Murder at Fenway Park (2 page)

T
he
Yankee Flyer
finally screeched into South Terminal Station at 5:22, three hours and twenty-two minutes after the scheduled start of the Saturday game against Detroit. The train should have brought me to Boston in time for batting practice, but a derailment near Bridgeport voided the timetable.

Because I was so late, a cab seemed more a necessity than an extravagance. I hustled out of the station with a suitcase in one hand and a canvas satchel in the other. I ran up to the first taxi at the cab stand. “Can you take me to Fenway Park?”

The driver stood with one foot on the passenger side running board. His response seemed to come from the black Dublin pipe rooted in his mouth. “Do ye suppose I’m in this business if I can’t find Fenway Park, now?” I gave the cabbie a sheepish half smile and threw my bags on the back seat of the dust-spattered Maxwell. While I followed them in, the driver went to the front of the car and turned the starter crank until the engine coughed to life.

As the taxi clattered down Commonwealth Avenue approaching Governors Square, the heavy traffic coming the other way suggested the game had already ended. The cab driver’s next question confirmed it. “Now why would ye be heading to the ballpark with the game already over?”

“Well ... the Red Sox just bought my contract—from Harrisburg. I have to report to them today ... to play baseball ... I’m a ball player.”

“Are ye now? And what position might ye play?”

A simple enough question, but it threw me for a loss. “Well ... I play just about everywhere ... except pitcher. I’ve caught a few times ... but I’m not really a catcher. I guess I’ll play either outfield or infield someplace.”

The cabbie didn’t ask any more questions, and I was content to keep my mouth closed. The wheels of the passing carriages and automobiles were churning up dried horse manure into a fine powdery mist that rushed at me through the open cab. The biting spray made talking a distasteful labor and added another layer of filth to the gritty film of soot that had been wafted onto me by the
Flyer
locomotive. Late, dirty, and smelly—what a way to start a new job.

“Well, here ye are me boy. Good luck to ye.”

I paid the driver, hopped out of the taxi, and took my first look at Fenway Park.

Last year I had gotten into fifteen games, the full scope of my major-league career so far, with Boston’s National League team, the Braves. Home field was the South End Grounds on Walpole Street. It was a cramped, rickety wooden stadium badly in need of renovation or an extensive fire.

Now I gazed in awe at an enormous new ballpark. Fenway Park had opened just a week before as one of the most modern arenas in baseball. With my eyes fixed on the towering structure, I drifted along the sidewalk, my hurry to get there forgotten.

There was a simple majesty to the ballpark’s construction. The crisply new red bricks of the high walls; the graceful beckoning arches over the entrances, each with a gray stone inlay at its crest; and crowning it all, a massive white slab atop the left field wall with
FENWAY PARK
chiseled on it in clean sharp lines. It looked to be a baseball cathedral.

I finally hoisted my bags and strode purposefully to the main entrance. Even the stragglers had left the park by now. The only person visible was a slender, silver-haired attendant who wore his navy blue uniform with a dignified authority.

Respectfully, I called out, “Excuse me! Could you let me in please?”

The attendant walked to the gate at a deliberate pace and politely declined my request. “I’m sorry. I can’t let anybody in here.”

“But I
have
to get in. I have to see the manager. I’m his new—” Again I wished I could have said “shortstop” or “left fielder,” but I could only finish the sentence by spitting out, “—ball player.”

The attendant glanced down at my bags and appeared to notice the three weathered bat handles sticking out of my satchel. Looking back up, he scrutinized my face and announced, “You’re Mickey Rawlings.” The tone of his voice suggested that I couldn’t possibly be Mickey Rawlings without his say so.

“Yes! Did they tell you I was coming?”

“No, nobody said they were expecting you. I saw you with the Braves last year. In fact, I saw you steal home—last game of the season, I think it was. That took a lot of nerve.” With a smile, he added, “I like a ball player who’ll take chances.”

The attendant unlocked the gate and nodded me in. He pointed down a wide corridor and said, “You’ll want to see Jake Stahl. He usually stays late after a game. His office is just off the clubhouse.” The attendant explained the way to Stahl’s office, but in my excitement I didn’t quite follow him. Instead of asking for a repeat, though, I said my thanks and headed in the general direction his finger had pointed.

I continued on the curving corridor until the attendant was out of view. I didn’t keep count of the hallways I passed, but I had gone by five or six and I figured it was time to try one. I turned into one of the passages that stretched from the field out to the main perimeter I had just traveled.

Stepping into that passage, I instantly forgot that I was in an immense stadium in the middle of a bustling city. I found myself instead entering a very different atmosphere, as I suddenly faced an inviting picture of simple, natural splendor.

A small glowing rectangle of color at the far end of the corridor captivated my eyes. The inside of the vertical rectangle was filled with a green so vivid that I could smell fresh-mown grass by sight alone. Almost as luminous was a reddish-brown crescent that cut across its lower left corner. The pure perfect colors of a baseball field!

The passageway was in quiet shadow. Its cool whitewashed walls sucked me gently into the tunnel, drawing me to the growing vision of Baseball Heaven at the end.

Soon this field would be part of me—at least parts of this field would soon be
on
me. I’d be wearing elements of it as badges of honor on my flannels: a streak of bluegrass ground into my chest from a diving attempt to snag a fly ball, cakes of red clay encasing my knees from sliding into second on a stolen base. I already felt myself proudly in uniform, and naturally fell into the distinctive baseball walk, part waddle from the way cleats pull at the feet and part swagger from—just from being a ball player.

I felt that Fenway Park was promising me something: that 1912 was going to be my year.

About halfway into the tunnel, I passed an intersecting corridor and was startled by a noise—a dull
thunk
—echoing from the passage. The jolting sound brought me back to reality and my need to find Jake Stahl.

“Hello?” I called out, figuring that the noise had to be made by someone, and maybe the someone could direct me to Stahl. Listening for an answer, I quietly started walking into the side corridor. Hearing no response, I called out again, louder, “Hello!” Still no answer.

A hundred feet into the passage, in a recessed doorway, a man was slouched on the floor. The light was so dim that I almost tripped on his outstretched legs. I could make out his general form but not his features.

I shouted, “Are you all right?” and rapidly groped the wall near the doorway with my fingertips. I hit the button of a light switch and a bare bulb suddenly flared, lighting our part of the passage.

The man’s back was to the tunnel wall, and he was tilted forward, face down on his left side. He wore a blue serge suit that would have been natty had it not been crumpled and stretched by the contorted seating position. I gently grabbed the man’s shoulder and brought his face into the light.

But he no longer had one.

I felt my own face blanch and turn cold as the blood drained from my head, sent plummeting by the horror of what I saw.

I couldn’t avert my eyes. I froze where I stood, staring at the pieces of flesh and bone crisscrossed by exposed purple veins, all held together by dark red coagulating blood. A bristly thatch of orange hair stuck out on top of the gruesome mess looking incongruously innocent.

Sudden visceral activity finally caused me to do something. I threw up. Before my external parts could function, a searing torrent of vomit expelled itself. Right on the dead man’s chest.

The convulsions in my stomach continued and I doubled over with the pain. At least I was able to turn away enough to avoid further offense to the corpse. Crippled with stomach pain and weak in the legs, I dropped to my knees and crawled across the hallway thinking I was about to faint.

When I reached the far wall, still on hands and knees, I closed my eyes and rested the top of my head against the wall. I inhaled slowly and deeply and tried to compose myself.

Eventually the volcanic activity in my stomach subsided, and I could breathe more easily. I forced my eyes open, and found myself looking down at a baseball bat laying where the floor met the wall. The head of the bat was streaked with fresh blood. Some of it had seeped into the wood, darkening and widening the lines of the grain.

I could clearly see two small pieces of shiny white material embedded in the wood. I spent some minutes puzzling over what they were. It was a relief to have something to occupy my mind, if only briefly. Then I realized they were bone fragments, previously facial features of the man slumped behind me. I slammed my eyes shut and erupted into a vicious bout of the dry heaves.

Perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, seemingly days elapsed while I remained conscious but literally senseless. My tightly clenched eyelids shut out the hideous sight behind me; the heavy pulsing of my heart left a pounding in my ears that blocked all external sounds; gulping air through only my mouth let no smells past my nose; the only sense of feel that I had was of the spastic constrictions in my belly.

A heavy hand suddenly clutched my shoulder and a loud “Hey!” penetrated the drumbeats in my ears. I was jerked to my feet and roughly turned around.

I faced three very different-looking men. One was the stadium attendant I met earlier. Next to him was a portly man in a gray business suit who kept glancing down at the dead man from the corner of his eye. The hand that had shaken me belonged to a helmeted member of Boston’s finest.

The red-faced cop stepped to within inches of my nose, and belligerently demanded, “What the hell’s going on here?”

“I don’t know,” I croaked softly.

“What! Speak up!”

“I don’t know. I just found—
him
, ” I said, pointing to the body. It was still in the strange sitting position on the floor.

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking for the manager. I’m supposed to report to him. To play ball.”

The attendant cleared his throat and quietly said, “This is Mickey Rawlings. He played for the Braves some last year. I let him in about twenty minutes ago and told him how to get to Stahl’s office.” He frowned at me slightly as he concluded his statement.

The cop glared at the attendant. I think he wanted to get answers directly from me, preferably through a vigorous third degree.

The portly man also looked at the attendant and spoke for the first time. “The kid doesn’t follow directions so good, does he?” The deep booming voice sounded like an umpire’s; it conflicted sharply with his bankerlike appearance. He turned to me, and with a wry look on his face said, “So you’re Rawlings. Welcome to Fenway, kid.”

The cop let him speak without interruption or hostile looks, so I assumed the man had a position of authority. He quickly proved me right by barking some commands. He ordered the attendant, “Call Captain Tom O’Malley at the Walpole Street a. Tell him—uh, tell him what we have here. And I want him to handle it personally. Bring him to my office when he gets here.” He directed the policeman: “You stay here until O’Malley shows up and tells you what to do.” To me he said, “Come along with me,” and firmly pushed my elbow to get me started. I followed him through a course of passages without trying to keep track of the turns.

We arrived at a door that had
ROBERT F. TYLER
painted on it in gold letters. My companion unlocked the door, and we stepped into an office that was large in size, but seemed cramped from all the ornate dark wood furniture that filled it. He moved as if the office was his, so I took it that my escort was the advertised Robert F. Tyler. I watched as he closed the door behind us and silently walked over to a sideboard. Tyler wasn’t as soft as he first appeared. There was a power to his movements that indicated an athletic past. He did have a prominent belly, but that was a sign of prosperity that no self-respecting executive would be without.

Tyler filled a shot glass with amber liquid from a decanter and gulped it down. Emitting a satisfied sigh, he picked up another glass, filled it to the brim, and brought it to where I was still standing just inside the door. “Drink this. It will do you good.”