City of Dark Corners

by Jon Talton

  She drew in a breath. “Oh, my.”

  “Any help you could give me would be appreciated.”

  She strode over to a bookshelf and pulled out a folio, carried it to her desk, and paged through it, licking her index finger as she went.

  “It looks like this.” She swiveled the folio so I could see the image.

  I said, “It looks exactly like that.”

  “It’s a ‘veve’ symbol,” she said. “Voodoo. I’m not an expert, but I believe it symbolizes Baron Samedi, ruler of the graveyard and death.”

  So much for kids playing around.

  “I went to college at Tulane, in New Orleans,” she said. “One saw a lot of voodoo art in Louisiana. I came here for my asthma. I do hope this isn’t connected to Carrie.”

  “Unfortunately, it is.”

  And Frenchy Navarre was from Louisiana.

  * * *

  Back near the Old Main, four young mugs wearing Bulldog football jackets were admiring my Ford a little too intimately, one sitting in the driver’s seat, a cigarette between his teeth.

  He eyed me with a smirk. “Hey, Pops, how about you hand over the keys so I can give this baby a spin?”

  I reached in and grabbed his earlobe. Hard. He let out a squeal as I dragged him out by his ear, tripped him, and watched as he and the nail tumbled to the concrete.

  “How about you get out of my car?”

  “Owww, son of a bitch! You can’t do that!” He got up but kept his distance. “We’re gonna be teachers. We’re the future.”

  “Maybe the future in prison, kid.” I slapped Carrie Dell’s photo on the hood.

  “Do you know her?”

  After a few sullen moments, the boys looked.

  “Yeah, what about it? You a cop?” This came from a broad-shouldered kid with dark hair. I let his imagination answer the question as much as I wanted to let my blackjack do the talking.

  “Her name’s Carrie. Carrie Dell. She’s T-Bone’s girlfriend.” He nodded toward the lug I had dragged out of my car.

  “Yeah,” he said, rubbing his earlobe. “Cute dish.”

  “Until she broke up with him last semester,” said one of his friends.

  His features reddened. “She didn’t break up with me.”

  “As much as I’d like to hear about your romantic life, I don’t have time.” I showed the photo around. “When was the last time you saw this girl?”

  “Last semester,” one shrugged.

  “How about you?” I looked at T-Bone.

  He gathered up his wounded manhood and squared his shoulders. “Before Christmas break. She hasn’t been back in school since.”

  “Why not? Did you call her to check?”

  “Nah.” He got his smirk back. “Easy come, easy go. Lots of fish in the sea. What’s the inside tattle, cop?”

  “You tell me? I’m a curious guy. Like what’s with the T-Bone bit?”

  He grabbed his crotch. “That’s what the girls call me.”

  His friends laughed.

  “Such BS,” one said. “He works part-time at the stockyards, in the slaughterhouse.”

  The suspect list grew again. The kid had motive with the breakup, and means with his slaughterhouse skills.

  “So, what’s your real name?”

  He reluctantly gave it—Tom Albert—along with his address in Phoenix.

  “You were in art class.”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “I liked your painting of Carrie,” I said. The angry ruddy tone of his face drained away. “Now scram before I get more curious.”

  They slowly sauntered away, as if the whole encounter had been their idea.

  When they had gone, Pamela approached me without her friends.

  “Nice touch, handling those pills, Mister Private Dick.”

  I smiled. “You can call me Gene. What’s up, Pamela?”

  She smiled. “You like my name. I can tell by the way you say it.”

  “I do. It’s a rare and lovely name.” There was plenty more to appreciate as she sat on a concrete bench with “Philomathian” engraved into the back. In addition to her large green eyes and lush auburn-red hair, she was pleasingly small-breasted under a tight wool sweater. Below a plaid wool skirt and above two-tone high-heeled lace-up oxfords, her ankles and calves were beautifully sculpted. I joined her.

  “The name means ‘all honey,’” she said, hiking her skirt above her knees to get sun despite the cold.

  “Not just sugar and spice, huh?”

  She batted her eyes in a practiced move. “It’s a more common name in England. I’m Pamela Sue, if you must know.”

  “I like it even more, Pamela Sue. Now, are we here to flirt, or did you want to tell me something?”

  She hesitated, looked around to make sure we were alone.

  “Flirting is nice,” she said. “But it’s about Carrie. Have you got a cig?”

  I pulled out two and lit both, handing her one. She took a long drag. “God, that’s good. The professors don’t like to see students smoking. We’re supposed to set an example.” She expertly blew smoke rings.

  “Carrie,” I prompted.

  “Something has happened to her, hasn’t it?”

  I nodded. I hesitated to give it up but decided to take a chance.

  “She was murdered.”

  “Oh, my God.” Pamela put her hand over her mouth. She shook and looked as if she’d been punched in the gut. You can tell a lot about someone by the reaction when you first disclose the homicide of a loved one or friend. I was satisfied that Pamela was genuinely shocked. I resisted the temptation to give her a comforting hug.

  “She was such a sweet girl, at least at first. From Prescott, you know. We were good friends her freshman year, but she struck me as very naive. First time she’d been away from home.” More smoke rings. “Then we drifted apart when she started running with a fast crowd.”

  “You seem like a fast crowd all by yourself.”

  She laughed. “Not like this.”

  “Tom Albert?”

  “Him? He can’t decide whether to be a bohemian artist or a hoodlum. He was almost expelled for selling cocaine. I was surprised he wasn’t expelled, but I guess they needed him on the football and baseball teams.”

  “But she broke up with him.”

  “Word was she was seeing an older man.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Don’t ask me his name, because I never knew. Could he have been involved in her death?”

  I said I didn’t know and asked her to keep the killing quiet.

  “Consider it on ice, Gene. You can count on me.”

  I hoped so.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” She hiked her skirt higher.

  “Yes.”

  “A serious one?”

  “A serious one, Pamela. This fast crowd Carrie was running with. Tell me more.”

  She dropped her skirt and looked out on the lawn.

  “Students mixing with older men. Dressed like you. She started going into Phoenix. She had money, where before she was barely getting by like most of us. Sometimes she stayed late and got into trouble with the dorm proctor. I asked her what was going on. Told her to dish. But she wouldn’t. She was a very different girl from when she first came here. She didn’t want to be a teacher anymore, wanted to go to New York City and be a writer. She was very big on Edna St. Vincent Millay, Pearl Buck, Willa Cather. A pretty eclectic lot.”

  “Did you read anything of hers?”

  “She wouldn’t show me. Said she wasn’t good enough yet. I think she liked the idea of being a famous writer more than actually doing the work. By this time, last semester, she had assumed this persona. Not at all like the old Carrie, taught to be a good girl. She knew she was beautiful and used it to get what
she wanted. She reveled in being the bad girl, cutting classes, smoking openly on campus, breaking hearts, trashing friendships. It was repellant to watch but hypnotic, too, because she was so lovely, you see? Like watching a skyscraper burn down.”

  “Like Millay’s ‘First Fig’ poem,” I said. “‘My candle burns at both ends…’”

  “A cop knows poetry.” She tossed her hair. In the sun it was the color of a new penny. “I’m impressed. Yes, Carrie loved that one. Frankly, I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t come back this semester. But I had no idea she would end up like this. It’s awful. If you’re a Sir Galahad, I hope you’ll save me and not go for the hopeless bad girls.”

  I ignored that last line. “Why would Carrie have one of my business cards?”

  “God, I have no idea.”

  I thanked her and stood.

  “May I have one of your cards?” she smiled. “Never know when I might need a private dick.”

  I hesitated, then handed her one.

  “If you think of anything else, call me. And be careful.”

  She smiled. “All honey, honey.”

  * * *

  I drove back to Phoenix, past the Insane Asylum, with too many clues in my head.

  Frenchy Navarre buying butcher tools.

  The mysterious telegram and photo of Carrie.

  Kemper Marley knowing about a murder that the police department was keeping on the down low.

  Jimmy Darrow seeing a Packard parked by where the body was found.

  A voodoo marking in the dirt of the crime scene—had the killer returned or was something else going on?

  Carrie’s boyfriend working at a slaughterhouse.

  The fast crowd.

  Carrie was pregnant.

  A naive girl turned into a fast girl, a hard girl—or a wronged girl?—then into a dead girl.

  How much misdirection and coincidence were hiding in all this?

  I caught sight of Zoogie Boogie shuffling along by the auto courts and pulled into a driveway in front of him. He tried to turn and make a run for it, but I got out.

  “Don’t you rabbit on me. Get in the damned car.”

  His shoulders drooped and he complied.

  Zoogie Boogie aka Henry Joshua Porter. He was thirty-five, average height and build with a pinched face. Today he wore a cream sportscoat with dirt on the edges and tan flannel pants well past their prime and way too inadequate for the cool weather. His shoes were blown open at the toes. You could tell the Depression in how many people wore shoddy shoes. He was one of my snitches.

  “You get out of Florence, Zoogie?”

  He wobbled his head up and down like a child’s toy. “I did.”

  “Only a four-year jolt for knocking over that candy store with a gun. You’re a lucky man. Staying clean?”

  “Straight and narrow.” He held his hands eight inches apart in front of his face and moved them up and down in formation. “Keepin’ it straight and narrow. Except, when I went in the joint the economy was roaring along and now…” He dropped his hands in his lap.

  “Well, it’d be a shame if I patted you down and found some reefers. Your probation officer would have you back on the next bus to prison.”

  “Please, Detective Hammons…”

  It was so convenient that few people knew I had been cut loose from the cops. I actually felt sorry for Zoogie Boogie. He was a vet and came back from France with severe shell shock, which probably contributed to his inability to keep a real job.

  America was forgetting its Great War soldiers. The grand monument in Kansas City was dedicated in 1926. The British did it better with the inscription on so many of their memorials: “Their names liveth forever more.” They lost 744,000 to combat deaths, the French almost 1.2 million, the Germans 1.8 million. In America, where combat deaths totaled 116,500, people were eager to move on.

  He continued pleading, “Show a man some compassion…”

  “I’m a compassionate guy,” I said. “Tell me something I can use.”

  “Like what? Prohibition’s going to end. There go the bootleggers. I wonder if booze will cost more or less?” He was hardly dressed for the chill, but he started sweating.

  “That girl who fell off the train…”

  He held out a shaking hand. “You got a smoke?”

  I handed him a Chesterfield and my lighter.

  After he handed back the lighter and took a long drag, I pressed him.

  “What about the girl?”

  “Word is she was murdered, cut up in pieces. This is your business.”

  “What word? Where’d you hear that?”

  “It’s on the street.”

  “Whose street? Not mine.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  But I was going to do this. When he started to get out, I pulled him back in, hard, and slammed the door.

  “Cop told me. You should know, too.”

  “What cop, damn it?”

  After a very long pause, he barely whispered, “Frenchy Navarre.”

  “Tell me about Frenchy. What did he say, exactly?”

  His eyes widened. “You want me to snitch on another cop?”

  “I do.”

  “You his buddy?”

  I shook my head.

  “I run errands for him sometimes. He gives me a few dollars. He mentioned the dead girl in passing, that’s all. Said I needed to stay away from the railroad yards, a maniac was loose.”

  I wondered, not for the first time, if Frenchy was the maniac.

  “What errands do you run?”

  He rolled down the window and blew a plume of smoke outside. “Navarre is a bagman for the city commissioners and the cops. You ought to know that. And nobody messes with him. You ought to know that, too.”

  So much to learn. I asked where he got the payoffs.

  “Gus Greenbaum. He’s paying cops and the city commissioners to look the other way from his gambling wire and from bookies. Greenbaum and the Chicago mob have moved in. There’s so much money that sometimes Frenchy uses me. Don’t ask me where people get money to gamble in the Depression, but there’s a lot of it out there. Frenchy told me to stay away from the railroad.”

  “Have you been breaking into boxcars? The bulls won’t like that if they catch you. And they will. They’ll remake your face with their billy clubs”

  “No, I swear. I collect for Greenbaum south of the tracks, down in darktown.”

  “How does that sit with Cyrus Cleveland?” He was the most powerful colored gangster in Phoenix.

  “Sits fine with Cyrus,” Zoogie said. “Greenbaum had a talk with him. Cut him in on the action. Now all his shine bookies are part of Greenbaum’s network. Cleveland will do fine. He has other rackets: procuring whores, selling heroin and terp.”

  I lit my own nail and let that sink in. “Does Navarre know you’re my snitch?”

  “No.” A vigorous shake of the head. “I swear.”

  “Good. Keep it that way.” I let five beats pass. Then, “Is he a killer?”

  He stared out the window. “A month ago, I saw Frenchy do a beatdown on a bookie who was holding money back. Used a sap, you know, a blackjack. I heard bones breaking. Teeth flew out of his mouth. When he turned to me I hightailed it, but not before I saw that look in his eyes. Same look I saw on the faces of the murderers in Florence.” He flicked an ash out on the sidewalk. “Draw your own conclusions. What are you going to do? Go after a brother officer? That’ll be the day. You guys stick together like flies on flypaper. Kill people. Beat confessions. Plant evidence.”

  “Does he have a girlfriend?”

  “He’s married.”

  “So? Young thing. Blonde. Pretty.”

  “What do you want from me, Hammons? Want me to make things up?”

  I shook my head, peeled
off twenty dollars, and handed it over. “I want you to nose around about that dead girl. Quietly.”

  “That’s the only safe nosing with Frenchy,” he said.

  I let Zoogie go, and he wandered west on Van Buren Street, past auto courts that should have been full of tourists this time of year but were barely hanging on. I slipped into a phone booth, closed the door, fed in a nickel, and shared information with Victoria. She had used her police connection to wander around headquarters and, when the Hat Squad was out, dig through files. Unfortunately, she hadn’t found much, not yet at least. No missing person report on Carrie. None on similar young women. The file on Carrie’s murder held one sheet of paper.

  Next I called my brother. Driving downtown, I took stock.

  Frenchy the bagman. Payoffs were a necessary evil in keeping the peace. Cops collected from selective illegal enterprises, and the money went to politicians, the city treasury, and other cops. The bribes were an incentive to look the other way, but also served to contain, monitor, and control illegal activity that was going to happen anyway. This maintained an equilibrium between otherwise law-abiding citizens and their vices. That was the old theory, at least. I tried to stay away from vice cases—other detectives, including my brother, thrived on them. But I had to take my share of the cut. Otherwise, I would have been suspect and might not have gotten backup when I needed it, or worse. Now it was my nest egg.

  But Greenbaum was a new element, with plenty of money and juice from Chicago. And Frenchy Navarre was his bagman.

  Eleven

  I took a table at the Hotel Adams coffee shop to wait for Don and read to distract myself. The paper had a story about the Navy successfully staging a mock surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by planes from the carriers Saratoga and Lexington. Honolulu residents who witnessed the war game were reportedly “thrilled.”

  It was more interesting than Phoenix’s daily diet of news about debt negotiations with Britain, what President-elect Roosevelt might do come March, and the Japan-China conflict. The local newspaper had barely a peep about the dire economic situation. Will Rogers’s two or three paragraphs on the front page mentioned the Depression more than the news columns. The rare “good news” business story received big play. But nothing about people starving, the county relief fund empty, or the businesses closing every month right here. Nothing about the refugees from the Midwest desperately moving through town—if they could avoid Kemper Marley’s welcoming committee. And not even the peep of a peep about dead Carrie Dell.