May snorted. “She would have had to move to Texas. Besides, who says the house would be hers? More likely she’d just be living in it. What’s gonna happen when he gets tired of her and moves on? There ain’t no guarantee she’d make it back to New Orleans or that Lulu would take her on again. Cora didn’t wanna end up working for someone like Emma Johnson.” Her narrow shoulders shuddered.
“Did you ever visit Cora at Lulu’s?” Zeke asked.
Her head bobbed.
“You went to her room?”
“Yes.”
“Where was it?” The answer burned in his gut. The girl need only confirm his certainty.
“The fourth floor on the corner. One window looks over Basin Street, the other looks over the alley.”
Zeke rubbed the bridge of his nose. Perfect. Cora had watched him investigate the scene of Grant Belmain’s murder. And now she was gone.
…
The rap of her kid slippers hitting the plank floors echoed in the empty hallway. Trula looked for a bit of porcelain or crystal to hurl at the wall just to enjoy the sound of it shattering. The nerve!
Milk and coffee spotted her dress. His fault.
Her uneven temper. His fault.
How had such an egotistical ass tempted her?
She reached the sanctuary of her rooms and allowed herself a satisfying slam of the door.
Then she stripped off the soiled gown. A pearl button popped off beneath her angry fingers. It landed on the floor and rolled under her dresser. That was his fault, too. Trula tossed the gown on her bed to be cleaned and mended, then pulled a clean dress from the wardrobe.
She pinned the fallen locks of hair, settled a sweeping hat festooned with green ostrich feathers on her head, and opened the bedroom door.
Hattie stood in the hall. “Where are you goin’ dressed like a fine lady?”
“Out,” Trula said.
“That there dress was made for walkin’ on St. Charles Street or drinkin’ tea in the Garden District. I know you’re not goin’ there. So where are you fixin’ to go?” Hattie could’ve taught the Spanish Inquisition a thing or two.
“Away from here.”
Hattie chuckled. “That man sure is under your skin.”
“He. Is. Not.”
Hattie’s eyes rolled in her head. Trula swept past her, not deigning to argue the point any further. Without so much as a glance at the dining room, she opened the front door and surveyed the afternoon.
A delivery cart loaded with crates of fresh vegetables lumbered down the street. Another cart carried barrels of beer.
Down at the corner, a newsboy hawked papers. “Another murder in Storyville! Read all about it!” Was the Times-Picayune trying to destroy her business? Corner Joe was there, too, pushing his battered broom across the banquette.
Two houses down, the front door opened and a man, looking rumpled, tired, and ridiculously pleased with himself, stumbled onto the sunlit stoop. The ghost of a woman sat on the bottom step clutching a kimono to her chest. Her hair was dressed and her nebulous form leaned forward as if she was expecting a caller. The man blundered through her. Did he feel cold or experience a sudden sense of dread? Apparently not. He sauntered down the street whistling a popular jazz tune. The ghost’s angry expression went unnoticed. Trula shivered despite the heat. She’d hate to have a ghost regard her with such venom.
Farther along the street another man surveyed the afternoon. Unlike the whistler, this one looked as if he’d spent the night sleeping. His hair had the faded look of a blond gone gray, and there were more than a few wrinkles near his eyes. He looked familiar. Certainly he appeared prosperous enough to be one of her customers. He wasn’t. She shrugged. Perhaps he was considering investing in property. He had the look. The man pulled out a pocket watch, checked the time, then looked up and nodded to her. She dipped a small curtsy in response.
Trula descended the front stoop and marched down the banquette. How dare Hattie suggest Zeke Barnes had somehow weaseled his way under her skin? Yes, he’d saved Laurelie and she was grateful. To a point. One heroic act couldn’t sway her. And really, it hadn’t been that heroic. He’d barely broken a sweat. His vicious jabs had quickly dispatched Carter Wayne. It wasn’t as if there was any risk involved for him. He wouldn’t be hauled to the police station or thrown in a cell. He could save every girl in Storyville and she wouldn’t fall into his arms. Wouldn’t even be tempted. She’d taken his measure. When the murders were solved, when he had what he wanted, Zeke Barnes would abandon all ties.
It took only a few minutes to walk to Mahogany Hall. Trula rang the front bell and steeled herself for a conversation with its owner. The fan light above the door announced its proprietress to all. “Lulu White,” gleamed in the shining glass.
The door opened a crack, then widened when the young woman on the other side saw her. “Good afternoon, Miz Boudreaux.”
“Good afternoon to you, Sudie. Is Lulu at home?”
Sudie glanced over her narrow shoulder. “You’re sure you wanna talk to her? She’s not in the best of moods.”
No, she didn’t want to talk to Lulu. All things being equal she’d rather go swimming with alligators, wander the bayous in the dead of night, or face down angry ghosts. Trula squared her shoulders and smiled. “I’m sure.”
Sudie opened the door and Trula entered Lulu’s domain. The flamboyant madam had spared no expense in the construction of her house. Unfortunately, Lulu’s taste tended toward the extravagant. Heavy red velvet drapes tied with thick gold cord divided the parlors from the foyer. And the foyer—Lulu had filled it with buxom marble women in lascivious poses. The ugliest chandelier in the history of chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and potted palm trees in gaudy porcelain urns fought a losing battle against a nightly assault of cigar smoke and rye fumes.
“I’ll let her know you’re here, Miz Trula.” Sudie waved her toward the colonial parlor and Trula settled in to wait. Lulu would make her cool her heels for a good while.
Twenty minutes later, the madam made a grand entrance, pausing in the doorway with her hand pressed against her substantial chest. It heaved. Whatever emotion she pretended didn’t reach her eyes. Those were flat and cold.
Lulu operated on the theory that if a little was good, more was better, and too much was best. Diamonds dripped off her like rain off an awning. They hung from her ears, circled all her fingers, even her thumbs, glinted in the barrettes stuck in her bright red wig, circled her neck, and sparkled in her teeth. All their brilliance couldn’t hide their owner’s short, wide stature.
“You heard? My Cora was kidnapped.” Lulu’s voice, loud and strident under the best of circumstances, sounded like a creaky hinge.
“I heard she’s missing.”
“Kidnapped.” Lulu made a great show of extricating a handkerchief from the bodice of her dress then wiped her dry eyes. “No girl of mine has ever run away from this house.”
“Kidnapped,” Trula said, not wanting to antagonize her hostess. In hindsight, she’d made a grievous error. She should have sent Cora to Willie Piazza’s house instead of Lulu’s. If she had, she wouldn’t be sitting in a gaudy parlor about to embark on a conversation with a gaudy woman.
“I can’t believe she’s gone.”
Trula couldn’t believe Cora’d stayed as long as she had. Still, girls didn’t just disappear without a good reason. Given the timing, there were only two explanations for Cora’s disappearance. Either she’d been kidnapped as Lulu insisted, or she’d run away because she was afraid. If she’d been kidnapped, it was surely by the murderer, in which case, the poor girl was probably dead. If Cora had fled, it was probably because she knew something she shouldn’t.
“I got a note.” Lulu’s hand plunged into the depths of her bodice and fished out a crumpled piece of paper. What else was she keeping in there? Trula didn’t want to know.
Lulu shoved the note under Trula’s nose. If you want Cora back, leave $500 in front of Marie’s tomb by midnight tonight.
Trula said nothing. Lulu knew anyone could have sent the note.
The squat madam struggled out of her chair and paced the length of her blood red carpet. “What would you do?”
Trula blinked back surprise. Lulu wanted her opinion? What next? Snow? “It’s a fake and I wouldn’t pay it. I’d fill a bag with paper and hide one of my boys in the graveyard to see who came for it.”
Lulu nodded and her garish wig slipped to one side. She lifted her ring-crusted fingers and jammed it back into place. “I reckon you’re right. You came to ask after Cora?”
Trula cleared her throat. Paused. Searched for the right words. Saints preserve her if she offended the touchy madam. “As you know, I’ve always taken a real interest in Cora. May’s told me how happy Cora is here. I’m not surprised. Everyone knows how well you treat your girls.” Trula’s voice dripped fly-catching honey.
Lulu patted the diamond broach that nested between her bosoms and simpered.
“I know you’ll understand, given your own warm feelings toward Cora, why I still have an interest in the girl’s welfare.”
Lulu’s smile slipped. The madam swiped at her reptilian eyes with her handkerchief. “The police came to my house looking for her.”
“They wanted to go upstairs and search her room.” Lulu’s wide nostrils flared. “I still have guests upstairs.”
Trula gritted her teeth and swallowed her censure. If one of her girls went missing, she’d move heaven and earth to find her, no matter the inconvenience to a few men. “The police don’t understand how terrible they are for business.” Would Lulu take offence to the exaggerated sugar in her tone? Apparently not.
She nodded along with her waddles of fat. “They sure don’t.”
Trula offered up a praline-sweet smile. “Would it be possible…? I mean… May I look in Cora’s room?”
Lulu’s cold gaze settled on her. “Why?”
“May is so worried…and so am I. It would put our minds to rest if I could look around.” Trula held her breath.
A boy appeared at the door. “Miz Lulu, Iola and Roxie are fightin’ again. You better come. They’re fixin’ to rip each other’s hair out by the roots.”
Lulu stood. “I gotta see to this. Those damn girls ain’t got any sense. Men won’t spend their hard-earned money on girls with bruised faces.”
Trula rose from her chair with her fingers crossed behind her back “May I see the room?”
The madam grunted. “I don’t reckon it could hurt. Sudie’ll show you.”
Trula couldn’t believe her luck. She followed the maid up winding stairways to the fourth floor and Cora’s room. An ornate mahogany bed, neatly made with a white spread, took up most of Cora’s bedroom. Next to it, a small table held a stack of wash cloths, a pitcher, a basin, and a bottle of permanganate of potash. Trula’s nose wrinkled at the sight. Syphilis was a constant worry for girls in the district. Washing their johns’ rods with the foul-smelling purple liquid before sex was a preventive.
A mirrored armoire reflected the bed and whatever happened in it. A glass vase filled with roses sat on a lace-covered table near the window. A few crimson petals had fallen from the flowers. On the snowy cloth, they stood out like drops of blood.
From the depths of the house, a bell rang.
“I gotta go answer that or she’ll snatch me bald-headed.” Sudie rushed each word then rushed to the door. “I’ll be back in a minute or two.”
“I’ll be fine. Take your time.”
The door closed behind the maid and Trula opened the armoire. Cora’s gowns hung in a neat row. Trula rifled through them. Nothing. But then she didn’t know if what she searched for still existed. Where could it be?
She ran her hand under the mattress. The search yielded a bag of gris-gris similar to the one Eulie had given her. Another pass of her hand produced a bottle of pennyroyal and a squeeze bottle. Cora took all sorts of precautions. The pennyroyal prevented pregnancy.
Trula turned slowly, studying the near-empty room. Where were the beloved pictures, the bits of flotsam and jetsam, the mementos of happier times? All the girls had treasures. Except for Cora. Had she kept Trula’s gift? Did she have the book?
That it was illegal for Cora and May to work out of the same house hadn’t mattered to Cora. Her brown eyes had turned black with bitterness, her hands had tightened into fists, and she’d pretended to study the overflowing bookshelves. Hiding tears?
Cora obviously despised sympathy. Would she despise empathy?
The words Trula offered her sprung from a well of pain she’d believed capped. “When I was fifteen, my grandmother sold me to a man old enough to be her father. She couldn’t imagine a life for me other than the one she knew. The man was rich and his wife was dead. She knew he’d cover me in jewels and furs, lavish me with money. She took her cut and he took me.”
At fifteen, she’d been aware of what happened between men and women. But her grandmother insisted on spending their last few days together explaining every nuance of pleasing a man. Then Grandmother had displayed an array of toys and explained how to use each one. When Trula had failed to remember each use, the older woman had shoved an empty journal into her hands and said, “Write it down.”
Trula recorded every single one of Grandmother’s whores’ tricks. Then she added a line of her own. I hate her.
Those three words written in pen in a leather bound journal had released some of the soul-searing anger building inside her. Writing helped. She wrote in Paris and Rome and Vienna and Venice. She wrote on trains and luxury liners and in opulent hotel suites. She filled the first journal and a second and a third. She wrote so she could bear to live with an old man and do the things for him her grandmother had taught her.
“Can you write, Cora?”
If the girl was surprised at her question, she didn’t show it. Her face remained distant.
Trula waited.
After a moment, Cora muttered, “Yes.”
Trula had opened a desk drawer. Inside, a journal bound in rich burgundy leather waited to be filled with words. She’d given it to Cora. “My grandmother betrayed me and I was so…” Devastated. Bereft. Lost. “…angry. I wrote down everything I felt. When you get angry or scared or worried, write it down. Emotions can be poison. When you write things down, the poison is on the page and out of your heart.”
The girl’s glare softened and she held the book in her hands as if it was precious.
Surely she kept it, wrote in it, hid it.
Or perhaps not. Was it silly to believe Cora had treasured the small book? Probably. Did a simple gift erase Trula’s guilt over separating the two friends?
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Trula picked up a rose petal and inhaled its delicate fragrance. Then she let it drift from her fingers. It wafted past the table to the floor.
She bent to pick up the petal. Was it luck or fate that made her glance at the underside of the tabletop? Unlike most tables, it possessed a hidden shelf. She slid the book from its hiding place. Then she glanced quickly at the door. Still closed. She slipped the journal into her bag and sat down on the bed to wait. She had what she’d come for.
Chapter Eight
Trula couldn’t sleep. The brushed cotton sheets stuck to her skin in the humid night air. When she kicked the linens off, she shivered with cold. She flopped from one side of the bed to the other, pummeling pillows and yanking on her nightgown when it bunched uncomfortably around her legs.
Scenes from Cora’s journal whipped through her tired brain. Who would have thought such things of the mild-mannered Texan?
Poor Cora. The night of the murder she’d stood at her window and waved good-bye to Belmain. Blowing his usual kiss, he didn’t see the hunched figure approach, didn’t expect the attack. She’d flown down the stairs and through the front door only to arrive too late. Belmain’s murderer danced away and Cora stood in a growing pool of Belmain’s blood.
The horror of the murders
played out in Trula’s restless mind. Why had the killer chosen Belmain? Who had brought Zeke Barnes south to investigate? She flipped from her left side to her right.
Ask anyone in Storyville. They knew a dark presence roamed their streets—an unhappy loa or a spirit seeking a blood tithe, or madman enacting a blood-drenched fantasy. Eulie had warned that Baron Samedi, Death himself, hunted the men who took their pleasure in the district. If that was true, the police were looking in the wrong places.
The New Orleans police would never believe an evil spirit committed the murders. Men like Peake lacked the imagination to dream of things caught between heaven and earth. His philosophy was firmly planted in sucking mud. Zeke had more imagination. He at least visited Marie Leveau’s grave. But if she told the Yankee a voodoo spirit killed those men…the imagined sound of his laughter rang in her ears.
She thumped her pillow. Hard. Why did Zeke Barnes intrude? She ought to be thinking about Cora and the murders.
Cora’s disappearance made her worry for her girls. How could she keep the people who lived in her house safe…and prosperous? If men, frightened by the prospect of gruesome death, stopped coming to the district, how could she support everyone who lived in her house? She’d already appealed to Marie. Who else, living or dead, could help her?
The image of a decrepit shack on the shores of Lake Ponchartrain and the woman who lived inside lit the back of her eyelids. Could Granny Amzie advise her? Trula pushed a tangle of hair away from her face and considered a trip out to the lake to ask for the old woman’s counsel. Why not? A ride, even a ride in the dead of night, would be better than lying in bed, failing to sleep, failing to erase all thoughts of Zeke Barnes.
She threw aside the twisted bonds of her sheets and dropped her feet to the floor. The cool cypress planks on her bare skin zinged energy up her legs. Some nights weren’t meant for sleeping.
A Haunting Desire Page 8