So newspapers like the New York Age and the Amsterdam News stepped in, beginning life as six sheets of loose paper. The News’s office was on 135th Street, just off Fifth Avenue in a humble storefront. The large glass window suggested its former life had been a grocery. There was a counter in the front, and as I walked in, I could see desks and hear typewriters from the back. A young man in a high collar and spectacles greeted me.
“Excuse me, I’d like to place a personal ad.”
“I see. Would this be for employment?”
That story hadn’t occurred to me; could I pretend to be looking for a job, but only with a woman who matched Otelia’s exact description?
Puzzled by my silence, he prompted, “Are you in need of a cook? A housemaid?”
“Oh, no, I am a maid.”
“Oh.” Now he was simply waiting for me to make sense. Any kind of sense.
“I’m looking for a woman I used to know.”
“And what is her name?”
“I knew her as Otelia Brooks. It was several years ago; she may have married by now…” He wrote the name on a pad of paper. As he did, I noticed a young woman lingering at the doorway from the back.
“Any other description?” asked the gentleman.
“She had a scar, but I suppose you don’t want to put that in the ad.” I struggled to describe the impressive person I had known in a few lines. “She was very skilled with hair. And hats. She liked to make hats. That was more of a hobby, though. She was an excellent seamstress.”
“Excuse me.” The woman stepped up to the counter. She was of medium height with an elegant little head; her hair rose in an enviable pompadour, three inches high, but was tight at the sides and back, a style I had never seen before. She wore simple gold studs, a high-necked white blouse, and a dark suit. The no-nonsense set of her mouth suggested purpose. If she had interrupted, I thought with a twinge of hope, she had a reason.
“Did you say you’re looking for Otelia Brooks?”
“I am helping this lady, Miss Dodson.” From his tone, I guessed that he was used to being interrupted by the young woman. And he did not care for it.
“I can’t see that you are, Mr. Ransom.” To me, she said, “The woman you’re looking for, she does hair?”
“She was very good at it. I don’t know that she—”
“And you say she makes hats?”
“She did. Do you know her?”
“She does not know her,” opined Mr. Ransom, sensing lost ad revenue.
“But I know of her.” Miss Dodson leaned on the counter, her eyes bright. “And I can take you right to her.”
“Oh, that would be—”
“There’s a condition.”
“I haven’t seen Miss Brooks in many years. I can’t agree to conditions on her behalf.”
“Can you agree on your own behalf to introduce me?”
“That I can do.” I could at least try, I thought.
“Very well, then. I’ll get my coat.”
Exasperated, Mr. Ransom called after her, “Miss Dodson, you cannot leave the office whenever you feel like it.”
Returning with her coat, she said, “I’m a reporter, Mr. Ransom. I do what the story requires. Maybe the name Otelia Brooks doesn’t mean anything to you, but if you were a woman, you’d know better. Come along, Miss…”
“Prescott, Jane Prescott.”
Before leaving, I bought several copies of the paper to make up for the ad I had not taken. I had the feeling Mr. Ransom had had better days.
Ella Dodson was a small, trim person, and she weaved in and around the midday crowd with speed. Without looking back, she said, “How do you know Miss Brooks?”
That was not something I was prepared to share, and I said so, assuring Miss Dodson that I remembered the woman with great admiration and wished only to renew our acquaintance.
“How do you know Miss Brooks? Are you also from the South?”
“No, New York,” said Miss Dodson. “And every woman in this neighborhood knows Miss Brooks. Well, they’ve heard of her. Mostly rumors.” She pulled up short to let traffic pass, then started moving again. “I hope to give them the truth, with your assistance, Miss Prescott.”
Uneasy, I said, “What sort of rumors?”
“About the hats.”
“Hats?”
The first hat, she said, had appeared at the Mercy Street Baptist Church four years ago. Navy blue straw, twisted into a fantastical shape, crowned with a halo of feathers. It had been worn by a Miss Adella Terrell.
“A lady of means?”
“Not at all,” said Ella Dodson. “Miss Terrell played the piano at the church. She knew every hymn ever written, but her poor hands were getting a little stiff. She lived with her brother and his wife, and they made her sleep on the sofa, because she didn’t have a penny of her own. So when she turned up in that hat, everyone had to know, where did she get it? But she said the person who gave it to her said it was a gift and wanted it kept between them. Then six months later, another hat turned up, this time worn by Miss Mary Ann Deets, who had lost her fiancé to pneumonia and been melancholy ever since. And she got married the very next year.”
“Because of the hat,” I said skeptically.
“Well, if you’d seen Miss Deets, you’d know that hat didn’t hurt. They also say that when she was dying, Mrs. Victoria Earle Matthews of the White Rose Mission got a hat. Now, the White Rose helps women from the South find their way in the city, making sure they don’t get mixed up with people who just want to put them on the street. It’s a settlement where they teach domestic skills, cooking, laundry.”
“It sounds familiar,” I said.
“And you just said Miss Brooks is from the South…” Had I? Yes, I had when I said “also from the South.” Miss Dodson was indeed a reporter. “And she worships at Mercy Street Baptist. And Miss Deets’s mother knows her.”
“Really.”
“Really indeed, Miss Prescott. Oh—here we are.”
We stood in front of a handsome brownstone building. “Is this where she lives?” I asked.
“I couldn’t say. But it’s where she works.”
Before we went up the stairs to the door, Miss Dodson checked her hair in a small compact mirror and smoothed her jacket, looking unsure for the first time since I had met her. Then, recovering, she hurried up the steps and rang the bell.
As we waited, I said, “If you know where she works, why haven’t you interviewed her already?”
“Miss Brooks doesn’t talk to just anybody. In fact, Miss Brooks doesn’t talk to most people. Some think there is no Miss Brooks, it’s just a fancy name they put on the store. Two months ago, I spent good money having my scalp treated. I still couldn’t get in to see her. I’m hoping you’re my way in.”
We entered what would have been the large parlor room. But instead of curtains and lamps, there were small tables, chairs, and basins of water filled from an overhead tap. Smaller sections were created by a series of white curtains that could be pulled around the room to create privacy. If I craned my head, I could see stylists dressed in crisp white uniforms tending to customers draped in capes to keep their clothes safe.
It was a very homey atmosphere. Two women waiting to be served sat companionably on an emerald-green love seat. Towels were kept in a butler’s desk that might once have held dining silver and linens. A glass case held products for sale, all the creation of a Madam Walker. Glossine, vegetable shampoo, scalp ointment, hair grower, and something called Tetter Salve. Framed pictures on the wall showed beautifully coiffed, satisfied customers. But I also caught sight of one or two images of families standing on dusty porches in front of farmhouses, the women wearing cotton dresses that hinted at the heat of the South.
Several conversations were taking place at once. A woman having her hair washed was gaily recounting her neighbor’s latest embarrassment with her children. Another woman was commiserating with her hairdresser about the general loathsomeness of men; several w
omen were emphatically agreeing that a dress worn by a mutual friend was so ugly, they no longer feared hell.
But heads turned as we entered, and what had been a lively, talkative place went quiet. Feeling conspicuous, I looked to Miss Dodson to lead the way. Which she did, approaching a young woman at a writing desk that served as the reception area.
“Pardon me,” she said. “We’re here to see Miss Otelia.”
The young woman gazed at her as if she had asked to see President Wilson. All very well to ask, but … be reasonable.
“Miss Otelia only sees clients by appointment,” she explained.
I stepped forward. “Perhaps you would tell her that Miss Jane Prescott is here and would like to see her.”
“And Miss Ella Dodson,” said Miss Dodson.
The young woman got up and went to the back of the salon. A few minutes later, she came back and announced that we might go into the office. Taking a deep breath, I walked the length of the apartment and into a room where a woman sat at a desk. Beside her, a worktable.
Filled with hats.
11
It was her.
I knew from the scar. And the eyes, which fixed on me for a long moment before she smiled and said, “Little Miss Jane Prescott. Well, let me look.”
Without thinking, I turned. She nodded approvingly and said, “I see you wash your neck now.”
She had put on a little weight, which suited her. Her face was fuller, the skin radiant and without age. The eyes were bright and clear. The scar had thinned and faded over time, but it did drag down the corner of one eye. She was dressed in a suit of maroon velvet with black braid. She looked every inch the prosperous businesswoman.
She told the young woman to bring us some tea. I said, “I still have the hat you made me.”
“You have a hat?” Miss Dodson said, offended that I had not shared that information with her.
Otelia Brooks looked pointedly at Miss Dodson. Who held out her hand and said, “Miss Ella Dodson of the Amsterdam News. It’s a genuine pleasure to meet you, Miss Brooks.”
Otelia Brooks’s expression indicated she did not share that pleasure. “What do you do for the News, Miss Dodson?”
“I’m a reporter.”
“Then you may take your tea outside, Miss Dodson. This is a social call.”
“I was hoping you might—”
Otelia Brooks blinked once. Then waited. Her gaze was too strong, even for the intrepid Miss Dodson, who retreated with a sighed “Yes, ma’am.”
When she was gone, Miss Brooks indicated I should sit on the couch and arranged herself at her desk. Once we were settled, the warmth returned and she said, “You look well.”
“You look far better than well.” I took in the worktable. “And you’re still making hats.”
“I am.” Her voice softened as a mother’s might when looking at her children. On the table there was a block of wood the size of a woman’s head, sheaves of dry straw, and a copper kettle with a long spout. Catching my gaze, Otelia explained, “You lay the straw on the block, then you steam it. That way it’s soft and you can shape it how you like. Once it dries, you see what you have.”
What she had at the moment was like nothing I had seen on any woman’s head, rich or poor. Hats in various stages of creation crowded the table. My eye was drawn to one at the end, a black straw, adorned with an expansive bow in orange and gold. Somehow, she had made a wave of water out of the bow; it was not stiff and bunched in the middle but flowed in and around itself, a vision of movement rather than a punctuation of decorum. Out of habit, I assessed it for Louise. It was hard to imagine such a hat in the drawing room of Mrs. Goelet or on the lawn of Mrs. Kluge, although I suspected that the woman who wore it well would be the subject of envious talk for days. “That’s astonishing.”
“Worthy of the lady who will wear it. Hair pays my bills, and I give thanks for Madam Walker’s treatments every day. But the hats…”
“I think you called them your path.”
“That’s right, I did.” Dropping her hands into her lap, she signaled that talk of the past was over for now. “And tell me, where’s your path taken you? I always thought you might be a teacher.”
“I never had the education for that. I work as a lady’s maid for Mrs. William Tyler.”
“And how is the reverend?”
“He’s—” The well-reasoned speech I had planned fell apart in the bright light of Otelia Brooks’s success. Maddeningly, my uncle had been right. I couldn’t drag this woman into the ugliness of Sadie’s and Carrie’s murders.
“He’s not ill, is he?”
“No. I don’t know if you read the newspapers—”
“I do not. I take no interest in other people’s business, and I ask that they take no interest in mine.”
This was reasonable enough, and for a moment I considered saying I was sorry to have troubled her. But my uncle was still in jail, and Otelia Brooks still the only person I could think of who might have seen Sadie and Carrie’s murderer. And so I began. Badly. I stumbled, paused, tripped over words, and finally mumbled, “They were both—”
I drew my finger down my own cheek.
Otelia Brooks had withdrawn. She sat tightly in her chair, head turned, chin resting on her fingers. She had murmured “Oh, Lord,” when I told her of Sadie’s death, but after that, she had gone silent.
“I’m so sorry to bring this to you,” I said.
She absolved me with a slight shake of the head; well, absolved me or attempted to end the discussion. Resettling herself in her seat, she faced me. At the same time, she reached for a piece of straw from the worktable. For a moment she toyed with it, then set it down with a resolute sigh.
“The police think my uncle … he knew both of them…”
“The police think the reverend did it?”
Relieved by the astonishment in her voice, I nodded. “A woman in the neighborhood says she heard him arguing with Carrie Biel that night. I don’t like to call anyone a liar, but this woman has been campaigning for the removal of the refuge, and she’s not entirely rational on the subject.”
“And she thinks if your uncle is arrested, the refuge is done.”
“I think she sincerely believes him to be guilty. Of something. And she’s good at working on other people’s fears. She’s gathered others to stand outside the building and pray. It was bad enough before, but now that they think he’s a murderer—”
“It’s a mob,” she said softly.
We sat silent for a long time. Then I said, “May I ask you something else?”
She nodded.
“Did you ever know a man named Chick Tricker?” She shook her head. “Back then, did you … have protection from anyone?”
The past was not a place she wished to go, and I saw her make a conscious decision to venture back there. It was not easy.
Finally, she said, “No. I used to wonder if I had wandered onto some gang’s territory and they sent somebody to run me off.”
That sounded like work Bill Danvers might do. I felt a prickle of hope. “Can you remember anything of what the man who attacked you looked like?”
Otelia Brooks gazed at her worktable. “I was not in my right mind at the time. I didn’t want to see the world straight, and I took things to make sure I didn’t. So I can’t remember much of how he looked. Things come to me in flashes. But I don’t let it stay in my mind for long. He didn’t smell, clothes weren’t ragged. I remember thinking I’d gotten lucky, that I wouldn’t have stink on me afterward.”
“Was he dark-haired? Blond?”
She shook her head. “The things I remember of him are feelings of what he did. I think he was tall. I remember him leaning on me, not being able to breathe. And he pulled my hair, hard. Like it was a leash on a dog.”
Remembering the burst of pain when Danvers pulled my hair, I said, “Was he thin? Were his teeth crooked?”
“That’s really all I can give you, Miss Jane. Unless you want me to start
making things up.”
“But it wasn’t my uncle. You would be able to say that much.”
“Say that much to who?”
“The police.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. “Miss Jane, me telling the police anything is not going to help your uncle.”
“But if you said…”
“What? That a man cut me a decade ago, but not this man? At any rate, you can’t know it’s the same person. That was a long time ago.”
I was about to quote what she said to me about the attack, then realized that would be cruel. “The way you described it, I think with these women, it was the same.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I saw them and I know it.” My hand bunched in frustration. I knew I should stop, but I had placed too much hope in Otelia Brooks to do that. “Would you at least say it wasn’t my uncle? Could you tell the police that he was kind? It will give them a different picture. I’m his niece; they won’t believe me.”
“Well, I am not his niece.” She stood, and I felt a tremor of anger from her. “And that is not a time in my life I wish to think about. Or be known for in any way.”
I glanced at the door, thinking of the thriving business that lay beyond. “No, of course not. That was stupid of me. But we can come up with a different story of how you knew my uncle.”
“Those other women, the ones who were murdered? They came to the refuge for one reason. The police aren’t going to believe any different of me.”
“Please.” I could offer nothing but this one stupid word, and so I said it again. “Please.”
She sat back down. “You were a quick little girl, and you’ve grown into an intelligent woman. But you’re scared and you’re trying to find something to hold on to, something that won’t let you and your uncle get swept away for no good reason. I’d like to be that for you, but I can’t.”
Death of an American Beauty Page 14