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Authors: Douglas Perry
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filled the air with popular tunes night after night. The White City Amusement Park also had a ballroom, this one popular with residents of the nearby “honeymoon flats” along the western border of Washington Park.
It was along this stretch of small residential houses facing the park that Belva got caught. On March 30, 1920, Dannenberg asked William to come along on his wife’s trail. The detective and his men had been tracking her for a while. They’d watched her cozy up inside Midway Gardens and rub bellies on the dance floor at Dreamland Café. She had an established routine; Dannenberg knew full well that this outing would prove to his client beyond any doubt that Mrs. Gaertner was no good. They pulled up to 5345 Prairie Avenue, two blocks west of Belva’s favorite bridle path in the park, barely a mile from the Gaertner home. Dannenberg made clear to William that they should approach quietly, as silent as Indians. The redheaded detective, who’d made his name a decade earlier by arresting the white slavers Maurice and Julia Van Bever, took the lead. Once he got the front door open, he burst in and rushed into the bedroom. Belva shrieked and dived for the floor, where she’d left her clothes. Another naked body skittered in the opposite direction. William, trailing in behind the detectives, didn’t have the heart for a scene in this strange house. He turned and ran out.
Belva munched on a sandwich as she waited in a corridor at the Wabash Avenue police station. Reporters stood around her, jockeying for position. Someone asked what happened the previous night, and she sighed.
“I tell you I can’t recall what happened,” she said. “Somebody must have shot him, but I can’t remember how it was done.” Belva shifted in her seat. She sat with her legs crossed, face regally impassive. She’d gotten some sleep, and William had brought her fresh clothes, so she was beginning to feel like herself again. Watching her, some of the hacks began to wonder if the whole thing was a big mistake, if this well-bred woman simply had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Belva took a swig of milk and looked up.
“I think I can get my coat cleaned so it will look all right again,” she said to no one in particular. The strange comment hung in the air. A reporter asked what she meant, and she described the beautiful caracul coat that now had blood all over it. The police took it, she said. “It’s an expensive coat, you know. Sometimes a coat like that is worth as much as $2,800.”
Nearly three thousand dollars for a coat? Her ex-husband really was loaded. The reporters scribbled furiously.
Nearby, Walter Law’s wife—widow—also waited on this cool Wednesday afternoon. She sat with her father-in-law and other family members. “Walter died at his work,” Freda Law told a Chicago Daily News man, who’d asked about her husband being out so late with another woman. She stared at the reporter. She was in shock; it had only been a few hours since she’d heard about her husband’s death. “He had sold Mrs. Gaertner that car, and he was demonstrating to her how to drive it,” she said. “He did that with almost all his customers. I never heard of the Gaertner woman until I read about Walter’s death in the papers. I do not believe she killed him. The bullet that caused his death came from the outside, and probably never was meant for him. Walter was devoted to me. I never suspected him of doing anything that might give me cause to be jealous, and I don’t suspect him now.”
A policeman stepped into the hall. “All ready now,” he said. The inquest was about to start. Belva rose and took a last drag from a cigarette she’d bummed from her guard. The Chicago Daily Journal reporter noted the casual way she smoked in front of them. “There was nothing brazen about it, nothing defiant,” he related in wonderment. It was one thing to see your typical girl pickpocket sucking on a cigarette in public, but a
It was along this stretch of small residential houses facing the park that Belva got caught. On March 30, 1920, Dannenberg asked William to come along on his wife’s trail. The detective and his men had been tracking her for a while. They’d watched her cozy up inside Midway Gardens and rub bellies on the dance floor at Dreamland Café. She had an established routine; Dannenberg knew full well that this outing would prove to his client beyond any doubt that Mrs. Gaertner was no good. They pulled up to 5345 Prairie Avenue, two blocks west of Belva’s favorite bridle path in the park, barely a mile from the Gaertner home. Dannenberg made clear to William that they should approach quietly, as silent as Indians. The redheaded detective, who’d made his name a decade earlier by arresting the white slavers Maurice and Julia Van Bever, took the lead. Once he got the front door open, he burst in and rushed into the bedroom. Belva shrieked and dived for the floor, where she’d left her clothes. Another naked body skittered in the opposite direction. William, trailing in behind the detectives, didn’t have the heart for a scene in this strange house. He turned and ran out.
Belva munched on a sandwich as she waited in a corridor at the Wabash Avenue police station. Reporters stood around her, jockeying for position. Someone asked what happened the previous night, and she sighed.
“I tell you I can’t recall what happened,” she said. “Somebody must have shot him, but I can’t remember how it was done.” Belva shifted in her seat. She sat with her legs crossed, face regally impassive. She’d gotten some sleep, and William had brought her fresh clothes, so she was beginning to feel like herself again. Watching her, some of the hacks began to wonder if the whole thing was a big mistake, if this well-bred woman simply had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Belva took a swig of milk and looked up.
“I think I can get my coat cleaned so it will look all right again,” she said to no one in particular. The strange comment hung in the air. A reporter asked what she meant, and she described the beautiful caracul coat that now had blood all over it. The police took it, she said. “It’s an expensive coat, you know. Sometimes a coat like that is worth as much as $2,800.”
Nearly three thousand dollars for a coat? Her ex-husband really was loaded. The reporters scribbled furiously.
Nearby, Walter Law’s wife—widow—also waited on this cool Wednesday afternoon. She sat with her father-in-law and other family members. “Walter died at his work,” Freda Law told a Chicago Daily News man, who’d asked about her husband being out so late with another woman. She stared at the reporter. She was in shock; it had only been a few hours since she’d heard about her husband’s death. “He had sold Mrs. Gaertner that car, and he was demonstrating to her how to drive it,” she said. “He did that with almost all his customers. I never heard of the Gaertner woman until I read about Walter’s death in the papers. I do not believe she killed him. The bullet that caused his death came from the outside, and probably never was meant for him. Walter was devoted to me. I never suspected him of doing anything that might give me cause to be jealous, and I don’t suspect him now.”
A policeman stepped into the hall. “All ready now,” he said. The inquest was about to start. Belva rose and took a last drag from a cigarette she’d bummed from her guard. The Chicago Daily Journal reporter noted the casual way she smoked in front of them. “There was nothing brazen about it, nothing defiant,” he related in wonderment. It was one thing to see your typical girl pickpocket sucking on a cigarette in public, but a
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