After Fanny's Fall

By Nolan Dean Smith

An unconventional mystery filled with humor and sprinkled with history...St. Paul 1949: A boozing WWII ex-pilot turned private eye, a baseball obsessed street cop, a tight-lipped newsstand proprietor, a dandified police detective and a bartender/psychiatrist intermingle with the quirky characters on the corners of St. Paul's old downtown--all playing a part in the investigation of a likeable prostitute's suicide...or...murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nolan Dean Smith
• Release date: Mar 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311045317

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AFTER FANNY’S FALL

Nolan Dean Smith

Copyright ©2015 Nolan Dean Smith

(Second Edition 2018)

All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

On the day Robert (Rosy) Haskins found Fanny Freberg’s smashed and bloody body near the hotel’s entrance, the Howdy Doody Show had just finished its fifteenth month on television, the IBM computer had twelve thousand, five hundred vacuum tubes, and the cell phone had yet to ring.

The spirit of the time suggested a refined society, where the stronger expletives were seldom heard outside of bars or barracks. Yet even the sophisticated knew that simple manners were not enough to mollify the darker side of the Saintly City’s complexion.

Fanny had been working for the rookie pimp, Pinky Polanski, who was as white as Wonder Bread and thin as watered down booze. He existed in a two-room, roach infested apartment above Kokomo Joe’s beer joint at 518 St. Peter Street, where I used to play shuffleboard with my older brothers, Hayden and Verner, who are dead now because they led a life that was faster than they were.

I was on my way to Able’s Bar when Mr. Haskins flagged me down.

Hey, Fred!

Fred, that’s me, Alfred Hansen, your friendly private eye, who recently learned that the name Alfred means magical counsel. I was humoring myself over that when he stopped me. Sorry to have to tell you this, Fred. I found Fanny dead, right here on the sidewalk, when I came to work this morning. It seems she fell from a third floor apartment. I wish I hadn’t seen her before they hoisted her into the ambulance. I wish I hadn’t.

I felt woozy, and leaned against a parked car. Sorry you had to see her like that, I said, my voice trying to find itself. See Polanski in the area?" He shook his head and I nodded mine. I walked away with a picture in my head of Fanny’s mangled body lying on the sidewalk, and felt the need for a stiff drink.

I travelled in a state of shock the three blocks to the corner of Wabasha and Exchange, and entered the Exchange Bar (called the Snake Pit by the locals), where my psychiatrist-bartender, Spider, set me up with a shot of Christian Brother’s Brandy and started theorizing about life. He told me everything was relative, that speed depended on a lot of different things, and that time itself might be a figment of our imagination. Yah, right! First, Fanny takes her final bow, and now Einstein-of-the-bar dishes out popcorn philosophy, with brandy on the side. I ordered another, knowing damn well it wouldn’t help, tossed it down, escaped the joint and headed across the street for some eats.

Abel’s was a rustic tavern with a worn, unvarnished floor, which held bare wooden tables and straight-back chairs, scattered haphazardly across its face, and on the wall above the cash register hung a large, framed photograph of F.D.R, whose crinkly eyes peered down upon the faithful. And at the far end of the long bar stood a steam table with the fixings for St. Paul’s greatest roast beef sandwiches. The juicy sliced beef was piled high on a large, soft bun, served with a paper napkin and one Greek, pickled pepperoncini pepper.

I slathered mustard on mine, and stood near the back door washing it down with a frosty mug of Schmidt’s tap beer, and kept mulling over what happened earlier just three short blocks away. One thing for sure; Fanny took no swan dive. And she didn’t take to the air without putting up a scrap. I polished off my late lunch and headed to my office above the bus depot for some much needed shut-eye. I had been sleeping there on an old, brown, horsehair sofa since Ingrid excused my presence nearly three weeks ago.

As I strolled past Chet’s Barber Shop, just before the back door to Harry’s Bar, I heard the increasing whine of a siren, followed by the abrupt appearance of a hurt-wagon from Miller Hospital lurching itself to the curb right before my eyes. Then out from his bar came Harry, laughing like a horse and half-carrying Too Tall Loman, who was whimpering and holding his crotch with both hands. As the white-coats hauled their patient away, Harry told me that Too Tall had let out a scream from the restroom. He had caught his business in the zipper of his pants.

Grinning and shaking my head, I walked with Harry into his tavern and sat down on a stool by the door. The place was empty. It was hard to stop laughing, and the beer began to loosen my tongue. I told him about Fanny and what Rosy had said. Harry reached across the bar, lightly touched my arm and said, She wasn’t a bad broad, Fred.

Well, I never really thought of Fanny as a broad, even though she hung with a rough crowd and was a meal ticket for Pinky. I knew he meant well and shrugged it off. We shot the breeze until midnight when I forced myself off the stool and departed his hospitality.

Half pickled as I was, I made it the four blocks to St. Peter and Sixth, where I hoped my office remained. Carefully arriving at the top of the stairs, and after five or twenty minutes trying to stab the door key into its slot, I at last connected. Then finally turning it the correct way, the door swung open and I tottered into my rooms. I woke up with the shades up, the sun up and my body down. I lay sprawled, half-clothed, scared to move lest I break something. It was April 1st, and I felt bad as any fool alive, but forced my ragged body up and got moving.

Hangover-hungry, I had the Special at Mickey’s Diner. I was ravenous and cleaned my plate. Through a sunlit window I saw a kid in shorts and tee-shirt swiping a copy of the Pioneer Press from an open vendor. I left a dime on the counter, paid for my breakfast at the cashier’s post, and left the greasy spoon feeling ready, as I ever would, to face the day. The young thief met me at the corner.

Hey, mister, wanna buy a paper?

Sure, I said, and gave the towhead fifteen cents. I headed down St. Peter Street, hung a left at Bridgeman’s Ice Cream Parlor, and was assaulted by the Orpheum Theater’s marquee visually shouting the latest attraction in large black letters, "The Yellow Rose of Texas, starring John Wayne. Directly across the street, the Paramount was showing White Heat, with James Cagney. As I walked past the theaters and approached Ernie’s newsstand at the corner of Seventh and Wabasha, I was interrupted by a young blade of a man with a pasty complexion and blue-black hair, slicked back with pomade. This had to be Phony Maloney, a runner in the betting racket with the hopeless fantasy of becoming the next Nate (Good Odds) Green. I doubted Maloney was good enough to sharpen the master-bookie’s pencil.

Hey, you’re Fred Hansen, ain’t ya, the detective?

I’m a private investigator, yes.

Well, geez, I heard about Fanny. Man, that’s too bad. Yeah, too bad, geez. He said, snaking along beside me in his patent leather shoes, then slithering away, as I neared Ernie’s stand."

Ernest Edgeworth Bottomly was a local boy and once promising southpaw for the Toledo Mud Hens, and in the ninth inning in a game against the St. Paul Saints, struck out Bud Kimball, Eric Tipton and Johnny Rizo—one, two, three. It seemed likely the St. Louis Browns would be calling him up soon.

Some said that Ernie lost his left eye during the war, others said he was shot during a holdup. Still others thought he was born with only one good eye. The truth was that in the third inning in a game against Kansas City, Ernie was hit with a line drive off the bat of the Blues’ third baseman, Frenchy Barbeau, who two years later made it to the Bigs. Our home-town boy never played the game again.

Earnie carried everything from the local newspapers and fresh flowers to girlie magazines. He had a constant clientele of lawyers, doctors, business men and people of all types—the tough, the weak, the lonely, the winners, the losers. He was respected by all who knew him. Having grown up near Anchor Hospital, just west of downtown, he was familiar with the corners. He had worked his location for the past three years, and knew the downtown street scene as well as anyone, often privy to intelligence before the press or police.

Buying your paper from a competitor I see, Ernie said, as I stopped in front of his stand.

Well it was forced on me by a poor ten year old boy. What could I do?

Yeah, that was likely the little shit who’s been steeling papers all over down here and selling them to guys like you, who should know better.

Just trying to help the economy, Ernie, I said, Hear about Fanny?

Yeah, Rosy told me….Said she got beaten up before she had a chance to take flying lessons. You gonna investigate, Fred?

Of course I am, I said, ignoring his black humor, She was a friend of mine.

Well, she was a friend to a lot of us on these corners.

Not to everyone, Ernie, not to everyone.

Okay, Fred. So, what do you have so far?

Jesus, Ernie, it only happened yesterday, and I’ve got the worst hangover since St. Paul was called Pig’s Eye. So, how about you? You’re the radar around here. Hear anything?

Actually yes, Sherlock. Stick told me he was almost knocked over by Mr. Polanski rushing past him near the Traveler’s about eight forty-five yesterday morning. He’ll be in to relieve me for lunch.

Stick was Ernie’s gofer and main assistant, a reliable man. Thanks, I’ll check with him later….Mister Polanski! That’ll be the day. As I walked away, I tossed him my unread paper and said, keep pitching, Ernie." He grinned and adjusted his eye patch.

I wasn’t sure where I was going or what I was going to do. I wanted a drink—the poor poet’s relief from thought. I accepted the feeling, but kept walking up Wabasha, past the Riviera Theater, showing Little Women, with June Allyson and Elizabeth Taylor. In my mind, the marquee said my little woman, my soon to be ex-wife, my Ingrid—my fault? I shook my head to clear it.

As I walked by Alary’s Club Bar, I realized that my biggest problem wasn’t my thinking, but rather my inaction. I needed to do what needed to be done at the moment. I wanted a drink, but that would have to wait. I headed for Police Headquarters on 11th Street.

After a toe-tapping wait, the dour-faced desk sergeant glumly informed me that the detective assigned to the death of one Fanny Oleanna Freberg would now see me. I walked to the door the dreary sergeant pointed to, and smiled when I noticed that its nameplate was made of copper. It bore the name of Benvenuto Antonior Pignato. I knocked, not loudly.

Come in, sand a gravelly voice.

I found the large room to be uncommonly pleasant for a cop’s office. Its appearance was almost Japanese in style, with a minimum of simple, yet tasteful, furniture. The walls were pistachio-green, the ceiling white. Everything was neat and orderly, from the evenly half-closed blinds, to an uncluttered desk, save for an open book, behind which stood a dapper middle aged man of average build. He was of dark complexion, matched by coal-black hair and lively black eyes.

He moved smartly from behind his desk and greeted me with a convincing handshake near the room’s center, where, resting on a low table, stood a three foot bronze statue of Lady Justice, a set of scales hanging from her right hand, a sword in her left.

Just a reminder, he croaked, nodding at the blindfolded lady. Back at his desk he gestured toward a nearby chair. Sitting down, I felt thrown off balance by his cultured bearing, contrasting as it did with his guttural voice.

He addressed me as Mr. Hansen, and said, "I understand you are a private investigator interested in the death of a young woman named Fanny Freberg. Well, what I can tell you is that it appears she jumped from the third floor of the Traveler’s Hotel. There was no evidence of foul play, and although there were bruises on her neck and shoulders, indicating a probable beating, the coroner’s preliminary report sets their estimated occurrence at about five days prior to her demise. The room’s furniture was not deranged, no indication of a struggle. The window where she exited easily slid up and down, had no screen, and was in the raised position. The desk clerk found the apartment door open. The hotel’s registry lists a John Q. Smith as the man who rented the flat, and he checked out a six a.m. the moning of the incident.

Now, Mr. Hansen, what I can’t tell you is why she was there; one can only surmise. She was known to work as a prostitute for