Chasing the Devil's Tail

by David Fulmer

  "You know what I think?" Beauchamp inquired abruptly. "Dupre's the best kinda priest there is. He don't say much of nothin." He cackled and then gave Valentin a shrewd look. "Whatchu doin' visitin' him? I take you for a sportin' man."

  Valentin shrugged. "Not exactly," he said.

  "But you got business in the District?" Valentin admitted it with a nod of his head. "I can tell. I spent most of my young years down there."

  Valentin wasn't much interested, but he said, "Is that right?"

  "I was solicitor for a half dozen them sportin' houses." He smiled smugly. "I was quite the rounder, too."

  Valentin slouched against the windowsill. How many times had he listened to Storyville old-timers rant on about the supposed golden years, the middle 1880s, when it was a wide-open town? Now, Valentin guessed, he would hear about how the young fellows these days...

  "You young fellows these days, you don't remember the District before they made the law," Beauchamp was saying. "It was better, for sure. Big mansions. Beautiful ladies, but they cut you same as a man if you get outta line." He frowned with distaste. "That was 'fore they made it all legal."

  Valentin stood there, getting impatient, wondering if he was expected to push the old man back to the ward, or if he could just leave him there by the window and go back to the waiting hack, back to New Orleans and away from that place.

  "Old Dupre, he remind me of all that," Beauchamp told an inattentive Valentin. "Them priests, all them proper American people in the Garden District, all them church folk, no, 'specially them church folk, they raised holy hell. Actin' like they was all religious and proper, and took offense 'cause it was gon' be a legal District." He laughed again. "Shit! They all owned houses, I mean sportin' houses, in some other part of town. You believe it? It's true. They knew they was gonna lose plenty of money if the houses went illegal everywhere but the District. Mansion full of sportin' girls, that's five hundred dollar a month, just rent." He kissed the tips of his old fingers. "Good-bye to all that. Yessir, they fought the District up and down the line."

  Valentin shrugged and said, "Well, they lost."

  "You think so, eh?" Beauchamp said. When Valentin didn't respond, the old man gave him a knowing look. "When I was a young sport, I never heeded no one neither," he said and before Valentin could respond, said, "You can take me back now. And you can go on and leave."

  Valentin stared blankly out the window as the train rolled south. He saw Buddy pacing along the walls of the ward, patient and unperturbed, a dead man with a heartbeat. Old Father Dupre, another dead man, whispering about poor Annie as he sat stone still on his bed like he was waiting for death to walk in. And the wizened old Frenchman with his stories, entertaining for a few minutes, but then it was the same old saw about the District before Alderman Story and the City Council got to work on it. Back when the whole of New Orleans was a city of sin. A time when...

  He straightened in his seat. A thin, almost invisible thread dangled before him. In his mind, he reached out, plucked it between two fingers and gave a gentle tug. The thread was attached to a rope that was fixed to a trapdoor, and he grasped it in both hands and pulled, and in one crashing instant, it sprung wide open.

  A rage of pictures and voices came tumbling out and brought him lurching to his feet so suddenly that he scared the wits out of the drummer who was dozing across the aisle. As the other passengers gaped, he stalked up and down the aisle, cursing to himself and making gestures like a madman, all the way to Union Station.

  He strode up Canal Street like a man in a fury. He was furious, all right, and the object of it was one Valentin St. Cyr, private detective. He felt like cracking his head against the brick wall of the nearest building. How could he have been so blind, so addle-brained? It had all been there, right from the beginning!

  Where was it, Miss Antonia's?

  Anderson knew where Annie Robie had died; he knew everything that went on in the District. And he wasn't simply mistaking one Basin Street mansion for another. He had moved the scene of the crime all the way from back-of-town to Storyville. Tom Anderson knew much more than he would—or could—tell him. It was the first clue, and Valentin had missed it by a mile.

  He stopped again and began walking in circles on the banquette, looking as crazy as Bolden himself. It had been a gift, Anderson's way of telling him right from the start that the game was Valentin's to win or lose. He shook his head in amazement. It was a politician's maneuver, pure and simple: setting events in motion, but keeping a card up his sleeve while he held himself safe from any scandal.

  Valentin would run down the killer because his old friend Buddy Bolden was the prime suspect. Or so the King of Storyville hoped. St. Cyr did not disappoint him.

  Except that King Bolden had played his part far too well; he was crazy as a bug, a target so easy that he couldn't be ignored. So while he was sacrificed, the true killer waited in a house at the corner of a dark Uptown street.

  Valentin stayed on the No. 12 streetcar until it stopped at the corner of First and Howard. He stepped down and the car rumbled away, the overhead wires shooting blue sparks against the falling night. He crossed over eight blocks, going east, and arrived at the corner of Gravier and South Franklin. He stopped, studying the narrow two-story house of gray-brown clapboard. He put a hand inside his coat and felt the hard weight of his pistol. The hand went up to adjust his collar. He ascended the steps. On the threshold were the remnants of a cross, drawn in salt.

  Valentin stepped carefully around it and knocked on the door.

  Cassie Maples stared at him in surprise. "Mr. St. Cyr," she said.

  He took her aside as two of her black-skinned girls watched with curious eyes from the parlor. He stepped close and whispered in her ear. Miss Maples listened, then drew back frowning. He patted her plump arm and she shrugged, looking quite baffled, and pointed toward the back of the house.

  Sally was standing by the kitchen sink, her back to the door. Behind her, she heard his voice call her name. She hung the drying rag over the spigot as her left hand dipped into the gray, soapy water to grasp the wooden handle of the big kitchen knife. The Creole came over to stand by the sideboard, watching her calmly. She could have lunged at him from where she stood, but he didn't look worried at all.

  "You ain't gonna use that thing, so you better put it down," he said quietly. Then: "Sally!"

  The girl's liverish eyes jumped. "Yessir?"

  "Put the knife down." He spoke to her gently, as if she was a small child.

  "No, sir," she said. "I can't do that. Not now." She looked vaguely troubled. "Whatchu want here, sir?"

  "I know," he said. She stared at him, then shook her head stubbornly. "But I need you to tell me exactly how it all happened."

  Sally watched him with a baffled calm.

  "Sally?" he said. "You can tell me."

  A deep sigh rose from her flat chest. "It wa'nt none of it my fault," she said.

  Very deliberately, Valentin took one of the ladder-backed chairs from against the wall and carried it to her side. Sally didn't look at him and she didn't move. He left the chair and backed away. "Go on, sit down," he said.

  After a silent moment, Sally slumped into the chair, suddenly shaking, as if she could barely control the movement of her arms and legs. The knife hung listless at her side, the tip almost touching the floorboards. Valentin crossed his arms and watched her. Sally's eyes were fixed on the floor halfway between them. He got the sense she was waiting for him to begin.

  "I figure you were the one who let the Father into the house that night," he said, keeping his voice even. "Was it by the back door?" She nodded. "Maybe Miss Maples knew, maybe not."

  A half-minute of silence went by. Then she said, "She didn't know."

  "Didn't know at all, or didn't know it was a priest?"

  "She thought it was just some white man didn't want nobody seein' him," the girl explained. "Like some old married man. But she don't know much of nothin'. 'Cause she drinks at night."<
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  "Who brought him by?"

  Sally hesitated another few seconds. "Big tall nigger name of Anthony. Drivin' a hack. Always wore this here suit."

  "How did it start?"

  "Annie went down there to the church," Sally said.

  "Why?"

  "Well..."

  "Was it to pay the rent?"

  Sally looked surprised. "Uh-huh. See, it was me who went most the time. But I had a fever this one day and Miss Maples sent Annie. And she met the priest." Her mouth tilted. "Annie said he started talkin' to her, askin' her about where she was from and all ... and he said she should come back ... she wasn't no Catholic, but he said she could come back anyway. And she did."

  "And then he started coming here."

  "Yessir. Guess they couldn't have no nigger gal at a white church. But the Father, he want to see Annie, so he come round here."

  "Were the two of them ... were they..."

  Sally pursed her lips primly. "Oh, no, they wa'nt doin' none of that. Father Dupre was too old." She paused for a moment and her voice dropped. "What I think is, he was in love with her."

  "And it was always you who let him in?"

  "Well ... it got to be that we was like, uh..."

  "Friends," Valentin said. "You and the Father got to be friends?" He saw another trace of a smile cross her moon face. "Did he bring you presents?" She nodded. "But then something happened," he said.

  Sally's dark brow creased. "Annie saw that fine surrey and that nigger driver and them fine clothes. And she said she want some of that. This other woman, she told Annie she could get it if she want to."

  "Gran Tillman."

  "Yessir," the girl said. "Gran said Annie should tell Father Dupre she needed to get some money or she couldn't keep the secret no more. And that's what she did." She shook her head woefully. "I told her not to mess with it. But she wouldn't listen to me at all."

  Valentin saw her gaze shift and turned his head to catch movement in the kitchen doorway. Miss Maples and the two girls had crept up and now stood crowded together like a trio of anxious birds, their mouths agape, watching and listening. Valentin waved a sharp hand and they disappeared in a silent flurry. He looked at Sally.

  "So Annie and Gran had a plan to blackmail Father Dupre," he prompted her.

  She looked away somewhere. "It was wrong what they did," she said.

  "The night she died."

  The black eyes came back to him, looking a little hard. "Yessir?"

  "Did Father Dupre come here?"

  "Yessir."

  "Did Annie say something to him that night?"

  "Yessir," Sally said. "She meant to get some money. So Annie did what Gran said and asked for it. But the Father had to go away, 'cause Annie had a caller come in late."

  "King Bolden."

  "That's right, yessir."

  "But then he left, too."

  "Well ... yes..." The knife twitched in her hand and her eyes skittered to and fro.

  "It was after that, wasn't it? That the trouble started."

  The girl's eyes were cold stones. "It was him," she said, now sounding hateful. "That other man."

  Valentin stared at her and another door in the back of his mind opened. "John Rice."

  "Yessir."

  "What happened?"

  "Well, Annie was asleep. He come round the back and I ... I let him in. He said for me to come with him. We went up to her room and he told me to take a pillow and push it over her face. He held on to her arms. I held there until ... until he told me to stop."

  "Then what?"

  "Then he make her look like she was sleepin'."

  "What about the rose?"

  "He had it with him."

  She paused and her shoulders sagged. She and been holding her secret a long time.

  "Why didn't you tell someone?" he asked. Sally mumbled something. He leaned forward. "What was that again?" he said.

  "Because he said I'd go to hell for sure if I did," she blurted. "That I'd burn in hell. Burn in hell for a thousand years." Her thin limbs shook and the knife blade rattled against the leg of the chair. "And the next night, that was Sunday, that woman come over from the District while Miss Maples was away." Now her eyes looked fearful again.

  Valentin frowned. "What woman?"

  "Miss Emma Johnson," Sally said in a muted voice.

  Valentin nodded. It was almost perfect. "And she told you what?" he said. "That she'd put something on you if you didn't behave? Some kind of juju?" Her eyes fluttered and she nodded. "That would have been the end of it, except there was something Rice didn't count on," he continued. "Someone figured out what had happened. Gran Tillman."

  "She was the one brought Annie to the house the first time. And she and Annie was ... they was ... you know ... together sometimes." A strange look crossed the girl's features.

  "So Gran started to make some noise of her own?"

  "She told Mr. she want some money or she's gonna tell."

  "So she had to go," Valentin murmured.

  "Mr. came round. Said I was the only one who could do it. Said God would want me to." She gave him a pleading look. "He said I done right. That Gran was a bad woman. That she was going to make it bad for the Father."

  "Did he tell you how to do it?"

  Her features tightened. "He said just pull somethin' around her throat. It wouldn't hurt, and it'd be quiet. She'd just go to sleep. He gave me another one of them black roses to leave behind. And then he brung a rose for every one."

  Valentin wanted badly to call for a drink, but he knew he couldn't break the spell.

  "That could have been the end of it, but then I started poking around," he said, mostly to himself. "Another problem. No telling what I might find. Maybe that a priest was seeing a young Ethiopian girl. In a sporting house. A house that the church owned. And that the girl turned up dead." Sally nodded miserably. "Rice paid you another visit."

  "Well, no, he sent for me to come down to the church. He said we had to fix it."

  "To get me off the trail."

  "He asked me who come to see Annie."

  "And you told him King Bolden." Valentin imagined John Rice's delight at this incredible stroke of luck. Bolden the madman, the corrupter of New Orleans' young people, falling right into his clutches.

  "He say, we got to find another girl this King Bolden like." Sally's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "He say, that's the girl to get. I say, no, I can't do that no more, but he say I got to. 'Cause I already done that one and he knew 'bout it. He could tell on me." Her eyes flitted in animation. "I heard some of the whores say how King Bolden was sweet on this here octoroon girl named Martha down at Jessie Brown's."

  Valentin gestured. "Is that the knife?"

  "Yessir." She cleared her throat. "He said don't do her like I did Gran. He said just make like she's a hog you slaughterin'. That's what I did."

  "That put King Bolden right in the middle of it," Valentin said. "But I kept coming around." He sat back. "Did Rice tell you to take care of me, too?" She nodded slowly. "So you followed me to Miss Brown's."

  "Yessir."

  "Why didn't you finish the job?"

  Sally looked at him. "I didn't want to..." she began. "You was...I mean, I thought maybe I could make you go away."

  "Then you went after another woman. The Jew girl in Chinatown."

  "I followed King Bolden and saw him buyin' hop down there at the Chinaman's. I seen her, waiting for him." She paused. "So then that one night I followed her down the alley."

  "And another one's dead. But the police still couldn't pin it on Bolden."

  "Mr. say I should find just one more girl. And after that, it'll be over. I heard about that one down to Miss Mantley's. I went there, but it was Miss Mantley saw me and..." She shrugged.

  "Did Rice tell you to come to my rooms?"

  "He told me to get your woman. But when I got there, I ... I couldn't. I wouldn't." She sounded tired. "I'm sorry about that. They gonna be all right?"
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  "They'll be all right, yes."

  "That gal of yours ... she fought back."

  Valentin stared at the floor, letting the stab of anger pass. "Sally? How did you get away with it?" She looked at him. "I mean without anybody knowing?"

  A sudden bitter frown darkened her face. "Oh, that wa'nt hard. I run errands to the other houses, so I'm all over. But nobody sees me." Her mouth twisted up. "I'm a damn nothin', is what. Nobody sees me at all. Least, they didn't..."

  Valentin noticed a strange glint in her eyes and understood. Fear had made her kill that one time, but it was more than that fear that made her repeat it. She had been the weakest of the weak, she was nothing to no one. But maybe she wasn't so powerless after all. She had struck terror in the hearts of all those haughty whores and madams. She had almost gotten away with five killings. She had the police and everyone else running crazy over her crimes. She was someone after all. She was the Black Rose Killer.

  But then the light in her eyes dimmed as quickly as it had appeared. "What's gonna happen to me?" she asked in a small voice.

  "You'll be arrested," Valentin said evenly. "You'll go on trial and hang for the murders of those women."

  A tear welled in her eyes. After another moment, she brushed it away, looked and him and said, "How did you know?"

  "I saw Father Dupre. He told me." She stared at him. "And he gave you God's forgiveness," he said.

  "He did?" Another tear trickled down her dark cheek.

  "He said, 'God forgive her. God forgive us all.'"

  She let out a long breath. There was a grim pause. "And what about Mr.?" Now her voice was brittle.

  "I'll take care of him."

  When she raised her eyes, the cold glimmer was back. "Then I guess I'll see him in hell," she said.

  He hurried away from the house, but he had gone only one block when his steps slowed and then he stopped. There was no place he need rush to; it was all over now. He would make his way to St. Ignatius and confront John Rice. Then he could inform the police. But there was no rush. After that, there would be nothing more for him to do but go home and keep vigil at Justine's side.