“So, Dorothy Roberts commits suicide and Irene Roberts is assaulted and her attackers are never found. That is the end of it?”
“That’s the long and the short of it, champ. Life goes on.”
“What happened to Irene?”
Grady took a long breath. “Are you sure you want to be doing this. You don’t look well.”
“I have had a bad year.”
“There are rumors about you, you know? They say you’ve gone Rorschach after what happened to the Brent lady. Maybe it’s time to retire. My guess is you aren’t sleeping. It happens when you get a bit of blood on your hands.”
Rowan cast a sour glance.
“Go home, Manory. Find some little girl’s lost kitten. The Roberts case has been buried for twenty years; don’t go digging it up. All that’s left is the rotting of the bodies.”
Rowan rolled a cigarette with unearthly calm. “You can tell me what happened to Irene or I can run around town all day and find out. I would hope your friendship with my mother would compel you to assist me.”
Grady’s face turned hard.
Rowan lit his cigarette and pointed the butt end at Grady. “What happened to Irene?”
Grady’s voice rose. “This is the last time I help you. In fact, this is the last time we speak. If I get caught discussing police business with a private citizen, I’ll be suspended or worse.” He snatched Rowan’s cigarette and stuck it in his own mouth. “After she recovered, Irene Roberts was adopted by a German family. They were friends of Dorothy. The social office thought it would be a good place for her. From what I understand, it was.”
Rowan took out a pencil and notebook. “What are their names?”
“Gunther and Alice Schmidt. They lived near Fullerton and Damon. I can’t remember the exact address. Nice folks. Your mother checked in on them from time to time to see how Irene was doing. She was just like you, couldn’t let anything go.”
Rowan held the pencil to the notebook. “Is Irene still living there?”
He sighed. “This story doesn’t have a happy ending.”
“None do.”
“It musta been about 1914. Yeah, I’m sure, ’cause it was the year I met my wife. That summer, four kids went missing from the neighborhood.”
“One of them was Irene.”
“That’s right, one of them was Irene. We had a lot of people on the case. Ellen interviewed the mothers. You don’t remember this?”
“My mother never discussed her work with me.”
“Good policy. We caught the guy who did it. Gale was his name, Frank Gale. We found three of the bodies buried in his cellar. It was a notorious case. The library can give you all the details.”
“Four children went missing and you found three bodies. Why do I already know the name of the missing body?”
Grady looked at his shoes. “Gale confessed to three murders, but he claimed he didn’t kill Irene. For a week, he kept up his story. Finally, he confessed. He was hanged the following spring.”
The pencil dropped. “This is unbearable.”
“Manory—”
“After a week of beatings, I would confess to the murder of Irene Roberts.”
“The case is closed.”
“It took him a week to confess? He had no problem copping to the other murders though, did he? With Irene Roberts, he suddenly gets skittish?”
“They call it abnormal behavior for a good reason.”
“What happened to the body?”
“He said he threw it in the river. It was never found.”
Rowan buried his hands in his hair and tugged. “Are the Schmidts still alive?”
“I know the husband died. The wife, Alice, was in her sixties when Dorothy committed suicide. I don’t know if she’s still kicking.” Grady finished his lemonade. “Your ten minutes are up, champ. Take my advice, leave it alone.”
Rowan pointed to the file. “May I keep this?”
Grady made a raspberry sound with his mouth, took the manila envelope, and left without saying goodbye.
Alice Schmidt looked at Rowan through fat glasses suspended over the bridge of her nose. Her left eye was hazel and the right one clouded over by a pearly storm. Her body, ravaged by physiologic tremor, shook in violent, arrhythmic bursts. She spoke with half of her mouth paralyzed.
“Do you want tea?” she asked.
“That would be lovely,” said Rowan.
“I have no tea.”
“It is of no importance.”
“I have water.”
“That would be fine.”
“It is brown.”
Rowan placed his hands flat on the table and watched her walk in stuttered half steps to the sink. The barren kitchen showed no signs of food. Cracks indented the walls and mold covered the better part of the ceiling. Each drawer of the cabinet lay crooked in its housing and Rowan fought off the urge to straighten them.
Alice turned on the tap. The water pipes groaned to life. “I don’t know why you want to talk to me. Everything has been decided, no?”
“Cases are reopened all the time, Frau Schmidt. Circumstances change; new evidence is brought to light.”
“Did the circumstances change?”
He waited for her to bring the water to the table. “Not exactly, but let me simply say I am not satisfied. Thank you.”
She leaned her backside over the chair and held it suspended until gravity pulled it down. “You are police?”
“No. I am a private investigator.”
“And who is paying you to investigate?”
“There is no client. I am here on my own.”
“A man who does not do a thing for money must do it for some other reason.”
He set the glass to the side. “Frau Schmidt, do you not recognize my name?”
She stared blankly.
“My name is Manory. My mother was Ellen Manory. She was a policewoman. She worked on the Dorothy Roberts case. I know she spoke with you quite a few times.”
“I remember Ellen. You are her son?”
“Yes.”
Alice squinted her eye. “You look nothing like her. Usually boys look like their mother.”
He scratched his stubble. “I am having a bad year.”
“Where is Ellen now?”
“She passed away.”
“But she was so young. How?”
Rowan tilted his head. “What?”
“Your mother, how did she die?”
“How did she die?” He thought for a moment. “Natural causes.”
The corner of Alice’s lip curled. “Death is natural, isn’t it?”
“Frau Schmidt, when Irene Roberts came to live with you—”
“Do you have any children?”
Rowan bit his lip. “No.”
“Why not?”
He laughed. “That is a very long conversation.”
Her voice turned commanding at the first opportunity. “I do not want anything from you, Herr Manory. It seems you want something from me, though. Why don’t you have any children?”
“My profession is not conducive to family life. It can be dangerous, and the time invested in each case is restrictive.”
“Klappspaten.”
Rowan did not speak German, but he understood an insult when he heard one.
Alice said, “You will see. Everyone you know will die and then you will be alone with no one to talk to. You will wonder if any of your life really happened, if anything you remember was real. That is why people have children. My husband and I could not have any of our own, but we had Irene, for a time.”
Rowan made a steeple of his fingers. “In three weeks I will go to see Robert Lasciva at his home in Mississippi. I think you know this man. You know what he did and you know that of which he is capable.”
For a moment, her body ceased its movement. She almost smiled. “Are you a good detective, Herr Manory?”
He answered without hesitation. “I am the best detective I know.”
“Die besten schwimmer ertrinken.”
Rowan questioned her with his eyebrows.
“The best swimmers drown.”
“Please, Frau Schmidt.”
She sighed and leaned back on the chair. The creak echoed. “Dorothy’s husband died. He was a foolish man, but he worked. A man who works is not altogether bad. Gunther and I offered to help with Irene. We loved Irene. She was so little. Mäuschen.”
“Mowshen?”
“Little mouse. Irene had teeth like a mouse.” She lifted two wrinkled fingers and pointed them down in front of her mouth. “Dorothy got a job as an operator and Irene stayed with us during the day. We were like her grandparents.”
“When did Dorothy start seeing Lasciva?”
“I don’t know. She never told me about it.”
“Did she know who he was?”
“Everyone in the neighborhood knew who he was. I should say everyone suspected. Someone would turn up dead and his name would be mentioned. There were rumors.”
“Why would someone like Dorothy…” He considered his phrasing.
Alice answered the unfinished question. “She was lonely, Herr Manory. Do you ever get lonely?”
He nodded. “You saw her on the night she died.”
“Dorothy was walking but it didn’t seem like she was going anywhere. How do you say this?”
“Aimlessly.”
“Yes, without aim. I invited her in, but she said she had to get home to Irene.”
“When Dorothy committed suicide—”
“She did not do any suicide.”
“You think she was pushed out of the window?”
“It was not suicide. She was driven to it.”
Rowan froze and lost his train of thought. He heard his heartbeat. “When Irene came to live with you, did she ever say what happened that night?”
Alice shook her head. “Never. Gunther said it was the mind’s natural reaction to such a traumatic experience. It will erase that which is bad to remember. Irene had nightmares. I think that is when she remembered.”
The faint sound of playing children came through the window.
Rowan dropped his head to meet her gaze. “Seven years later, she was murdered.”
“She walked home from the school the same way every day. It was so unusual.”
“What?”
“I knew she wouldn’t come home that day. I was waiting for her to walk down the street and I knew something was wrong. My gut always knows the truth.”
“She was murdered by a man named Gale.”
“That is what they said.”
“Gale kidnapped and killed two girls…” Rowan checked his notebook, “…aged five and six, and a boy, aged six. He disemboweled the first girl and buried her in his cellar. The second victim was also disemboweled and buried next to the first girl and the corpses were made to hold hands. This was repeated with the third. Then, inexplicably, he murdered Irene at the age of fourteen. He unceremoniously dumped her body in the Chicago River. It is quite odd, this sudden change in modus operandi.”
“Isn’t it?” Alice’s arms began to rattle the table and she removed them. “Gale had family in Chicago. He had a sister and two nephews. After he confessed to killing Irene, I heard they moved to New York. They live in a very nice house.”
“Is that true?”
“It’s only what I heard.”
“It is almost as if his sister received money after he confessed.”
She nodded.
“It is almost as if someone else killed Irene and paid off Gale’s family on the condition that he confessed to the murder.”
“Yes, Herr Manory.”
His eyes looked at nothing as the gears turned in his head. “Thank you, Frau Schmidt. I must go.”
He made it halfway to the door.
“Herr Manory!” She pushed her forearms against the table in an effort to stand. The shift in weight caused her to collapse on the floor.
Rowan ran to her and put his hand on the side of her face. The wrinkled skin was rubbery to the touch.
She struggled to communicate through huffed breath. Her words hissed past her tongue. “I want to know.”
“Know what?”
“I want to know what happened to my mäuschen. Every detail.”
“Frau Schmidt—”
She grabbed his wide lapel. “Promise me, Herr Manory. Promise me, you will find out and you will tell me. Not knowing is agony. I have nothing, you can see it.” Her eye darted round the kitchen. “You will come back and you will tell me how she died. I need to know.”
“I will tell you everything I find out.”
Her face grew sullen.
“I am telling you the truth, I swear it.”
“You say it now, but I am afraid you will disappoint me.”
Rowan hesitated. He grimaced. “Frau Schmidt?”
“Yes?”
“My mother’s death. There was nothing natural about it.”
Rowan sliced the steak into identical ragged red cubes. His fork pierced four of them in quick succession. He was still chewing when Walter sat at the table.
“You shaved.”
Rowan grunted.
“I’ll wait until you’ve finished.” Walter set his notebook on the table.
Rowan held up his hand and made a circular motion in the air.
Walter said, “Hello, Williams. It’s so nice to see you. I’ve been so busy lately. I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate all your hard work.”
Rowan chewed faster and swallowed. “Hello, Williams. It is so nice to see you. I have been so busy lately. I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate all your hard work. Now, out with it.”
Walter grinned. “Lasciva is a very interesting character. He arrived in Mississippi in 1908 with Tellum and Daniels in tow. They ran a few nightclubs. There were rumors about where he came from but nobody knew for sure. It seems he lived a pretty quiet life.”
“Until?”
“Until Prohibition. Mississippi is known as the wettest dry state. It has one of the biggest bootlegging operations in the country. He ships quite a bit of booze out of there and the majority of it ends up in Chicago with his old friends. Everyone in Mississippi seems to know about it, but the law doesn’t touch him.”
“Some things never change.”
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
“Yes?”
“Something I couldn’t find out.”
“Just ask.”
“Why did he leave Chicago in the first place?”
Rowan shrugged. He pointed at the notes with his steak knife. “What about his house?”
“It’s not a house, it’s a goddamned mansion. It’s famous.”
“Very fancy?”
“No, I mean it’s famous. Walter Anderson photographed it in 1925. He’s the guy who photographs the White House every year. The pictures of Lasciva Manor are in the art museum in Jackson.”
“It seems he no longer has any interest in keeping a low profile.”
“I called the curator and he read me the description. Listen to this. ‘Sitting on an anomalous plateau on the ridge, the manor and its surrounding area have been meticulously furbished to suit its owner’s taste. The forest was carved out and the home was built over a period of three years. Willow trees have been transplanted into the thin soil and now adorn the grounds of the estate. A garden of wild zinnias sits behind the house and eventually morphs into the circumambient forest.’ There’s only one road that leads up to the place.”
Rowan pulled out the letter. “And what of the other guests?”
“The butler’s worked there for a few years and the secretary has only started recently. Nobody that I talked to knows anything about the relatives.”
“Anything else?”
“Lasciva wasn’t kidding about the flood.”
“Yes, I have seen the photographs.”
“Apparently his home is in a good spot. The town below is covered
in water.”
Rowan wiped his mouth. “Nice work, Williams.”
Walter waited for only a moment. “You’re taking the case, aren’t you?”
“I am taking the case.”
“I knew it. There’s never a dull moment, I suppose. When do we leave?”
“I will leave. You must stay here.”
“Come again?”
“I must work alone, Williams. Everything I have learned tells me it will be dangerous. I cannot risk being responsible for you.”
“That’s funny because you’re the one with the heart condition.”
“Williams—”
“You can barely make it out of bed.”
“I feel much better.”
“What happens when you black out? Huh?”
“Listen to me—”
“No, no, no, I always listen to you, Manory. There are two ways this will pan out. The first is that we go together. The second is that we go separately. Knowing how you drive, I’ll beat you there by three days and solve the case myself. You decide.”
Rowan rested his head on his palm. “I cannot be responsible for your safety.”
“That’s right. I’m responsible for yours. Can I ask you something?”
“Just ask.”
“If this is such a dangerous case, why are you taking it?”
He tapped his fork on the plate. “To stop being a prisoner of the past, one must face the past and master it.”
chapter 4
The great mississippi flood
Far above the flood, the Model T crept along the ridge. The town of Vicksburg had seen nothing but rain since the onset of spring and now twenty-five feet of water covered any signs of civilization. Here and there a roof or a tree peeked above the rampaging surface and occasionally objects would violently bob before being submerged again. The deluge had unearthed the contents of Beulah Cemetery and forced the coffins to travel through the town like some unholy pastiche of a funeral procession. No one knew if the worst had already happened. The constant cloudbursts suggested this was simply the way things were now. The carnage was visible through the rain-spattered window of the car as the detectives made their way to a most bizarre birthday party.
Goodnight Irene Page 4