Identity- Lost Page 10

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Timbo, honey? You okay?”

  He slammed down the phone. “Fuckin’ niggers.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “James, boy, what did you mean yesterday when you said, ‘They said they was gonna get him’?” Earl asked his son as they sat, waiting in the muggy interview room for Detectives Hanley and Boscorelli to return.

  James didn’t answer.

  “Earl, I think this was a bad idea to bring the boy down here,” Eva whispered as she clutched her son toward her.

  “The boy had to tell the police what he saw, Eva.”

  “Momma, it’s the right thing to do.”

  “I’m just worried those boys will come after you and hurt you. Are you sure you know who they are?” she said.

  “I know them, Momma. I know them.”

  Knocking at the door before he reentered the room, Stick returned alone to resume the questioning. He sat back down at the table.

  “Folks, I’m going to need James to stay and look at a few pictures with me.”

  “Sure, Detective,” Earl replied. “Whatever you need.”

  “Wait a minute,” Eva said. “I don’t want my boy left alone in no lily-white police station. Too many things can happen down here. Too many racist cops be turnin’ their heads the other way on him. Like that fat partner of yours.”

  “Please don’t talk like that,” Earl said to his wife. “This ain’t Little Rock. It’s Chicago. Our home.”

  “So was Arkansas. Those police down there killed my brother, sure as I’m sitting here today. Police said he ‘resisted arrest’ but I know better. That’s our child now you’re leavin’ here, Earl. Our own flesh and blood.”

  “Eva. Please.” Earl turned to Stick. “I apologize for my wife’s remarks, Detective.” But Earl knew his wife’s remarks were probably not far from the truth. The atmosphere around Chicago police stations toward blacks, be they criminal or witness or even fellow cop, was certainly biased. Even though Earl didn’t hear them, Timbo’s remarks out in the hall to his partner a few minutes earlier proved that point. Earl tried to imagine what Eva might be feeling; he tried to put himself in her position of a mother, leaving her young son in a strange and intolerant environment.

  “No need to apologize. Let me assure you both that I will personally take care of your son all the time he’s here,” Stick said. “I’ll treat him like he’s one of my own. He’ll be safe with me.”

  Earl and Eva looked at each other and then at their son. James shrugged and nodded, indicating he’d be okay. Eva looked at Stick Hanley and, after a moment, nodded her approval.

  “How long you gonna have my child down here?” she asked.

  “You better give us an hour or so, ma’am. I have a lot of pictures for him to look at and then I’ll need to get his account on paper and into my GPR.”

  Eva reached across the table, laid her hand on Stick’s forearm, and gave it a tight squeeze. “Okay. But Detective Hanley, the next time I see my child he better look exactly the way he does right now. You understand me?”

  Timbo sat at his desk talking on the phone. “So time of death was seven a.m. then, huh? Okay, Fran. Thanks. Hey, I’m sorry I hung up on you earlier. Can I make it up to you? How about that Italian sausage you wanted for dinner?” Sensing someone was walking up behind him, he lowered his voice, “Yeah, maybe Friday night, we’ll see.” He hung up the phone and wrote a note on a small piece of paper. He glanced up as Stick and the boy witness walked up to his desk, handing the scribbled note to his partner.

  “Sit here,” Stick said to James, pointing to the chair behind his own desk, facing Timbo’s. He read the note, looked over at Timbo, and shook his head. Stick walked up behind his partner, bent over, and whispered, “Don’t tell the kid.”

  Timbo looked up and whispered back, “It’s murder now, so you better be sure about this little shithead’s story.”

  As the two spoke in muffled voices, James twirled in circles in Stick’s swivel chair. Timbo watched the boy spin for a few moments, looking at James and his tattered cap revolve around. The burly cop motioned his big head upward and said, “So, you’re a White Sox fan?”

  James kept spinning.

  “Don’t like the Cubbies, huh?” Timbo prodded him. “They’re the better team, ya know.”

  James didn’t answer but after a few more spins finally replied, “Well, I don’t know about that. The Cubs finished sixth in the NL East last year with a sixty-six and ninety-six record. The Sox finished fourth in their division and played five hundred ball.”

  “Yeah, but we had some bad luck. Lots of injuries.”

  Still going round and round, James replied to Timbo’s excuse. “I don’t think injuries was the problem, sir. More like pitching. The Sox had two twenty-game winners. Wilbur Wood and Jim Kaat. Your best pitcher, Bill Bonham, lost twenty-two.”

  “Whadya got here, Stick, a ringer?” Timbo asked, a tinge of anger in his voice.

  James stopped his spinning but didn’t let up with his statistical onslaught. He looked right at the big detective.

  “And, the Sox beat the Cubs last year in just about every major category—hitting, pitching, and in every fielding position.” The boy emphasized each statistic by counting them off on his fingers. “So, I’m not really sure what you mean when you say that the Cubs are the better team.”

  “Ouch, Timbo! Looks like we’re gonna have to take you to the Cook County Hospital burn ward ’cause James here just lit you up, my man.” The lanky cop high-fived James as they both grinned wide smiles. “Looks like we got another knowledgeable baseball fan here. And, guess what? No surprise—he’s a White Sox fan.”

  Timbo dismissed them both by swinging his chair around, away from them.

  Still grinning ear-to-ear, Stick went on. “C’mon, James, my man. Let me get you outta here. Nothin’ worse than having to look at a pissed-off Cubs fan. Anyhow, I need you to take a look at some photos to see if you recognize any of the boys you saw in the park yesterday.”

  “Don’t need no photos, sir. I know all of them. See ’em every day on the street.”

  Stick looked right at the boy as he still sat in the lead detective’s chair. “You do? Do you know their real names, too?”

  “No, sir. Just their street names. It was Ice Pick and his gang, like I told you in that room with my momma and daddy,” James said. “Aren’t you gonna arrest them?”

  “Sure, James. If you say you saw them do it, then we can arrest them as soon as I know their names. But first I’ll need to know if you’re positive who they are and, more importantly, if you’re willing to tell this someday in front of a judge in court.”

  “Yes, sir. I seen them do it. I know it was Pick and four of his Oakwood Rangers.”

  Stick paged through his notes. “Didn’t you say there were six of them all together?”

  James paused for a moment, looked down, and replied, “Uh, I don’t know that last boy, sir. The one that ran off.”

  “Do you think if you saw his picture, though, you could identify him?”

  Head still down, James paused again before answering Stick. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, that’s okay,” Stick said, looking down at him. “Once we get the others, they usually flip on their friends. Let’s get you over to Youth Division to see if they know these boys you’re talking about. Okay?” He looked over to Timbo, who still had his back turned to them. “Hey, Timbo, call up to Juvie, wouldja? Ask them if they have anything on this kid Ice Pick and the Oakwood Rangers. If they do, have ’em start putting together a photo array. Tell them I have a witness I’m bringing up to look at it. See if your Cubs buddy, Cyclops Murphy, is there. If he’s not on another one of his six coffee breaks, put him to work on it.”

  Timbo’s face still burned red under his tight-collared shirt. He wanted to tell Stick and his little nigger Sox fan witness to go fuck themselves, but bit his tongue as Stick led the boy out of the office.r />
  When Stick and James reached the elevator at the end of the hallway, Stick pressed the white plastic UP button on the wall. He looked down at James, smiled, and tugged the brim of the boy’s White Sox cap past his eyes. James tilted his head up and nudged the brim back in place. He smiled back, looking up at the tall cop. As they waited for the building’s vintage contraption to make its way down to the second floor, Stick leaned against the hallway wall and spoke to him. “So, you’re obviously a very big Sox fan.”

  “Yeah. My daddy works part-time for them in the home team locker room.”

  “Is that right? You know, I thought he looked kinda’ familiar. I work there, too, ya know.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure do. I work crowd security for night games to make a little extra money for me and my family.”

  “You got kids?” James asked.

  “Four.” He held up his hand and counted them off on his fingers. “Kaitlin, Karen, Kevin, and Brian. Brian’s about your age. What are you? Eleven? Twelve?”

  “Gonna be thirteen, August first.”

  Stick paused a moment in thought, then asked, “August first, huh? Nineteen sixty-two then. Right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bill Monbouquette, Boston Red Sox, no hit us that day,” Stick said. Most Sox fans liked to forget the bad memories, especially something as significant as a no-hitter against them. He sounded proud of the recollection. “I was at that game.”

  “Really? You was?” James said, his voice echoing in the hallway.

  “Yep. I was there. It was my first summer after high school,” Stick reminisced. “Bunch of the guys from my neighborhood, Avalon Park, went to that game. Big Monboo really shut us down that day. Next summer, I was off to Vietnam with the Marines.”

  “My daddy was a minor league ballplayer with the Red Sox. He played with Monbouquette in 1958,” James said. “The Red Sox said daddy was gonna be the first black ballplayer for them to get to the big leagues. He busted up his knee, though. The year after he got released the Red Sox brought up Pumpsie Green to the big leagues. They was the last major league team to have a black player. Shoulda’ been my daddy.”

  Impressed with the boy’s knowledge of baseball and the story about his father, Stick took a liking to the boy. As he watched him, he noticed James begin to fidget. The boy started cracking his knuckles as he looked up and down the hallway. Then James blurted in a high-pitched voice.

  “It was my bat that Pick used to beat that old man with.”

  Stick jerked himself up erect from the wall, turning his eyes right on James. “What did you say?”

  “My Dick Allen Louisville. That was my bat Pick used when he attacked the old Jew man,” James rattled. “Mister Allen gave it to me last summer when my daddy took me to meet him in the clubhouse for my report card.”

  “Hold on, James. Slow down a minute. You’re telling me that Dick Allen’s bat was used by this Pick kid to kill Mister Fleischman?”

  James’s eyes widened. “So, he dead?”

  Stick crouched down, bringing himself to the boy’s level. He laid his hand on James’s shoulder. As he looked at him, eye-to-eye, Stick replayed Eva Overstreet’s clear threat in his mind. At the same time he also thought about his partner Timbo’s doubt and not wanting to trust the Overstreets. He harbored no animosity toward the mother and, at least as a fellow parent, understood her concern. As for his partner, he knew his bigotry clouded his vision, but, in the end, he also knew Timbo would back his decisions 110 percent.

  Even with all those thoughts spinning through his mind, another more pressing question took precedence: was James sure he understood all the implications of what it meant to be an eyewitness to a murder and the future he was about to face?

  “Yes. He died a short time ago from the hemorrhaging in his brain. It’s murder now, so you need to be absolutely sure about what you saw and what you’re telling me here.”

  “I know what I saw, sir, and Pick and his gang jumped the old Jew-man and beat him with my Dick Allen bat. I know it for sure.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The elevator came to a bumping halt when it reached the sixth floor. The physical jolt seemed small in comparison to the emotional blow Stick felt from James’s shocking revelation in the hallway four floors below. The doors creaked open and the two stepped off.

  “Juvie” was the nickname given by the Homicide dicks to the Youth Division at Area 1. The busiest juvenile department in the City of Chicago, it handled thousands of cases every year. Its staff of Youth Division cops knew just about every bad kid by first name in the neighborhoods within The Prairie. If they didn’t know the guys James saw, no one did.

  They would also know whether any of the kids who attacked Fleischman had a YD Record, meaning they had a prior arrest as juveniles, requiring a photo to be taken of them at the time of their arrest. If the kids James saw attack Fleischman were actively involved in local gangs then the guys in Gang Crimes South, part of the CPD’s Gang Crimes and Investigation Division could help, too. And, if that was the case, then Stick could take James to their office, also located in the Area 1 headquarters building, to look at more photos.

  Stick led the boy to the opposite end of the fluorescent-lit corridor where the bold stenciled words, YOUTH DIVISION, highlighted the frosted glass of a large double door. Stick pulled one of the doors open for James to enter, the boy’s tattered White Sox cap still perched on his head. The tall cop motioned with a quick nod for James to go in and the boy entered the room, gliding under the detective’s long arm. He pointed him to a desk and pulled out its metal chair for him. As he did this, a muscular man about six-foot tall, wearing a gun strapped to his shoulder, approached them.

  “Hey, Hanley. Is this the little bro’ your fat partner just called about who said he saw that old man get whacked over in Burnham yesterday?” asked the cop, working his nicotine-stained teeth with a toothpick.

  The two men did not shake hands.

  “This is James Overstreet, Youth Officer Murphy,” Stick said, his tone pointed. Still struggling to understand all the possible implications of James’s bat statement divulged just before their elevator ride, Stick didn’t have the fortitude at the moment to deal with Murphy’s sarcastic lip. “He witnessed the attack of our victim, Mister Fleischman, yesterday. Homicide needs you to help him ID some of the kids he says he saw commit the crime.”

  “No, problemo, Stickaroo. You got Mike Murphy on the case now. Best cop on the South Side, maybe even the City of Chicago.”

  Murphy turned to James. “C’mon over here, little bro, and we’ll look at photos of some of our wonderful city’s most likely to commit a crime.”

  “His name is James, Officer Murphy. And mine is Detective Hanley,” Stick replied, looking directly at Murphy and staring at his close-set eyes separated by a huge nose—hence his office nickname, “Cyclops.”

  “Sorry, Detective Hanley. Little testy, aren’t we, Stickaroo?”

  The two cops had always played a tense game of placating each other but underlying this ostensible accord brewed a seething, mutual animosity. Over the years, there had been no love lost between the two men. Each man possessed a temper with a very short fuse and had a history of behaving unpredictably in each other’s presence.

  Murphy went on. “Oh, that’s right. Tough loss last night. Your sad White Sox just can’t seem to put it all together this year, huh? No more Dick Allen to save your sorry asses.”

  Stick ground his teeth, holding back, wanting to punch Murphy in his smug face, right in his third eye. Even though he was fighting unrelenting fatigue from working nonstop Area 1 homicides along with his part-time security job, Stick still noticed James’s head drop when Murphy mentioned Dick Allen’s name. From now on the All-Star baseball player’s name would be forever associated in James’s mind with the beating of Manny Fleischman.

  Ignoring Murphy’s snide remark, Stick said, “Let’s just help James, okay, Murph, so I can get him home to his parents.�
��

  “Roger dodger, Stick ol’ boy.”

  Murphy turned to James. “Okay, James, let’s see if we can help you positively ID who you say whacked that old guy.” Then he prodded the boy. “Hey, I see by your sad-looking Sox cap, you’re pullin’ for the bad guys. What year is that cap from? Seventy-three?”

  “Actually, it’s a nineteen seventy-four Sox cap,” James replied. “Ron Santo finished his career wearing a cap just like this one. But I’m sure you already knew that, Mister Murphy, sir.”

  Stick held back his laughter, not sure how Murphy would respond to James’s dig. He knew nothing could be more brutal for a Cubs fan than when reminded of the fact that their former team captain—”Mister Santo” as aficionados of Chicago’s North Side team reverently referred to him—finished his baseball career in a White Sox uniform. Most Cubs fans couldn’t even bear to think about this fact let alone talk about it.

  “That’s Detective Murphy,” he snapped, glaring at the boy.

  “Uh, your official title, according to CPD General Orders, is youth officer, not detective,” Stick smirked.

  The Youth Division dick turned away and reached for a piece of paper with six pictures clipped onto it. He placed it down in front of James.

  “Here’s a quick photo array I put together on the name Timbo gave me when he called up here earlier.”

  James studied each snapshot. “This is him. This one right here.” He pointed to one of the pictures.

  Murphy went to his desk and leafed through a pile of manila folders, stopped, and picked one out. He brought it back, opened the file, and laid out a larger picture of the boy James picked out. “Well, Stickaroo. The bro your boy James here pointed to goes by the street name of Ice Pick. Pick for short. Real name’s Monroe Clarke.” Murphy jabbed at the photo then read from inside Clarke’s manila folder. “Couple of collars for assault, one for possession, two breaking-and-entering, one arson. Seems he really likes trespassing at Oak Woods Cemetery.” Murphy leaned over to Hanley and chortled, “I thought spooks didn’t like spooks.”