Chasing the Devil's Tail (15 page)

He went up the steps to the gallery and found the back door locked. He bent down and saw no light through the keyhole. With a quick glance down the line of galleries, he pulled his sap from his back pocket and tapped one of the panes of glass. A web of cracks spread to the frame. Another tap knocked a triangular shard onto the kitchen floor where it shattered with a tinkling sound. He jiggled another shard loose, then reached through and felt about until his fingers found the key. The bolt rattled and he opened the door and slipped inside.

The house was still. He took a step and a small battalion of roaches scattered across the floor and into the baseboards. He crossed the kitchen and walked through the downstairs rooms. All the furniture was covered in white sheets, an eerie sight. It would stay that way until a new tenant stepped up to sign a lease. But this house, so polluted with a ravaged girl's wandering spirit, might stay empty for a long time.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairwell and peered upward. The second floor was as dark as if it was the dead of night and the air from above was heavy and stale. He listened for any untoward sound. He put a hand into the pocket of his jacket to touch the grip of the pistol. At the same time, he felt the chafe of the sheath that held his stiletto at his ankle.

He started up. Boards creaked under his feet. It was deep in shadow at the top and he ran his hands around the corner of the wall until his fingers found the round knob of the lamp switch. He rolled it over, but there was no illumination from any of the crystal globes along the hallway. The electricity had been shut off. He found lucifers in his vest pocket, lit one and started along the narrow corridor, his shadow dancing before him.

The flame went out just as he reached Martha Devereaux's door. He lit another one and saw that the key had been left in the lock. He turned it, felt the bolt slide and just as he did, an echo rose up the stairwell from the lower floor. He started, then stood still, the fingers of one hand on the brass key, the fingers of the other holding the sputtering lucifer. He had heard a shuffling sound, then a quiet thump like a footfall.

The flame went out and he stood with his ears open, knowing that if he tried to listen too hard he would hear only the hiss of silence. He breathed out through his mouth, waiting for the sound to come again. He waited ten seconds,
twenty. Nothing. He lit another lucifer, crept quickly to the head of the stairwell and listened. After a few moments more, what might have been a faint rustling reached his ears, but he couldn't be sure.

All was silent for a full minute and he walked back through the darkness. He stepped into the room where Martha Devereaux had met her gruesome end and crossed directly to pull open the middle window and push back the shutter. Fresh air wafted inside and an oblong of dusty light filled the center of the room. He backed into the corner to study the floor and walls.

She had been sprawled face-down on the floor, he recalled, her arms and legs extended, wearing a yellow silk robe that was soaked red. The rug—now gone—had been covered with blood, so much so that only a few patches of the fabric showed up. He now saw crimson splattered across the walls and a pink stain on the floorboards outlining where her bed had been.

That night, Picot had grunted a crude comment about Martha's position, opining that the murderer was on her—maybe
in
her, fore or aft, the copper had sniggered—when the attack came. Any man who paid for a fucking could have done it. Which, of course, made Picot's situation easier. Two thousand prostitutes servicing eight customers each on a busy night meant sixteen thousand possible suspects, so what could one poorly paid New Orleans police lieutenant do? But Picot was wrong, of course. The victim had known her killer.

She would have been standing up, just turning around, when the knife came; this he read by the blood splatter on the wall and floor. She had opened the door, he surmised, saw the visitor and turned away. The killer would have stepped inside, quickly closed the door and struck in a matter of a second or two. He imagined poor Martha, her eyes going wide in horror, grasping at the gaping wound, seeing the spouting of her own blood, trying to scream without a voice.

The murderer was done and gone just as quickly, out the door before Martha bled her life away, else there would be footprints. Valentin found that odd. Didn't most killers want to view the fruits of their vicious work? At least to make sure the job was done? "weren't most caught by something they left behind because they dallied at the scene? The only thing this one left was a black rose by the door—and not by mistake.

He stepped back further to lean in the open doorway, brooding. Jessie Brown had mentioned that King Bolden had been around that night, asking after the very woman who had died in this room. Which was what J. Picot needed to hear to make Bolden all the more suspect. But how, he wondered, could a Negro—and a brash Negro at that, known by sight to half of Uptown New Orleans—march through the downstairs rooms, mount the stairs and call on a sporting girl without being noticed? Because it hadn't happened that way, of course. The killer had slipped in and out unnoticed.

He looked back down the hallway and saw the small window at the far end, now clearer to the eye with the added illumination of Martha Devereaux's open door. He stepped along the corridor to find that the hardware on the window frame was turned to the unlocked position. The sash slid open with little pressure and he pushed wide the shutters. Light drifted inside, turning the brown darkness a pale amber and stirring the close air. He was now looking out on the narrow colonnade that fringed the house on both sides and the front. He poked his head outside into the cool evening and heard muted laughter and a cascade of notes from the piano in the house next door. Ten feet to the right he saw a sturdy cast-iron downspout that reached from the roof above all the way to the ground. It attached to the side of the house in a way that
would make it easy for anyone except an old man or a cripple to reach the roof of the gallery by standing on the railing and pulling himself up with a single draw of arms. From there, it would be a few quick steps to the window and into the house—and that was how it was done.

As he closed and locked the window, he heard sound again, this time a heavy thump, then another. On quick feet, he slipped along the corridor, past Miss Devereaux's door and to the top of the stairwell in time to catch the shushing sound of hurried movement followed by a rattle.

There was someone in the house.

He bolted down the stairs to the landing and rushed toward the kitchen. Just as he passed into the dining room, he caught a dark blur of motion to his right and in that instant, he cursed his stupidity, even as he felt the blunt shock on the side of his skull. The blow knocked him off-kilter, his legs went askew, and he was suddenly tasting the dust on Jessie Brown's oak floor. Stars shot through blackness as he threw up a numb, clumsy arm and drew his legs in, but no second blow came. Beyond the roar of blood in his ears, he heard running feet and then a door slamming.

He didn't know how long he was out, probably only seconds. When he came to, he was looking at the doorway to the kitchen in dull surprise that he was still alive. He stayed still for a half-minute, and then pushed himself to his feet. The room tilted as he made his way to the kitchen. Head throbbing, he grabbed the doorjamb with one hand and put the fingers of his other behind his ear to feel a large lump and a trickle of blood. The door was standing wide open and pieces of glass that had lain just inside had been scattered, kicked aside by hurried footsteps. He shuffled onto the gallery and looked up and down the row of back lots. All was early evening still.

He sat on the top step for ten minutes, letting the cool air
clear his head. Then he went inside, closed Martha Devereaux's room, and came back downstairs. He locked the door by reaching in through the pane he had broken. He paused to survey the back alley once more. A few houses down, an ancient colored man stood over a pile of burning trash, poking the flames with a long stick. Nothing else was moving.

He walked out of the District as the setting sun turned the sky from dark red to purple, trying to ignore the steady throbs of pain and the feeling of dismay that he had let himself get taken like that. Someone had followed him, lured him into a trap, and struck. But the attacker didn't try to finish the job; it was meant as a rough warning. Maybe it was the killer, but more likely someone like this fellow in the derby, or he wouldn't be around to think about it. He had been lucky, but he wouldn't slip like that again.

He stopped to touch the bloody knot behind his ear and fix his thoughts on what little more he knew.

Bolden had come knocking on Cassie Maples' door, drunk and ranting about the dead girl Annie Robie. Then he went to the house where Gran Tillman had stayed and repeated the performance. As if he was determined to fuel the talk on the street and make himself look guilty of something.

Valentin had learned that Annie Robie's friend Gran Tillman was giving up the sporting life when she was killed. That, the purchase of the purple dress, and paying Bellocq for a fancy photograph meant she was expecting plenty money from somewhere. He had also discovered that Gran was a lover of women. Like so many of the sporting girls, she found comfort in the arms and pleasure between the legs of her scarlet sisters, even as—or because—she allowed men to defile her nightly. It was a fact that what
The Blue Book
and
The Mascot
called "Sisters of Sappho" staffed most of the French houses in the District.

Valentin didn't care who had frolicked with whom, unless Martha Devereaux and Annie Robie also dallied with women. That could point to murder out of hatred for a particular type. But it didn't seem likely that Martha Devereaux knew Annie Robie or Gran Tillman. To put it politely, they traveled in different circles. The only common thread was Bolden.

Another item was the mention of Emma Johnson. He was suspicious of anything or anyone touched by the claws of that vile witch.

On the subject of opportunity, he had confirmed what he had already guessed: that there would be a long list of those who could have committed the deeds, a list with Buddy Bolden near the top.

Now his thoughts came round to the beginning and a single question: Why? Why were the three women killed? He had small clues, but no meaning, no motive, and no pattern^ and he couldn't abide occurrences that had no reason. Things could be explained, or so he believed; and if no explanation appeared, it meant he had overlooked something along the way. He turned south down Canal Street, first thinking about missing pieces, and then wondering where Bolden was this night.

That night, King Bolden forgot about playing with the band and instead made his way to Common Street in Chinatown. As he moved down the narrow street to the little shop, he felt eyes copying him. He looked around and saw the Jew girl standing in a doorway just across the way, her black eyes pleading. He waved a rough, dismissive hand at her and went through the narrow door. When he came out a few minutes later, she was still standing there, still wearing the look of want. He glared at her, but when he turned to walk off along the broken-down banquette, she picked up her skirts and followed him.

Lewd and Abandoned
Emma Johnson, the
Notorious Keeper of
No. 335 Basin Street
is Fined Upon the
Above Charge.

Valentin worked the big room at Anderson's on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Nothing unusual was reported and he spent the days mulling over the murders. He took some time to ask around on the streets and in the saloons about King Bolden, trying to ascertain his whereabouts during the missing hours on the night Martha Devereaux died. He came up with the usual story:
might have been here, thought I seen him there,
and so on. The only person who knew where Buddy had roamed was Buddy himself, and he couldn't remember.

Though it had shrunk, the knot behind his ear continued to ache and Valentin could still place a rueful finger on it for a reminder of his bumbling. At least it was hidden under his dark curls, so he didn't have to explain it to Justine or anyone else.

By mid-week, he had turned over all the stones, except for the one he wanted to leave that way. As it was, he hedged until
Thursday night, and it took a bit of will to walk down Basin Street and mount the steps at No. 335.

He announced himself and waited. A white woman with the face of a lizard appeared at the door. She looked him up and down with cold, hooded eyes.

"I'm calling on Miss Emma," Valentin said.

"She's inside."

"I'll wait here."

"Then you gonna be waitin' a long goddamn time," the woman said and closed the door in his face.

He took a step away, ready to leave. Then he turned back and raised the knocker again. The lizard-faced woman took her time opening the door and stood aside as he passed inside. She slithered around him and disappeared without another word through the door beneath the staircase, leaving him in a large foyer that was lit by gas lamps turned down low. He peered up the stairs into the dark crimson shadow of the second floor. A fellow looking for a good time might be drawn up those stairs like a moth to a flame, but Valentin was not fooled by the soft light and the demure promise of delights unseen. Emma Johnson's house was a mill for French sex, the servicing of customers so brief that each of her girls could entertain dozens a night, even more on holidays and during Carnival. Some were so busy they stayed in chairs for hours at a time as the men marched in for their minute of pleasure, then marched back out. But on this night, the upstairs business was slow. There was a more lurid entertainment on the ground floor.

On Valentin's right was a pair of heavy doors, solid oak with diamond-shaped panes of frosted glass that opened onto the main room of the house. He could detect figures moving
about on the other side, like undersea creatures swimming through murky depths.