That wasn’t the only thing about his suicide that didn’t add up. It is very difficult to shoot yourself in the head with a shotgun. You pretty much have to use your toes to do so either from a sitting position or a standing position. In shotgun suicides it is almost always from a sitting position. Ballant had been standing when he shot himself. He was also wearing both of his shoes when the body was discovered. The third was the shotgun. Why not his service revolver? The most baffling thing was that the shotgun was laying five feet away from his body. The theory was that the gun had been moved in the chaos of discovering the body. It was a theory, but Sam didn’t like it. Regardless, there was no inquiry. The death was ruled a suicide immediately. No autopsy, no inquest and his body cremated three days later after a service attended by his wife and their families.
Sam entered the old J&L that most South Siders called Jane Ell and made his way to the spot were Ballant supposedly stuck a shotgun to his head and miraculously fired a shot that obliterated his face. The Jane Ell was a mammoth complex. Things were starting to get bad for the steel industry in Pittsburgh. Layoffs were coming slowly but surely. The blast furnaces stood on the other side of the river across the Hot Metal Bridge. Sam stared across the river at them churning smoke into the atmosphere.
Sam stood there looking out across the river and thought about the chief’s final moments. He could almost envision him standing there that dark night only nine days ago. Cold steam escaping from his terrified mouth, breathing quickly from fear. The cold steel of the shotgun held close to his face. What had he been looking at? He must have known his time was up. Did he look into his killer’s eyes as he pulled the trigger? Did he stare cross-eyed down the barrel of the shotgun? Or did he just stare blankly across the river at the churning blast furnace in the distance, thinking of his long dead father? There was an old superstition that the last image you saw before death was burned on your eyes. Sam wondered what that image would have been for Chief Ballant.
Sam took on the part of the killer. Turning around and holding the posture as though he were about to pull the trigger of the shotgun. Sam flexed his finger and pulled the trigger on the invisible shotgun. The shotgun would have caused a kickback. How much would depend on how experienced the shooter had been with a shotgun. Now, after pulling the trigger, was there panic? No. He dropped the gun to the ground. Now, where does he go? Where was his vehicle parked? Near the Hot Metal Bridge. It’s the quickest way on foot. Sam walked up to where a car may have been parked that night. Ballant’s car had been parked on Carson. The shotgun belonged to Ballant. Did Ballant bring the shotgun with him or did the killer? That was a question that would go a long way to solving this case.
After walking up to where the Hot Metal Bridge spans the Mon, an abbreviation for the Monongahela River, Sam made his way back towards Carson Street and located his automobile. He decided to head down a few blocks to where there was a bar called Watts, run by Gary Watson. It was a little dive bar that catered to the steel workers. Sam knew Gary from many years of working homicide and spending a lot of time in the South Side. He was a good guy, a little rough around the edges. He couldn’t work the steel mills because he had gotten a leg blown off in Korea. He invested everything he had in this little dive bar and he had a pulse for the South Siders, which made him a fount of information. Sometimes he would blackball Sam, but for the most part he was forthcoming.
When Sam walked in, he spotted Gary sitting behind the bar. There was a woman of about forty sitting at the end with a cluster of empty glasses in front of her and halfway through what looked to be at least her sixth beer. When Gary saw the thin homicide detective he sighed and said, “Who now?”
Sam walked up to where Gary sat behind the bar playing solitaire, bellied up and said, “Give me a beer.” In all his life, Sam had never ordered a beer from Gary. The look on Gary’s face belied that fact. He went over and poured an Iron City. Sam pulled out his wallet to dig out some cash when Gary placed the beer in front of him.
“No, no,” Gary said. “When hell freezes over, you buy a guy a drink. It must be bad if you’re in here asking for a drink from this old cripple to get information. Didn’t anyone tell you that you’re supposed to ply the witness with alcohol, not yourself?”
Sam laughed and took a sip of the beer. It tasted bitter. “Jack Ballant.”
“Now I think I need a drink. That was a suicide.”
“Was it?”
“Everyone said it was.”
“Well, maybe everyone was wrong.”
“Maybe everyone wanted to let sleeping dogs lie,” Gary said. “Maybe you should, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam asked taking another sip of beer. He couldn’t hide the look of disgust on his face. Sam never was much of a beer drinker.
“It means that if everyone wants it to be a suicide and everyone is willing to let it be a suicide, then maybe there is a damn good reason why. Now I understand why you’re sitting here in my bar drinking a beer that you clearly don’t like. You’re not on official police business, officer.”
“Sergeant.”
“What?”
“Sergeant. I’m a sergeant.”
“You should be a captain by now.”
“Maybe.”
“He was dirty, Sarge. Let it go.”
“Are you trying to tell me that Chief Jack Ballant was a dirty cop? Explain.”
“How is anyone dirty? They get involved with the wrong people. Start making a little bit too much money. Start buying nice houses and cars and pretty, little wives with pretty big bank accounts. None of which they should be able to afford.”
“Are you saying he was owned by LaRocca?” Sam asked spraying out the name of the head of Pittsburgh’s biggest crime family.
“You’re a damn fool if you think I’m going to even discuss that name.”
Then in his right ear Sam could hear the slurred words of a woman, “You a cop?”
Sam turned to look into the dark gray eyes of the woman from the other end of the bar. A cigarette improbably stuck to her chapped lower lip. The stench of beer and whiskey wafted out of her half open mouth. The woman could pass for anything between forty and sixty.
Sam didn’t answer quickly enough for her, so she turned to Gary and asked, “He a cop?”
“Not today, he isn’t,” Gary said.
“But on other days, you a cop?” She was talking to Sam again.
“On my better days.”
She reached her hand into her blouse and pulled a picture from inside her bra and handed it to him. It portrayed two boys sitting at a picnic table whose resemblance could only mean they were brothers. They both had dark brown long curly hair with the same crooked nose. The younger of the two had brown eyes. Sam could only assume the older one did too, because he was wearing sunglasses.
“Those are my boys. Steve and Mikey. Steve was fifteen in this picture and Mikey was thirteen.” She pointed to the older one to indicate Steve. “I took that picture myself at Kennywood by The Thunderbolt. They loved that roller coaster. That was about two summers ago. Steve went missing last year. Mikey disappeared two weeks ago. They didn’t run away, officer, honest. I promise you they didn’t. No matter what the police say. My boys just wouldn’t run away. Something happened to them.”