Joe told how Samuel had been kneeling, and how he knew that from the marks on his pants and in the dust. If Anna hadn’t deduced his position, there’s a chance that Joe wouldn’t have noticed, and the death would have gone down as a suicide. Maybe Anna herself had sealed Georges fate. She began to tremble.
Or maybe Georges had sealed his own fate. Anna pinched herself hard for thinking it.
Earl Rogers stood and paced as he cross-examined Joe. “What were you doing in Griffith Park?”
Joe’s face turned crimson. “It’s not relevant to the case.”
He was thinking of Anna. In his quest for honesty, would he throw Anna to the wolves, too?
Earl Rogers smiled. “I think it is.”
“Well, some bank robbers had been spotted in Griffith Park.”
Misleading, but true.
“Did you catch the bank robbers?”
“We caught three of them later that day.”
“Would you say they were dangerous men?”
“They shot a bank teller. So, yes, I would say they were dangerous.”
“And they were in Griffith Park when Samuel Grayson was killed—also shot?”
“Yes.”
“Did it occur to you that those bank robbers might have killed Samuel Grayson when he stumbled upon their secret encampment? Maybe he overheard them speaking about their crime. Maybe he saw bags of money.”
“I didn’t like them for the murder.”
Earl Rogers smiled. “You didn’t like them for the murder? Why not? They were present. They had a potential motive.”
Joe spoke with confidence. “Instinct.”
“You disregarded them as suspects because of instinct? Even though they were present, dangerous, and had motive? Isn’t that a little cavalier? I mean, what if your instincts were wrong, Detective?”
“They weren’t wrong.”
“How do you know?”
“I questioned them thoroughly. I don’t believe they ever saw Samuel Grayson. They acted surprised.”
“Could they not have been good actors, Detective Singer? Con men often are.”
“I’m a good judge of—”
Earl Rogers waived his hand. “No more questions.”
Joe’s face turned red as he left the stand, and Anna almost felt sorry for him.
The coroner testified. The fingerprint expert testified. W.H. Stevens, now back from Mexico, testified in exchange for immunity that Samuel Grayson had demanded money from Octavius Morgan, and that Morgan had paid through Stevens himself. Allie Sutton did not testify, and Anna began to relax. The private detectives had not found her in Santa Barbara.
The trial veered into the dull as the defense brought the first of fifty different character witnesses to the stand to testify in Georges’s defense—bankers, businessmen, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, chairmen of boards, a priest. Anna wondered if the strategy was to drown the jury. The judge adjourned the court after ten such testimonies, to resume the remaining forty on the following day. Each witness had said roughly the same thing—that Georges was upright, generous, civic-minded, godly, and that they’ve never known him to have anything to do with loose women or, in fact, ladies at all. He was a confirmed bachelor.
The following day the jury would hear testimony from the remaining character witnesses. It promised to be more of the same—more boredom, more confusion, more horror.
CHAPTER 47
The next morning, Anna waited for the trolley in front of the Hotel Alexandria. She planned to take the trolley to a stop three blocks from the Courthouse where Wolf had said he’d meet her to escort her to the trial. This would avoid any scandal of being seen together in the morning at her hotel should the press be lurking. The weather was gray and cold, and mist clung to her hair. She stuck her hands into her pockets to warm them, fingering a coin and a button left there from another day. Probing the far corners of her pocket, she found a folded piece of paper. Anna unfolded it and read silently:
Dear Matilda,
You may as well go with me as you have no other option. Am I really so odious?
Her lip curled. It was the note from the man from Mars, the man who had drugged and violated Matilda, the man who had driven her mad. Anna hadn’t thought enough about Matilda because she’d been so caught up in Georges’s troubles. She wanted to exonerate Georges because he was her brother, but Matilda had no one. Matilda needed Anna too.
Anna examined the note, letting the ink words prod at her numb, mixed-up brain. Surely her mind was only dormant, not gone entirely. Surely need could arouse it. She rubbed the note between her fingers. The stationery was thin and plain. Anna would have thought it too plain for the kind of men Mrs. Rosenberg catered to. Rich men always used a better quality of paper. This was paper for the masses. She held it up to the light looking for the watermark.
It was stamped, “Mars Paper Co.”
Anna’s brain began to whir. Mars paper. Was it the paper, and not the man, that was from Mars? Or was the man from Mars, too? Why would a wealthy man use such plebeian paper? He couldn’t use proper personalized stationery to leave notes for wronged girls—not if he were to remain anonymous. Still, why use such bad paper when he could afford a finer grade? Why would he even have it in his office?
Perhaps if he owned the company. It was thin, but the paper company was her only lead.
Anna strode back to the hotel and took the rumbling elevator up to Georges’s suite. “Thomas! Where is Georges’s Brownie?”
The Mars Paper Company stood on Eleventh Street, not far from the tracks. Anna arrived by hansom with Georges’s Brownie loaded with film. The brick factory stood three stories tall, with airy windows on the second and third floors. She dismounted near the factory loading dock where two men heaved bundles of paper onto a wagon. The paper looked dingy, like newspaper without the ink. Anna swung through the front door, making bells jingle, and found herself in a wholesale paper shop. A clerk presided over the bulk sale of envelopes, cheap sheet paper, low-grade stationery, and butcher paper. Anna saw no high-end stationery. Anna’s own writing paper was whiter, a heavier weight, and monogrammed. It was a shame her stationery now had the wrong address—the address to a life she no longer lived. She would have to get new and charge it to Georges.
The Jonquil Apartments did not cater to clerks, so she flounced right past this one. “Don’t mind me. I’m just looking for a . . . you know.” She moved behind the counter and toward a door labeled “Employees Only,” looking for a bigger fish.
The clerk called out, “Hey!”
Anna ignored him. As he moved to follow her, the bells jingled again, and a customer entered the building, splitting the clerk’s attention and he hesitated. Anna slipped through the door into a hallway that smelled like new books. She bolted the door behind her. Light streamed in from a row of high windows that caught the morning sun. She moved down the hall until she came to an office with a name placard, “Mr. Elmer Clark, Proprietor.”
Anna knocked. No one answered so she let herself in. The office ceilings rose fourteen feet, and she could see the exposed steel beams. The office was modestly furnished, but a rather good portrait hung on the wall. It showed a lanky man in his prime, healthy, but not handsome. His suit and facial hair placed him in the 1880s. Was that the man from Mars? If so, he must be old now.
Anna noted a second door inside the office, which she planned to explore next. She shuffled through papers on the desk. Bills, mostly, for papery things like pulp and glue, and one from a physician. A full brandy decanter rested on the desk by two crystal snifters. Anna picked up the decanter, removed the stopper, and sipped from the top. She sipped again, because she was thirsty. She opened a drawer in his desk. She found coins and a five-dollar bill, which she pocketed. She found a good pen and a silver matchbox, which she also took. In the next drawer she discovered three medicine bottles—bimeconate of morphine, solution of podophyllin—described on the label as a liver tonic.
And a bottle of chl
oral hydrate.
Chloral hydrate. It’s what M.M. Martinez, the proprietor of the Esmeralda Club, had slipped into a young girl’s drink before he and his friends had their way with her. He was caught and fined one hundred dollars. The girl had been sent to reform school.
Anna took the chloral hydrate and emptied it into the brandy decanter.
She heard a toilet flush and spun about just as the second door opened. A tall, spindly man with a jaundiced complexion and yellow eyes emerged from it in a cloud of stink. His fingers were so long as to be grotesque, but his suit was very nice. Anna’s eyes widened. “Jupiter.”
He smiled at her the way men sometimes did; that is to say, there was something obscene about it. “Well, good afternoon, young lady. What are you doing in my office?” He crept closer.
Anna wanted to spit. Instead, she collected herself. “Good afternoon.” She smiled and bobbed a curtsey. “This is a lovely paper company. The paper is so . . . white.” She fluttered her eyelashes and backed toward the door.
“Why, thank you.”
He took ownership of the paper; thus, he must be the owner—the proprietor, as the door plaque said. Anna grimaced. “You probably use it for writing notes and such, even though it’s plebian.”
He frowned. “Well, I do, but . . . Why are you here?”
Anna opened her purse and retrieved the Brownie. She raised the camera and snapped his picture.
“Wait a minute. Who are you?” He looked mad.
“Josephine Singer, I’m with the Herald.”
He gave her a look of disdain. “You’re not with the Herald. You’re a woman.”
“I’m actually a man in disguise.”
His face registered confusion.
“We’re doing an article on the Jonquil Apartments, on the men who drug and deflower young girls. Are you one of them?”
His eyes bulged.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Before he could stop her, Anna turned tail and ran.
Anna took the Brownie back to Central Station to the LAPD darkroom and added the film to the queue to be developed. There was no way Mr. Clark could be Samara Flossie’s Black Pearl. He was simply too old and ugly. But he was very likely Matilda’s man from Mars.
CHAPTER 48
Holding Wolf’s arm, Anna attended Georges’s trial the following day. She had missed a parade of character witnesses, as well as the testimony of an officer of Georges’s bank who said no checks signed by Georges had been written to anyone named Samara or Flossie. There were no telltale check stubs. No financial trail supported the accusation that Georges was the Black Pearl.
Samara Flossie took the stand for the defense in a frilly frock meant for a girl, not a woman. Her hair flowed down her back, ornamented with a large bow, like a child. She looked younger, but ridiculous. Anna’s neck prickled at her bad taste, or something. Samara Flossie swore on the Bible to tell the truth, then perched in the witness box. The lawyer, Earl Rogers, glanced at Georges and frowned.
He addressed her. “Miss Edmands, are you acquainted with the man known as The Black Pearl?”
“I am,” she said.
“How do you know him?”
“He was my lover.”
Earl Rogers paused. This was not what she had said before, not what they had practiced. “He was your lover? I had come to understand that you were engaged.”
Samara Flossie shook her head no.
Anna looked to see if she still wore that ugly ring, but Samara Flossie’s hands were folded in her lap and Anna’s view was blocked by the rail.
“Is he in this courtroom?”
“Yes.”
A hush fell over the crowded courtroom; Anna could hear the whir of electric fans. Earl Rogers’ shoulders tensed. He swept back his cowlick. Anna knew for certain this was not what Samara Flossie had told Earl Rogers before.
Mr. Rogers ambled closer to the witness stand and smiled. “You were engaged to be married to this ‘Black Pearl’?”
“Practically engaged.”
Her hand came up and touched her face. Anna noted that she still wore the ugly ring, but on her right hand, not on her left ring finger.
“What is his real name, this ‘Black Pearl’?”
“Georges Devereaux.”
Anna heard a feminine gasp—likely Jeanne Devereaux. People were mumbling.
“How do you know that? Did he introduce himself?”
“No. It was in the papers.”
“You’re engaged to be married and you didn’t know his name?”
“Practically engaged.”
“No further questions, your honor.”
Anna’s eyes flitted to Georges. She couldn’t read his face. She wished she could read people, like Joe could, and like them for this and that. Anna began to sweat profusely. Samara Flossie had switched teams. Someone had paid her to lie on the stand. Perhaps the real Black Pearl.
Deputy District Attorney Keyes rubbed his hands together in rude delight. It was his turn to cross examine Samara Flossie, and there was nothing Anna could do to stop him. “Miss Edmands, when Georges Devereaux went before the Grand Jury, the court served you a subpoena, but you did not appear. Neither were you found at home.”
“Yes. I was out of town.”
“Where did you go?”
“San Diego.”
“Why would you go to San Diego when the court had served you a subpoena. That’s breaking the law. You could be fined.”
“I was paid one thousand dollars if I would leave the city and not testify against the Black Pearl. That would more than cover any fine.”
“Who gave you this bribe?”
“I don’t know. A private detective. He didn’t tell me his name.” She bent down and dug into her purse, bringing out a stack of bills and setting them on the stand. “Here’s the money. You see? Proof.”
“Why did you come back?”
“The LAPD hired private detectives, too. They found me and brought me back. I was kept under guard until today, when I was brought to court.”
She hadn’t been kept in Anna’s jail, which was probably deliberate on Joe’s part.
“I see. You say the Black Pearl is in this courtroom?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Are you sure?” The prosecutor walked over to where Georges sat. “This man? Georges Devereaux. He is the Black Pearl?”
“Yes.”
Georges looked at Samara Flossie. She dropped her eyes.
“But the Black Pearl is just a name. It’s not against the law to be called ‘the Black Pearl.’ Tell the jury what he did.”
Her voice rippled with emotion. “He seduced me when I was just fifteen and unspoiled—lured me with gifts and money. I had nowhere to turn.”
Anna knew that was taffy. Samara Flossie had already confessed to being Grayson’s lover, and she was nineteen when she came to the Jonquil. And she’d already said Georges was not her lover.
“What about his temperament. How would you describe him? Is he even-tempered?”
“No! He’s jealous. He’s violent. And he threatened poor Sam. He said he would kill him if he ever came near me.”
As she spoke, she carefully avoided looking in Georges’s direction.
“And did you go near Sam?”
“No. I never did. I was too afraid.”
Also taffy. She’d delivered a letter to Samuel Grayson’s apartment.
It was Earl Rogers’s turn to cross-examine the witness. He ran his hands through his straight-slicked, brilliantined hair and paced before the witness. “Miss Edmands, how old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“You look nineteen or twenty.”
Samara Flossie frowned. No woman wanted to hear this. It was an insult.
He continued. “In fact, you were nineteen when you came from Oklahoma City with your lover, Samuel Grayson. Isn’t that right?”
“I know how old I am.”
“So do I, Miss Edmands. So do the police. May I remi
nd you that it is a crime to lie under oath.”
“I—”
“Back to Samuel Grayson. You were lovers. Then what happened?”
“We were not lovers.”
Earl Rogers smiled. “You told Detective Singer that Georges Devereaux was not the Black Pearl. Now you are saying that he is. Did someone pay you to change your story? Perhaps the real Black Pearl? Is that where you got that thousand dollars?”
“No!”
“No further questions.”
Anna’s hopes rose when the defense called Joe Singer to the stand. He knew Samara Flossie was lying, and Joe always told the truth.
Samara Flossie stepped down from the witness stand passing Joe Singer on the way up. He gave her a hard look. She cast her eyes to the tile floor and strode quickly down the aisle, sliding into a pew in the back.
Joe took his seat on the stand.
Earl Rogers cleared his throat. “In the course of your police investigation, you’ve questioned Miss Edmands before, is that not right Detective?”
“That is correct.”
“Did you show Miss Edmands a photograph of Georges Devereaux?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Would you say it was a good likeness, Detective Singer?”
“Yes.”
“A clear likeness.”
“Yes.”
“Is this the same photograph?” He held up the newspaper page with Georges’s picture.
“Yes. It’s from the same issue.”
He walked to the jury box and handed a juror the picture to examine and pass around.
“What did Miss Edmands say about the photograph? Did she say Georges Devereaux was the Black Pearl?”
“Quite the contrary. She said Georges Devereaux was not the Black Pearl. She was certain. She said the Black Pearl had blond hair. No. She said golden hair.”
Anna couldn’t help it. When Joe glanced down at Anna, she smiled at him.
When the court adjourned for lunch, Joe sought Anna out, fighting the crowd until he reached her side. “Sherlock, can we talk?” He gave Wolf a look, the meaning of which eluded Anna. “Wolf, would you excuse us?”
The Body in Griffith Park Page 29