I'm Here For My Reward

He stuck his head out of the alley, swung it side to side, checking for any lookie-loos. Assured they were alone, he went back to the body and searched through the pockets of the dead man’s trench coat. When he came up with a little black notebook, he flipped through the pages with a great deal of curiosity. Searching the man’s suit jacket, he found the wallet and badge that confirmed the identity: Detective Henry Rhodes, Homicide. Pocketing the book, but leaving the badge and the wallet behind, he exited the alley and turned left, barely taking notice of the worn notice tacked to the fence guarding its entrance:

WANTED:

INFORMATION LEADING TO

AN ARREST IN THE MURDER OF

OFFICER ARCHIE O’BRIEN.

REWARD: $20,000

Once he reached home, he poured two fingers of whiskey from the bottle hidden in the cabinet behind the bookshelf and began studying the notes in the little black book. Even with Detective Rhodes’ sketchy handwriting, he was able to piece together the progress in the murder investigation. The crime had been front page news since the disastrous raid on the speakeasy over on Delaware Street six weeks earlier. The papers kept reporting no new leads, and the cops were beginning to suspect a leak in their ranks. The reward money was getting upped on the regular and was now sitting at $20,000. He thought about what he could do with an extra 20 large, and decided to finish working good old Detective Rhodes’ case for him.

***

The bar underneath the warehouse on Delaware Street had been one of the best. It really was a shame the scene had been busted wide open. The booze was good and the ladies were nice to look at. It wasn’t like some of those dark and dusty joints where you could expect to walk out with a hangover and a need for penicillin like some of the places in town. But it also wasn’t so uppity that you needed a blue-blooded pedigree to get in. It was the kind of place where a nice guy could have a fine time, hear some good jazz, and maybe take home a decent gal once in awhile. On the night of May 7, 1925, the place had been jumping. A brand new brass trio was playing, a beautiful singer from New Orleans had joined them on stage, and the champagne cocktails were flowing. The best whiskey was at the ready. No one knew exactly where the best bootleg liquor in town came from, but it did seem that where Charlie Winston – the proud owner of Winston Shipping – went, a good time was sure to follow.

It was just past midnight when the door hidden in the paneling of the room had burst open and the room flooded with cops, guns drawn. Anyone walking down Delaware Street at that moment saw the row of paddy wagons at the ready, waiting to collect the boozers and flappers. As the music suddenly cut off, the guests started screaming and running for cover. The cops were trying to round up the room when someone drew a gun and fired. No one could say who fired first, but multiple shots rang out, and when the dust settled, rookie officer Archie O’Brien was dead as a doornail, shot through the chest with a .45. Everyone left inside the club was loaded into a wagon and taken downtown for processing. All were pressured and questioned, but no one the cops detained – in fact, none of the cops themselves – could recall seeing a gun in anyone’s hand. There wasn’t a single firearm found on the scene. And what’s more, there wasn’t a trace of liquor inside the club that wasn’t already poured into an abandoned or overturned glass.

The next morning the newspapers began calling for any clues leading to the man – or woman – who’d fired the fatal shot. Each club-goer was eventually processed out with minor infractions or fines, and the cops came up looking like fools. Not only had they failed to recover a score of bootleg liquor, they’d lost one of their own in the process. They were becoming a laughingstock. Local businessmen started contributing to a pot for a reward, hoping to save face for the law and order. Their best homicide detective, Henry Rhodes, worked tirelessly interviewing everyone who’d been arrested that night, but six weeks later, he was dead in an alley with a .38 shot to the back of the head, and still no arrest.

***

He read each page of notes carefully. He could read the detective’s frustration surrounding the events on the night of May 7. On the fifth page of notes, he found Rhodes’ interview with Fran Peterson, who’d been arrested that night. She was supposed to be there with her best friend, Rosie Darby, but Rosie had gotten sick at the last minute. And then Rosie had started acting strangely and suggested Fran stay home with her and listen to the radio instead of going out. But Fran was hoping to meet someone new, so she went out alone. Fran told the detective that Rosie was dating a cop in the 41st precinct – the same precinct that raided the Delaware underground. Two pages later, he found the notes from Rhodes’ interview with Rosie, a local bank clerk, who confirmed she’d been home sick that night. But Rosie didn’t say she was dating a cop – Rosie mentioned a guy named Charlie Winston. She said Charlie had called on her that evening because she wasn’t feeling well. She remembered because the news had just started on the radio, and he sat with her for several hours. Her mother was in the house all evening as well, asleep upstairs in her room. Rhodes had sketched a note in the margin of the book: “Whiskey on her breath? Did she shove a booze bottle behind the door when I came in? Hookup for liquor?”

He flipped through interviews with other detainees from that night that hadn’t produced much. He saw notes of a “casual” conversation with Officer Joe Darby in the 41st over coffee. Joe mentioned he’d been hanging around with Rosie, but it wasn’t anything serious. Yet. Joe hoped it might get there, because Rosie had ‘legs that went on forever’ and ‘lips the color of strawberries.’ He also read the notes of an interview with Rex Thornton, who owned the warehouse on Delaware Street, underneath which the speakeasy had been discovered. Although the cops hadn’t picked Rex up at the bust on May 7, he did own six or seven warehouses in the area. Two others had been raided in the past year, and another club had been found behind false walls inside one of them. Rhodes noted that Rex might be a lynchpin in providing space to illegal club owners and could have a hookup inside the police station to protect his interests.

He read every word of Rhodes’ notes carefully, eventually coming to the detective’s working theory diagrammed on the last used page:

→Rosie – dates Joe Darby – cop inside 41st

→Rosie – doesn’t go out night of raid on May 7. Knows about it from Joe Darby?

→Rosie – definitely has access to liquor. Also dates Charlie Winston.

→Charlie = Bootlegger?

→Rosie – warns Charlie Winston? If tipped off, could have moved all liquor out before raid.

→Rex Thornton – owns space under warehouse. Running speakeasy? Would know about alternate escape routes.

→O’Brien shooting – accident? Who’s most likely armed in the club?

→Rex or Charlie – neither picked up – check alibis?

→MOST likely suspects: Rex or Charlie. Next interview: Charlie Winston

After reviewing all the notes several times, he realized the most obvious answer. The question was, how to fix it so the police would see it the same way, and he could collect the reward?

He spent the next several hours working with a clean set of ledger books, carefully creating a business history going back three years. He thought that would be sufficient. He created two sets of books. One that showed a legitimate business, with incoming and outgoing shipments, and one that showed revenues from club rents and the purchase and sale of illegal liquor across six different locations, including the Delaware underground. He changed pens periodically, and then weathered the page edges. He smeared some ink, and dribbled coffee here and there. And finally, he created several invoices to a fictional shipping company, matching several pages of the “cooked” ledger book. When his work was complete, he sat back and admired his efforts. Perfect.

It was nearly dawn when he finished. He had several stops to make in order to collect his reward.

First, he pulled off on the side of the East River Bridge and tossed a Smith & Wesson .38 into the rushing water below.

Next, he drove down to the Delaware underground and let himself in through the hidden rear entrance. Once inside the club, still mostly in tatters after the raid, he pried open a piece of paneling and tucked the two ledgers inside. Next to the ledgers, he set a Colt .45 caliber pistol. He left the paneling ajar, but tucked a chair sideways inside the edge, as if to suggest it might have been overlooked in the fray.

Then he took the fake invoices down to the 41st precinct.

At the clerk’s desk, he asked to speak to the detective in charge of the O’Brien investigation. The clerk began to cry immediately and left to go get the station chief. A tall, spindly man with a droopy mustache emerged from behind a green door and stuck out his hand. “Detective Rhodes passed away last night,” he said, by way of explanation for the clerk’s tears. “I’m Chief Stuckey. How can I help you?”

The man offered his hand in return. “I believe I can help you solve the murder of Officer Archie O’Brien.”

By that afternoon, prompted to search the Delaware underground again after reviewing the invoices tying Rex Thornton’s warehouse operations to years of illegal liquor shipments and other speakeasies, the cops found the ledgers and the gun used to kill Officer O’Brien. By day’s end, Rex Thornton was arrested for murder and dozens of counts of bootlegging and criminal conspiracy.

It took a week for the $20,000 check to be issued. With that money he could buy his own warehouse, set up an entirely new operation. When he walked in the door of the precinct the clerk looked up and asked, “How can I help you?” He smiled and said, “Charlie Winston. I’m here to collect my reward.”