Rampart Street (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) (19 page)

Harris had a public presence as well. He had never been shy about his views, and he seemed to believe that his wealth was in direct proportion to his wisdom. She had read his screeds in the newspaper, filled with an imperial disdain for those he considered of lower class. He was known to have funded various organizations dedicated to the supremacy of what he considered true Americans.

She had met him once or twice as a young girl and had disliked him instantly, even at that young age sensing the cruelty that enlivened his eyes and put a knife edge on his speech. Now she remembered with a small smile that she always thought Harris looked like the groom on a wedding cake. His riches couldn't buy him physical stature. He would always be a small man.

As the years passed and his wealth grew to fantastic proportions, he stayed in their lives. Her father had been a part of his royal court; willingly, and without shame, or so she thought until she laid the letter before him as he sat at the kitchen table.

She didn't want to think about that now. Turning away, she went into the kitchen to fetch a cup of coffee and carry it upstairs to wake her mother.

As Betsy placed the cup and cream and sugar on the tray, Anne Marie became aware that the maid had said something to her. "Excuse me?"

Betsy gazed at her, frowning. "Are you all right? You look a little sick."

"I'm fine," Anne Marie told her. "What did you just say?"

"I said your mother wouldn't let me change the bed this morning."

"I'll take care of it," Anne Marie said. She carried the tray to the door and stopped there. "Betsy, do you know who Henry Harris is?"

"I've heard the name," she said. "He's some rich man, ain't he? What about him?"

"Nothing," Anne Marie said, and went out of the room.

Mrs. Benedict roused herself enough to sit up in the bed, and the sheets and blankets gave up a musty smell. Anne Marie decided she wasn't going to get into a battle over it this morning.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Who called on the telephone?" Mrs. Benedict inquired. She had gotten an idea in her head that Betsy and Anne Marie were deflecting important calls.

"It was Mr. Delouche," Anne Marie told her.

"Did he wish to speak to me?"

"No, Mother, he wanted to tell me something." She offered the cup and saucer, and her mother took it, though reluctantly. "Do you remember Charles Kane?"

Mrs. Benedict began to shake her head, then stopped. "He was one of them," she said.

"One of whom?"

The older woman's mouth set grimly. "Why do you ask?" she said. "Is he dead?"

Anne Marie was taken aback. "Well ... he is, yes."

Mrs. Benedict nodded. "Of course," she murmured. "He sold his soul."

"Who? Kane?"

"No, your father." She gave Anne Marie a sly look. "You know very well what I mean."

Anne Marie sat down on the bed. Her mother was having a rare lucid morning, and she wanted to make the most of it. "He didn't do anything of the kind," she said quietly.

"Where do you think all this came from?" Mrs. Benedict said, suddenly throwing her thin arms out to the walls and the rest of the house beyond. "Your father sold his soul to the devil."

Anne Marie felt sudden tears welling in her eyes. "Stop it. He could have made a success of himself no matter what he did," she said.

"But he didn't, did he?"

"No," Anne Marie said. "He didn't."

Mrs. Benedict sagged back on the pillows. "Oh, well...," she murmured. Then: "Is that nigger detective in the house? Or dago or Greek or whatever he is?"

"Mother..." Anne Marie caught herself. "He's not, no."

"Good, because he doesn't belong here."

"I've hired him to finish the investigation. I told you that."

"Yes, you did." The older woman gazed toward the window, wearily. "And you'll be sorry."

Anne Marie stood up. "Are we ever going to get rid of him, Mother?" she said.

Mrs. Benedict looked at her again, blinking. "Who?"

Now it was Anne Marie's turn for a sly smile. "Drink your coffee," she said. "Betsy will be up with your breakfast."

She went down the hall to her room to change her clothes. She had a feeling Mr. St. Cyr was going to show up, and she wanted to be ready for him. So engaged, for a few quiet moments, she was able to keep Charles Kane, George Reynolds, and especially Henry Harris out of her thoughts.

It had taken awhile for Kane's name to circulate through the police ranks and for the patrolmen to come forward to report encountering a gentleman who claimed to have witnessed something very strange happen to the victim. It took more hours for the detectives to identify and locate the individual in question.

Two police detectives arrived on George Reynolds's gallery at a few minutes past noon, having first visited the subject's place of employment and learning that he had stayed home sick that day. George opened the door, took one look at their faces, and immediately felt a sinking weight in his gut.

The two men were dressed in suit coats and high-collared shirts, and each wore a derby. They looked much like twins, except one had a trimmed beard and the other only a mustache. They regarded him with the same practiced copper stares.

He ushered them into the front parlor and had the maid fetch coffee. Once they were seated and served, they took turns stating the facts. The body of Charles Kane had washed up on the banks of the river two days before. The coroner guessed that he had been in the water twelve to twenty-four hours, which meant he had gone in sometime between late Saturday night and early Sunday morning. The official cause of death was drowning, though the investigation was still open. They said they had a report from two beat coppers noting that on Saturday night, a Mr. Reynolds had claimed that Kane had been abducted right before his eyes. Then they waited.

George steadied himself and recounted the evening to the best of his memory, feeling his face flushing from the first word.

"He was walking away ... and when he got to the corner of Burgundy, something happened. I saw a shape, a dark shape, come up on him, and at first I thought it looked like a bird, and then he wasn't there. He had just, uh ... disappeared."

"What kind of bird?" the bearded detective said. George wasn't sure if he was making sport of him or not.

"I didn't say it was a bird," he said. "It just looked that way. It was very dark out there."

The two detectives exchanged the same sort of glance the patrolmen had shared that night on the banquette. Only these two followed it with looks of suspicion, as if they were thinking he had created the bizarre tale to cover his own guilt.

He was startled. The idea that he could have murdered Kane and then dumped his body in the river brought a clumsy smile, followed by a strained laugh.

"Did we say something funny?" the detective with the mustache inquired.

George shook his head, sobering. He was dazed by the coppers' act, switching from a yawning boredom to sharp interest, two lizards sleeping on a sunny rock, snapping awake when something edible came into range. They posed more questions, back and forth, like they were tossing a ball. Their queries seemed rather pointless, and once they figured that he likely wasn't guilty of anything, their inquiries became perfunctory, as if they were reading down a list. They requested the telephone number at his office and told him to be available for more questions. He saw them to the door. He had to force his hand steady to turn the bolt.

Early as it was, he wanted nothing so much as to rush to Basin Street and find Justine. He needed a place to hide. He knew she cared little for him, that her affections were offered at a certain price, and if he didn't pay, he wouldn't get past her door. Those were the rules, of course. He wasn't even thinking about that now. He simply yearned for her sweet calm and the refuge of her upstairs room, where no one could find him.

He felt confused and frightened. It hadn't been a dream or a mirage, no matter what those detectives thought. Someone or something had rushed from the shadows of Burgundy Street and swept Charles Kane away, turning him invisible, and sometime later had dropped his body in the brown waters of the Mississippi. He wondered for a blank moment if Charles had been dead before he went in.

He recalled again how they studied him with their cool copper stares, as if he was something they were getting ready to devour. Then their gazes went flat, passing over him and on to other matters.

He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head to see his wife standing in the doorway. Before she could start worrying him for information that she would turn into gossip to chew over with the other useless wives, he muttered something about having to get to his office, grabbed his coat and hat, and hurried out the door.

When Valentin walked into the empty saloon, he found Beansoup at a table, digging into a pile of peppered eggs and Italian sausage. The kid gave a start, his face flushed pink, and he looked a little nervous.

The detective said, "Good afternoon," and treated him to a puzzled glance.

Frank Mangetta came out from behind the bar with a coffee for Valentin. "He's got some news for you," the Sicilian said.

Valentin pulled out the chair. The kid emptied his mouth, took a swallow of his own coffee, and said, "You hear about the fellow they pulled out of the river?"

"What fellow?"

Beansoup produced a furtive, eyeball-shifting look that was so comical that Valentin almost laughed out loud. He was serious, though.

"They pulled this fellow name of Kane out of the river on Sunday," he said. "He fell in and drowned."

"Too bad for him."

"That ain't it, though. Word is he was on the docks and did business with Henry Harris, just like the one that got killed on Rampart Street."

Valentin's cup stopped in midair. "How do you know about this?"

"Well, I
listen,
" Beansoup said, as if it was a foolish question.

The detective stared at him. Frank raised his eyebrows.

"You hear this?" he asked the saloon keeper, tilting his head toward Beansoup.

"I heard it," Frank said, shaking his head and frowning.

When Justine passed Miss Antonia in the hallway, the madam was wearing a familiar look, the one that broadcast that she had a delicious piece of gossip that she was just aching to share. Usually, it was about one of their regular customers. One time, a high police official had been spotted dancing in the parlor of one of the houses on Conti Street where men dressed as women. Another patron was caught embezzling from the family business in order to support the morphine habit of a thirteen-year-old paramour. The wife of yet another had walked in on her husband and two girls at Grace Lloyd's, and hell would freeze over before he finished paying for that indiscretion.

Justine did her best to avoid this overheated gossipmongering. She didn't need any more reminders of just how tawdry Storyville could be.

This was something else, though. After they passed each other, Miss Antonia said, "Justine, dear? A bird flew in my window, just this morning."

Justine stopped out of courtesy. "Yes, ma'am?"

"There's a rumor going round about Mr. Valentin and a white girl."

Justine did her best to keep her face passive. "Well, he does manage to pass," she said, knowing how weak it sounded.

"A white woman can bewitch a fellow, if he's not careful," the madam said in a singsong voice. "Even that one." She shook her head slightly. "Maybe he's leaving Storyville behind altogether."

Justine knew that Miss Antonia was delivering this piece of news in the hopes that it would turn her away from the Creole detective. The truth was, it did nothing at all. She didn't expect anything from him, anyway. Though the madam was right about white women. They were pale and thin, and many of them looked like they couldn't fuck any good if their lives depended on it, but they did seem to cast spells on men of color. She just never figured Valentin for one to fall for it. Though he wasn't the same person, any more than she was.

An hour later, as Valentin was unlatching the Benedicts' front gate, he happened to glance up to see the widow's figure at one of the second-floor windows. Her silhouette went away as he stepped onto the gallery and up to the door.

This time Betsy led him to the back gallery, which ran the entire width of the house and was enclosed with screening. He had a view of a flower garden that needed tending. Wisteria and morning glories hung over the fence and trellises and around the gazebo. Betsy offered him a chair, and he sat for a few minutes, watching the butterflies float and bees levitate from bloom to bloom in the dappled sunlight.

Anne Marie appeared, wearing a simple walking dress. She had decided to forgo her fancier attire for something more common. Valentin knew enough about women's private appointments to guess that she would be wearing only a thin camisole rather than a full corset underneath. He was enjoying the image that went with these thoughts as he stood to greet her.

She said, "Sit down, please. Betsy's bringing coffee." Apparently, Betsy had not been aware of this and she looked surprised, then piqued, at being ordered away.