by P. N. Elrod
She had no close relatives to help. Her husband’s relations had troubles of their own. She went to state agencies and orphanages, trying to get her children adopted out. All refused. She maintained she could no longer afford to care for them properly. No one believed her, especially when the social workers interviewed her neighbors.
Helen was by then playing house with a guy named Dixon, who ran numbers for the local mob. He sometimes contributed to the household funds, but preferred taking Helen around to the clubs. She was a pretty girl, and he liked to show her off. This was more to her taste. Dixon was willing to support her but complained about the children interfering with their bedtime fun. This inspired Helen to continue her efforts with the orphanages.
No one was sympathetic. She was a mother; it was her sacred duty to care for her children, not run off to dance at the clubs all night or to live in sin with a man not her husband.
Dixon was preparing to leave her; he’d already moved to a nearby hotel and cut off his money.
Then one chilly day Helen Tielli decided to take her young children on a picnic in the country. In a hamper borrowed from a neighbor, Helen packed some sandwiches, a couple bottles of pop, a butcher knife, matches, and a small can of kerosene.
Hamper in hand, she herded the boy, seven, and the girl, three, onto a northbound bus. Once clear of the city, she asked the driver to stop. The trio tramped into some woods at the side of the road until Helen found a suitable spot to camp. Cold as it was, the children had no complaints. A picnic was an unheard-of excursion for them, a treat. They ate their sandwiches and drank their pop. Helen held the youngest until the little girl fell asleep. The boy, Walter, Jr., wanted to go to the bathroom. Helen left the girl napping on the picnic blanket to follow her son deeper into the woods. She carried the butcher knife and can of kerosene; the matches were in her coat pocket. The boy asked about the knife. She said it was in case they met a bear. Trusting his mother could protect him from such a threat, he relieved himself against a tree. When he was done, she cut his throat. It didn’t work too well. Blood poured out of him, but he didn’t die right away as he should have, so she stabbed him several times.
The kerosene was to burn up the body, to get rid of evidence. She slopped it over him, and the first match she lighted caught. Flames exploded to life; foul smoke roiled up. Only Walter, Jr., wasn’t quite dead. He rolled and shrieked in agony, trying to crawl away. She looked on, not moving as he cried to her for help.
Some hunters heard his screams and came running. Helen hurried back to the little camp and stabbed her sleeping daughter, then vanished into the woods. She was found hours later trying to hitchhike home. She thought the state troopers had stopped to give her a ride.
The boy died on the spot of his burns and wounds; the girl lived to be turned over to a state orphanage. Dozens of couples stepped forward, volunteering to adopt her.
During her confession with the cops, which was quoted from in a national magazine, Helen said she’d intended to set the girl on fire, but she “felt bad” about the boy and decided against it. Not once did she call the children by their names or show any further remorse. She appeared not to care about anything except when she would be allowed to go home. Her boyfriend, Dixon, would be waiting for her, she peevishly insisted.
“Good God,” said Escott.
“She was declared insane,” I went on. “They put her in a nuthouse. She spent a week there before smuggling herself out in a delivery truck. Someone got careless with their routine bed checks, and she slipped away. There was a big hunt, but no one knew what happened to her after that.”
“Until she comes to Chicago as Lena Ashley and went to work for Booth Nevis,” said Gordy.
“And we all know how that ended.” I shook my head. Justice, it would seem, had finally caught up with Helen Tielli, imprisoning her in a death almost as ghastly as that which she’d inflicted on her own flesh and blood. “The ‘Murder Mom’ got hers after all.”
“How alliterative,” Escott said, frowning at the sheet bearing that headline.
“That’s what the papers called her until some group of mothers protested that it was scaring their kids.”
“What happened to Dixon?”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t say. She must have paid attention to his business, maybe heard a name or two, so when she got here she could ask around for work. Nevis gave her a job. I’ll have to find out from him how he met her.”
“What an unholy mess,” said Escott. He handed the papers back to me.
I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it. I’d felt sick before about the crime, but that was nothing compared to what swept through me now. Could they see anything of it on my face? Bobbi would instantly notice, but she was thankfully away in the rest room.
“He’ll wonder why you’re interested,” Escott went on.
“Nevis won’t remember any of it.”
“I like how you operate,” said Gordy.
That was the highest compliment he could pay anyone, and everyone there knew it, but I was too mentally distracted to offer an appropriate thanks. I was saved by the return of the ladies. Adelle slipped a hand under Gordy’s arm.
“It’s late,” she stated. Her tone was cheerful rather than reproachful, but unmistakably insistent. The others nodded agreement with her, and the men sensibly surrendered. Escott left with Sherry, Coldfield with his troupe, Bobbi went along with Gordy’s crew so he could drop her home.
“See you later?” she asked.
How I loved that imp’s smile of hers. “Soon as Malone and I get the receipts counted.”
I pushed ugly suspicions out of my head and locked up, heaving a sigh of relief. No need for me to breathe regularly, but the old habit for the release of tension remained strong. I felt like a wrung-out rag, but it was a good kind of feeling for a job well done. Maybe an army of staff and entertainers had done the real work tonight, but ultimately the success of Lady Crymsyn was my responsibility. Tomorrow I’d know whether or not it had all worked; Escott had promised to check the papers for reviews and have them waiting for me. If he had time. Ghosts or not, he still seemed most taken with Miss LaBelle . . .
The bar light was on, but then Malone was busy washing up the champagne glasses in the sink there. I offered to help, but he said he had everything under control, so I told him to come to the main room with the cash drawer when he was done. He nodded absently. I made a quick trip up to the office to get the account books and a money bag. By the time I’d come down he’d finished and turned off the light. I wondered how long that would last.
Passing into the main room, I paused to look up at Lady Crymsyn’s portrait. It was still beautiful even after hundreds had seen her. For some reason I’d thought she’d be subtly changed for the attention as any woman might be changed.
Not Lady Crymsyn. Me. I’d had a lifetime in a few hours. No wonder I was weary and even slightly disjointed in mind. There was also disappointment, sadness, and a supreme desire to avoid what I had to do next.
Putting it off, I studied the portrait. The color seemed to overwhelm the canvas. I’d never before noticed how many different shades of red the artist had used in the composition. He’d been invited to the opening, but begged off, having another engagement. I wanted him here to tell me why the reds were suddenly so prominent, when until now it had been the face of the woman that had dominated. Maybe it was a sign of great art for a single piece to be so many things at different times.
Or maybe it was my mind trying to get me to focus on another woman in a red dress. I really did not want to; the evening had gone so well.
Malone was at the far bar, already sorting through the wads of cash he’d taken from the club’s registers. There was a huge pile of ones, fives, and tens, a lesser, but still most respectable stack of twenties and fifties, and even a lovely collection of C-notes. I was pleased by the take, but not nearly as much as I’d have been had Lieutenant Blair not strolled in with his news and clippings.
Seate
d at one of the booths, Malone and I counted through the money, recorded it, wrapped rubber bands around the paper, and sealed the coins into sturdy bank envelopes, ready to deposit. I deemed that this would be a task for which I would never grow weary.
“That’s all, then,” he said, folding the last envelope shut.
“Not really.”
He gave me an inquiring look. “Have I missed something?”
I was too well aware of the vast emptiness of the place. The fans still hummed, gently circulating air, clearing out the last of the smoke. Was it also drawing away the music and laughter that had filled the room hardly an hour ago?
Suppressing another sigh, I pulled out the now rather crumpled wire photos and put them on the table between us. “There’s some things missing here. I want you to fill in the spaces.”
For a moment, as he stared without comprehension at the sheets, I had the stabbing hope that I’d been wrong. That Escott’s chance comment about it being an unholy mess had triggered a false conclusion.
But only for a moment. Malone’s face went utterly white, and he slumped back in the padded seat of the booth. He released a long sigh of his own that sounded alarmingly like a death rattle. He looked dead, a dead man with only his stricken gaze to show that someone was still trapped inside the unresponsive body.
17
I unlocked the liquor storage, got a bottle and glass, and took them to the table. I filled the glass and slid it across to Malone.
“Drink.” The old-fashioned remedies are usually the best.
Some of the frozen horror leached out of his eyes, and he made an abortive move toward the booze. His hand was shaking too much to lift it to his lips; he had to bend close to the table to prevent spillage. He sipped down a good portion, then turned away, giving in to a coughing fit. Obviously a man not used to hard spirits even if he dealt with them daily.
Tic. “Wh-what are you going to do?” he asked. It sounded like someone else was using his voice.
He’d taken it for granted that I knew everything, and this lack of denial damned him completely. I’d only had a strong certainty before, diluted slightly by the weak hope that I was wrong. “I want to hear what you have to say.”
“B-but—”
“Just talk to me. I think you need to. Get some more of that into you, then tell me everything from the start.”
He meekly obeyed, draining off half the glass.
“Who are you really?” I asked.
Lips trembling, but he mastered himself. He pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose, trying to put himself in order after I’d smashed him down with a sledgehammer. “My real name is Robert Tielli. I’m—I was—Walter’s older brother, Norrie’s uncle.”
Well, that explained his motive.
“And you did it?” No need to specify what.
“Yes.”
“Go on. How’d it start?”
“God, you might well say when he married her. They were young, he was only twenty, but she was pretty and they were happy enough. I was his best man at the wedding. He did carpentry, house construction, made a good living at it. I had the store—that much of what I told you was true. He worked there between jobs. And he gambled.”
“What about the hot checks?”
“True, all true. I got the blame for them. I was angry with him, disappointed, but there wasn’t much I could do. He was still my brother, and if I’d shifted the blame to him, who would support his family while he was in jail?”
“You?”
He shook his head. “Helen didn’t like me. She came to know about my . . . my life, and it disgusted her. Walter just ignored it. I wish to God she could have done so as well. She was afraid to leave me around the children. I know there are men out there that . . . I’m not one of them, but she refused to understand.”
“So you took the blame for the bad checks and went to jail.”
“Not gladly, but yes. I thought it better for me to go instead. If I’d only known.”
“What happened?”
“Walter was killed, not in a car accident, but on the job, some falling beams. He never woke up. The prison wouldn’t let me out for even one day to attend his funeral. Helen never wrote me afterward. Never told me what she was doing. If only she had just said one word.”
If only. The saddest words ever put together by helpless regret.
“I would have found some way to help her, help his children. They were my blood, too, all that I had left of my brother. I loved them as though they were my own. And then she . . . she . . .”
He had to stop. To break down. To release years of grief and rage and might-have-beens. It was awful to watch, to feel. The force of all that stored-up pain rolled over the table at me like a physical thing. If he’d been a woman, I’d have known what to do; but he was a man, and we suffer alone without the comfort of touch. I found a stack of napkins behind the bar. His handkerchief was inadequate to the task of all those tears. Feeling awkward, I put them within his reach, sat, and waited him out.
Gradually his sobbing trailed off. He scrabbled in near blindness for the napkins, savagely wiping his eyes, clearing his nose. He showed no embarrassment for himself; he looked hellishly tired, though, very old. The thin lines that defined his otherwise youthful face had deepened and stretched.
“I was in prison when she did it. It was only later I found out how she’d tried to put the children in an orphanage. There was just a month to go before my release. I would have gladly taken them in or found another home for them. But I didn’t know. Dear God, if only I’d had some hint, but she’d cut me off, and there were no other relations of mine she could turn to. She’d said I was sick, perverted. That I was sick.”
His throat clogged. He sipped more of his drink, coughing again.
“So rather than have a sick deviant like myself care for them, or at least help support them, she preferred them dead. What went through her mind? Did she feel anything, or have even a second’s remorse? Was she insane by then? By the time I was out, she was gone. All I had was speculation, the wondering why, the not knowing.”
Hers was an idiot’s cruelty, I thought, trying to connect her horrific actions to that bland studio portrait that had come from the cops. “We want to know the why of it, to know how anyone could do such things, but there’s no way any decent soul could or should understand. If we did, we might become like her.”
He puffed out a small bitter laugh. “Oh, but I do understand. I did. I turned into her. For one night.”
“Did you adopt Norrie?” I asked, to keep the flow going in the right order and interrupt his staring into space. Whatever he saw there had to be ugly.
He blinked at being drawn back. “I tried. I thought I’d have a chance since I was her uncle, but they turned me down because of my jail record—and other things. She was in an orphanage. A couple was all set to adopt her. They were probably nice, kind people, but she was all I had left of Walter. I couldn’t let her go to strangers, so I took her away.” He grimaced. “I know it was kidnapping, and there was a terrific hue and cry. They compared it to the Lindbergh baby.”
“What, you put a ladder to a window?”
“There was no need. I waited until the children were on the playground. I wore overalls like the orphanage janitors and just called to her. She knew her uncle Robert and came running over. Then I just walked out right to the train station with her in my arms. We were miles away by the time she was missed.
“I’d hocked or sold everything in the store I could for travel money. I trimmed her hair and dressed her in boy’s clothing. At that age it’s hard to tell a boy from a girl except by their clothes. She still had bandaging around her throat. The papers said she’d been stabbed, but that was wrong. Helen had drawn the knife across just like she’d done with . . . with . . .”
He looked ready to break down again. I refilled his glass.
“It’ll make me drunk.”
“You need it.”
He trembled still bu
t was better able to hold things in control. This time he merely sipped, then blew his nose. “I covered the bandages with a high-necked sweater, gave her a teddy bear instead of a doll to play with, and no one noticed us.”
“Then you came to Chicago?”
“Not at first. I’d taken a train to Buffalo, and posted letters to the orphanage and to my parole officer.”
“Why?”
“I thought they might like to know Norrie was safe. I gave them my reasons for taking her, and said that we’d be starting a new life, that I would treat her as my own daughter, that she would be all right. Perhaps it was foolish, but I didn’t want them thinking she was dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“And a Buffalo postmark on the letter might shift their search for you to Canada?”
Tic. “Yes. The way I wrote and worded the letters hinted at it. I’d planned it all very carefully. It was gratifying to read about it a few days later in the papers. We were in Chicago by then, and I had new identities for us—I learned how to do that in prison, false birth certificates, a driver’s license. That’s when we became the Malones, little Norrie and her recently widowed father. I wore a black armband. People deferred to it, were kind, and out of tact did not ask many questions.”
“Why Chicago?”
“I’d spoken to that Dixon fellow, who was from here. To give him credit, he was as horrified by what she’d done as anyone. He’d had no inkling that she would do what she—He said she sometimes asked him about Chicago, so it seemed as good a place as any to go.”
“What’d you do to him?”
Malone—and I still thought of him as Malone—blinked surprise. “Why, nothing. He’d been her motive, but nothing more. He was a small, stupid man, with a small, stupid life. They had much in common for that, but her actions were quite beyond his limits.”