“Mr. Halley, I have done good work. I have sent thirty-one men to the electric chair, thirteen for killing police officers. In none of those cases was one finger of criticism pointed at my conduct, other than the fact some would say, he has a lot of wealth... Well, I haven’t bought a car since 1918, and I have no maids.”
The stupidity of that caught Halley off guard.
But Kefauver, referring to a file, picked up the thread. “We have a letter written by the late Mr. Drury, in which he makes certain charges against you to John E. Babb, your opponent in the upcoming election.”
“I’ve seen that letter. Pack of lies.”
“In it, you are described as a ‘menace’ to law enforcement. Is it true that during the period Lieutenant Drury served under you from 1932 to 1937, many topflight gangsters he arrested were speedily released or dismissed in court?”
“With all due respect to the deceased, that’s nonsense, Senator. It just shows that arresting these alleged ‘gangsters’ without any evidence to convict them is irresponsible law enforcement.”
Kefauver sighed; his long droopy face seemed very tired indeed. “Captain Gilbert — would you acknowledge that it would be natural for the public to lose confidence in a police officer who amassed such great wealth?”
Tubbo shook his head, sadly. “The failure of human nature, Senator, is that we are prone to believe evil about our fellow man... especially about a police officer.”
That gem of folk wisdom seemed to stun his inquisitors, and after a few more questions, the executive-session interrogation of the World’s Richest Cop came to a close.
As disingenuous as he’d been, Tubbo — thoroughly incompetent witness that he was — had revealed more than anyone might have expected; but — because of the closed nature of the session, designed not to embarrass the Democratic Party — the transcript would be confidential until the committee’s eventual report. Kefauver’s usual frank press summary of witness testimony would be suspended in the captain’s case. The public would not be privy to Tubbo’s testimony until weeks, perhaps months, after election day.
I’m sure Kefauver did this reluctantly; but the politics of it were unavoidable. Whether some deal with Tubbo had been cut in advance — and his “surprise” appearance was expected — or the senator instinctively toed the party line by temporarily covering up Tubbo’s testimony, I couldn’t tell you.
What neither Tubbo nor Kefauver had contemplated, however, was a certain sleazy private detective among the insiders in the gallery, a surveillance-savvy divorce dick whose briefcase contained a battery-operated miniature wire recorder about the size of a fat paperback book, with a spool handling two and a half hours without a reload. In other words, Drury’s tapes may have been missing, but Heller’s weren’t. I sold them to Ray Brennan of the
I would rather have put a bullet in the fat fuck’s brain; but had to settle for just ruining him. The man who plotted with Charley Fischetti to have Bill Drury and Marvin Bas murdered lost the sheriff’s race by nearly four hundred thousand votes — and, even in Chicago, the Democratic machine was soundly trounced by protest voting from its own party, from key county offices to Senate majority leader Lucas losing to Everett Dirksen.
The day following the election, Captain Dan “Tubbo” Gilbert resigned in disgrace as chief investigator of the State’s Attorney’s office and from the police department itself. He had plenty of money for his old age, but the commodity he valued most of all — power — was lost to him forever.
Tim O’Conner lived on the far Northwest Side, on Forest View Lane off Milwaukee Avenue. I’d called Tim and told him I had something for him — Bill Drury’s widow, Annabel, had asked me to deliver a personal item — and he said tonight would be fine.
A few weeks had passed since Tubbo appeared before the Crime Committee — the papers were still having a field day with the story, including speculation over who might have leaked the testimony (Kefauver blamed the reporting company who transcribed the court recorder’s work). This was a Tuesday evening in early November and drizzly and cold, enough so that I’d zipped the lining into my London Fog.
I pulled the Olds into the Forest Preserve and walked across the woods, leaves crunching damply under my Florsheims, and angled through the trees until I came out at the dead-end street that was Forest View Lane. Tim’s house was the last one on the end of the block, with no one directly across the street, and a vacant lot of knee-high weeds next door. A standard Chicago brown-brick bungalow, the squat, pitch-roofed one-story had an attic with an overhang and a big bay window in front of the living room, drapes closed, though lights burned behind them.
