Etta: A Novel

by Gerald Kolpan

  December 6, 1901

  TERRIBLE MURDER OF PROMINENT ATTORNEY!

  MR. RODMAN D. LARABEE FOUND

  STABBED TO DEATH IN OFFICE

  POLICE BAFFLED, CAN FIND NO CLUES

  By our correspondents

  Last night, somewhere between the hours of seven and eleven o'clock, a person or persons entered the Center City offices of Mr. Rodman D. Larabee III, Esq., and fatally stabbed him in the chest.

  The unfortunate man was found lying near his desk inside the offices of his firm, Larabee, Hay & Litch. Police said Mr. Larabee had been stabbed several times with a slender knife. The weapon was not found at the scene of the crime and, as yet, the police have no clues as to a possible motive for the crime or the identity of the wrongdoer.

  Mr. Larabee, 73, was considered one of Philadelphia's outstanding members of the bar. He was general counsel to both the Lehigh Stone and Quarrying Company and the Speakman Manufacturing & Shirtwaist Corporation. He was also instrumental in the recent purchase of new acreage for the proposed expansion of the John B. Stetson Hat Company.

  Mr. Larabee was a member of many of the city's most prestigious clubs, including the Union League and Pickstocking. Long admired as a champion of the destitute, he defended the poor in criminal and civil cases, work for which he sought no monetary return.

  Mr. Larabee was also the attorney in the sensational Jameson matter of 1898. In said case, he served as counsel to Miss Lorinda Reese Jameson, daughter of the bankrupt suicide Mr. G. David Jameson, who died owing hundreds of thousands to creditors. Miss Jameson disappeared toward the end of the case and has not been heard of since. Mr. Larabee's gruesome death has raised fresh fears that she too may have met with foul play

  Mr. Larabee was the son of Rodman D. Larabee, Jr., and the former Fannie Phelps Dagit of this city. The attorney was a widower and leaves no family.

  ver the years, Detective Charles A. Siringo had devised quite specific rules concerning interrogation.

  If he presumed the person being interrogated was innocent, he would do his best to gain any necessary particulars by gentility and persuasion. If the subject was a lady, even one of dubious reputation, he would become the soul of discretion and calm. In either case, the use of violence of any kind was ruled out, owing to company policy and Siringo's own Catholic upbringing and respectable background.

  In situations involving known miscreants, however, Siringo's long experience had persuaded him that such lofty considerations invariably proved unproductive. His research into psychology and the inherited traits of specific ethnic groups had convinced him that a certain class of criminal was, by nature, predisposed to lie. His studies had also shown him that this propensity was in direct proportion to the number of years spent in nefarious enterprises and, of course, time spent in jail.

  This December evening, Siringo was applying these theories to the eyes, nose, mouth, and abdomen of a Mr. Dante Gabriel Cichetti of Philadelphia. As Cichetti bounced off the wall in the cellar of Pinkerton's Denver, Colorado, office, Siringo's left fist came up just under his chin, its force lifting his feet from the ground.

  Cichetti had been found in Grand Junction; he had not been hard to spot. He was swarthy, yes, but his complexion was not the giveaway; it was more his clothing and manner. He was too flamboyantly dressed to be an Indian and not polite enough to be a Mexican. This, and his accent, had led Pinkerton's well-trained operatives to identify him as Italian, and his pinkie rings and stickpins and the bulge in his coat were all they needed to deduce his affiliation: Black Hand. It was standard operating procedure for the company to detain any such vermin, and when the detectives had found a wrinkled note in the pocket of his silk vest, they knew to wire Charlie Siringo immediately.

  The sound of Cichetti's lower teeth breaking against his uppers was sickening. He spit purple blood from his lips and nostrils as he collapsed to the floor. Before the dark young man could catch his breath, Siringo pulled him to his feet by the material of his vest and slapped him twice across the face.

  “Where is she, paisan?” Siringo demanded. “You went all around Grand Junction looking for her. Described her to everyone you met. How tall. How pretty. How dressed. I didn't have my men spend two days hauling you here to Denver to hear silence. What is it you want, eh? The money she and that Hole-in-the-Wall trash stole? Where is she?”

  Even if Dante had wanted to speak, it would have been difficult. His broken nose had swollen his eyes shut, and his bottom lip had ballooned double. Of course he still had reasons other than pain to remain silent. The cardinal rule of the Hand required him to keep his mouth shut. The consequences of breaking that code would make the current beating seem like his birthday.

  But his resolve began to weaken when Charlie Siringo's knee met his groin. After the stars in his head returned to space and he could once again breathe, Dante unburdened himself as if Siringo were his priest and he a contrite confessioner.

  “She ain't here, mister. You gotta believe me. She ain't here. Please don't hit me again.”

  Siringo was relieved at the hood's words. Now he knew this unpleasantness was nearly at an end. Once he heard the first cry for mercy it would take only one, or at the most two more blows to prove his own ruthlessness definitively and end the bloody dance. The Pinkerton took Dante's olive-skinned wrist in his and bent it back in one motion, forcing the young hood to his knees.

  As the boy burst into tears below him, he reverted to his most understanding tone, the one that seemed to say, I am your father and all will be forgiven.

  “All right, Dante… I'm listening.”

  Siringo released Cichetti's hand and allowed him to crumple to the floor. He walked to a corner of the room and, dipping some water into a tin cup, handed it to the boy. Cichetti thankfully drank it down, ignoring the searing pain coursing through his lips. Siringo brought up a hard wooden chair and bade Dante sit in it. Then he drew up another and sat facing him.

  “I was sent by my boss to take care of her. Owes us money and won't pay it back. Comin' to Colorado don't mean nothin'. Goin' to the moon don't mean nothin'. We don't care how far you go or how long it takes. You're birthin' a baby? We find you; you pay us. You're on your deathbed? We find you; you pay us. You pay us or you're dead and your family pay us.”

  Siringo narrowed his eyes. “How'd you find out she was out here?”

  “My boss sent me to get it out of that old fuck lawyer of hers. A couple of twists to the balls and he gave it up right away. But by the time I got to that Grand Junction town she was long gone. Whore killed some rich guy, and the cops and you Pinks was after her, they said. Come to find out she's been gone more than two years. But this was the only lead we had, so I followed it. I swear, mister, it's true. On my mother, it's true.”

  “I don't take the word of dago trash,” said Siringo in a measured tone. “You all love to leave important things out. Like for instance, you didn't tell us anything about the little note we found in the front pocket of your vest. Now, why would you do that?”

  Dante stared for a moment at Siringo. It was long enough for the Pinkerton to determine that the hood was either not going to answer or was going to lie, so he backhanded him once more, this time opening up a purple bruise just below the Roman nose.

  As Cichetti rose from the floor, Siringo handed him a handkerchief. The kid wiped the blood from his nostrils and the tears from his eyes as Siringo read the letter out loud:

  Stranger,

  I hear you been inquiring around town about a girl name of Lorinda Jameson.

  According to your description, anyone you meet in these parts will tell you that the woman you seek here once went by Etta Place.

  I know who her friends are and where they may be found. This woman is a associate of dangerous outlaws. She owes me very much money. Meet me tonight at 8 at the Four Star, room 5, top of the stairs. You and me both might could benefit.

  H. Logan

  Siringo chuckled. Might could. Kid Curry was no English professo
r.

  “Please, mister. This note, I got no idea on earth who sent it. It was just under my door in the hotel two days ago. Your men grabbed me up before I could meet the guy.”

  Siringo folded the note and placed it neatly in the pocket of his waistcoat. He opened a door and called to an assistant.

  “You'll take Mr. Cichetti here back upstairs to the lockup and see to it that he gets medical attention. After that, I want him on the first train to Philadelphia. His boss will know what to do with him.”

  As the detective turned to escort Cichetti from the room, Siringo put his hand on the young man's shoulder and looked deep into his black eyes.

  “This little conversation never took place, Dante. You'll tell no one— cops, feds, your boss, your mother, no one. What is it you greaseball punks say? Oh, yes.” Siringo put one finger up to his pursed lips and whispered, “Omerta.”

  The assistant hustled Cichetti through a side door. Siringo walked slowly up a back staircase and into a small room. He washed his hands and dried them on a pure-white towel. Then he changed his clothes; everything from his linen and collar to his boots. Finally, he replaced his weapons: gunbelt at the hip, knife in breast pocket, derringer tucked neatly into left cuff.

  When he felt clean again, he took a paper dossier from the nightstand and studied it. LOGAN, it read, HARVEY R, Alias KID CURRY. He combed through the list of aliases, the age, the weight, color of hair, the various and sundry crimes from horse theft to murder. Not included in the dossier were those facts deemed too noxious for a proper agency: the animal cruelty, the beatings and sexual brutalization of women both high and low born, the twitching eagerness to turn a routine robbery into an occasion to kill. Charles A. Siringo cursed at the thought that a scrawled note could have led his men to this Lorinda Jameson and now that opportunity had vanished.

  Now, he knew, Kid Curry had ridden safely out of Grand Junction taking with him the true identity of Etta Place.

  From the

  JOURNAL OF ETTA PLACE

  6 December 1901

  Diary,

  I am at at a loss. The event of yesterday turns over and over in my mind and fills me with confusion.

  Even so, I must be strong; a great friendship is at stake.

  The incident itself was small, lasting only a moment. But I now fear that this tiny fragment of time threatens all that Nell and I have built these past months. Since its occurrence it has been all I can to to comfort my companion and ease her mind, assuring her that no single indiscretion could ever be enough to alter our mutual affection. Would that I were so sure; for it is the nature of that affection which now seems in question, and I wonder if I possess the fortitude to see both myself and my fragile friend through this trial.

  Over these last precious weeks I have learned much about my wonderful new companion. We have walked, ridden, taken in museums and theaters, and charted the blessed waters of the Alhambra. From the very first we have been not the least bit shy with one another, discussing all things pertinent to both spirit and body.

  These conversations have been … to put it politely … most frank. As befits a girl of her age and background, Nell is yet a virgin, and we have spent many hours side by side in the sitting room of Mrs. Taylor's while I have patiently and honestly answered her endless questions about men and what joy and sorrow they may bring. When they love you do they hurt you? Unclothed are they beautiful or ugly? Is their scent agreeable or not? Is it true that a woman can reach a kind of rushing ecstasy, like a man?

  Such sweet ignorance is more than understandable. As she has grown to womanhood without a mother or father (and as a living ghost to the remainder of her family), most of Nell's knowledge of love has come from the schools she has attended, where she consorted only with women or other young girls. In England, at the academy of her beloved Mademoiselle Souvestre, she had transformed into a popular pupil and the subject of many a schoolgirl “crush,” as she charmingly puts it. During that time, it was not unusual for her to return from a weekend away and find her room bedecked with flowers and admiring billets-doux from some smitten fellow student. Such innocuous writings are not unusual among upper-class girls at school. I myself often received—and sent—such breathless notes.

  Upon the morning of the odd occurence, Diary, I awoke early, dressed, and hurried to post a note confirming my appointment with the famous Buffalo Bill. I had been surprised at how quickly Peg Leg Elliott had been able to secure the meeting, and I could only guess that the great man himself was either desperate for performers or reacting to the great pile of lies Peg had surely deposited upon his assistants.

  When I arrived back at Mrs. Taylor's, there was a letter upon the sideboard, which I now paste here as I do all things lovely or precious.

  Etta Dearest—

  You have, as only you could, turned my loneliness to most ecstatic happiness!

  Thank you, my dear one, for sharing your secrets with me.

  I will meet you at the appointed hour, and together we shall explore the magical pictures of your scandalous Miss Cassatt.

  All my love, your

  “Little Nell”

  I saw nothing untoward in this. Our letters back and forth had always been effusive in their affections. But in rereading this one now, perhaps I should have noted a transformation: the word “ecstatic;” the pledge of her love in total.

  Just before ten this morning, Nell and her George came by and we made our way toward the gallery downtown. She was in high spirits and spoke animatedly of the audacious paintress who had abandoned her country and the role of heiress to the Pennsylvania Railroad for the sake of her work. Mary Cassatt: a woman who, like us, came from a class that frowned on impropriety.

  “Oh, to be like her, Etta!” Nell exclaimed. “To someday live one's own life without the hand of society or the eye of dead ancestors upon one!”

  Of course, observing the art, it would be hard to imagine anything untoward about its maker, except perhaps that she was a woman daring to create. The paintings themselves were largely of mothers and their children posed in pleasant surroundings: parlors and salons and gardens. The gowns of the women were of the sweetest whites and pinks and pale blues; their sons' shortpantsed suits like black holes in the canvas, their daughters' taffeta dresses tiny mirrors of the mother's couture. At first, Nell thought the work odd. “All these little pieces of paint,” she remarked to me. But as the hour extended I could see her blue eyes bore into each subject. When she had seen all the works, she returned to one particular canvas. Its title, translated to English, read, Reine Lefebvre Holding a Nude Baby.

  The painting was of a lovely young woman, dark in eye and face, silhouetted against an ochre ground. In her two strong arms she held a naked child about two years old, its sex indeterminate (as its back is to the viewer) but so soft and beautiful that I could not imagine it being anything but a girl. I took Nell's arm as she observed the happy pair, smiling slightly but saying nothing. I needed no words for her to tell me that this picture was a window into a world in which she longed to dwell but from which she had been cruelly excluded, a wonderland where all children are loved and cared for: never lonely, never ugly.

  Afterward, we retired to a nearby restaurant for luncheon and, as the afternoon grew chill, returned to the brougham and settled in, the warm carriage blanket enveloping us, Nell's gloved hand firmly in my own. Through the window we could see a light snow begin to fall and, through it, the refracted lights of the shops, newly dressed for Christmas. We were, in that moment, women full: full of the fine food of that restaurant; full of Cassatt's lovely vision; full of the warmth of our shared friendship. When Nell's coach came to a stop before Mrs. Taylor's, I expected the usual lingering goodbye that had become so essential a part of our excursions.

  As Nell's face drew near mine I happily anticipated our traditional farewell: an embrace in the French manner with one kiss upon each cheek. What I received instead far more befit a lover than a friend.

  Nell's kiss w
as different from that of a man. Being female, she was of course more gentle, her lips more soft, and she did not press my mouth to hers as an excited male might do. She dared not linger very long, being unable to predict my reaction, but still the kiss seemed to suspend me in a place between satisfaction and shock: satisfaction that such a fine creature should think so much of me that I might take the place of a man in her life, but shock that she could believe I would respond in kind, woman being made for man, no matter what pleasure such feminine sweetness might provide.

  God forgive me, I did not mean to be cruel, but when at last our faces separated, I fear my eyes were harder than they should have been, colder than I meant. One look into them caused my friend to commence to weep and lay her face hard against my hand like a supplicant begging alms.

  “Oh, my dearest,” she said, raising her head from my gloved fingers, “please forgive me. Please! I am so very sorry!”

  I looked at Nell for a long moment and knew I must choose the better between indignation and compassion. I embraced her and stroked her trembling back as I had once caressed the frightened Hantaywee. I said nothing but held her tight to me as she vibrated with sobs.

  “You are,” I finally told her, “my Little Nell. And my Little Nell you shall remain. Nothing, especially nothing so small as this, can change that.”

  Needing courage, I fought back my own tears and, at length, broke our embrace. At first she refused to look at me, trembling and averting her eyes in shame, but I took her face in my hands and coaxed those huge blue eyes into meeting mine.

  “Still, my dearest, I am not a man and cannot be treated as one. I am also a married woman. And would you not think less of me if I proved a deceiver, no matter who that deception was with?”

  I embraced my Nell once more as she again dissolved in tears.

  “But oh, my darling, kiss or no, do you honestly believe I could ever give up what we are to each other over this one thing? Never, dear Nell, and again, never! One does not cast one's sister into the cold world because of a single moment. No. We shall speak of it no more and all shall be as it has been.”