The Axman of New Orleans

by Chuck Hustmyre

  I found Emile holding up the bar at the Red Stag, already at least a couple of sheets into the wind. "Where have you been?" he shouted when he spotted me coming through the door. "I had to start without you."

  "How did you know I was going to be here?" I said.

  "You can lead a horse to water ... but ... You know what I mean."

  I didn't, but I nodded anyway, hoping that soon I would feel as good as my friend. I took the stool next to Emile and waved to the bartender, a round-shouldered man in his sixties with the flattened nose of a boxer. I laid a quarter on the bar. "Irish whiskey."

  "You owe me a drink," Emile said. A folded newspaper lay on the bar next to him.

  "The hell I do."

  "I gave you the Creole's address."

  "She only speaks French."

  "I spoke to her in French."

  "You might have mentioned that before you sent me to talk to her."

  He gave me a drunken shrug. "That was God's first language, you know. When he speaks to his angels, he speaks to them in French."

  "Jesus Christ," I muttered.

  "Him too."

  The barman set my drink in front of me and brushed the quarter into his palm. I stared at the glass, half filled with golden liquid, what the Irish call the water of life. Whiskey is a funny thing. Since I got back, I hadn't been able to sleep without it. If I drank just enough, I dreamed about my wife. If I drank too much, I dreamed about the war.

  I wrapped my hand around the glass and downed half of it.

  "Did she tell you anything?" Emile asked.

  "Nothing but Je ne comprends pas, which even I know means, I don't understand anything you're saying."

  "Do you want me to go see her?" he asked. "Maybe I can persuade her to talk to you. I can be your interpreter."

  "You just want to see her when her husband isn't there."

  Emile smiled.

  I shook my head. "I found my own witness."

  "Who?"

  "I can't tell you that," I said, "but buy me a drink and I can tell you what she said."

  "So your witness is a woman."

  "I can't tell you that either," I said, "but buy me a drink and I'll tell you what she said."

  Emile managed to laugh and look indignant at the same time.

  I drained the rest of my whiskey and waved two fingers at the barman. "Two more," I said, nodding toward Emile. "On him."

  After the barkeep set fresh drinks in front of us, Emile handed over fifty cents, though he did it reluctantly. Then he raised his glass. "To good whiskey."

  We clinked glasses and drank.

  "A French monk invented it, you know."

  "Monks invented beer," I said, "and they weren't French. The Irish invented whiskey."

  He shrugged. "Did you see the front page this afternoon?"

  "No," I said.

  "They say it's all over."

  "What's all over?"

  He swept his arms across the barroom. "All this."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Emile picked up the newspaper that had been lying on the bar. He unfolded it and laid it in front of me. I glanced at the top headline.

  MEASURE TO ENFORCE PROHIBITION BECOMES LAW, DESPITE WILSON. Senate Follows Lead of House and Overrides President's Veto by Margin of 65 to 20, or 8 More Than The Necessary Two-Thirds Majority.

  The article was about the Volstead Act. Being a whiskey drinker, I had a keen interest in seeing the defeat of the temperance movement, the proponents of which were called Drys; but I had not heard about the upcoming vote to override President Wilson's veto. I thought his veto had killed Prohibition. Apparently, I was wrong. By a margin of just eight votes, the Senate had outlawed beer, wine, and liquor in the United States. The law was set to take effect January 17th, just two and a half months from now.

  "I didn't think they would really do it," I said.

  Emile downed the rest of his whiskey in one gulp and then pounded the empty glass on the bar. "I never thought the Drys could cobble together enough support to override the veto."

  I looked around the room. Since I had returned from the war, the Red Stag had become my second home. I stopped by almost every night after work. Emile preferred to do his drinking with the society people at the Red Light Social Club on Iberville Street, behind the Customs House, but I liked the Red Stag. The saloon's rough customers reminded me of the men I had served with in the Army.

  "What the hell am I going to do when this place closes?" I said.

  "It's not going to close. The drinks will just cost more, the girls too."

  "You think so?"

  He nodded and gave me a conspiratorial wink. "I know so."

  I tapped the newspaper headline. "This isn't some city ordinance the mayor can ignore. This is a Constitutional Amendment. We'll have to enforce this."

  Emile aimed a finger at the stairs leading up to the brothel. "Like you enforce the law against prostitution?"

  "This will be different."

  "Wait and see," he said.

  I sipped my drink and took another look around. I really didn't believe that at one minute past midnight on January 17th, the police brass was going to send us in here with sledgehammers to bust up the joint. New Orleans didn't work that way.

  Emile looked awfully smug.

  Sometimes it seemed that my reporter friend knew more about the New Orleans Police Department than I did.

  I was not quite ten years old when a fugitive gunned down my father. Suddenly, I no longer had a father, but I had a hundred uncles. Every weekend some patrolman or detective would stop by the house to check on my mother and my brothers and sisters and me. Sometimes they would take us to the lake, or to a ballgame, or on a ferry ride across the river.

  Years after my father's death, my mother still talked about him as if he had only left for a short trip. To her, my father was a saint, and his heroic death was his crucifixion. A larger-than-life statue of my father stands beside his tomb at Saint Louis Cemetery No. 3 on Esplanade Avenue. His legacy casts a long shadow and sometimes it has been tough for me to get out from under it.

  Although I had grown up under the shelter of the Police Department, I always felt slightly distant from it. As a child being dragged by my mother to official police functions and the occasional party, I would see policemen huddled together and whispering to each other. They had a lot of secrets, those tall men in blue uniforms and dark suits.

  Strangely, when I became a policeman myself that feeling of disjointedness never left me. I still noticed other policemen whispering to each other, though rarely did they ever whisper anything to me.

  "What did your witness have to say?" Emile asked.

  The sound of his slurred voice jerked me out of my reverie. I pulled another two quarters from my pocket and smacked them down on the bar to get the flat-nosed barman's attention.

  "She saw two men go into Pepitone's grocery," I said. "One of them she recognized."

  Emile seemed to sober up somewhat. "Who was he?"

  The fresh drinks came. I took a strong sip and then wiped my lips on the cuff of my coat sleeve. "I can't tell you that."

  "Why not?" Emile said. His drink sat untouched on the bar. "Is he a suspect?"

  I laughed.

  "What?"

  "I can say with absolute certainty that the man the neighbor recognized did not kill Michael Pepitone. In fact, he's the only man I can say that about. I'm less sure that I didn't kill him than I am about this man."

  Emile looked confused, but he was drunk enough to play along. "What about me? How certain are you that I didn't kill him?"

  "You're actually near the top of my list." I noticed my own voice was becoming slurred.

  "So why am I on the list and not this man?"

  I shook my head. "I can't say."

  "I bought you a drink on your word that you would share with me what you found out from your witness."

  I pointed to the fresh drink in front of him. "And I bought you one back. W
e're even."

  He seemed to notice it for the first time. He took a sip and then said, "Come on, help me out. I need to write something tomorrow, and I haven't exactly been following the Axman case these last few months."

  "I'll tell you what she said, but you can't print it until I say it's okay."

  He put his right hand over his heart. "You have my word as a gentleman."

  "That's not very reassuring."

  He downed another slug of whiskey. "How about my word as a drunk?"

  I nodded. "That's more like it."

  He smiled. "So what did your secret witness say?"

  "One of the men in the grocery was Salvatore Marcello."

  Emile ran a hand over his face. "The man killed on North Rampart last night?"

  "The same."

  "What's the connection?"

  "No idea," I said. "All I know right now is that Marcello was in the grocery yesterday afternoon arguing with Pepitone just a few hours before they were both murdered."

  "What about the other man?"

  "She didn't recognize him."

  "Did she describe him?"

  I nodded. "She said he was big."

  Snapping his fingers, Emile said, "I knew it."

  "You knew what?"

  "What I told you this morning, this confirms it."

  "Confirms might be a bit strong."

  "A big Italian threatening Michael Pepitone," Emile said. "What else could it be?"

  "I know English wasn't your first language, so let me help you, arguing is not the same as threatening."

  But Emile went on as if he hadn't heard me. "Somehow, these murders, all of the Axman killings, are connected to the Choctaw Club and Dominick O'Malley."

  "And you think the big Italian who was at the Pepitone grocery yesterday is the same man you saw at the cemetery."

  "I'm certain of it," Emile said. "Just as I am certain that he is the same man who shot-"

  "But for that to be true," I said, "do you know how many people would have to be involved?"

  "Can you explain all these connections any other way?" Emile asked. "Or do you think they're all just coincidences?"

  We sat in silence for a moment as we sipped our drinks. My reluctance to endorse Emile's theory of the Axman case was what had strained our relationship back in the spring. It was the reason we hadn't seen each other since he got out of the hospital.

  "Why doesn't he bring his own ax?" Emile asked.

  I was grateful for the change of subject. "He doesn't need to. Everybody has an ax. You have one, don't you?"

  Emile nodded. "But he's got to find them in the dark."

  "He probably carries a flashlight. Or matches. And we know he carries a pistol. The Sciambras had an ax but the handle was broken. So he shot them."

  "But why not just shoot everyone. It seems a lot easier."

  "Gunshots attract attention. An ax gives him time to escape."

  "Thompson is still pushing his theory that the Axman is a maniac," Emile said.

  I pulled my watch from my waistcoat. It was just past nine o'clock. I had somewhere to go. "I agree with that part of your theory. The killer is definitely not a maniac." Then I drained the last of my whiskey and stood.

  "Where are you going?" Emile asked.

  "To see a woman about a killer."

  CHAPTER 14

  POLICE SUPERINTENDENT JAMES W. REYNOLDS MURDERED BY MADMAN

  Shot Down In His Office By Suspended Patrolman Terrence Mullen.

  -The Daily Picayune

  AUGUST 2, 1917

  10:15 A.M.

  "What the hell happened?" Emile Denoux shouted to a patrolman sitting on the steps of Central Station. The patrolman held his head in his hands. His service revolver lay on the step beside his right leg.

  At the foot of the steps, two more uniformed cops struggled to keep a large man pinned to the ground. The man had been shot and was screaming obscenities as he fought to throw off the policemen.

  "Superintendent Reynolds is dead," the distraught patrolman said. "Mullen just shot him."

  "Garry Mullen?" Emile said, stunned. Captain Garry Mullen was the chief of the Uniformed Division.

  The patrolman lifted his head. "No. Terrence Mullen, the captain's nephew." He pointed to the wounded man at the bottom of the steps. "That's him there. I just shot him."

  "Mon Dieu!" Emile said. "What happened?" The sound of horses' hooves galloping on brick pavement pulled his gaze toward the thoroughfare. He saw an ambulance charging up Common Street toward Central Station.

  "I was inside the station," the patrolman said.

  Emile turned back to face him.

  The patrolman was staring at his hands, clenching and unclenching them. "I heard gunshots upstairs," he said. "A few seconds later somebody yelled, 'Big Mullen killed the chief.' Then I heard more shots, dozens of them." He stopped clenching his fists and pointed to the wounded man, who was still fighting the two patrolmen and screaming like a scalded cat. "Then I saw Terrence run down the stairs and out the front door. I chased him and caught up to him on the steps. I pulled my revolver and called for him to stop. When he turned around, he already had his gun in his hand. I had to shoot. I had no choice."

  Emile patted the patrolman on the shoulder. "You did a good job."

  "But he's a policeman," the cop said.

  "Who is?"

  The patrolman nodded toward the wounded man. "The chief suspended him because he's crazy. He was in the asylum ward at Charity for almost a year. They let him out a couple of weeks ago. Last week he tried to get his job back, but Chief Reynolds told him no. I guess that's why he shot the chief."

  Emile turned and walked up the steps to the big double doors that led into Central Station. Inside it was bedlam. Patrolmen and detectives were running around and shouting, mostly to themselves because no one appeared to be listening. Four wounded men lay on blankets in the middle of the lobby. The marble floor around them was slick with blood. A trail of blood ran up the wide wooden staircase to the second floor.

  A quartet of policemen was coming down the stairs, each man clutching a corner of a green wool blanket to form a makeshift sling. Superintendent James Reynolds hung suspended on the blanket between them, his head swathed in a blood-soaked white sheet.

  Emile looked at the wounded men in the lobby. The nearest one to him was Captain Garry Mullen, whose dark uniform was wet with blood. The captain appeared to have been shot at least twice and was barely conscious. A detective named Glenn Dillman was lying next to him. Dillman was bleeding from the face, but he was talking and gesturing to another detective kneeling beside him.

  Emile didn't know the third wounded policeman, a young man with a bullet hole in the meaty part of his neck. He lay still and pressed a wadded rag to the wound. Next to Dillman lay Gerhard Vandervort, who had served as secretary to all of the superintendents going back to Chief Hennessy. Vandervort was lying on his back, moaning and holding a bloody towel to the side of his head.

  Two Negro ambulance attendants rushed through the double doors carrying a stretcher. Just inside, they lurched to a stop in awe of the devastation. They looked uncertain about what to do next. A doctor wearing a long white coat and carrying a black medical bag ran in behind them. After a quick survey of the wounded, the doctor ordered the attendants to load Captain Mullen onto the stretcher and carry him outside to the waiting ambulance.

  Emile stood near the back wall, scribbling furiously in his notebook. Through the open doors, he saw a second ambulance pull up outside. He watched as a pair of burly attendants loaded the wounded ex-patrolman Terrence Mullen into the back of the wagon. Then they headed off at a trot toward Charity Hospital.

  As Emile scanned the lobby for more detail to include in his story, he saw Detective Dillman sit up. Emile flipped to a new page in his notebook and walked toward the wounded man, hoping the unexpected shock of the morning's violence had worked to loosen the otherwise recalcitrant detective's tongue.

  Clearly, this was th
e biggest crime story in New Orleans since the assassination of Superintendent David Hennessy nearly three decades ago.

  "Who shot all these men, Glenn?" Emile asked the detective, who was pressing a handkerchief against the wound on his face.

  Dillman shook his head. "A bullet grazed my cheek, but I don't know who fired it. Nearly everyone was shooting at Mullen after he shot the chief. Ricochets were flying all over the place."

  "What about Captain Mullen?"

  "He got shot by mistake."

  "By mistake?"

  The detective took a deep breath and pulled the handkerchief away, exposing a bloody three-inch gash along his right cheek. "How's it look?"

  "Not too bad," Emile said. "Like a dueling scar."

  "I wish I knew who did it. I'd give him a sock in the mouth."

  "What did you mean when you said Captain Mullen got shot by mistake?"

  Dillman shook his head. "All I know is it wasn't me. I didn't fire my revolver." To prove it, Dillman drew his pistol and snapped open the cylinder, showing Emile six unspent cartridges.

  Emile nodded as Dillman laid the revolver on the blanket beside him.

  "How did it happen?" Emile asked.

  "After the first shots, someone shouted, 'Big Mullen shot the chief.' Then all hell broke loose."

  "Where were you?"

  "I was upstairs in the detective office, and I rushed out into the hallway to see what was going on. That's when I saw Captain Mullen running toward the chief's office with his revolver out. All of a sudden, a detective stepped in front of the captain and shot him."

  "Did you see who it was?"

  Dillman took another deep breath. "I couldn't say for sure. Later, after they carried us down here, I heard the captain say it was Teddy Obitz, but to me it looked like Walter Methe."

  "Captain Mullen thinks Obitz shot him?"

  Dillman nodded. "But like I said, it looked like Methe to me."

  "My God."

  "I'm sure of this, though, whichever one did it, did it by accident. When the word went out that Mullen had shot the chief, I guess Methe or Obitz thought that meant Captain Mullen. Nobody had reason to even know that Terrence Mullen was in the building. Then when the captain came running down the hall with his revolver drawn ..."