That Night at the Palace (7 page)

For Garvis it couldn’t have worked out any better. Not only did she get out of that smoky gambling hall, she got to sit on a beautiful terrace on a lovely spring evening alone with what might possibly be the most eligible young man in the oil industry. Unfortunately, the most eligible young man in the oil industry didn’t say a single word for the first half-hour they were out there. As a matter of fact, he did almost everything he could possibly do to keep from even looking at her. Every time she spoke he would look at her for a long moment and then give a one-word answer and quickly turn his head away.

Garvis had all but given up when after at least ten-minutes of silence he asked, “Would you like to go to the movies with me sometime?”

Hooked.

Little did she realize that he had wanted to ask from the moment he first laid eyes on her. He’d never seen a girl so beautiful in his life. Girls who look like her did not come out to the oilrigs. More importantly, they didn’t date roughnecks, and he was a lowly roughneck. Still, she was more stunning than any woman he had ever met.

It took no time at all to reel him in. He was love-struck. He just didn’t know it. Garvis had spent a year at SMU and knew all too well how to bring in a catch, and Murdock Rose was as easy a catch as ever there was. Three months later, in June of 1920, Horace McCracken Hamilton walked her down the aisle at the South Main Baptist Church of Henderson, Texas.

Otherwise, the junket to New Orleans had not proven all too successful. Hamilton watched four thousand dollars go to the roulette tables at the O’Dwyer brother’s club and not one thin dime of Frelinghuysen-Nightingale Petroleum money came back his way. As he often liked to point out, “All I got out of that train ride was a dead-beat son-in-law.”

Of course, Murdock Rose was no dead-beat. Granted, contrary to what Horace McCracken Hamilton felt he had been led to believe, Rose was a long way from wealthy. Nevertheless he had a good job and managed to save a little from each paycheck, despite sending money back to his elderly parents. Which, as it turned out was considerably more than Horace Hamilton ever did.

Less than a month after they were married the Henderson Star reported that Hamilton had, in fact, been supplying cane sugar and grain from his timber leases to an enormous boot-legging operation and, after a subsequent raid on Hamilton Lumber Company and Timber Mill, no less than six hundred gallons of the Whittlesey’s top grain whiskey was found hidden behind stacks of two-by-fours. Notoriety such as a bootlegging arrest would send most businessmen over the edge, but not Horace McCracken Hamilton. In fact, in some social circles in Texas, an arrest for bootlegging was a badge of honor. Unfortunately, though, the enormity of the liquor raid led to a United States Treasury investigation of Hamilton Lumber Company and Timber Mill finances. The Treasury investigators learned, and later proved in a subsequent raid, that the highly respected Mr. Hamilton was not only involved in bootlegging but also had significant financial dealings with a number of houses of ill-repute throughout East Texas and Louisiana. Still, such a reputation did not bring down Horace Hamilton. His father and grandfather before him had earned a good, if not completely respectable, living in that same industry. No, what brought him down was the fact that, unlike his son-in-law, he himself was a dead-beat. He had outstanding loans with banks all over the state. In fact, though he had once joked to Murdock about Nightingale gambling away what was left of Garvis’s dowry, Hamilton had already done just that. The fifteen thousand dollars he spent on the junket to the Fairgrounds (plus about four thousand for Nightingale’s evening at the tables) had been the last of a near two hundred thousand dollar line of credit, all of which had been lost to failed business deals. The Frelinghuysen-Nightingale Petroleum contract, which, as it turned out, never materialized, was a last ditch effort to save the lumber company. Worse still, according to the United States Treasury investigators, Horace McCracken Hamilton had been cheating on his Federal taxes almost from the day that the tax bill was passed in 1913.

For a man like Horace McCracken Hamilton it was acceptable to be thought of as a bootlegger and even tolerable, though be it somewhat embarrassing, to be called a…“procurer of pleasure.” But a man of Hamilton’s status just couldn’t be thought of as a dead-beat, much less go to prison for the un-American act of not paying his taxes. Therefore it did not surprise Murdock in the least when, after missing one of his many court dates, Horace McCracken Hamilton was found hanging by the neck in his lumber mill.

Garvis, naturally, could not accept that her father took his own life. She insisted all along that her father had been set-up. She often remarked that, “Daddy was murdered by those dreadful Whittlesey boys, who framed him and hid all of that liquor in his mill.”

Murdock had long since learned to accept Garvis’s denial of her father’s guilt. She had railed on about her “daddy’s” innocence for so long that it was no longer worth the debate. She was adamant that the Whittleseys had killed her father despite the fact that both of the Whittlesey boys were sitting in jail at the time of Hamilton’s death. She also refused to accept that he was a bootlegger and a… “procurer of pleasure” despite the fact that he had confessed everything to two Texas Rangers when he was arrested, drunk and naked, at Miss
Delilah’s Tomato Farm southeast of Maydelle.

It came as no surprise to Murdock when the papers began running stories about his father-in-law and the subsequent investigations and indictments. Mr. Nightingale had warned him about Hamilton’s dealings before he married Garvis. Nightingale may have liked to drink and gamble, but he had no respect for a man who took advantage of young women the way Hamilton did. Even if he was loosely connected to those houses, he was still in Nightingale’s opinion, “the worst kind of crook,” which is why he refused to even discuss a lumber contract with the man.

When it came to Hamilton at least, Murdock knew what he was getting into when he married. Unfortunately, he was not in the least bit prepared for Garvis. The woman was beautiful; there was no question about that. Even in her late thirties, she was a looker, but she was also a handful. She had married Murdock knowing that he wasn’t rich but her father was and the two would be able to live comfortably with Murdock’s income and a little help from “Daddy.” But right after the wedding ceremony, Hamilton took Murdock aside and explained that some business deals had not worked as well as expected and it would be a month or two before he could get them the house he had promised. Murdock, of course, could not possibly care less about any house from the man he now thought of as a glorified lumberjack, but Garvis absolutely hated that the two had to live in a dirty little old rented shack of a house on the back of a smelly chicken farm. Still, she was in love and often said that it would be fun to tell their grandchildren that they started their life together in the absolute worst possible conditions. Besides, it was only temporary. She and her father had already picked out a lot in Henderson where they would build their dream home. “This one,” she would say with a laugh, “will have indoor-plumbing and a swamp-cooler.” As if not having either was not only intolerable but also somewhat humiliating. Murdock, conversely, had never lived with indoor plumbing and wasn’t sure what a swamp-cooler was.

The day Garvis learned that her father didn’t have enough money to pay his legal bills, let alone buy her a house, she was distraught to the point of being ill. On top of that, her mother, who in her opinion had, “never appreciated daddy,” filed for divorce and moved to Dallas the very day the, “horribly ridiculous accusations about illicit houses,” hit the papers.

There were a lot of long, difficult years, five of which were in that little farmhouse without plumbing. Though there were moments when Murdock thought he could not tolerate another minute with her, there were other times when he knew he couldn’t live without her. For all her faults, Garvis was a good mother. She had raised their son Jesse almost by herself while he had been working the rigs. For that he loved her more than he could ever express. So if it took a little patience to live with Garvis, well, he had patience.

Thus, that Sunday morning after what he later thought of as the, “Incident at the Palace,” Murdock Rose was patiently waiting for Garvis to get ready for church. It wasn’t that she was late getting ready. Murdock had long since learned that she could get herself ready with less than a half-hour notice. What kept her was that she knew precisely how long it took to drive the half-mile to the First Baptist Church. She also knew at just what time the most people would be in the parking lot, about five minutes prior to the service starting. Therefore she knew just what time they needed to leave the house to be seen by the most people when they arrived at church in the big red LaSalle. So that Sunday, like all Sundays, Murdock patiently waited for his wife to come out of the bathroom, one of three in the house, at precisely the right moment for the two of them to arrive at the First Baptist Church Elza to be seen pulling into the parking lot with the windows up as they drove in weather-conditioned comfort. After over a year, Murdock would have thought that she would have gotten over making such a show, but she hadn’t.

#

Jefferson stepped out of the prowler slowly and walked up to the porch of the Rose’s home. There were very few people in Elza that Jefferson didn’t like. For the most part, just about everybody obeyed the traffic laws and showed Jefferson a reasonable amount of respect whenever he asked them to move a car out of a No Parking zone or to drive slowly past the school and such. In all honesty, Murdock always did even though he sometimes acted as if Jefferson was just being a pain in the posterior. Garvis, on the other hand, looked down her nose at Jefferson and just about everyone else in Elza. Quite frankly, Jefferson did his best to not come in contact with her. The woman was just plain rude. Frankly, he had no idea how she managed to raise such a good kid as Jesse.

As he stepped to the door, he secretly hoped that Murdock would be the one to answer. Murdock, though somewhat infuriating, was a man Jefferson could reason with.

Just as he raised his hand to knock, the door suddenly opened as Murdock held it for his wife to come out. The two were obviously dressed in their Sunday finest, which in the case of Garvis meant a dress that cost about what Jefferson made in a month.

“Chief Hightower,” Murdock said, “what brings you here?”

“Murdock, I apologize for interrupting you two on your way to church, but I need to speak to Jesse for a minute.”

“Is he in some trouble?” Garvis asked, the tone of her voice causing Jefferson to feel as if he was being told to get off her porch.

“No ma’am, I just need a word.”

“Can this wait, Chief?” Murdock asked. “We’re running late.”

“I know, and I truly am sorry, but I need to speak to him right away.”

“You’re making me scared, and you are not speaking to my son until I know exactly what this is about,” Garvis ordered loud enough for the neighbors to hear.

“Garvis, enough,” Murdock said in a firm tone, sensing something from Jefferson. “Chief, let’s go inside, I’ll get Jesse.”

Murdock held the door open as a fuming Garvis walked back in, followed by Chief Hightower.

“Exactly why do you need to see my son, Chief?” Garvis demanded.

“Enough!” Murdock ordered in a way Jefferson hadn’t expected.

Garvis suddenly shut up and stared wide-eyed at her husband. Jefferson sensed that she had rarely heard him speak like that before.

A sleepy but awakening Jesse came down the stairs wearing a pair of jeans and pulling a t-shirt over his head.

“What’s going on? I heard dad all the way upstairs.”

“The chief needs a word with you, Jesse,” Murdock replied.

Garvis was still staring at her husband but now with an expression of anger.

“Good morning, Jesse,” Jefferson said with a bit of a smile. He had always liked Jesse.

“Good mornin’, Chief. What’s up?”

“Do you know where Cliff Tidwell might be?”

“He’s probably home asleep, unless he went to church. But after what happened last night I doubt that. Why?”

“He didn’t come home last night. Did you see him after the shooting at the Palace?” Jefferson asked, feeling sure that he knew the answer. Those two boys had been sneaking out at night since they were nine or ten years old. About the only two people in town that didn’t know it were Jesse’s parents.

“What shooting?” Murdock asked in a tone that demanded an immediate answer.

“I’ll explain in a minute, Murdock,” Jefferson said in a commanding voice that let everyone know that this was serious, and he was in charge.

Jesse was a little uncomfortable with his parents there, but Jefferson was not joking around. He just used his serious “Police Chief” voice and Jesse had no choice. “He came by here at about midnight. We slipped out like we did when we were kids and drove over to the railroad bridge.”

“In your car or his?”

“Now, Chief, I’m starting to think that I need to know what this is about,” Murdock demanded, beginning to feel that something serious was happening.

Jefferson never took his eyes off Jesse. “In a minute, Murdock.”

“His car, Chief.”

“And then what?”

“Chief?” Murdock began.

“I said that I’ll explain in a minute, Murdock,” Chief Jefferson said with a lot more authority than he realized he could muster.

Murdock suddenly stood silent; no one had spoken to him like that since he was a child.

“He dropped me off over on Main, and I walked back here. We always did it that way so,” Jesse paused and looked at his parents, “so mom and dad wouldn’t hear his car.”

Jefferson was well aware that the two boys did that. Mrs. Cunningham had called him a dozen times after midnight over the years because of Cliff’s noisy Ford. Before the coupe the two used to drive around in Nickel Washington’s old Model-T pickup, which was even nosier than the coupe.