My Notorious Life (58 page)

It could not have been longer than an hour that I dozed this way, fitful and tormented. At last, unable to tolerate my nightmares any longer, I rose with stiff limbs and went quietly to my dressing room to start my toilette, determined to arrive in the courtroom so finely attired they would write me down for the ages as a queen.

In the dressing room, finding my robe and slippers in the lamplight, I felt a prickle at the back of my neck, as though someone watched me even now. The gallery of the court. The newsmen puffing their cigars. For them I selected my black silks, my diamond earrings, my lace veil. Who could say I wasn’t a lady? I ran my hand along the rack of dresses. Silk and crepe. Fur and velvet. The feel of the fabric sent a shudder through me like desire. Ahead perhaps was only the scratch of prison woolies, moth holes in the sleeves. Standing there in my closet, lost in dread, my nerves was further disturbed by a sound out of place. Short. Repeating. Something sickening
in it. Liquid. I listened at the bathroom door and heard it then, the plink of water landing on water. Someone was in the bath. The master bathroom had two entrances, one through my dressing room, and the other leading onto the passageway. Well, I would not begrudge poor Cordelia a bath, after her violation and ordeal, as long as she left as promised.

—Cordelia? I said, softly.

There was no answer. No sound but a hollow drip.

I turned the knob but the room was locked. The nerve of her, I thought, to lock me out. —Excuse me, I said, in a flash of annoyance, and retrieved the key from the closet. It made an important click in the lock as it released, and I opened the door, knocking.

—Cordelia?

Her back was turned to me.

—Cordelia.

She had fallen asleep. I went to touch her shoulder and sprang back with a grim small cry, the world upended in a wash of blood. She was dead in the water. The bath was red and her black hair a weedy dark tangle floating. Her right arm fell just outside the rim of the tub, and her hand lay dangling where she had dropped a kitchen knife, bone-handled. It lay on the white tile, clotted with gore from a red stripe cut across the neck, from the left ear across to the notch between her clavicles.

A terrible noise came from me. A lowing. Sucked out from the pit of my heart so hard it did not stop even as I turned my eyes from the sight. My sister. My sister.

—Oh Dutchie, I said, and sat down in convulsion before the dressing table shaking so the jars of perfume rattled on the marble surface. Double fists pressed to my mouth to stop the sounds, but the noise came out of me harsh as metal on stone. —Dutchie, I cried.

If only it was me there bled out in the water.

It might as well have been. It felt so. All was lost now. They would say I’d killed her. The wardens would hang me from the gallows on the Bridge of Sighs. My daughter would grow up without her mother, same as I done. Even in the welter of grief my mind raced fast like a cornered rabbit, darting for the exits wherever I might find one. Think, Axie, I says to myself. Save your tears for later. I forced myself quiet. Stilled myself down, then lifted my eyes to the mirror. There she was, so ghastly. Our Dutchie. In the
reflection I seen how she was still a Muldoon, how she looked like me and how we was twinned as ever, one dead, the other quick, and all our dreams in matched shambles around us.

That reflection, so uncanny in our likeness, showed me what to do. The plan was far-fetched, a wing and a prayer. It couldn’t work. It had to work. There was not no other way now.

I turned to face the form suspended in the water. The water dripped, such a loud sound. Approaching her, I took the ring off my wedding finger. Oh
macushla,
I said,
aroon machree.
When I lifted her hand the cold of it sickened me, and yet I did not flinch, only removed the ring on her finger put there by the useless VanDerWeil. Next, I twisted my own rings onto her watery knuckles, diamonds and gold on her cold hand. I kissed her fingers and curled them around the kiss, so that she might hold it, my Dutchie, in her grave.
Oh Mam I am sorry
. Oh Dutch. Weeping with my lips bit down to blood, I removed my diamond earrings, little tears like flowers they were, of brilliant ice set in silver, beautiful as she was. I brushed aside the dark seawrack strands of her hair and clasped them to the collops of her lobes. Oh my Dutchie. She was only sleeping, that hair tangled in my fingers. I kissed her and my tears fell into the water where they turned red with her own. —Sleep with angels, I whispered, my voice broke. I kissed her again.

In great haste now, I left the room and went to shake my husband awake.

—What? He sat up in alarm, so you could see his heart pounding in the veins of his neck. —What is it?

I told him. I said knife and neck and cut and throat, the words so awful and bloody. I was half insane in the murky dark. He shook himself awake, gasping.

—I put my rings on her, I said, trembling. —All my jewelry.

—Why? What are you talking about? He took the rounds of my shoulders in his hands and held me at arm’s length and shook me. —Your jewelry? What for?

—Listen, I’m leaving. You’ll say it’s me. She is me. Will you do it? You’ll tell them I was distraught. You’ll say it’s me there in the tub.

He digested this idea for the barest of minutes, then rousted himself from the bed and ran into the bathroom to see the gruesome scene for himself. He was gone a while, too long, and when he returned, he had
Dutchie’s trunk with him. He began stuffing her clothes into my closets, frantic.

—There’s no evidence left she was ever here. He was pale and serious and in great haste. —You must clear out now. There’s no time to waste.

I dressed in a panic and packed a bag, heedlessly throwing in dresses and shoes and jewelry. I took as much money as we had in the safe at the back of the armoire and stuffed it into the roll of my spare stockings.

My husband asked me questions. —Where will you go?

—Boston first.

—Good. And then?

—I don’t know. Canada? London.

—What name will you go by?

—I don’t know. My hands flapped. Keening noises escaped me.

—You are Mrs. McGinty, do you hear? You’re an Irish nursemaid.

—I’ve no papers.

—You’ll get some. Leave now.

—First I must write a note. I have to leave a note.

He handed me pen and paper. —Say they drove you to do it, those hounds of hell.

I wrote with shaking hand.

It was the hounds of hell drove me to it. Mr. Comstock with his underhanded sneakery and Mr. Greeley and Mr. Matsell with their lies, and Dr. Gunning that sanctimonious snake. You never NONE of you did care about a WOMAN, no matter how misfortunate, and all of society shall think on its uncharitableness toward the fair sex when they think about me, who only tried to give sanctuary and comfort to your poor afflicted daughters and sisters, your mothers and discarded sweethearts. I can’t no more face the canker of your laws or waste away in your Tombs. So thus I choose to spare my family the pain of the trial about to start at Jefferson Market Court. It’s nothing but a charade. Farewell, and may my death be on the conscience of my false accusers for the rest of their days.

Signed,

Mrs. Ann M. Jones, April 1, 1880

—Hurry, hurry, said Charlie.

I handed him the note but had lost my nerve. —I can’t go. They’ll never believe it’s me in there. They’ll arrest you. How will you—

—Greta and me will swear it’s you that’s dead. We’ll say you’ve been despondent and threatening to jump off a bridge.

—You’ll pay her?

—I’ll pay her and I’ll pay the coroner and I’ll pay whoever needs paying you can be sure. Now get. Out the basement door.

—When will you bring my girl to me? When will you come?

Charlie looked me hard in the eyes. —When I’ve finished mourning my dead wife.

My knees buckled, listening to him.

—I’ll come, he said, hustling me to the back stairs, —when I’ve attended to our poor innocent child, now left motherless because of Comstock and his dogs, who hounded my sweetheart to death.

Sweetheart, he said. It was a word like a chloroform rag over my face.

—What will you tell her?

—I haven’t thought that far ahead.

—You’ll never come, I said.

—I will, why won’t you believe me? Six months at least. He pressed my face between his two hands. —Now go. Hurry.

—But her grave.

—Ah, I nearly forgot. He pulled from the pocket of his robe a letter addressed to me in Dutch’s writing. —It was left on her bed. But you haven’t time to read it now. You must leave. Go. Read it later.

—Promise me on her grave, on Dutchie’s grave, you’ll come. Promise me.

—You have my word. Go.

—Charlie? I was weeping.

—Axie, go now. The house is about to wake. You haven’t a minute to lose. Then he pulled me to his chest and clamped me there. —Trust me, love. Trust.

T
he dark was thicker than the crepe that hid my face but even still I felt exposed, as bone in a fracture. Old snow scabbed the sidewalks, and I picked my way along as fast as my boots would go. Maggie’s woolen shawls snatched off the hook in the backstairs on my way out the door were warm around me, but already I missed my sealskin cape, left behind. I was not a lady no more, but a servant girl hustling on an errand. The wind witched at my neck and the handles of my heavy carpetbag bit through the kid of my gloves, but worse was the grief that had me by the entrails. I ran and stumbled. My sister’s bloody death followed after me. Clumps of woe and panic massed in my throat. I hurried along. The streets was empty except for the dog carts and wagons of the early tradesmen stirring to life, their lanterns wagging. At every sound I expected the hot hands of the law to snatch my elbow. I’d be mistaken for a streetwalker, or worse, recognized. Where was a hansom cab? At this hour not one wheel on the cobbles was for hire. When at last I reached Lexington Avenue, my breath in an uproar, there was the omnibus, and I clambered up the steps and paid the fare. On the hard bench, between a drunken butcher and a snaggletooth flower seller in faded gingham, the loud pounding of my blood made me reel. I was stunned and nauseous all the way to the Grand Central station. All the way to Boston. And for a long time after that.

The train lurched north through Harlem and carried me in a terrible state across the river into the marshlands of Pelham. The weak early sun lit
the blond cattails, and flocks of black birds flew up scattershot like a handful of tacks thrown against the blue sky. My sister was winging up through the ether now with them, I imagined, and tried to see her flying in white radiance like an angel. But every time I closed my eyes all I seen was the bloody gore of her death in a tableau before me. At last I opened the letter she left for me, and as the train hurtled onward like the long ago train that carried us to our separate fates, I read her words with raw wet eyes.

Dearest Axie,

Do not be sad when you find me. I am happy now, in God’s arms. In life I could not find peace any longer, as I have been a shameful disappointment to all of Chicago, to Mother, to my husband, and to you, I am afraid, for I realize that under the circumstances it would be impossible for me to go ahead and live together as sisters as you and I both always dreamed. It is quite plain that I would not be a fit mother. Certainly the weeks ahead would only have brought more shame and infamy upon me, in light of your own trials. I do not wish to be a burden to you or testify against you or choose any of the other sad paths open to me. It is right that I should be punished for my wickedness. I am a terrible sinner. I have nowhere to turn. Please do not reproach yourself, thinking you could have prevented me. I long to close my eyes and find a welcome oblivion. I wish you well and hope that all your trials are resolved, and that God willing, you will someday find our brother. Remember me, and pray we’ll find each other in heaven.

Love,

Dutch

The letter left me sad and hollow as a marrow bone gnawed by dogs. The train barreled on in its urgent clattering, and I saw now I was orphaned all over again.

*  *  *

After two days, I arrived at Boston’s Park Place Station. I disembarked and made my way to a travelers’ hotel across the street. I paid in cash for a
room and signed my name as Mrs. McGinty, of New Haven. In my terrible lodging, the smell of tobacco filtered under the doorjamb, and the sound of trains rattled the windows. I barely slept. Then in the morning I made my way back to the station and paid a passenger arriving from New York for his copy of the
Times,
dated April 3rd. It featured—on Page One—a full accounting. I read it with shaky indignant hands.

END OF A CRIMINAL LIFE; “MME. DEBEAUSACQ” COMMITS SUICIDE; SHE CUTS HER THROAT WITH A CARVING KNIFE, AND IS FOUND DEAD IN A BATHTUB—THE BODY DISCOVERED BY A HORRIFIED SERVANT—A VERDICT OF SUICIDE BY THE CORONER’S JURY.

The notorious Mme. DeBeausacq is dead. Having for nearly fifteen years been before the public as a woman who was growing rich by the practice of a nefarious business; having once served an imprisonment for criminal malpractice; having ostentatiously flaunted her wealth before the community and made an attractive part of the finest avenue in the City odious by her constant presence, she yesterday, driven to desperation by the public opinion she had so long denied, came to a violent end by cutting her throat from ear to ear. The news startled the whole city. At first the announcement was looked upon as a hoax, but when it became known that her death had been officially communicated to the court in which she was about to be tried on an indictment . . . doubt was removed and the ghastly story of the suicide became the talk of everybody.