Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter

by Beth Fantaskey

  “I don’t want your handouts,” I objected, my cheeks flaming. It was one thing to accept some pie or a cab ride from an adult who knew how to be tactful about it, but quite another to get outright charity from somebody my own age. “I want to get back to my corner!”

  Stamping her foot, Flora shoved the coin at me. “I’m just trying to be nice!”

  I pushed her hand away. “You aren’t very good at it!”

  All at once, Flora’s eyes got damp and her chin quivered. Not like at the funeral, when everything she’d said and done had looked fake, but for real. And although Bessemers might not cry in public, they apparently sometimes came awfully close. “Stop saying things like that!” she snapped. “Maybe you’re not very nice either!”

  I reared back. Me, not nice? Me, who is trying to save Miss Giddings and Robert and missing selling papers to help HER?

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  She sniffed, but not in a snooty way. “You’re always telling me that I’m nasty and stuck-up and don’t have any friends.”

  “Well, it’s all true!”

  “So are the things I tell you,” she said. “Like about your house. So why is it okay for you to say mean things and not me?”

  Gosh, maybe she had a point. “Sorry,” I said. “It just seems different . . . And you never seemed bothered . . .”

  Flora stared off down the street, her chin still quivering. “Well, it’s not different. And I do get bothered.” She hesitated. “I miss my father too. I do cry, sometimes.”

  “Hey.” I waited until she looked me in the eye again. “Me too. I still cry too.”

  Me and Flora . . . maybe we would never be great friends. She was moving to Hollywood, for one thing. But Maude was right. We did have quite a bit in common, like brains and determination. But mainly, loss. Big, heartbreaking loss.

  “Here.” She handed me the coin again. “It’s my fault you left your corner. Let me repay you, okay?”

  I still didn’t want the charity, but she was trying to be kind, and she probably didn’t understand why I wouldn’t want her money, so I held out my hand. “Thanks.” Pocketing the nickel, I asked again, “What did you want to talk about?”

  “Maybe Miss Giddings didn’t love my father, but he cared about her, enough to want to marry her,” Flora said. “And since I don’t believe she’s guilty—let’s face it, somebody like the Nose probably killed him—I want to help her too.”

  “You mean by finding the real murderer?” I couldn’t imagine Flora going out of her way to do more for Miss Giddings. Flora’s main motive in trying to solve the case was to help herself—by getting revenge.

  Maybe I was wrong, though. “Father would want me to look out for Miss Giddings,” she said. “She was almost family, and Bessemers protect Bessemers.”

  “What can you do?” I asked. “I’ve done everything I can to convince Detective Culhane that he’s got the wrong killer, but he says it’s in the hands of the jury now.”

  “Yes, the jury of men, like you said,” Flora reminded me. “Men who set pretty women free.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “Just meet me at Robert Giddings’s house tomorrow night,” Flora said. “Whenever you’re done working.”

  Then she dug another nickel out of her bottomless little change purse, which probably held more than my mother’s big money jar, and pressed it into my palm so I could ride a streetcar back to my corner without getting chased off by a conductor.

  I still didn’t like handouts, but I accepted the coin, starting to understand that Flora didn’t know any other way to make people like her except by flipping her curls around, batting her blue eyes, and paying them. Heck, her father’d paid her uncle to watch her.

  I always thought that’s what “family” did for free.

  Hurrying off, I went to catch the next streetcar that was headed in the right direction, but I looked back once to see Flora flouncing down the sidewalk in her velvet jacket.

  Yeah, she was helping Miss Giddings out of respect for her dead father’s wishes.

  But let’s face it, she wanted to be part of what Robert and I were doing too.

  Movies or no movies . . . she needed friends.

  But what could she do at Robert’s house that would sway a jury?

  Chapter 71

  BETWEEN FLORA’S “REPAYMENT” AND THE PAPERS I SOLD, plus the extra nickel I pocketed by not paying the streetcar fare, I was actually able to drop quite a bit of change into the money jar when I got home that evening. It made a satisfying clinking sound as it joined the other coins, and I knew Mom would be happy.

  Then, as usual, I made a sandwich—cheese, that night—poured a glass of milk, and sat down at the kitchen table.

  Taking a sip, wishing it were an egg cream, I noticed that my composition book and pencil were sitting there, forgotten, next to our salt and pepper shakers, which were shaped like Bonzo the Dog, from the cartoons.

  Maude would never have left the house without her trusty notebook—and probably didn’t have ceramic mutts on her table, either.

  Why did she see any potential in me?

  Swiping my arm across my lips, I wiped off my milk mustache.

  And yet—I had a good memory. It seemed that I could recall the whole meeting between Flora and Miss Giddings. Pretty much every word.

  Pushing aside my supper, I reached for the paper and pencil and, without thinking at all about what Maude might have written, began to put down what I hoped was an “Izzie” story.

  Miss Colette Giddings, accused killer of Charles Bessemer, might be scared.

  She might be wilting faster than the flowers that AREN’T coming to her cell anymore.

  And she probably regrets ever accidentally getting engaged to a mobster.

  But she sure as heck wasn’t going to lie when the world’s toughest orphan, Flora Bessemer, asked Miss Giddings if she’d been in love . . .

  Chapter 72

  NOBODY ANSWERED THE DOOR WHEN I GOT TO ROBERT GIDDINGS’S HOUSE, and if I hadn’t seen Uncle Carl snoozing in his auto, which was parked at the curb, I would’ve thought I was too late. I’d had a long, if good, day hawking papers. A man named Marty Durkin, who’d killed a federal agent in Chicago, had finally been caught after leading police on a wild-goose chase all over America. Everybody was grabbing the special edition of the Trib, talking about Durkin—and how handsome he was, how exciting the hunt had been, like he was a celebrity.

  Maude had written the front-page, above-the-fold story and had even interviewed Durkin at the train station before he’d been hauled off to jail in front of a crowd of hundreds who’d come to admire a cold-blooded killer and his new bride’s jewels and furs.

  What a fascinating life Maude leads.

  What a sick city this is.

  No wonder she thinks everybody’s capable of murder!

  I had a copy of the Tribune folded inside my coat. I should’ve returned it to the newsstand, but I knew there was another article, on page three, that also had Maude’s byline: BESSEMER’S LITTLE GIRL CONFRONTS FATHER’S ACCUSED KILLER AT COUNTY JAIL.

  I planned to read that as soon as I had a chance.

  But first I raised my fist, ready to rap on Robert’s door again. Then I pictured Flora not deigning to answer and Robert struggling to drag himself across the room, and I tried the knob.

  Luckily, it turned, and I let myself in. Stamping the snow off my boots, I heard people talking upstairs.

  “Hey, Robert?” I called. “Flora?”

  Nobody answered, so I went up the staircase and down the hallway toward Miss Giddings’s bedroom, where the light was on. There was a lot of noise coming from that room, as if somebody was moving stuff around. I could hear Flora’s bossy voice, too, and Robert complaining about something.

  Stepping through the door, I started to say, “Hey, you two . . .”

  Then I saw the mess on the bed and on the floor and cried, “Why are you tearing apart this room?” />
  Chapter 73

  “I AM PICKING OUT MISS GIDDINGS’S NICEST CLOTHES,” Flora said, holding up a dress, scowling at it, and tossing it to the floor. “Creating outfits for her. Which we will take to the jail.”

  Dressing nicely was a strategy that women used to pull the wool over male jurors’ eyes in Cook County. When Maude covered murderess’s trials, she always mentioned how the ladies wore fancy hats, velvet chokers, and smart frocks when they took the stand to profess their innocence. Inevitably, the men all fell half in love and set the women free.

  “Have you been reading Maude’s articles?” I asked Flora, pushing aside some blouses that were scattered on the bed so I could sit down next to Robert, who was propped against the headboard. He smelled like he was using the VapoRub I’d left with him. “How did you know that clothes can help?”

  “I’ve only read the stories about my family,” Flora said, inspecting a black wool skirt. She placed it on a pile with some items that I guess had passed muster. “I just listened to you and Miss Collier talking about how pretty women don’t get convicted. And . . .” She glanced at Robert. “I am sorry, but your mother is not looking her best!”

  Robert frowned at me. “Isabel, is my mother okay? Because Flora makes it sound as if she’s crying all the time, and scared . . .”

  “Of course she’s scared,” I told him. “But she’ll be okay.” I turned to Flora. “Can I help you?”

  “No.” Flora selected a navy dress with a bow at the throat. “You stick to snooping around trash cans. This is what I do well. I choose my own outfits for my advertisements, and I’m told I have wonderful taste.”

  We might’ve reached a little understanding the day before, but that girl could not stop insulting me—and complimenting herself—to save her life. Yet she had a point. I didn’t even know what she was talking about when she pulled a fawn-colored dress out of the closet and mused aloud, “This twill would look lovely with a georgette hat. Robert, does your mother have one to match?”

  Robert obviously didn’t know much about fashion either. “I have no idea!”

  Flora placed the brown dress on the pile with the other chosen garments, then rested her hands on her hips, studying her selections. “Well, I think this should do.” She addressed Robert. “Your mother has lots of lovely clothes—for a clerk who can’t afford a real lawyer.”

  He actually reached for his crutch, like he was going to take a swipe at her for insinuating that his mother’s wardrobe had been bankrolled by her father. Then he settled back. “She’s expected to dress nicely at Marshall Field’s, and she gets a discount . . .” His face fell. “Although I suppose she’s lost her job . . .”

  For once, Flora didn’t have a smart comment. She didn’t say anything, and I stayed quiet too. I knew how quickly that cozy house would disappear—maybe right into Aunt Johnene’s clutches—if Miss Giddings really didn’t have a job. And if she spent much longer in jail . . .

  I glanced at Robert’s leg.

  He can’t sell papers, like me.

  Can’t do much of anything . . .

  I shook off those concerns and focused on a more immediate problem. “Flora, picking out these clothes is great. But I don’t think I can ask Maude to get us into the jail again.”

  “We don’t need your friend this time,” she noted. “We have someone else who is going to get us past the guards.”

  I assumed that Uncle Carl had finally agreed to visit a prison, and I was surprised to see that Flora was pointing at the boy who could barely move and sometimes could hardly breathe. “Him,” she said. “Robert is going to get us in.”

  I was about to ask how that was going to work when Flora turned her blue eyes on me, adding, “And speaking of Maude Collier—did you happen to see the story she wrote about our prison visit?”

  Chapter 74

  BESSEMER’S

  ORPHAN

  CONFRONTS

  FATHER’S

  ACCUSED KILLER

  AT COUNTY JAIL

  Little Flora Brave,

  Quiet

  —————

  by Maude Collier

  Flora Bessemer, best known as Chicago’s beloved “Bakery Pride” bread girl—now famous as a murdered mobster’s orphan—today confronted her father’s accused killer at the Cook County Jail, where Colette Giddings awaits trial early next week.

  “I had to see her,” Flora said of the woman who was nearly her stepmother—until a shooting in a dark alley took Charles “the Bull” Bessemer’s life and stained Miss Giddings’s white ermine coat with blood. The young girl’s gaze is surprisingly steely. “I had to ask if she’d really done it.”

  Ten-year-old Flora courageously accompanied this reporter to the imposing prison, although while inside, she kept her hands tucked in a fur muff, as if protecting herself.

  Adored citywide for her charming smile in advertisements that frequently grace the pages of the Tribune, and soon to be famous nationally for her planned appearance in a film with Marion Davies, Flora was stoic as she approached Miss Giddings, who expressed wide-eyed surprise to have a diminutive, yet intimidating, visitor.

  “What . . . what are you doing here?” Miss Giddings stammered, rising from her cot in cell 184.

  Flora, maintaining admirable composure—“Bessemers don’t cry in public!” she claims—cut right to the chase, asking the lady who’d been found kneeling next to her father’s body and a gun, exactly why she’d lied to police about owning a firearm.

  Miss Giddings, pale and thin in a shapeless frock—a far cry from the fur she sported while on Bessemer’s arm—protested yet again that her gun was in the possession of her sister, John­ene Giddings.

  The other Miss Giddings has steadfastly refused to corroborate that story.

  Then the girl who is about to depart for Hollywood, but whose happiness at the prospect of stardom is diminished by the loss of her “dear Papa,” as she called him at the funeral, asked the accused murderess point-blank, “Did you love my father?”

  Miss Giddings’s answer? A shake of the head and the admission, “No, Flora. I didn’t. Not the way I should have, to be his wife.”

  The trial will begin Tuesday at the Cook County Courthouse.

  Courthouse staff say they are bracing for a large audience to see the city’s “prettiest killer” defend her life.

  That was it. I lowered the paper, having read the whole article aloud to Flora and Robert.

  I was frustrated because, in spite of the doubts I thought I’d raised back at the soda fountain, Maude hadn’t changed her tone. Miss Giddings still looked guilty. And Flora came off as way too sweet, not counting her “steely” eyes.

  But I wasn’t really surprised. I understood now that Maude had years of experience working with murderesses and a different point of view from mine, and that she wouldn’t write an article to please me, even if I’d made the whole interview possible. She’d just report the facts as she saw them. And nothing in the story hadn’t really happened.

  In a way, I had to admire that. And I was glad I hadn’t been mentioned. That was Maude’s favor to me.

  Flora, of course, had mainly noticed how she’d been portrayed. She was beaming. “I like the part about me being brave,” she said, oblivious to the fact that Robert had turned a completely new color. Green. As if he might vomit. “And she mentioned that Marion Davies will be in the film,” Flora added. “Everybody will know it’s a big production!”

  I opened my mouth to tell her that her movie wasn’t our main concern at this moment. Then I shut my trap. Coming to the house to help pick out clothes for Miss Giddings . . . that was probably about as selfless as Flora Bessemer got. I’d let her enjoy the nice publicity.

  “Robert?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Just . . . just tell me,” he said, rising up with effort to address Flora, not me. Although his breath was getting wheezy, the way it did when he was upset, he demanded—with determination that probably would’ve impressed his m
ean old father—“Tell me what I have to do to get us all in to see my mother. Whatever it is, I’ll . . . I’ll do it.”

  Flora nodded and sat down on the bed too, so we were like an honest-to-goodness team. Or, more accurately, part of the mob, about to plot our next crime. We all leaned in as the daughter of a gangster looked between both of us and whispered, “Here’s the plan . . .”

  The funny thing was, I felt like the biggest criminal when I casually asked Robert a question as we were saying our goodbyes. I acted like I just wanted to make sure he had somebody nearby, since he looked pretty worn-out by the time Flora and I left, but I had my own reasons for inquiring, “Where’s your Aunt Johnene live, anyhow?”

  Chapter 75

  THE TROUBLE WITH SNOOPING AROUND A BOARDING HOUSE IS, it’s hard to tell how many people live there. And who knows when they work or sleep or leave to, say, go shopping? I had to get into Aunt Johnene’s room, though, and look for that gun, so I arrived real early at the address I’d pried out of Robert.

  He must’ve wondered why I wanted to know the exact house his aunt lived in, but I’d avoided telling him that I sort of planned to break in. The last thing I wanted to do was cause more trouble for him if I got caught. The less he knew, the better.

  “Come on, Aunt Johnene,” I muttered, stamping my feet and hugging myself to ward off the cold. I was hiding behind an overgrown holly bush on the side of the shabby white house, watching as the ladies left for the day. So far, three young women, all dressed in skirts and high-heeled shoes and fashionable hats, looking like they worked in offices, had come giggling through the front door.

  Did Aunt Johnene envy them, too, since she wasn’t a secretary yet?

  Did she ever laugh with the other boarders?

  I doubted it. I couldn’t imagine her being friends with the happy girls I’d just seen.

  All at once I had a very exciting idea. What if Aunt Johnene kept a diary where she shared all her most jealous, awful feelings about Miss Giddings and Charles Bessemer and the women she lived with?