The Circus Fire (29 page)

Authors: Stewart O'Nan

Haley admitted that he'd called Robert Ringling from the Bond. Hickey didn't press him for details of the conversation. He did, however, request and receive Ringling's address in Evanston. When asked of his plans for the next few days, Haley said he would be on his car at the Windsor Street yards. Hickey told him to let the court know if he planned to leave town. And would he have any objection to Hickey communicating with Mr. Ringling? Of course not, Haley said.

The interview was through. Hickey reminded him that he was under subpoena to attend the coroner's inquest, yet to be scheduled. He officially

referred the matter of Haley's arrest to Leikind with the recommendation that a bond be set with respect to whatever charges the prosecutor felt appropriate. Meanwhile, Haley could wait outside.

Second was George W. Smith, who knew the daily schedule of the Big Show better than anyone. Smith was circus through and through. He'd started the hard way, as a busboy in the cookhouse of the old Forepaugh-Sells unit, and through the years worked himself up to general manager of the Greatest Show on Earth.

Smith confirmed that Carson had charge of the ushers but said Aylesworth ran the seatmen. There were eight seatmen in all, one under every bleacher section and one under each of the four long grandstands. Aylesworth's men had the responsibility of filling the fire buckets and setting them beneath the planks—twenty-four under the grandstands, any extras under the blues.

The extinguishers were Whitey Versteeg's lookout. There were twenty-four in all, charged and inspected every year by the Sarasota Fire Department.

Two of Blanchfield's drivers manned each of the four water trucks, though Smith admitted they'd never been trained to fight fires. The trucks were used primarily to water the animals and the cookhouse.

Smith also described the Barbour Street grounds as being "a tight lot," with just enough room for wagons to pass outside of the stake line.

"Were you in Cleveland?" Hickey asked.

"I wasn't with the show," Smith answered. "I had the Army War Show all during that year."

Hickey turned to the issue of fireproofing, getting Smith to say straight out what the circus publicly could not.

Q.
Is there any process at all applied to the canvas for fireproofing?

A.
No.

Q. None whatever?

A.
No. As far as we could determine in trying to find that out, there's nothing that would fireproof it and waterproof it at the same time, and this year it was impossible to buy what you'd call fireproof equipment.

They discussed the paraffin treatment, how brushing it on sealed the pores of the canvas. Then Hickey went right back to the fireproofing.

Q. Did I understand you to say that this year you were not able to get

the materials for fireproof purposes?
A.
That's right.

Q. Was the canvas top for the previous years fireproof?
A.
No sir.

Q. How long since you have been fireproofing?
A.
We never fireproofed.

Smith mentioned a firm in Baltimore, the Hooper Manufacturing Company, with which they'd had some correspondence, even going so far as to try samples of their product, but, "We couldn't put it on the canvas so it would remain fireproof."

From this testimony it would seem they'd made an effort, but Hickey wasn't satisfied.

Q. Now I understood that in 1943 you were not able to fireproof the

top or the canvas?
A.
That's right. Q. In 1942?
A.
That's right.

Q. 1941?

A.
That's right.

Q. How long since you had a fireproof—

A.
Well, Commissioner, I have been around the show since 1910, and

we never fireproofed the top. Q. You never fireproofed the top?
A.
Never.

Asked why they'd even looked into the possibility, Smith said it had been the idea of their new president, Robert Ringling. He also testified that the hose on the water wagons was two and a half inches, which would be compatible with the city's fire hydrants. He estimated capacity at 9,048— 6,048 in the grandstands, 3,000 on the blues. It was this number that Hickey indiscriminately combined with Haley's for his own total of 10,048.

Hickey now turned to the chutes, asking if the one pair of stairs over each had been taken away before the cats went out. No, Smith said, the stairs were there.

Hickey asked Smith to wait outside and not discuss his testimony with the others. Smith assured him that he wouldn't.

Next up was Leonard Aylesworth, the canvas boss. Hickey didn't waste any time, establishing that he'd been in Cleveland. Aylesworth had witnessed that fire but not the one today, he claimed—as if that might absolve him—because he'd gone to Springfield. But he was in charge of treating the big top, Hickey reminded him.

Q. Who determined the mixture that was to be applied to it?
A.
Why, that's just been handed down.

Because Aylesworth was in charge of the seatmen, Hickey worked on their role in the origin of the fire. John Carson and his ushers, it seemed, were blameless in this. Outside, William Caley waited in the hall.

Q. Have you had any fires at all start on the sidewalls anywhere else

which were immediately put out?
A.
Yes. We've had people throw cigarettes, such things as that. My

seatmen are usually on the alert for those things. We find little holes from time to time in there.

Hickey discovered that Aylesworth did a walkaround before every performance to make sure his men were in position. His assistant William Dwyer did it when he was out of town, but Dwyer had been called away because of a death in the family, and Aylesworth had failed to designate a replacement.

Hickey produced a list of the canvas crew and asked Aylesworth to mark the names of the eight seatmen. Aylesworth named Caley as one of the men under the southwest bleachers. The other, John Cook, had been missing since the fire.

Aylesworth said his thirty buckets were under the stands, presumably filled.

Q. What other firefighting equipment of any kind is placed under

these seats?

A.
The electrical department puts fire extinguishers under there. Q. There were fire extinguishers under there?
A.
They're supposed to be put under there. Q. Did you see them there last night?
A.
No, I didn't.

Q. Did you see them there yesterday?
A.
I saw them unloaded yesterday but I didn't see them under the

seats.

He'd done his walkaround an hour before Wednesday night's show. His men were there, and his buckets, but the extinguishers were missing.

Q. Whose job is it to see that those extinguishers are in place?

A.
The boss electrician.

Q. The boss electrician's name, please?

A.
Versteeg.

He would be the next to see the commissioner.

All through the night

On the lot, the show's diesels drummed, feeding the lights of the midway and around the perimeter. The kids on Barbour Street thought the army was searching for bodies in the dark woods.

At midnight, city and state police relieved the MPs from Bradley. They would guard the grounds till daybreak. Chief Godfreys car detail patrolled the empty streets, taking license plate numbers, making up yet another list.

In Municipal Hospital, the detective's daughter Marion Dineen— now found among the living—shared a third-floor room with Shirley Snelgrove of Plainville, who, now that it was past midnight, was officially thirteen. July 7th was her birthday. The trip to the circus was supposed to be her party. The Snelgroves had first come in on Wednesday, but the matinee had been cancelled, so they came back Thursday. When the fire started they climbed the north grandstand to escape but lost their nerve at the edge. Her parents made it over the northwest chute; Shirley didn't. She ran up the grandstand again and jumped and someone dragged her out from under the sidewall. She had burns on her arms, legs and back. Her parents were still missing.

Marion wore the pearls she'd had on at the circus above her hospital gown. She'd had her brother Billy by the hand. As they reached the northeast chute, she lost her grip on him. "I dropped his hand to go over the animal cage and caught my foot there, but I yanked my foot out of my shoe and went on over. Then I ran toward a door, and I haven't seen my brother [since]. He was under the building when the thing fell."

The halls had gone quiet. Downstairs, volunteers folded bandages. Across the city at St. Francis, nuns watched over the injured. At Hartford Hospital, internes slept in four-hour shifts.

The armory was still open. Maurice Goff's husband, Arnold, a private in the army, identified her by her wedding ring. Her father Robert Wells identified Muriel by an arch support she wore. They couldn't locate the Epps boys.

There was no line outside. An announcement came over the sound

car: The morgue would be closing for the night at 1:00 A.M. Upstairs, Albert Cadoret identified #4588 as his brother-in-law Bill Curlee with the help of a friend. Curlee's sunglasses had been on the wrong cot, but between the two of them they'd figured it out.

At 1:00, as promised, the armory closed, the state police and MPs clearing the building. Some people had been searching for hours, going through the rows again and again fruitlessly. Of the 135 bodies, only 60 had been identified. Guards locked the grate and closed the tall lobby doors. The morgue would reopen at 8:00 A.M., a voice over the sound car announced to the crowd outside. Long after they'd dispersed up Broad and Capitol, headed home, soldiers remained on guard under the spotlights.

Jennie Heiser got home exhausted. She poured herself a good strong brandy and knocked it back, fell into bed and slept like a log.

Thomas Barber dragged himself home to Edgewood and Garden Streets. He unbuckled his holster and put his service revolver away where the kids couldn't get at it. Barber was used to being awake this time of night. Sometimes when his shift was done he invited his buddies over and made a big pot of spaghetti and clam sauce and they played poker till dawn, dropping coins on the rug for the children to find. Now he found himself thinking of Harry, and the little girl in the front row, all those kids. The heat and the smell. The relatives. Tomorrow he'd be back, Ed Lowe, too. Eight o'clock wasn't far.

Downtown at fire headquarters, the switchboard received a call. It was fireman Joseph Viering's sister. He wouldn't be reporting for duty tomorrow. There'd been a death in the family.

And on till morning

Whitey Versteeg testified that he and his crew used their extinguishers on the light plant. He volunteered the information unbidden. It was all the opening Hickey needed.