The Boy in the Red Dress

by Kristin Lambert

  “You won’t have to.” I reached across the coffee table and gripped his hand. “You can stay here with us. Hide out until the real killer gets caught. Can’t he, Cal?”

  I looked at her and raised my eyebrows in challenge. If she could bring my no-count mother back here, then by God, I could bring Marion.

  Cal met my eyes for a long moment. Then she set her jaw and nodded. “It’ll be tight here with four people, but we can do it. Or I could go stay with Rhoda awhile, and Millie could sleep with Gladys . . .”

  “No!” I said quickly, almost falling off the arm of the chair in my dismay. Cal couldn’t leave me here with Mama, and I definitely could not share a bed with her. A flash of memory surfaced—Mama’s body curled around mine, her tears wetting my hair because some man had left her, me holding her hand and whispering, “It’s all right, Mama. You still got me.”

  The memory tasted bitter as bile. Not a year after that, she’d left me for some man. And now she was back here because of another one. Nothing she did was ever because of me or about me.

  Cal studied my face. She reached up and patted my leg.

  “Okay, we’ll make do,” she said, agreeing without making a fuss about it for once. “Millie and Marion can sleep together.” She winked at Marion. “I trust you.”

  He cracked a shaky smile.

  “But wait a minute,” Mama said. “That girl’s a judge’s daughter. They won’t let up. Eventually someone will crack, and they’ll find him. And us. Isn’t it a crime to . . . to harbor fugitives?”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Cal said. “We’re all stuck together until the cops find the killer. Or Millie does.”

  “That means our lips better be sealed,” I said, looking pointedly at Mama.

  “What about my stuff?” Marion glanced at me, his eyes bright with worry. “What if they figure out how me and Arimentha were connected? I have to go back.” He rose to his feet. “I have to get—”

  “No,” Cal said firmly. “You have to lay even lower. You shouldn’t leave our apartment for any reason, barring fire, flood, or bedbug infestation.”

  “But what if the police find me here?”

  “Then you run for it again, or if you can’t, ring the emergency bell, and we’ll come help.” Cal reached over to the wall and pushed the button she’d had installed when she bought the club and we moved in here. Down in the empty club, a hideously shrill bell would be ringing. It was supposed to be both a warning system and a safety signal, but we’d never had to use it except when Cal made us run drills.

  “And I’ll go get your things tomorrow,” I said. “You won’t last long without at least a coat and a change of underwear.”

  Marion blushed and wrapped his arms around himself.

  “But the cops are probably still watching the place,” Cal said. “They could follow you back here if you’re not careful.”

  “We could ask Bennie to do it,” Marion said. “It won’t look suspicious if he goes to his own grandmother’s house.”

  There was a thought.

  “Still, he should probably wait a couple days,” Cal said. “And go after dark.”

  “You talking about that Italian boy?” Mama said, lighting another cigarette. “I’d be happy to talk to him for you. I can be very persuasive.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said.

  “Why not?” Mama looked affronted.

  “Because you don’t even know him,” I said. “I’ll ask him.”

  A sly smile tugged at the corners of Marion’s mouth, the first time he’d looked properly himself since he’d arrived. “And I just bet he’ll say yes.”

  * * *

  Once we were alone in my room, ostensibly to find Marion some pajamas and get him settled in, I shut the door and asked about the paper package.

  Marion bit his lip and handed it over, and my fingers traced hard lines and rustling chain through the paper.

  “Is this the necklace?”

  “I couldn’t let the police find it.”

  “Good thinking. I know a place we can hide it, in case the cops come here.” I scavenged in the bottom of my armoire for an empty cigar box I’d been saving and settled the wrapped necklace gently inside it, with an old sock as extra cushion to keep it from sliding around. The necklace was heavier than it looked, weighted with all those milky greenish stones. “How much is this thing worth anyway?”

  “Quite a lot, I suppose.” Marion touched the paper one last time before we shut the lid. “It was my grandmother’s, and her side is where all the money came from . . . also, the fashion sense.”

  I smirked. “Sounds like some lady.” I patted the box lid. “But for now her necklace is going for a little nap.”

  I stuffed the box in one of my best hiding spots—up the old chimney of the no-longer-functioning fireplace in my room, behind the gas heater that now stood on the hearth.

  I dusted off my hands. “Now I’ve got to go find Kitty Sharpe.”

  “Not wearing that, I hope?” Marion looked appalled.

  I glanced down at my school uniform and laughed. “God, no.”

  But when I started changing into my usual trousers and less-than-white blouse under a gray-checked vest, Marion looked just as unimpressed.

  “Really, Millie? You’re going to see the most vicious gossip columnist in New Orleans wearing that?”

  “Why not?”

  Marion shook his head. “At least comb your hair, please. And wash your face.”

  I sighed heavily. “Yes, Gladys.”

  But Marion didn’t look offended and instead of handing me the comb, attacked me with it himself.

  “Be careful with Kitty Sharpe,” he said, curving my hair neatly around my ear. “She knows everything about everyone. If you give her half a chance, she’ll find out who I am, where I’m from, and what rock you’ve got me hiding under.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, dodging away from the comb. “Kitty Sharpe is about to meet her match.”

  Marion pursed his lips. “Or Millie Coleman is about to meet hers.”

  CHAPTER

  12

  THE NEW ORLEANS ITEM came out in the afternoon, so I figured all its reporters worked late to get every last scrap of news before it went to the presses. I strolled into the downtown office at five o’clock, hoping their gossip columnist was still there.

  The front desk was about as helpful as a dead fish. The receptionist looked over my trousers and vest with a disdainful air and said, “Miss Sharpe doesn’t take visitors.”

  “I’m not a visitor,” I lied. “I’m her cousin.”

  The lady cocked one eyebrow impressively. “You don’t look like her.”

  “I said I was her cousin, not her twin.”

  “Nevertheless, Miss Sharpe has a strict policy that no one should be allowed up to see her. Period.”

  “I bet if you call her and ask, she’ll say to send me up. Tell her Millie McDonough is here to see her. And tell her it’s about a murder.”

  The woman looked shocked, but she picked up the telephone. She turned her back to me to murmur into it, but I still heard most of what she said. She called me a hoodlum. I suppressed a laugh, feeling the teeniest bit proud of the label.

  When she swiveled back around and set the phone down, her lips pressed together in a false, pinched smile. “Miss Sharpe says she will see you.”

  I pretended not to be surprised that had actually worked.

  The woman pointed toward the elevator. “Go up to the third floor. Her desk is on the far left by the windows.”

  I touched the brim of my cap. “Thanks, ma’am.”

  She shook her head and flicked a newspaper open in front of her face, dismissing me.

  The elevator man said nothing as he took me up to the third floor. He opened the gate, and I walked out into a big open room full of the clatte
r of typewriters and the swish of paper, punctuated by low curses from the half dozen reporters scattered around. They were all men, so I weaved my way through the desks toward the left, as the front desk lady had instructed. And there, in the last shaft of late-day orange sunlight, sat a woman, leaning over a sheaf of papers. A girl, I realized as I moved closer, not far from my age. She wore a white blouse tucked into a neat red skirt with a ruffle that touched her calves and matching red shoes with gold buckles. A red hat perched on the corner of her desk. Her chestnut hair shone with a hint of copper in the sun, but her face was bent too close over what she was reading for me to see it.

  “Miss Sharpe?” I said.

  “Mmm.” She held up one finger. “A moment.”

  Her eyes scanned over the page. She crossed out a word with a red pencil and scribbled a new one above it.

  “There,” she said, finally lifting her head. “Done.”

  “Done with what?” I said.

  She looked up at me, blinking blearily, and then her gaze cleared and she took me in slowly from head to toe with sharp gray eyes behind a pair of gold-framed spectacles. I was glad after all that Marion had made me comb my hair.

  She didn’t answer my question, but that didn’t matter. It had only been a question to get her attention. “Miss Sharpe, I presume?” I said in my best imitation of a posh accent.

  She didn’t rise from her chair. Her eyes narrowed. “Your last name isn’t really McDonough, is it?”

  “My name isn’t important.” I propped my hip against her desk. “I need some information, and I hear you’re the gal to give it to me.”

  “Oh, really?” she said. “From whom?”

  “Never mind about that. Did you know Arimentha McDonough?”

  Miss Sharpe sighed, took off her spectacles, and rubbed them with a handkerchief embroidered with an elaborate letter S. “I know about her. And what happened to her.”

  “You know what the cops told your paper. That’s not everything.”

  Miss Sharpe’s angular brown eyebrows rose. “According to the police, the evidence is clear. The singer at the speakeasy where she was found killed her. Case closed.” She replaced her spectacles and watched my face carefully through them.

  “That’s just it.” I leaned forward and jabbed a finger on her desk. “He didn’t do it.”

  Miss Sharpe shifted back in her chair, pretending to be casual, but I’d seen the spark kindle in her eyes. “You know him, don’t you? The killer?”

  “He’s not—” I stopped myself, realizing she was trying to bait me into revealing too much. I settled back onto my heels and tried to cool the angry heat that had been rising to the top of my head. “I’m investigating what happened. I’m going to find the truth.”

  Miss Sharpe still had that inquisitive light in her eyes. “Investigating for another paper? Hoping to make a name for yourself as a reporter?”

  “What? No. I don’t care about anything except this case. This murder.” I jabbed the desk again, ruffling the pages she’d been working on.

  She didn’t even look down at them. Her eyes stayed on me. “Why?”

  I swallowed and considered what I had to lose if I told her. The cops already knew I was Marion’s best friend. They already knew how to find me. Even if this society reporter wrote about my investigation, or told the cops, what difference would it make?

  I forced my eyes to stare steadily into her piercing gray ones. “That singer, the one you’re so sure murdered Arimentha? He’s my best friend. That’s why I have to find out the truth. The cops think the case is open and shut, like you said, but I know they’ve got the wrong guy.”

  Miss Sharpe sat up a little straighter. “Do you know who really did it?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t be here. That’s what I need you for.”

  Miss Sharpe sagged a bit, looking disappointed, and shook her head. “I can’t tell you who killed her. I don’t know.”

  “But you know other things—like who her friends were, who she went out with, if you ever heard about any arguments or shady stuff any of them might’ve been up to. Romantic dalliances, financial troubles, that sort of—”

  Miss Sharpe held up her small white hands to stop me. “That’s a lot of information.” She eyed me closely. “My question is—why should I give it to you? What makes you think you can find this killer when the police can’t?”

  “It’s not that they can’t.” I gave her desk a little kick, and my voice rose. “It’s that they won’t. Marion’s a boy who likes boys and dresses up in drag and sings, and people love him for it—did you know that? He’s a star. And those cops—especially that one in charge of this investigation—they don’t like that. Marion is proof everybody doesn’t have to fit into the same mold. Proof everybody can be happy if the world just gives them half a chance.”

  Miss Sharpe glanced over my shoulder, for the first time looking less than fully composed. She cleared her throat and reached out to straighten the papers I’d shifted on her desk.

  “So, are you going to help me or not, Miss Sharpe?”

  She didn’t look up at me yet. “Do you at least have any suspects?”

  “Her friends. Her date. I already know he’s lying about some things. And I’ll know more when you cough up some answers.”

  Miss Sharpe looked up finally, one side of her mouth curving in a bemused smile. “I think you’ve seen too many gangster pictures, Miss . . . it isn’t McDonough, so what is your name?”

  “Coleman,” I said grudgingly. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean when you want information, it’s best not to launch into an attack right out the gate. Especially when the source is inclined to give you that information anyway. You don’t want to scare them off.”

  I scowled, then realized what she’d said. “You—you’re inclined to give it to me?”

  Miss Sharpe leaned back. “Of course, I couldn’t share it without considerable risk to myself. You go around asking people about the things I tell you, and my sources would know the information came from me. Then they’d dry up and tell their friends to dry up. I’m already in hot water with these debs, and if it gets much hotter, I’m burned.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. How much trouble could a debutante give a person, I wondered. Then I remembered one of them had ended up dead in my courtyard. That was pretty troublesome. So why would Miss Sharpe want to give me the information? There had to be a catch.

  “What do you want from me in exchange?” I said, regarding her with suspicion.

  Miss Sharpe grinned as if I’d said just what she wanted me to. “I want to make a deal with you.” She leaned forward and glanced around at the rest of the room. All the male reporters were busy clacking away on their typewriters or smoking cigars and laughing together. None were paying attention to us at the society desk. “If I give you the information to help you catch Arimentha’s killer—”

  “Sounds good so far.”

  She looked as if she was barely resisting rolling her eyes. “Then you come back here after you do and give me an exclusive interview with the girl who solved the murder.”

  “Wait . . . you mean me?”

  “Who else?”

  “Why would you want to interview me?”

  She did roll her eyes now. “What I want is to get off this wretched society desk and write real news. I want to see my byline on the front page. No woman has ever done it at this paper. But I’m going to.”

  “So, my story could do that for you?” I looked smug. “You need my help.”

  “There you’re wrong, Miss Coleman. I’ll do it with or without you, someday. And I have a suspicion you feel the same about your murder case. But this way, we both get what we want a little faster. What do you say?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why are you so sure I’ll solve this case?”

  She pressed her lips together, h
er eyes locked on mine for several moments. She seemed to be debating something. “Because I think we’re alike, Miss Coleman,” she said finally. “And because I happen to agree with you—everybody deserves the same chances in this world, no matter whom they love or how they dress or what they’ve got in their underpants.”

  I let out a laugh, surprised this prim-looking girl talked so frankly. I looked her over once more, searching for hints there was some other angle with this deal. If there was, I couldn’t see it. Marion had been right about her.

  I stuck out my hand, and Kitty Sharpe shook it firmly. We both squeezed too hard. I was pretty sure I understood her, and that she understood me. We were both doing things the world told us we shouldn’t, but we weren’t going to let that stop us.

  I grinned. “Call me Millie.”

  She smiled back as smugly as a cat in a sunny windowsill. “You can call me Kitty.”

  * * *

  Kitty said the newsroom was too full of nosy men who might try to steal her scoop, so she suggested we go to a coffee shop down the street to talk. The lady at the front desk looked surprised to see us leaving together, me in my trousers and scuffed oxfords, Kitty in her smart head-to-toe crimson ensemble. Kitty waved at her brightly, and she just stared. Kitty never accepted visitors, she’d said. I wondered why that was.

  “Why are the debs all riled up against you?” I said, as the bell jingled over the coffee shop door.

  Kitty waved a hand dismissively, sliding into one of the spindly chairs at a little round table near the window. Outside, night was falling and the streetlights were coming on. “They’re always mad at me for one thing or another. Or their mothers are. Another one called up the paper last week to complain to the editor about how ‘vicious’ and ‘cruel’ my column was.”

  “And it’s not?” I said.

  She gave me a prim smile. “I prefer the word ‘honest.’”

  I laughed. The most honest girl in New Orleans sharing a table with the biggest liar. We made some pair.