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Guilt

A signed confession is nice, but...

By Keith NolenPublished 3 years ago 17 min read
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It was about 3 PM on an otherwise mundane Thursday in 1949 when a stranger confessed murder to me. He just walked into the San Francisco PD, asked for the detective on duty, in Homicide - which was me, Jerry Collins - and confessed to a murder I didn't even know had happened.

"My name's Aaron Black. I killed my business partner, Henry Holt, about two hours ago. We went to lunch at the Donovan Hotel bar. He got drunk, as usual. On the way back to the office, I pushed him from the platform and the "muni" train killed him. He was so drunk he didn't even know the train was coming."

"You pushed a man off a platform in front of a municipal train and nobody noticed?"

"We were at the Harrington station. It just opened and nobody uses it much yet. The platform was practically abandoned. Nobody was looking. Everyone assumed Henry just fell."

Aaron black didn't look like a killer. He looked like a mouse in a cheap suit with wire-frame spectacles. A pointy nose and a face that was accustomed to expressing worry. Your average nobody on the slow decline from youth to oblivion - the express, no stops.

Except this mouse was a confessed killer. Black gave me all the details and I called up the Harrington station to confirm the story. Someone had died on the tracks at about 1 PM. Henry Holt had the honor of being the first death associated with San Francisco's shiny new municipal subway system. The ticket taker even said that the dead man must have fallen because he was very drunk. According to her, Holt hadn't been far from comatose - dizzy, disoriented, exhausted, nauseous, and stiff.

Then I called the city morgue, where Holt's remains had just arrived. White male, age 50. Cause of death was "pretty damn obvious, he got run over by a train."

After confirming the death, I talked to Black some more. "So why did you kill him?"

Mr. Black didn't like that question at all. He took his glasses off, fiddled with them and stared at his presumably out-of-focus feet. "Why? I can't say... it would be too... well... because... " Suddenly Black figured it out and looked up at me. For a moment he was more man than mouse. "Because i think he was cheating me! That's exactly why! We've been partners for six years, but in the last six months I betcha he started to rob me blind! My wife is our bookkeeper - you can ask her! I'll bet she can prove it!"

Revenge for robbery was certainly a valid motive, even if Black wasn't so sure about it. "OK, but would you be willing to sign a confession?"

"Yes, of course." The mouse was back. "I've confessed, haven't I?"

He had, and he did. I typed it up, Black signed it, and that was that. Aaron Black was under arrest and in a holding cell no more than 30 minutes from the time he walked up to my desk. It was the end Aaron Black, and the end of the death of Henry Holt - or so I thought.

----------------

Of course, a signed confession is golden, but I wanted corroboration to make sure Black wasn't just a nut case, that things had happened the way he said. So I headed down to the Donovan Hotel, where Holt and Black had had lunch. Turns out it was also where Holt lived. He was single with no family. All he did was work, according to Black, and drink. His life was pretty much summed up by the Donovan Hotel, Holt & Black Shipping, and the muni line between the two.

The Donovan was a little Spanish-style building with a bar, a restaurant, a couple dozen rooms, and a plaque saying it had been the site of a Spanish mission church before the fire in 1906. I found the manager, who was also the bartender and the maitre d'. He was about Holt's age 50, a very observant hotel manager. His name was Les Anders.

"Of course Mr. Holt is here often - he lives here, room 407. If he's not at work, he's in the bar or upstairs with his lady friend."

"Lady friend? Holt's got a girlfriend?"

"Yeah, sure. Regular as clockwork, every Tuesday night for about the last four months. A real catch for Holt, too, if you know what I mean."

"Let's say I'm obtuse and I don't know what you mean."

"She's young, a lot younger than Mr. Holt. probably no more than 30, and real pretty. Brown hair, about five feet four. Always wears a scarf of some kind, around her neck or on her head."

"Have you noticed anything else about her, Mr. Anders?"

"Yeah, she's married. I noticed the ring on her finger first time Mr. Holt brought her here for dinner. She noticed I noticed, and boy did she look guilty. I've never seen her with the ring on again, but she won't look me in the face much either. I don't think she's happy that I know. If you know what I mean."

"The man who was with Mr. Holt for lunch today, have you ever seen him before?"

"The nervous little guy? I think he'd met Mr. Holt here a couple times before. I think they're in business together; they always talk over papers and such. When they were here this afternoon, I think they were arguing over money. Detective Collins, what is this all about? Is Mr. Holt in some kind of trouble?"

"Mr. Holt won't ever have trouble again. If you know what I mean."

Anders was downcast when he heard that Holt was dead. I don't think he actually liked Holt, but he was going to miss his customer. “I guess I’ll have to break the bad news to his girlfriend next Wednesday.”

“You do that, Mr. Anders. You do that.”

As I was leaving, Anders stopped me. “It’s pretty ironic, don’t you think?”

“What’s so ironic about getting murdered by your business partner?”

“Not that part. Mr. Holt had been having a lot of health problems lately. He always seemed dizzy and disoriented, said he was stiff and nauseous all the time and he couldn’t sleep. It’s ironic to get murdered when you feel like you’re dying. If you know what I mean.”

That was ironic. “This time I do know what you mean.”

--------------

As I headed back to the station, I realized that while I didn’t have to deliver the bad news of Holt’s death to anyone else, I did have one more unpleasant job in front of me: telling Mrs. Black that her husband wouldn’t be back at work for a very long time. I really hated this part of the job. Giving the bad news to wives always made my stomach turn, but I had to confirm her husband’s story about Holt’s creative accounting, and she was the only person who could do it. So when I got back to my desk I called Holt & Black Shipping and asked for Helen Black. She picked up the phone before the first ring was complete.

“Aaron? Is that you? Where are you?”

“Mrs. Black, this is Detective Collins of the San Francisco Police Department, Homicide desk. I’m calling about Henry Holt.”

She hesitated just a breath. “I’m sorry, but he’s out of the office. He was supposed to be here, but he never came back from lunch.”

“I know. Mrs. Black, Henry Holt is dead and we think you can shed some light on the situation. Could you come down to the station?”

“Do I have to come down right away? I’ve been hoping my husband would call. He went out to lunch with Mr. Holt and they haven’t come back. I guess now I know why. Have you seen my husband? Is Aaron all right?” A note of panic had crept into her voice.

“Your husband’s fine, ma’am. But we do need to talk to you. Please come down to the station as soon as possible. We know what’s been going on there." I used my bad-cop voice, which usually gets results.

She paused. When she spoke, she sounded a little guilty, like I’d caught her in something. I wondered why.

“All right. I'll bring the things. Wouldn’t you usually send a squad car?”

Why would we send a squad car for a witness? She’d seen too many bad detective movies. “We could if you’d like, but it’s not customary.”

“I’ll be there directly, then.”

I thought I heard her choking back tears as she hung up. And... what things?

----------

When Helen Black walked into Homicide, I noticed a few things about her right away. One was that she’d been crying. Another was that she fit Les Anders’ description of Henry Holt’s girlfriend to a T, right down to the brunette hair and the saffron-colored scarf over her head. The third was that the guilt that had been in her voice was struggling to keep itself from her face, and only succeeding sporadically. And lastly, she was carrying a brown cardboard box.

“Detective Collins? I’m Helen Black.”

“Thank you for coming down so quickly, Mrs. Black. Please, have a seat. Would you like some coffee?”

“No, but I would like some water.”

I got her the water. As I did, I thought about her guilt and her tears and her scarf and Anders’ description. What if she was Holt’s girlfriend? Then Black had a real motive. He hadn’t been too sure about the cooking the books thing. Maybe he’d made it up to protect his wife’s reputation. Maybe I had caught her in something without knowing it.

I decided to act like I knew something - maybe she'd pop to adultery. That would really seal Black’s confession. I didn’t like squeezing a woman that way, but I wanted Black to stay locked up for a long time.

“Here’s your water, Ma’am. Now, I just need to ask you a few questions. Tell me about your position at your husband’s company.”

She seemed a little surprised at the question, but she answered. “I’m the bookkeeper.”

“So you have daily contact with both Mr. Holt and your husband?”

“Yes, more Mr. Holt than Aaron. Henry handled all the collections and sales. So whenever a payment came in or a bill went out, it went through him. My husband supervised the actual shipping and the workers, so he was usually at the docks rather than in the office.”

“And you realized Holt’s been pocketing some money on the side?”

“A good deal of money. It’s been going on for about six months. I caught it right away, but didn’t know what to say. I knew if I told Aaron he’d just roll over for his partner like he always does. So I decided to do something about it myself.”

I decided to hurry up the process. “And is that when you started sleeping with Henry Holt?”

She hung her head and started to cry again. Gotcha. “Soon after, a few weeks. I assume you can see why.”

I sure did. By all descriptions Holt had been a big man, and a handsome one too, even at fifty. And mousy little Aaron Black just hadn’t measured up. What an icebox she was. At least she felt some remorse for betraying her vows to her husband. “You decided to go where the grass was greener.”

“Good Lord, no! If that’s why I was with Henry Holt, why would I have killed him? I started sleeping with him so I could get close enough to put the mercury in his drinks.”

To this day I’m proud of the fact that all I did was blink. I just let her continue.

“Mercury?”

“Yes, mercury. You know, quicksilver. Oh, I suppose you haven’t had time to finish the autopsy. That’s how I killed him; mercury poisoning."

Two confessions for the same murder? What a pair the Blacks were. “And how did you do that?”

“I poisoned his liquor. I’d meet him on Wednesdays at his cheap little hotel out by Harrington. After we’d… afterwards, he’d always have a drink. I’d get it for him and slip a dose of mercury into it. I knew it would take time, but I increased the dosage the last month. Still, I thought I’d have to keep on seeing him for another month or so. They told us it was slow.”

“Who told you?”

“The Army. I worked in a munitions factory during the war. I was a nursing assistant as well as the bookkeeper, so I had to learn to look for possible problems during physicals. The factory used mercury, and mercury poisoning was one of the things I was trained to look for. It sounded like a horrible way to die.”

“Why mercury, Mrs. Black?”

“Because he deserved it, and because I could get some. We ship medical supplies, including thermometers. Mercury is the fluid in thermometers. We get them by the gross, in crates. Every Wednesday morning I’d go to the warehouse, find a shipment, steal one, and hide it in my purse. That night I’d break it as I made the drink and pour the mercury into the glass along with the liquor.” She opened the box, and inside I saw a broken thermometer, leaking mercury, and a highball glass. I was certain the glass had her fingerprints on it, and Holt's as well. She had come ready to confess.

It was a clever scheme. I was familiar with mercury poisoning. My grandfather had been a hatter back in England, and my mother used to always tell me how he died of ‘mad hatter’s disease.’ He was poisoned by the mercury used to soften the felt for the hats. The symptoms -– dizziness, nausea, exhaustion, headaches, fuzzy vision, stiffness -- looked like a hundred other things, and nobody saw a doctor for them until it was too late because they came on gradually. Plus mercury is hard to detect in an autopsy. You have to be looking for it. It’s a terrific slow poison, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

I typed up her confession and she signed it, just like her husband. I collected the brown paper box without touching the contents. Her confession was enough, but the evidence in the box sealed the case tighter than a submarine.

After signing, she though for a moment. “Detective, I’m glad I did it. Even if I am going to jail, I’m still glad I did it. He was a horrible man, and he treated my Aaron so badly. At least Aaron won’t have to put up with him any more. And since Henry didn’t have any family, Aaron will own the whole business! Detective, do you think my husband will visit me in prison?”

“Mrs. Black, wait here.” I got a patrolman to watch her, and went to do two things that I needed to do out of her earshot. First I called the morgue and asked for Richard Baker, Chief Medical Examiner for the county of San Francisco.

“Dr. Baker.”

“Rick, it’s Jerry Collins. Listen, you got a body in this afternoon, guy who died at the Harrington subway station.”

“Yeah, a real mess, too. First death on the Muni. Can you believe that he was so tight he fell right off the platform?”

“I think there may have been something else going on. Can you do a test on the body for mercury?”

“Mercury? Why?”

“I just got a confession to his murder.”

“Jerry, this guy wasn’t poisoned. He lost a fight with public transportation.”

“Just check, please, and call me back as soon as you know.”

“OK, but if this is your idea of a logical deduction, this city’s in trouble.”

“Thanks a lot, Rick.”

Then I made a beeline for Black’s cell. The four hours since his confession hadn’t been good to Black; if anything, his suit looked cheaper and his hair looked thinner. Did he know his wife had been fooling around? Was he in on the poisoning – assuming her story was true at all?

“I know you’ve lied to me, Mr. Black. I spoke with your wife. Tell me what really happened.”

“It happened just like I said.”

“Then tell me what your wife usually does on Wednesday nights.”

He took a deep breath. “OK, but I don’t want this on the record. I want Helen left out of this entirely, OK?”

“As much as possible.” It wasn’t possible at all, but Black didn’t know that yet.

“On Wednesday nights I usually play poker with the lead dock hands. It keeps the dock bosses happy, especially when I lose, and I make sure to lose. Anyhow, I didn’t play poker yesterday night. Instead I followed Henry home. I knew he’d been skimming and I wanted to have it out with him. I was going to confront him and make him buy me out.”

“How did you know he was skimming? Did your wife tell you?”

“No. I knew from the dock bosses. They have copies of all the invoices that come in, so I knew just what we were making. The figures I was getting from Henry didn’t jibe.”

“So what did you see at the Donovan?”

A look of dismay overwhelmed his face; he took off his glasses again and stared at the floor. “I saw Helen and he having dinner together. I couldn’t believe it, until I watched them go upstairs. Then I started to put two and two together. I don’t blame Helen much. Henry is – um, was a handsome man, and I know what I look like. Plus he’s got all the money. I’m a minority partner in the business and he’s always used that against me. So my plan was to get out of the business and get out of town. Maybe then we could start again, if Helen would still have me.”

“So how did that turn into murder?”

“I told Henry over lunch that I knew he was skimming and that I wanted him to buy me out. He just laughed at me. He laughed. I was so angry I could have just busted him right in the chops, but I didn’t. I figured Helen and I would just leave town.”

For one more moment, the mouse disappeared and Aaron Black was a man. His face was filled with passion. I thought he was going to crush the glasses he held, he was so intense. “But when we were waiting for the train, that S.O.B. wolf-whistled at the ticket taker as we entered the station. He’s sleeping with my wife and he has the gall to look at another woman! I got so angry I just pushed him without thinking. The son-of-a-bitch deserved it for doing that to Helen!”

Black stood up and looked me in the eye. “And you know what? I’m glad I did it, Detective. Even though I’m going to jail, I’m still glad I did it. He’s dead and she’s free of him, and so am I. Hey, you know what? She’ll own the whole business. Holt and Black will be hers. Maybe she’ll at least visit me in jail, if she doesn’t want a divorce.”

“Perhaps. One thing I don’t get, Mr. Black – why did you confess?”

“To be honest, Detective? I couldn’t take the guilt. Two hours after committing the one true act of passion in my life, and I couldn’t take the guilt.”

----------

Ricky’s report confirmed a high level of mercury in Henry Holt’s body. “If he hadn’t fallen in front of that train, he would have been dead in a month anyway. How did you know?”

----------

They stood trial separately, Aaron Black for manslaughter, Helen Black for attempted murder. She got thirty years, he got twenty; they might both be out sometime in the early nineteen seventies. Then they can grow old together.

They would have gotten away with it, too, except for the guilt.

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