Sisters On the Case

by Sara Paretsky

  A walk in a walled enclosure was worse than standing here. She wanted to run into the jury room and beg them to understand that she not was a conspirator. The guys who planned the explosion didn’t want her advice, didn’t tell her their plans; most of them didn’t even know her name.

  After an hour she did go out, sat on the steps, looked up at the sky she might never see any other way. The courtyard reminded her not of the outdoors but of the motel rooms where she huddled time after time creating new identities, forcing herself to give up the things that could reveal her as her. Her streaked blond hair, her violet toenails, the silver snake bracelet the boy who could have become her boyfriend had just given her. She had watched her swimmer’s muscles go to flab as she avoided even motel pools. At the sight of a bookstore she had crossed the street to avoid the temptation of lingering in front of the window. Those abandonments were painful, but manageable. They were the top layer. She had ripped off the next layer like a bandage off too-raw skin: good coffee, marzipan, steak very rare. And the next: the way she automatically stood when waiting, arms crossed over her chest, her quick retorts that brought a laugh; that was the hardest, to never ever say anything that made her other than bland. To become next to nothing.

  Each time she plunked down her duffle and watched the town she had called home for a year or for three months shrink to nothing outside a bus window, she had mourned her attachment to her life there. Each time she had sworn that her next identity would steer clear of the telltale link to Carla Dreseldorf that forced her to abandon this town and her few acquaintances who passed as friends.

  The marble courtyard reminded her of the county record rooms and libraries she visited one after another, till she found the name of the dead baby who would have been about her age, born in the United States, died in another country. Elizabeth Amanda Creiss had allowed her to get a birth certificate, a driver’s license, a passport she hadn’t been quick enough to use. The legitimate name had made her a person again. A Frankenstein of herself. Still she had never dreamed she would come to hate it.

  ‘‘The jury, they’re coming back.’’

  ‘‘Omigod, Dennis. Is it too soon?’’

  ‘‘It’s okay. It’ll all be over in a minute. Come on.’’

  Carla Dreseldorf walked stiff-legged up the steps. In the lobby she saw the blond woman start toward her, stop and just give her a thumbs-up, but she was too scared to respond. The old couple stepped back as she passed. It was them she felt the bond to, they who walked as tensely, stiffly as she. She passed through the bar. Dennis had to tell her twice to sit, and then pull her arm when the bailiff said, ‘‘All rise.’’

  The judge spoke but his words didn’t penetrate her ears. The foreman spoke. She swallowed hard, forced herself to hear her future.

  ‘‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a decision?’’

  ‘‘We have, Your Honor. We find the defendant not guilty on charge number one, not guilty on charge number two, not guilty on charge number three.’’

  Carla slumped into her chair, hearing nothing but her heart pounding. Dennis’ arms were around her. ‘‘Free! Free! We won! You’re free! Let’s go celebrate! Let’s have the most expensive meal two people have ever eaten. Come on, don’t you want to get out of here?’’

  She let him pull her up and guide her through the bar, down the aisle toward the double doors. Free! To go anywhere, to call anyone, to answer the phone without fear, open the door without peering through the peephole. Free to say, ‘‘Hello, I’m Carla Dreseldorf.’’ Free to call Mom, to go to Mom’s house, make her listen to the real story. Free to ask, to demand why she hadn’t come to the trial, hadn’t done as much as the blond woman, the old couple, these strangers who supported her by their presence. She pushed through the double doors and walked across the lobby. ‘‘Free to—’’

  Dennis opened the courthouse door.

  She stood there, letting the sunlight coat her body, looking out past the reporters at the tiny green leaves of the live oaks, the deep green pine needles, the pale, soft green grass. The gray buildings sparkled silver; cars danced in jelly bean colors. A sweet breeze rippled her collar. Gray gulls rode the winds.

  On the landing below, the blond woman threw her arms up in victory. ‘‘Oh, Elizabeth, you were so smart, so brave! I’ll always be so impressed by you, Elizabeth Amanda Creiss!’’

  ‘‘Don’t call me that name!’’

  ‘‘Don’t call her that name!’’

  The shot knocked Carla onto the marble steps. Her chest burned; she was freezing. Blood was over everything, her blood. ‘‘Why?’’ she whispered. ‘‘Why?’’

  The old couple was standing over her. The gun hung from the woman’s hand. As the bailiff reached in, the woman bent closer. ‘‘My baby died. We had nothing left of her, nothing but her name, Elizabeth Amanda Creiss. Every time we hear her name on the news, see her name in the papers under your picture, it tears us up. All we had left was her name. And you made a travesty of it.’’

  Frighted Out of Fear; or, The Bombs Bursting in Air

  by P. M. Carlson

  The problem with diamonds is that when a young lady sells one, she receives a lovely large amount of money, and in 1886 Chicago was filled to the brim with fashionable bonnets and delicious cakes and expensive Parisian scents—in short, as Shakespeare says, it was a surfeit of the sweetest things. So I knew that the money would have disappeared quick as a wink.

  I had just come from St. Louis, where my darling little niece Juliet, not yet four years old, lived with my friend Hattie in a home that was pleasant but with a roof that was beginning to leak. As there were only five diamonds remaining of the ones Juliet’s father had left, I had resolved to keep them for her future use. For safekeeping I’d had them set into a cheap theatrical bracelet, interspersed with flashy paste jewels, to disguise their value. Oh, I know, rich people prefer to keep their valuables in bank vaults. But an actress on tour never knows when money might be needed, and if the diamonds are far away in a vault they aren’t much help. Besides, when men like Jay Gould decide it’s time for their banks to fail, everything disappears except for Mr. Gould’s share. The bracelet had proved much more convenient for me.

  Not that I planned to use it, except of course as part of my costume. It was boom times in Chicago. Just a few steps north of the train station I saw the brand-new Home Insurance Building and lordy, it must have been nine or ten stories high! The April breezes were alive with the smells of the lake, the smokestacks, the bakeries, the stockyards, but to me it seemed the scent of money. I reckoned I’d soon be joining the ranks of the rich folk like Marshall Field and George Pullman.

  There were a great number of shows playing, and in the normal way of things a few cast members would have succumbed to sciatica or a catarrh by now. But unfortunately, actors in Chicago all enjoyed superb good health that week. Even when I showed managers the Kansas City clipping calling me ‘‘Bridget Mooney, the Bernhardt of Missouri,’’ one after another informed me that replacements were not required.

  Well, hang it, what’s a poor girl to do, when even her fellow actors conspire against her? To avoid having to pry one of Juliet’s diamonds from my bracelet, I was reduced to performing my comic impersonation of Lillie Langtry in a variety show at Kohl and Middleton’s Dime Museum, the one on Clark near Madison. That week the program also included a local pair of jugglers called the Flaming Flanagans and a troupe of ten trained Saint Bernard dogs. ‘‘Thoroughbred canine heroes!’’ said the advertisements. Shakespeare must have been thinking of a manager when he wrote, ‘‘He has not so much brain as earwax,’’ because the dogs received top billing, even though I was appearing in an olive green figured sateen dress with handsomely draped bustle that had once belonged to the rich and beautiful Lillie Langtry herself.

  The giant dogs were amiable but slavered copiously. As we were preparing for the first show that afternoon, one of them drooled into the Flanagans’ box of juggling balls backstage.
Johanna—the female Flanagan—fetched the huge dog such a whack that he turned tail and ran for his trainer. Her eyes blazing bright as the torches that she and her brother juggled at the finale of their act, Johanna advanced on dog and trainer. The trainer babbled confused apologies and Johanna quickly relented. ‘‘Oh, the dear puppy, I didn’t hurt him, did I?’’ She petted the animal’s massive skull, and I decided she had a warm heart after all.

  My judgment was confirmed after the show, when she learned I was looking for lodging and promptly offered me a cheap bed. I was quick to accept, and Johanna looked pleased. ‘‘Good! You can share my room in my mother’s house,’’ she said. ‘‘Mutti charges less than a boardinghouse, and you won’t have to pay till we get our money.’’

  As Kohl and Middleton paid very little, and not until the end of the week, this was welcome news to me. ‘‘Johanna, you are so very kind! Will there be space for my costumes?’’ I gestured at the trunk I’d had brought from the station.

  ‘‘Yes, at the foot of your bed.’’

  ‘‘But did you say ‘Mutti’? Are you German, then?’’ I asked. It was true that Johanna was blond and tall in stature, and looked more German than Hibernian despite being a Flanagan.

  ‘‘I’m half German,’’ she explained. ‘‘Da is Irish, but we haven’t seen him these fifteen years. And when my brother Peter and I went on the stage with our blazing torches, we thought ‘The Flaming Flanagans’ was a good name.’’ She finished removing the rouge from her cheeks, closed her box of paints, and said, ‘‘Let’s go, then. Peter’s off to the beer hall with his friend Archie tonight, and—oh!’’ She looked apologetic. ‘‘I forgot to say, I promised to call on my friend Mabel on our way home. Do you mind? Just for a short chat. You must come too, she’s ever so nice, and good at finding bargains, and we won’t be long.’’

  ‘‘I would be honored to meet your friend.’’

  ‘‘Oh, good! Here, let me help you get your trunk down the steps.’’

  We pulled it out the stage door into the balmy April night. I hailed a porter, a hollow-eyed fellow in a yellow checked cap who gave his name as Peebles and clumsily bumped my arm as he lifted my trunk into his barrow. Then I hurried up Clark Street toward Johanna, who had strolled ahead a few steps toward the crowds spilling from the Grand Opera House. Suddenly a strong hand seized my arm. ‘‘Stop in the name of the law! Your kind aren’t permitted here!’’

  I turned to see a man with a mustache and a derby hat. Despite his ordinary clothes he was wielding the weighted cane used by police detectives, so I said most politely, ‘‘Why, sir, I have done nothing wrong! I am but a visitor to your city.’’

  He seemed taken aback by my excellent speech, as well he might be. My tutor had been the great actress Fanny Kemble. But he blustered on, ‘‘You’re new in town, that I believe, if you think you’ve done nothing wrong! Red hair, clothes beyond your means—you’re a tart!’’

  Lordy, was there ever such an insult? True, my hair is red, and I was still wearing the dress that had been the notorious Lillie’s, but those are not good reasons to arrest a perfectly innocent young lady who only rarely is forced to resort to the line of work he mentioned!

  Johanna had finally looked back and now came striding up, nearly as tall as my captor. But her voice was girlish as she simpered, ‘‘Why, Detective Loewenstein, what a coincidence! I was just taking my friend to meet your wife! Bridget, let me introduce Detective Jacob Loewenstein, my dear friend Mabel’s husband, and one of the finest policemen in Chicago. Detective Loewenstein, this is Miss Bridget Mooney.’’

  Hang it, he didn’t seem such a fine policeman to me! But he had finally released me, and it appeared that I was about to call on his wife, so I followed Johanna’s lead and said loftily, ‘‘I’m delighted to meet you, Detective Loewenstein. It is indeed reassuring to know that you are protecting the citizens of Chicago with such zeal.’’

  ‘‘Yes, er, happy to meet you too.’’ He gave me a little bow, looking a bit flustered.

  ‘‘And how is your friend Officer Degan?’’ Johanna asked him.

  Loewenstein answered, ‘‘I believe he is well, Miss Flanagan. As auxiliaries to Captain Bonfield, his unit is very busy these days.’’

  ‘‘As you must be, I’m sure! Let’s be on our way, Bridget,’’ Johanna said, sliding her arm into mine. ‘‘Mrs. Loewenstein will be waiting for us.’’

  I looked to make certain that Peebles the porter was following and we joined the jostling throngs before the brightly lit opera house and courthouse. We crossed a drawbridge and continued on Wells Street. The crowds thinned as Johanna led me north to a handsome three-story corner building, adorned with a tower at the entrance. I instructed Peebles to wait and we ascended a well-kept staircase to the third floor, where the Loewensteins had their rooms.

  Of the two Loewensteins, I much preferred Mabel. She was short in stature with dark hair and lively eyes, and her stylish dress was of lilac-colored foulard with flounces of ecru lace. ‘‘Johanna, it’s good of you to come! We haven’t had a good gossip for quite a while! And you’ve brought a friend, what a pleasure!’’

  Johanna made the introductions and Mabel sent her nephew to purchase some cakes for us while she went into the next room for tea. The sitting room was well-appointed with Turkey carpets, lace at the windows, soft upholstered chairs, and a handsome parlor stove. I murmured to Johanna, ‘‘The city of Chicago appears to pay Detective Loewenstein well for his efforts.’’

  ‘‘A thousand dollars a year!’’ whispered Johanna, eyes round at the prospect.

  As Mabel returned with the tray, she said, ‘‘Miss Mooney, that is such a lovely sateen!’’ She cast an admiring glance at me and my Langtry dress. I murmured my thanks and she added, ‘‘If you ever wish to sell it, I have a friend who loves that shade of green. Tell me, are you Irish too? I was a Keenan before I married Jake.’’

  ‘‘Yes, I’m Irish. And your husband is German?’’

  ‘‘He speaks it, and that’s very helpful these days with all the unrest. Do you know how many German immigrants are in Chicago? Four hundred thousand! Poor Jake has a great deal to do.’’ I could see the tenseness around her eyes. ‘‘Besides the usual problems with gambling and unsavory women, he says those dreadful German anarchists are trying to take over the labor organizations, and turn the workers against all the decent people.’’

  ‘‘Oh, he should know better than that,’’ Johanna said. ‘‘The German workers Mutti knows are decent people too. Of course when Pinkerton men shoot striking workers some of them talk about defending themselves. But it’s all talk.’’

  Mabel frowned. ‘‘Still, I worry about Jakey. He’s given some special assignments, because he’s a favorite of Captain Schaack.’’

  ‘‘What kind of assignments?’’

  ‘‘He won’t say, but— Come look,’’ said Mabel abruptly, taking something from under the leg of the stove. We followed her into a velvet-draped bedroom. She pulled a box from under the bed and unlocked it. ‘‘You mustn’t tell because he doesn’t think I know where the key is. But can that be what it seems?’’

  In the box, sitting among gloves and watches on layers of lace and velvet, was a round iron object. Emerging from one side was a thick cord perhaps five inches long. Johanna peered at it and gasped, ‘‘Oh, Mabel, how thrilling! It looks just like the pictures in the Tribune, when they wrote about how the anarchists make bombs!’’

  Mabel shuddered. ‘‘It’s horrid! I’ve hardly slept since I saw it there.’’

  ‘‘But how splendid that Jake has found an anarchist! He’ll be a great hero,’’ Johanna declared.

  ‘‘You look on the bright side.’’ Mabel locked the box and slid it back under the bed. ‘‘Johanna, you’ll be an excellent policeman’s wife.’’

  Johanna blushed pink as a rosebud. ‘‘Oh, Mabel, don’t tease!’’

  Mabel smiled at me, explaining, ‘‘Officer Degan is sweet on Johanna. I expect wedding bells any day.’
’

  ‘‘What good news, Johanna!’’ I exclaimed in my most sincere tones, although I have never been enthusiastic about marriage to anyone, not even for a thousand a year. ‘‘This Officer Degan must be a good man.’’

  ‘‘Oh, yes, Matt is a dear fellow!’’ Johanna said earnestly. ‘‘And he has promised to escort me to the park Monday, when we both have free time.’’

  Mabel clapped her hands. ‘‘Oh, Johanna! This puts me in mind of the days when Jakey was courting me! Such a happy time!’’

  Well, I couldn’t imagine being pleased by the attentions of a fellow like Detective Loewenstein, who hid bombs under his bed and tried to arrest perfectly innocent young ladies. But in the past I too have had moments of being blinded to the truth by a manly shoulder or a twinkling eye, and Mabel was right, it was a happy time. So for a few moments we all three praised the qualities of Johanna’s Matt and Mabel’s Jakey and my dear departed Slick, and wondered if Matt would be asking for Johanna’s hand Monday.

  After this pleasant half hour, Johanna and I awakened Peebles the porter and continued to Johanna’s more modest home. ‘‘Mutti’’ was tall and of sturdy physique like her daughter, and she seemed pleased to have a paying visitor. The little bed in Johanna’s room was narrow but clean and warmed with a featherbed, and I would have had no complaints exceptfor one thing. I had quietly checked the contents of the pocket I’d sewn into my bustle, because a couple of handsome gentlemen’s hunting watches had found their way into it as we jostled through the throngs of opera patrons this evening. But as I removed my Langtry dress I gasped.

  ‘‘What is it, Bridget?’’ Johanna, already in her white nightdress, was brushing out her long blond hair.

  I took a deep breath, as I confirmed that nothing had caught in the lacy sleeve of the dress. ‘‘A trifle. Part of my Langtry costume is missing.’’

  ‘‘Oh, dear!’’ Johanna turned from the little mirror over her table and looked at me with consternation. ‘‘What is it?’’