Hardball

“I think that must have been the Hammer,” I said, looking at a snake-covered forearm pushing Dr. King’s head down. “Dr. King was hit by a brick that day. Maybe Joh

Harmony Newsome appeared in the next shot, clutching the side of her head. Her hand was covering something round and whitish that seemed to be stuck there. In the next frame, she had crumpled to the ground, the round whitish thing having fallen from her hand. Theo had focused on it and blown it up so we could see it was a ball with spikes of some kind in it.

Following that close-up, we saw a cop in riot gear, squatting to retrieve the spiked ball. In the next frame, he was standing and stuffing the ball into his trouser pocket. Both shots were blurry, but you could still tell what he was doing.

At the next light table, I cried out loud. My uncle Peter, his face in clear focus, was pointing a finger-in congratulation? in admonition?-at the man who’d thrown the missile and who seemed to be clasping his hands over his head in a kind of victory dance. His features were indistinct, but Theo had done his best with different exposures, different croppings. The square jaw and shock of thick, curly hair made me think it was a young Harvey Krumas, but I couldn’t be sure.

“That ball.” I walked back to the light table with shots of Harmony Newsome lying on the ground. “I want to see it as clearly as possible. And the cop. We’ll never see his face, but his badge is turned to the camera. Can you get the badge number?”

Theo had loaded all his different exposures and prints into a computer program. “Always is best to start with negatives,” he said, “but maybe here is enough information to tell us this story.”

Karen and I stood behind him while he fiddled with the images. On the ball, underneath the nails, you could just make out the big swooping F followed by the o. Nellie Fox.

I sucked in my breath. I’d been sure without the picture, but it was still hard to have it confirmed. Those holes that I thought my father and my uncle Bernie might have punched so they could hang up the ball and use it for batting practice, those came from nails. Someone had pounded nails into a baseball. Somehow had thrown it at the marchers and gotten Harmony Newsome in the temple. And then someone had retrieved the ball and removed the nails.

I felt a sick apprehension as Theo focused on the four-digit badge number of the cop in riot gear. When we finally could read it, I let out a little sigh. I didn’t know whose it was, but I still could reel off my father’s by heart. At least it hadn’t been him pocketing a murder weapon at a crime scene.

46

I MADE UP A STORYBOARD OUT OF A SELECTION OF PICTURES: Sister Frankie with Harmony Newsome, Harmony with her hand over the ball after it struck her in the temple, Peter with the man who might have been Harvey Krumas, the close-up of the ball, the cop pocketing the ball, the close-up of his badge. Theo let me use a computer to type captions for the pictures and a letter to Bobby Mallory. I addressed him formally by his title, not just because he’d pissed me off believing Hazel Alito’s wild accusation against me but because I didn’t know what he’d been doing in Marquette Park all those years ago. He’d been a nineteen-year-old rookie getting baptized by fire under the protective arm of veteran officer Tony Warshawski.

What had any of them done in the park that day?

Dear Captain Mallory:

These pictures were taken by Lamont Gadsden in Marquette Park on August 6, 1966. I found the negatives this morning, and they are now in a secure location. I believe the people who broke into my home and office this past week were looking for these negatives.

As you perhaps recall, in January 1967 Steve Sawyer was arrested and convicted for the 1966 murder of Harmony Newsome (photograph 4). No murder weapon was ever produced. Sawyer’s conviction was based solely on an uncorroborated confession that was extorted under torture by George Dornick and Larry Alito.

At his trial, Mr. Sawyer tried to insist that Lamont Gadsden had pictures which proved his i

Before you ask the State’s Attorney’s Office to file charges against me in Larry Alito’s death, I suggest you revisit this 1966 murder, the 1967 trial of Steve Sawyer, and, in particular, that you discover the identity of the officer wearing badge number 8396.

For my protection, I am sending a copy of this letter to my lawyer. I am notifying Judge Arnold Coleman, who served as Steve Sawyer’s public defender during his trial, and Steve Sawyer. I am also notifying Greg Yeoman, who is John Merton’s current counsel.

You may leave a message with my attorney about what next steps you wish to take in resolving both the 1966 murder and your baseless accusations against me in the death of Larry Alito.

While Theo made up a dozen copies of my storyboard, I called Freeman Carter, my lawyer, and told him I had evidence so hot that it needed to be in a vault.

“I wondered when I would hear from you, Warshawski. The cops have been to my office already demanding that I produce your body, so I knew it was only a matter of time before you remembered you had a right to counsel.”

“I’m hoping it won’t come to that, Freeman. But let me give you a quick thumbnail of what’s happening.”

I explained as much as I knew, about Lamont and Steve-Kimathi and Dornick, Krumas and my uncle. I even reported finding the Nellie Fox baseball in the trunk of my family’s possessions.

“So what do you want me to do with all this?” Freeman asked.

“Hold on to the pictures and the baseball. Hold off the cops. I need to find Petra now if I can, and then I’ll worry about everything else.”

Theo, who’d heard my end of the conversation, said Cheviot could store the negatives and the extra prints for me, but I explained that the state could compel Cheviot to produce them. My lawyer had certain privileges that could keep the government at bay, at least for a few days. I did ask Theo to use their messenger service to deliver my storyboards to Bobby, Judge Coleman, and Greg Yeoman. I would drop a copy off at Fit for Your Hoof myself, if I could do so without a tail, but I wanted to watch Freeman Carter put my originals and the hundred prints Theo had produced in his office safe.

By the time Karen and I got back on the tollway, we were in the middle of the oozing Chicago rush hour. Slow hour, it should be called. While we drove, Karen reported on the repairs to Sister Frankie’s apartment at the Freedom Center.

“The men doing the work are doing a terrible job. After tearing the place apart, all they’ve done is put up some studs. They started to work on the wiring and blew the circuits for the whole building. And the sisters couldn’t even get the building management to restore power until they offered to send pickets to the owner’s home.”

“Yes, I think those are phantom builders, sent by Harvey Krumas to make sure any evidence of the fire bombing got destroyed.” It was one of my nagging worries about Petra. Had she really texted Dornick or Alito or Harvey himself to come get the bag of bottle fragments I’d collected from the fire bombing?

Karen moved on to a piece of encouraging news: Miss Claudia was a little stronger today. Karen had sent a pastoral intern to check on her and other high-needs patients, and she’d heard from the intern while we were waiting for Theo to develop the pictures.

“It’s as if turning over the Bible to you took enough of a load off her spirit that she had some strength left for her own life,” Karen said. “It makes me wonder if she knew all along that those pictures were in there.”