by David Fulmer
SEVEN
BRUTAL SLAYING
IN THE TENDERLOIN
Martha Devereaux, a colored woman 24 years of age, was brutally murdered on Tuesday night in the mansion of Jessie Brown on Iberville by a party or parties unknown.
Her death is the third homicide of sporting girls in as many weeks without any clue to the identity of the perpetrator of the vile acts.
Chief O'Connor's office was not willing to provide comment in regards to the recent spate of deaths of sporting girls.
Miss Devereaux's body was carried to her home in Lafayette for burial.
KILLER AT WORK IN
STORYVILLE?
The New Orleans Police had no comment on the recent deaths of three sporting girls in as many weeks.
Chief O'Connor's office was not willing to make a statement about the possibility of the same killer at work in all three cases, though it seems obvious.
Mr. Tom Anderson also declined to offer an opinion of the tragic business, except to say that he is watching the situation closely.
Valentin folded the Late Edition of the Sunday Sun and laid it on the table. Tom Anderson loomed in his chair, eyes aglitter. "Watching the situation closely," he mimicked, his face going a deeper shade of red. "Now, don't I look like a perfect fool?"
"No one pays attention to these newspaper fellows," Valentin said.
"I pay attention!" Anderson slammed the table with his fist. "People all over this city pay attention! Important people. People I have business with." He glared, measuring the detective. "Now what do you have to report?"
Valentin cleared his throat. "I visited the house again this afternoon. Most of the girls have moved out, but I spoke to the ones who were still around. Nobody saw any suspicious characters. No strangers lurking around the time of the murder. The killer waited to slip in until all the girls were in rooms with customers and..." The King of Storyville's hard stare remained on him. "This fellow is sly," he limped on. "He doesn't leave much behind."
"What? He leaves his signature, doesn't he? Those goddamned black roses."
"Yes, but that's all."
"And that ain't enough, Mr. Private Detective?" Valentin scratched his jaw nervously. "The truth of the matter is—"
"Is what?" Anderson snapped.
"That I made a mistake. I figured those first two murders happened because of some shady business with the victims. Robie and Tillman knew each other and I thought the two of them had crossed the wrong person." He tugged at his collar. "And Annie Robie was on Perdido Street and Tillman worked at Jessie Taylor's, so it didn't seem all so—"
"Important?" The King of Storyville was terse.
Valentin thought to remind the man across the table of his own dismissal of the first two murders, then decided against it.
"What about Bolden?" Anderson asked abruptly. "Have you questioned him?"
"I talked to him, yes."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing worth much of anything."
"Did he have an alibi?"
"He doesn't remember what he's doing from one minute to the next," Valentin said. "I don't believe he's involved in this. He's not the type."
"Not the type?" Anderson's eyebrows arched. "You mean aside from the fact that he's a raving lunatic?" Valentin opened his mouth but the white man charged ahead. "Wait a moment! Isn't it true that during the time he was in jail, no women were assaulted? And the very evening he's released, there's another murder? And that he knew all three of these women?"
It sounded like Picot had been whispering in someone's ear. "You could say the same about another two or three dozen sports around here," Valentin countered.
"And what the hell is he doing with a white woman and an octoroon?" Anderson said. "We have laws against that kind of thing." He tapped rapid fingers on the table.
"I'll be keeping an eye on him," Valentin said. "But I've known him for a long time. He's troublesome, I'll grant th—."
"Troublesome isn't the word for it," Tom Anderson cut in again.
"He acts like a maniac, but he's no murderer," Valentin said. "He didn't kill these women."
The King of Storyville did not look convinced. "Then you damned well better find out who did," he said.
***
Bolden woke up in the white light of the afternoon and tasted blood. He lay still, his eyes on the ceiling, feeling his body come awake. His tongue probed until he found the ridge of the wound. Cut my damn lip. Cut my goddamn lip.
He looked down and plucked at his white shirt with his fingertips. He saw blood in a little pattern, a crimson Milky Way. He tried to remember what had happened, but nothing came to him. Last night was far away, hidden in a dark haze, like so many of his nights of late. He wondered where did they go? He thought about it some more, but nothing came. Yesterday was as blank as the white ceiling over his head.
He wanted a drink.
Valentin trudged home from Basin Street through quiet afternoon streets. When he got back, he threw himself across his bed and tried to sleep, but the angry buzz in his head went on and on and so he got up, went back outside and starting walking up and down Magazine Street.
He admitted to himself what he had told Anderson. He'd been stupid to toss aside those first two deaths just because one victim plied her trade in the Negro quarter and the other in a house on the District's fringe that employed low-class white women. There was a certain logic to it. Since Annie Robie and Gran Tillman were friends, there could have been some sordid business with the two of them that stirred the killer's wrath. Storyville was a wallow of such treachery. So some fellow who thought himself wronged murders Annie and then her confidante Gran Tillman, and the tale ends right there, the two deaths all but forgotten in the rush to the next weekend's pleasures. The black roses, symbols that had meaning only in the killer's mind, would disappear with the guilty party. The women would go down in the ground and a mystery would remain, for what little anyone cared.
But the homicide of Martha Devereaux had shattered that construction. Whether or not she was connected to the other two victims didn't signify. This was no longer part of the ordinary slaughter, the cost of doing business in a place like Storyville; and if there was any doubt, the murderer had underlined the point in poor Martha's blood.
He glanced at his reflection in a store window and stopped, startled to see that the face in the glass was smiling. The smile lingered and he felt a rush of guilty pleasure as he walked along at a quicker pace. Because now it was his job to bring the murderer down. The game had begun.
At four o'clock the next afternoon, he mounted the rickety steps of Cassie Maples' brick house at the corner of South Franklin and Perdido. The door opened and the maid Sally stood there, her eyes twitching in perpetual confusion. She didn't seem to know what to do, and even took a startled step back when Valentin smiled at her. "Is Miss Maples in?" he inquired. Sally stared at him, didn't move. "Tell her it's Valentin St. Cyr," he said gently.
Sally found her senses, bobbed her head up and down and stood back so he could step inside. She closed the door and all but ran to the back of the house.
Valentin stepped into the parlor to find two fat black-skinned girls, both in worn day dresses, slouched at a Café table, smoking and talking quietly. They looked up and stretched their mouths into smiles, but he shook his head and they went back to their conversation.
Cassie Maples hurried from the kitchen, and though she nodded politely in welcome, her eyes did a nervous flicker. Sally stood to one side of the kitchen doorway, watching as visitor and host exchanged greetings. "Mr. St. Cyr," the madam said. "Pleasure to see you again."
"I'm sorry to bother you," he said. "May we speak privately?"
She led him into a small office that was little more than a closet off the dining room. A curtain-top desk took up one wall, with a swivel chair facing it. Two café chairs were placed opposite, just inside the door. A ceiling fan whispered overhead, barely stirring the thick air. Miss Maples sat down at the desk and
gestured to one of the café chairs. "So you heard about that damn King Bolden, eh?" she stated directly. The startled detective had to hide his surprise. "He was here, all right," she went on. "Last night."
"What time was it?" Valentin said carefully.
"Musta been eight o'clock. It was already dark out."
"What happened?"
The madam drew herself up, all indignant. "He come up on the gallery, tried to come inside like somebody invited him." She crossed her fleshy arms. "I wouldn't allow it. Not after hearin' what happened on Saturday night. I told him don't come round no more. And I closed the door right in his face."
"Did he say what he wanted?"
Miss Maples snorted angrily. "He was mumblin' about Annie, said somethin' about wantin' to talk to her." Her eyes hardened. "That man is crazy. I had my Derringer pistol in my hand and I tell you, I was ready to use it."
Valentin sat back. "What did you say about Saturday night?"
She gave him a sly look, like she'd caught him trying to fool her. "Oh, I heard. How he knowed that poor girl got cut up," she said. "Just like he knowed Annie and Gran."
Valentin nodded slowly, reached for a thread. "That's something I did want to ask you about." He leaned forward, his hands on his knees. "Your maid out there told me about Bolden being here with Annie the night she died."
The madam's eyes flicked again. "I believe that's right."
"Did you see him leave?"
"Nossir, I didn't."
"Could somebody else have come in without you noticing?"
"That ain't likely," Miss Maples said. "Sally would have said so." The chair squeaked as she shifted her weight.
"Perhaps I could have a word with her," Valentin said.
"What? With who?"
"With Sally."
The madam's laugh had a rough edge. "What for? That girl can't remember what happened this morning, let alone back weeks ago."
"Please," Valentin insisted.
The madam kept her gaze on him. "All right, then," she said. She stood up and went to the door. She returned a few moments later with Sally at her heels. So close at her heels, in fact, that when the madam stopped inside the doorway, the girl bumped into her, bouncing like a pea off a pillow. Miss Maples glared in annoyance. Sally stepped back, now almost tripping over her own clumsy feet. It looked like a skit in a minstrel show. Valentin stood up.
"Sally, you remember Mr. St. Cyr?" Sally nodded. "He'd like to have a word with you." Valentin pulled the second Café chair from the wall and placed it a few feet from his. Sally looked to Miss Maples, who nodded. The girl sat. Valentin turned to the madam and waited. Cassie Maples' mouth opened, then closed. "Excuse me," she said and stepped to the door. "If you need anything..."
"We'll be fine," Valentin said.
The madam made her exit, glancing back once, her face twisted up with concern.
Valentin sat down. Sally had folded her hands in her lap so tightly that her knuckles almost showed. A trickle of sour white sweat ran down the inside of her upper arm and dripped onto the thin cotton of her dress. Valentin noticed that her smell was not so strong; she had bathed at least once since he saw her last, and the dirty dress had gone through the wash. Even her hair appeared neater, done up in little bows, pickanniny style. But she was the same startled mouse he had encountered the night of Annie Robie's death.
He knew the type, backwoods girls who were the runts of the litter, judged too slow for school and too ugly for courting. They always looked the same, homely in the face and with bony bodies all askew, but with a sinewy muscle under tough hides. The only thing they knew how to do was work, and work they did. Back in the country, Sally would have carried firewood on her back, chopped cotton from dawn until dark, helped to slaughter the hogs. She had escaped that for the city, but here Miss Maples would drive her like a mule. She'd sling hot pots in the kitchen, tote huge baskets of laundry on her head and haul the occasional dead-drunk sport down the stairs and out the door. Valentin felt a twinge of pity for her. Such was her life, not so much above her grandparents' slavery. She would go through her days waiting for the next snap of anger or the next striking hand.
He gave her what he hoped was a calming smile. "I want to ask you about that night Annie died," he said, keeping his voice low so as not to give her a fright. She nodded and even seemed to relax a bit. "You told me that King Bolden was the last man to visit Annie."
She frowned, thinking hard. "Yessir, I did," she whispered.
"The last man you saw with her," he said. Sally blinked, not understanding. "I mean, if someone were to get in without you noticing..."
Now she understood. "Oh, I watch out, 'specially late," she blurted. For the briefest instant, there was something moving about behind her eyes, but then her face closed again.
"So there is nothing else you saw or heard that night? No one else about?"
Sally shook her head, whispered, "Nossir. Nothin. No one." And she dropped her gaze to the floor. After a moment, Valentin sat back, then stood up. She rolled her fearful eyes at him, cowering as if she had failed him and now awaited her punishment.
"Thank you for talking to me," he said quietly. Sally's mouth opened and she sighed her relief. "It's all right, you can go back to your chores," he told her.
She went to the door. She had just laid her hand on the knob when he said, "By the way, does a black rose have any meaning to you?"
She blinked slowly, looking as befuddled as before. "What kinda rose?"
"Black," he said. "Like was left with Annie when she died."
"Oh. I believe I seen ones like that at funerals," she said.
"That's all right, then," he said and motioned for her to leave.
Miss Maples was standing just outside the door. She treated Sally to a narrow-eyed stare, then turned to the detective, smiled too sweetly and said, "Will that be all for you, Mr. St. Cyr?"
"No," he said and watched the smile fade. "I'd like to see the back of the house."
"The back of the house," the madam repeated.
"Please," he said.
He followed her out of the office, through the dining room and into the kitchen, all under the silent eyes of the two sporting girls and the maid. Miss Maples opened the back door onto a wide gallery and lie stepped outside. There was a small narrow yard that backed into an alleyway off Perdido Street. It was an easy egress. He knew the arrangement, of course; most houses in these neighborhoods had the same small yards, the same pattern of dirt alleyways. This far back-of-town was a blind maze where anyone could get lost.
He nodded to Miss Maples and went back inside. She followed him through the rooms toward the front door, looking more relieved at each step. Valentin understood. This was not Storyville, and the madam stayed in business at the whim of the precinct captain. Attention hinted at trouble and trouble could close her down. So she was at ease only when they had exchanged courtesies at her front door and he had walked out into the cloudy afternoon.
While he was waiting at the corner of Perdido and Gravier, he looked around and caught a flash of dark motion to his left. Sally was standing not fifty feet away, half-obscured in a recess of the corner building, waving a skittish arm at him. Valentin glanced back along the street in the direction of Miss Maples' house, then walked over to the maid.
"I don't want to get inta no trouble...," she mumbled.
"What is it?"
Her eyes bounced around the busy intersection. "Someone coulda maybe got in. That night Annie died. I don't think so, though. I was up, 'cept..."
"What?"
"There wa'nt no one in the kitchen," Sally said. "So I spose somebody coulda come in through the back ... I was up, though ... I don't know for sure..." The stuttered speech had taken all of ten seconds and she was ready to bolt.
"All right, then," Valentin said. "Thank you for the information."
"I don't want to be gettin' inta no trouble." Her voice was thin, shaking.
"You won't," Valentin said.
; Sally tried a smile as she backed away, then turned and hurried up Gravier toward the alleyway, thin arms and legs milling, a tottery spider. She disappeared from the day-lit avenue and into the shadows, but he could feel the eyes in that black skittish face following him as he strolled away to Tulane Street where he could catch a streetcar back downtown.
She peeked once more around the fence at the end of the alleyway to make sure the detective went on his way. Then she scurried off toward the back of the house. Miss Maples would be in a fit if she caught her, maybe even mad enough to hit her with the switch, but she had gone ahead and done it anyway. She wanted to tell him something. He was polite. Nobody ever talked to her like that. So she wanted to tell him something.
He stepped off the car at Canal Street on the stroke of five and started off down Dauphine, along the back end of the Vieux Carre. It took another ten minutes to reach the milliner's storefront. He walked into the narrow, shadowed path that led around to the back of the building and knocked on the door. He waited, listening to the sounds of labored movement from inside. A muted voice squawked irritably.
"It's me, Papá," Valentin said.
The door opened. E.J. Bellocq glared at Valentin, rapped his cane on the floorboards and made another guttural noise that passed for a greeting. Valentin stepped inside and the Frenchman closed the door and locked it.
There was a library table in the center of the large, square, low-ceilinged room, and a roll-top desk shoved against one wall. Both were cluttered with camera gear, stacks of photographic plates, files and papers, an array of books and odd paraphernalia. A few chairs had haphazardly settled here and there and a selection of crutches and canes leaned into corners. Acrid chemicals had left their stains and their pungencies soaking into every surface.
The windows at the sides of the room were shaded with an opaque red fabric that kept out the light (along with the rest of the world, Valentin guessed). A small kitchen with a sink filled with dirty dishes and a sideboard lined with ambercolored bottles extended off this main room. The door to the toilet, which also served as the photographer's laboratory, stood open. A second door, leading to a bedroom, was closed. The air was thick with the smells of chemical potions, mildew, unwashed clothes, and the stale, dead scent of old candles.