Chasing the Devil's Tail (25 page)

When the police wagon arrived, a fat detective with greasy hair snatched up the black rose that the killer had dropped at the top of the stairs. This same copper then rounded up all the girls and told them to say nothing to nobody, that as far as anyone knew it was an accident. Miss Florence could have been drunk and stumbled and fell out the window, he said. The fact that Miss Florence didn't take a drink didn't seem to matter.

Valentin asked directly which one of the sporting girls in the house was friends with King Bolden. The two exchanged a glance and then the one he knew said, "That would be Ella Duchamp."

He hadn't failed to notice that he hadn't been called to the scene of the crime and that no message had arrived from Anderson demanding his presence at the Café. He went there anyway. The doorman, a white fellow with pale, cold eyes, went off and came back to tell him that Mr. Anderson was busy. He was not invited to stay. Valentin wasn't surprised. He understood that he needn't wait for a summons from Tom Anderson.

When he got back to Magazine, he found Justine had made market and was preparing a midday meal of cold chicken. He ate listlessly and she knew him well enough to leave him to his thoughts. She sat down across the table to eat. When she finished, she picked up his book and began to read, slowly, moving her lips over each word, her eyebrows knitting together as she guessed at meanings. After another half hour of silence, she took his plate away. He got up and went into the bedroom. She heard the springs rattling and squeaking as he tossed about on the bed. He reappeared an hour later and started wandering from room to room, his eyes fixed on the floorboards. Justine kept her distance by busying herself with tidying up. When she finished, she settled at the kitchen table again, poured herself a small glass of wine and picked up the Crane book. When he walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, she raised her eyes from the page.

"Well, I guess he's beaten me," he said, sounding sullen.

She put the book down. "What's that mean?"

"It means I can't stop him. He wins. He can kill every woman in the District if he wants to."

She thought about it. "So you're going to give it up now?"

He glared at her for a second, his eyes flashing, as if she had slapped him. Then his hand shot out and cleared the table in one furious sweep. Glass shattered, sweet wine splattered and the book arched away like a bird shot from the sky, pages all aflutter. She jerked away and lurched out of her chair, hiding behind her arms and backing into the corner. Her face was a paling, rigid mask and her hands came up, palms out with fingers splayed in the stark, frigid posture of an animal trapped and ready to fight.

He saw the sharp, hard angles of her face. The only other time he had ever seen her looking like that was the day he had met her, and that stopped him cold. For ten seconds they stood motionless, as the rain rattled along the gray windowpanes.

It was Valentin who broke the stare, dropping his gaze to the mess on the floor. Another moment passed and he put his hands on the edge of the table to steady himself. Then he reached down to pick up the book, brushing the broken glass from the open pages, dabbing a finger at the stains from the wine. He laid it on the sideboard and picked up a dishcloth, bent down, and began to wipe at the purple splatter on the floor, collecting shards of glass as he went along.

Justine watched him move the table, replace the book, muck about with the rag. Her hands came down and she sagged into the corner. She watched him pick tiny crystal slivers from the floor with his fingertips. The hard lines on her face flowed together and disappeared.

She let him labor away for a minute longer, then kneeled down and took the cloth from his hand. "I'll help you," she said.

They finished cleaning up the mess and sat down at the table. Valentin poured new glasses of wine for both of them. Shamed by his behavior, he avoided her eyes.

She let him get settled. Then she said, "You know what my mama used to tell me back home? That if we was out on the bayou, you know, and we got lost? She said don't try to figure out where you are. Just go back to the place you got off the path. Where you went astray." She paused. He was brooding, but at least he was listening. "So maybe you need to go back to where you got off the path. Where you lost your way."

"That would be at the beginning," he said quietly.

"So that's where you start at. Go on and tell me about it." When it didn't get a rise from him, she said, "What, you think I'm too slow to understand?"

He shook his head. She watched him. His face had that gone-away look and she thought he was going to disappear back into his sulk. But then he started talking.

He had heard what she said, but said nothing at first. It felt odd, letting her know his business. Letting anyone know, for that matter. He was about to brush it all aside and change the subject. But then, quite abruptly, he began to tell her. "Five women have been murdered in the past six weeks." He stopped and glanced at her. She was leaning with one elbow on the table, her eyes narrowed, nodding. "Four in the District, one over on Perdido Street," he went on. "Four sporting girls, one madam. One Negro, one octoroon, one Jew, two white. Each one was killed in a different manner. But each time, the killer left a black rose at the scene."

"What'd that tell you?" she asked.

"Not a goddamn thing!" he snapped. He felt her cool gaze and sighed, retreating. "That it's the same party each time," he said.

"All right," she said.

"The first one was Annie Robie," he went on. "A Negro girl in the house over on Perdido Street. She was smothered
with a pillow." He hesitated for a second, and then said, "As it turns out, Buddy Bolden was there late that night. He may have been her last visitor, in fact." He frowned. "And he's been back since." He told her about the scene that Miss Maples had related.

"That don't look good," Justine said.

"No, it doesn't." A niggling memory suddenly returned, an oddity that had come to him, a few words he had exchanged with Picot. "There was this one thing," he said. "There were no signs of a fight. No thrashing about." He scratched his jaw. "She was a healthy girl. She was being suffocated. Why wouldn't she fight it?"

"Maybe she couldn't," Justine said. "Maybe whoever killed her had some help."

Valentin stared at her. "If there was ... if somebody held her down..."

"But that would mean there was two people killed her," she said.

"Two people," he said, then shook his head. He could follow that path later. "Next one was Gran Tillman," he continued. "White woman up in the District. She was strangled with the sash of her kimono. No witnesses there, either. Nothing at the scene."

"You mean nothin' but a black rose."

"That's right."

"King Bolden knew her, too?"

Valentin nodded. "He did. And she and Annie Robie were friends. That's what I thought it was all about. At first, I mean. Those two mixed up in some business."

"What business?"

"I don't know, but it seems Gran came into money right before she died. Or was expecting to. She bought herself a fancy dress and was going to pay Papa Bellocq to make her
photograph. She told Lizzie Taylor she was leaving. Giving up the life."

"Where was she gettin the money for that?"

He stared at the wall, his eyes blank. "Well, what if ... what if maybe it was blackmail? What if she knew who killed Annie? And so she decided she'd sell her silence. But the killer figured there was a better way to keep her quiet. A sure way."

"I guess that makes sense," Justine said.

He frowned sourly. "Yes, if that had been the end of it. But then we come to Martha Devereaux. And everything changes. As far as I can tell, Martha didn't know Annie or Gran Tillman. She was a good bit different from those other two. She traveled in better company."

Justine cleared her throat. "She was the one that was stabbed?"

"That's right. It was a horrible assault."

"And King Bolden knew her, too."

Valentin sighed. "He was down there asking after her the night she died." He saw Justine's look and grimaced. "I know. It looks bad. And it gets worse. He knew Jennie Hix, too. The one that was beaten to death down in Chinatown. I think she met him at an apothecary there." He scratched his jaw again. "I can't figure out what was a girl from the Jew Colony doing way down on Common Street."

Justine thought about it and said, "I know that sometimes if a girl's bad about the hop, the madam'll put the word out round the neighborhood, don't nobody sell nothin, to her. Else she won't be no good to none of the men. So maybe she had to go there."

Valentin wagged a finger in the air. "And that's where she met up with King Bolden." He took a sip of his wine and placed the glass carefully on the table.

"Florence Mantley was the last one," he said. "I figure it
was just her bad luck. The killer was stalking one of the girls. She had just finished checking the rooms and she was at the end of the corridor. The window was right behind her. The killer came creeping along, looking for that gal, and she surprised him. A push and..." He made a sharp shoving motion with his hands and Justine blinked, startled. "She fell two stories," he went on. "It broke her neck. The killer ran off just as the girls came out of their rooms. That's as close as anyone's been to seeing him."

"Was that Ella Duchamp?"

"What?"

"You said 'looking for that gal.'" When he hesitated, she said, "Ella Duchamp was another one of his women?" He caught her look; she was thinking,
That makes five out of five. What more do you need?

"There's no doubt about it," he admitted. "He's suspicious."

"I'd say he's more than suspicious."

He pondered in silence for a few moments. Then he said, "Why?"

"Pardon?"

"I don't know why. I still don't see a motive. A
why.
"

"You ain't got any idea?"

He took another sip of wine. "Well, you'd think right away a fellow commits these kinds of acts, he hates sporting girls." He smiled dryly. "That's not Bolden at all."

"Maybe it's not what we—" She caught herself. "Maybe it's not what the girls do. Maybe it's that they're just out there for any man to visit. Easy to get to, you see."

"Then why weren't any crib girls or the streetwalkers on his list of victims?" he said. "Why only women who work in houses? Somebody down Robertson Street mentioned that and it's a damned good question."

She looked at him curiously. "You were on Robertson Street?"

He thought it better to avoid that, so he pretended not to hear. He put on his best thoughtful face and fought a wild urge to smile. There he sat, sifting the gruesome details of five brutal murders, and suddenly he was wriggling like a guilty husband, back from a round of sporting. Before he did smile, he plunged on. "Is it because they work in houses?" he said. "Is he maybe trying to take some kind of revenge?"

"Revenge for what?"

"An injury?" he guessed. "A slight?"

Justine said, "Well, you know there's always men bein' put out at Miss Antonia's. Never allowed back in." She raised one eyebrow. "Remember? That's how I came to meet you."

Valentin pressed the tips of his fingers together. "Never allowed back in," he said. "Yes, someone could take offense at that." Justine looked at him as something occurred to her. "What?" he said.

"Well, there's one kind of man ain't never allowed into a house," she said. "Not in the District. Not as a proper customer."

Valentin's eyes went flat. "A Negro."

"Unless he's a professor. Or a cook."

"He sure ain't neither one of them," Valentin sighed, thinking about Bolden playing the part of the perfect suspect like it was a vaudeville routine. "Anybody who took a look at this would say he's the guilty one, no question."

"Anybody but you," Justine said. He didn't respond and she said, "Is it 'cause of you two bein' friends?"

He stared at the tabletop. "I don't know, maybe it is," he said. "But it ain't that I just won't look at the truth. After all these years, I figured I knew him better than anybody."

"But that ain't so," she said.

He glanced at her, then lowered his eyes. How quick she was; right down to the bone. "I don't know, maybe not."

Justine sat back, surprised by his confession. She wanted to ask more, but then she saw the wary look in his eyes and let it go. She said, "Tell me this. Could he do it?"

"I told you, I don't believe he would do some—"

"I asked you
could
he do it."

"Could he?" Valentin said. "Yes. But I could do it, too. Just about anyone
could
do it." He smiled without humor. "LeMenthe says it's hoodoo at work," he said.

"And why is that so hard for you to take?" she asked him. "You went to church, when you went, I mean. What's the priest talk about? Prayers and blessings. Spirits. The Holy Ghost. Satan. Evil deeds. I don't see a difference."

With a gesture of frustration, he said, "Oh, yes, there's a priest involved in this mess, too."

"What?" She was surprised. "What priest?"

He told her about Father Dupre, about the trip to Jackson, his strange plea, the rosary, the wreath behind the church. She listened, fidgeting with discomfort. When he finished, she said, "You think he has something to do with it?"

"Another thing I don't know," Valentin sighed. "I can add to it a drunken doctor named Rall, who treated Bolden and did the autopsies on the bodies of Tillman and Devereaux and Jennie Hix."

"What else?"

"There's been a man following me," he said. "The same one was on the train to Milneburg. Tall white man. Wearing a derby hat."

Justine said, "I didn't get much of a look at him."

Valentin looked away. "Do you know anybody like that?"

"A tall white man?" She smiled quizzically. "I'm sure I do. More than one. Why? Who was he?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking," he snapped and Justine stared at him. He waved a hand, half an apology, and fell to brooding again. Except for the patter of the last of the raindrops on the window ledge, it was quiet for long minutes.