m very sorry that he’s dead.”

“Do you feel better now?”

“Well, I just . . . All I wanted to do was tell you . . . Uh, no, actually I still feel lousy. But I give you my word
I didn’t kill him.
”

She stiffened slightly, her posture and demeanor starting to resemble that of an ice sculpture. “I don’t know you. Why should I take your word for anything?”

Landfors piped up, “I’ve known Mickey for years. If he says he didn’t do it, that’s enough for me. In fact, I’m the one who asked him to go to the hall to meet your father. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t trust him.”