The Axman of New Orleans

by Chuck Hustmyre

  I didn't say anything. But I felt something. A cold dagger thrust into my heart. Dominick O'Malley had murdered my father.

  Dantonio drained the rest of his pint bottle and coughed again. Then he said, "I'm sorry, Colin."

  I nodded, knowing that someday soon I would settle the score with O'Malley. But first I had a killer to catch. "Monfre is in jail in Gretna on a parole violation. Maybe with him locked up I can find a witness to testify against him."

  "Don't count on it," Dantonio said. "That arrest was staged. Matranga wants his assassin out of circulation and outside of your jurisdiction until Thompson gets rid of you."

  "Then I'll arrest Dominick O'Malley."

  Dantonio tried to laugh but coughed up a clot of blood instead. He spit it into his handkerchief. "Arrest him for what?"

  "There's no statute of limitations on murder. He killed Chief Hennessy, and he killed my father. Officially, both cases are still open."

  "I admire your sand, kid, but you still need evidence."

  "Will your ex-cop friend testify?"

  "He lives in Seattle."

  "I can send him a subpoena."

  Dantonio nodded. "I'm sure he would testify to the truth. But he won't get the chance because the district attorney will never accept the charges."

  "I'm not going to the district attorney. I'm taking O'Malley and the case to the attorney general in Baton Rouge."

  Dantonio was silent for a moment. Then he said, "That's not a bad idea. The A.G. is as reformist as they come. He's tried several times to break up the Ring and smash its powerbase. It also doesn't hurt that he's got his eye on the governor's mansion. If you deliver O'Malley to him, with even a shred of evidence, I bet he'll take the case."

  I leaned forward in the chair. "I need an affidavit from you recounting what your friend told you."

  Dantonio tapped his chest as the breath rattled through it. "I won't live long enough to see your case go to trial." Then he smiled. "But I'll probably still outlive you."

  "I'm sorry to be so blunt, John, but if you die before the trial ..."

  He nodded. "I know. I know. Then my affidavit serves as my testimony."

  "And it would be enough right now for me to arrest O'Malley and for the attorney general to file murder charges."

  Dantonio didn't say anything. He just looked at me.

  "For my father," I said.

  He kept looking at me. Finally, he said, "Can you get a notary over here before this medicine puts me to sleep?"

  "I sure can," I said and reached out my hand to him.

  He shook my hand. And his grip was firmer than I had expected. "For your father," he said.

  CHAPTER 57

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1919

  6:00 P.M.

  I stood at the bow of the Fourth District Ferry as it chugged across the Mississippi River from the Jackson Avenue landing on the New Orleans side to the town of Gretna on the west side. At the stern of the twin-hulled boat, the wooden paddle wheel slapped rhythmically against the muddy brown water. On the starboard side, the sun was already down, leaving only the faintest purple glow in the western sky.

  After leaving John Dantonio's house, I had stopped at the Hotel Monteleone to see if Colette Denoux had left me a message about Emile's funeral arrangements. She hadn't, but Kevin O'Donnell, the police messenger boy who had awakened me from one nightmare only to condemn me to another when he delivered Superintendent Thompson's message summoning me to the Pepitone murder scene, was waiting for me in the lobby.

  "Detective Fitzgerald, sir?" the boy said, springing from a sofa and standing at attention in his messenger uniform.

  "Kevin O'Donnell, what are you doing here?" I asked, eyeing the yellow envelope in his hand.

  "Looking for you, Detective."

  I pointed to the envelope. "Is that for me?"

  He nodded.

  "Do you know what's in it?"

  He nodded again.

  "What?"

  "Two letters, sir. I saw the superintendent put them in myself."

  "Did you read them?"

  The boy screwed his face up into a look of indignation. "Of course not, sir."

  I had started my police career as a messenger. Few people knew more about what was going on inside the department than the messengers. "But you know what they are, don't you?"

  "I heard Superintendent Thompson and Captain Campo talking about them."

  "Well?"

  The boy glanced around. "One is a notice of suspension. The other is a summons to appear before the Police Board for a termination hearing tomorrow morning at ten o'clock."

  Kevin reached out his hand to pass me the envelope.

  I kept my hands at my sides. "Kevin, as soon as I take those notices from you, my suspension goes into effect. My authority to carry a gun and to make arrests are revoked. Legally, anything I do regarding a case from that moment on will not have the effect of law. Any arrests I make would, therefore, be invalid. Do you understand that?"

  The boy nodded. "Yes, sir."

  "I intend to arrest someone for murder before ten o'clock tomorrow morning."

  He stared at me.

  "Will you do me a favor?" I said. "A big favor?"

  His lips curled inward as he chewed them for a moment. Then he said, "Yes, sir."

  "Tell them you couldn't find me."

  Kevin shoved the envelope into his trouser pocket and came to rigid attention. He snapped his heels together and saluted.

  Pulling myself to attention, I returned his salute.

  Now, standing at the blunt prow of the ferry, I watched the west bank of the river drawing closer. Behind me, an eager driver cranked up his motorcar.

  I had no doubt that Superintendent Thompson would make sure that my termination hearing was the first item on the Police Board's agenda tomorrow morning. Legally, the hearing could proceed without me. The law only required that reasonable efforts be made to notify a policeman who was the subject of a termination proceeding as to the date and time of the hearing.

  By 10:30 tomorrow morning, I would no longer be a New Orleans policeman.

  The notice of suspension was different. City ordinances and the Police Board's own rules required that a policeman be personally served with written notification before the suspension could take effect. Technically, because I had not received my notice, I was still a policeman and any arrest I made was valid.

  After the ferry nosed into the dock at Gretna, I made my way to the front of the line and was one of the first passengers to disembark. The gangway swayed under me as I crossed to the dock. Around me I heard car motors starting and seagulls cawing.

  As long as Monfre was in custody in Jefferson Parish, he was, as John Dantonio had said, outside of my jurisdiction. The procedure for charging a suspect who was in custody in another parish was to procure an arrest warrant and then mail or otherwise deliver the warrant to the sheriff of that parish. The sheriff would then hold the suspect even if he made bail on the original charges. After all the local charges were disposed of and the suspect had either been convicted or acquitted, the police from the second jurisdiction could pick him up.

  I knew none of that was going to happen. No New Orleans judge was going to sign an arrest warrant for Joseph Monfre for the Axman murders. Dominick O'Malley wouldn't allow it. Joseph Monfre was out of my reach, at least for now. Someone very clever-I'm sure it was O'Malley-had decided that jail was the best place for Monfre to hide.

  That didn't mean I couldn't look him in the eye and tell him to his face that I knew he was the Axman, and that one day I would make him answer for his crimes and for all the innocent lives he had taken. I owed his victims at least that much. I owed that to Emile.

  At the Gretna courthouse, the sheriff's desk sergeant recognized me. We had met a couple of times when I was picking up or dropping off prisoners. He didn't bother asking to see my badge.

  "I read in the newspaper about your house burning down," the sergeant said from behind a high counter
in the main lobby. He was bald and burly and had a thick mustache. "What was it, a gas leak?"

  I nodded. "That's what they think."

  "If you ask me, we were better off with wood fires and candles. Mixing gas and electricity can't be safe."

  After I handed him my Colt, the sergeant slid a bound ledger across the counter to me. It was a visitor logbook and it was already open to the right page. There was a column for my name, one for my agency, and one for the name of the prisoner I wanted to see. In the last column I printed the name JOSEPH MONFRE.

  After a half-hour wait, a deputy escorted me down a long corridor to a sally port. Then I followed him into the Parish Prison.

  Monfre was waiting for me in a small interview room on the third floor. He was standing up when I walked in, leaning against the far wall and looking out the barred window at the street below.

  "That's as close as you're ever going to get," I said.

  He turned around. "To what?"

  "To freedom."

  He laughed and strolled toward the table in the middle of the room. His wrists were handcuffed in front. He threw a leg over the back of a metal chair and sat down at the table. I sat in the chair across from him.

  Behind me, the deputy pulled the door shut. He stayed inside the room with us and stood beside the door.

  Monfre was a big man, over six feet, close to two hundred pounds, and even at forty, he had a mop of jet-black hair. His eyes were close-set and dark. Maybe it was my imagination, but I saw a spark of evil in those dark eyes. There was a prominent black mark on his left cheek that I recognized as a gunpowder burn.

  "What happened?" I asked, pointing to the power burn. "Some woman took a shot at you?"

  He gave me a lopsided sneer. "I don't know what you're talking about." His English was good.

  "I have your raincoat, the one with the missing button."

  The sneer fell from his face. "You can't go into my home without a search warrant."

  "When I knocked on the door I heard someone cry for help, so I forced it open. Turns out it was just children playing outside." I pointed to my ear. "Since the war my hearing isn't so good. I was relieved, though, to find out that no one was in distress inside your room. Then when I turned around to leave, I saw a police raincoat lying right there on the bed, in plain sight. Right away I noticed that the buttons looked exactly like the one I found at a grocery where a man had recently been murdered. Then I noticed that one of the buttons on your raincoat was missing."

  "You can't use that."

  I smiled. "We'll see."

  Monfre shook his head. "No we won't."

  "Why not?"

  "Because you're not going to be a policeman much longer."

  His words took me aback. I had only found out about the hearing a couple of hours ago. How could Monfre, who had been in jail since yesterday afternoon, already know about it? My surprise must have shown on my face.

  He raised his manacled hands to his right ear and tapped the thumb and index finger of his right hand. "A little bird told me."

  I leaned forward over the table. "Did that same little bird tell you that soon you're going to be facing at least a dozen counts of murder and nearly as many counts of attempted murder?"

  Monfre shook his head, a malevolent grin on his face. "No, it didn't because that's not going to happen. I might get a year for busting my parole on account of that deputy sheriff planting a gun on me, but when I've done my time, I'm going to walk out a free man. And by then you'll be long gone."

  I wanted to wipe that grin off his face. I wanted to get my forty-five from the sergeant downstairs and blow holes in Monfre's gut. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. I pulled them off the table.

  He laughed again. "You came in here to frighten me, but I think you're the one who is frightened." He leaned back in the chair and rested his hands on the table. "What did you think I would do, quiver in fear and confess my sins because you're a policeman? I save my confessions for the priest, and then I only tell him the ones he wants to hear."

  Behind me the deputy cleared his throat. He was ready for me to leave.

  Monfre was right. The meeting wasn't going the way I had imagined. I didn't expect him to confess, but I was hoping to see at least a glimmer of fear in his eyes when he found out I had been inside his apartment, that I had his raincoat.

  "I have witnesses," I blurted, but even though I regretted the words as soon as I said them, I stumbled on, unable to stop myself from trying to taunt this man, this specter I had come to loathe so much. "They'll put you at the murder scenes. They'll convince the jury that you are the Axman."

  "No Italian has ever taken the stand against me. You may have witnesses now, but you won't have them for long."

  Threatening witnesses was a crime, a felony. "Are you making threats?"

  He smiled. "Of course not. That would be illegal. They'll decide on their own to tell the truth, to recant the lies they've spread about me."

  "You killed Teddy Obitz."

  Monfre shook his head. "I read in the newspaper that the police found the man who did that and shot him. He was some kind of night watchman."

  Glaring across the table at him, I said, "I saw you kill Emile Denoux. So know this, no matter what happens, I will testify against you, and I will see you die for murdering my friend."

  He leaned forward and laid his forearms on the wooden table. "I heard your friend got shot down in the street like a dog, right in front of your eyes, and you were too weak help him."

  I sprang across the table and locked my hands around Monfre's throat.

  "Stop that," the deputy shouted from the door. Then I felt his weight pressing on my back, felt him tugging at my arms. Ignoring him, I squeezed my hands tighter. Monfre's chair tumbled backward. I fell on top of him. Sprawled across Monfre, nose to nose with him, my fingers choking the life out of him, I finally saw fear in his eyes.

  Then the deputy kicked me in the ribs and dragged me across the room. He threw me against a corner and shouted for help. Seconds later, another deputy barged into the interview room. The new deputy pulled Monfre to his feet, and as the first deputy shoved me out of the room, Monfre shouted in a cracked voice, "I know where you live, Fitzgerald. You'll die just like your friend, like a dog in the street."

  Downstairs, the desk sergeant slammed my forty-five down on the high counter. Then he ordered two deputies to escort me out of the building. "I'm filing a complaint with your captain," the sergeant shouted as his deputies tossed me out the main door of the courthouse.

  Go right ahead, I thought.

  CHAPTER 58

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1919

  8:00 A.M.

  I was standing in an alley on Lafayette Street a block away from the building in which Dominick O'Malley kept his offices when I saw his Ford stop at the front door. O'Malley got out of the passenger seat wearing a black derby hat and matching overcoat. A front had come through the night before, and the morning air was cold and crisp, with a stiff wind slicing down the street.

  O'Malley said something to two ladies passing by on the sidewalk, both of whom were having a hard time holding onto their big hats. Then O'Malley stepped through the double glass doors of the four-story building.

  I stayed put, waiting for Patrick Shea to park the car and follow his boss into the building. I didn't want the redhead coming up behind me.

  A few minutes later, the ladies in the floppy hats were gone, and I saw the big lug lumbering down the sidewalk. As soon as Shea ducked through the doors, I tugged down the brim of my fedora and stepped out of the alley. As I crossed Lafayette Street, I shoved my hands into the pockets of the leather jacket I had borrowed from Frank Monteleone. In the inside pocket, I carried John Dantonio's affidavit.

  I pushed open one of the twin doors and stepped into the lobby. The building was twice as wide as it was deep, with the lobby in the middle of a long corridor that ran the width of the building. On the right side of the lobby was a security desk, behi
nd which sat a uniformed guard. He was sixty, overweight, with no more than a few strands of silver hair on top of a pockmarked scalp. His face was buried inside a newspaper as he jotted down racing notes on a pad.

  The building's directory was affixed to the wall behind the guard. The marquee listed several businesses on each of the first three floors but only one on the fourth floor: the O'Malley Detective Agency and Protection Police.

  The elevator was across the lobby from the security desk. The sliding metal door was closed. The car was probably on its way up with O'Malley's driver.

  "Which way are the stairs?" I asked the guard.

  Without looking up from his newspaper, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "End of the hall."

  The corridor was lined with doors made of dark wood and frosted glass. Stenciled on the glass were the names of the businesses. I passed two law firms, an import-export company, an accounting firm, and an advertising company. All wealthy tenants.

  At the end of the corridor stood a solid wooden door. Gold lettering on the door read STAIRS. I pulled it open and climbed the steps toward the fourth floor. Twice along the way I had to stop to catch my breath.

  Again, my plan was a bit sketchy, but I liked it that way. The war had taught me that even the best-laid plans never survive contact with the enemy. Something unexpected always happens.

  Colonel Patton had told me that he never went into battle with anything more than a rough idea of what he was going to do. "That way you don't let yourself get bogged down with a lot of preconceived notions that aren't likely to turn out to be right anyway," he had said. "A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week."

  For me, there was no next week. Not even a tomorrow. The Police Board was meeting to fire me in less than two hours. If I had any chance of stopping the Axman murders and of crippling the corrupt political machine that had run New Orleans for decades, I had to act now.