The Cigarette Killer

by Claudia Hall Christian

  “Di says that . . .” Seth said. “I guess we have some work to do.”

  “Then we better get to it,” Bernice said. “I know that I’m not getting any younger.”

  Seth nodded. R.J. dropped to his knees to look through the material. Not sure how to get involved, Seth stood on the sidelines for a moment.

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  Four

  Seth tapped on Claire’s door. He’d been such a pest that they’d shooed him out of the apartment to get donuts while they “organized” the contents of the envelope. Claire opened the door and stepped aside. He went straight to the kitchen. He put the donuts on a large serving plate while Claire made more coffee. Holding the plate of donuts, he was rounding the corner from the kitchen when he caught his first look at what was inside the envelope.

  He stopped short so fast that the donuts slid close to the edge of the plate.

  “What’s that?” Seth asked, as he pushed the donuts back in place.

  Bernice and R.J. looked up at him. Claire came out of the kitchen behind him.

  “That’s what was in the envelope,” Claire said as she passed him.

  Seth set the plate of donuts on a side table. Claire poured coffee for Bernice and was just pouring coffee for R.J. when Seth dropped into a squat next to the coffee table. He picked up a piece of paper and then another. His face flushed red and then went white.

  “This was in Di’s envelope?” Seth asked as he held up an empty pack of cigarettes. “You’re sure.”

  “They don’t make those anymore,” R.J. said. “I know. I tried to get some.”

  Seth nodded and set the cardboard pack on the table.

  “I’m sorry,” Seth said. “I need to take this back from you.”

  “Seth!” Claire said at the same time Bernice said, “We’ve discussed this.”

  “I’ve seen that look, and it’s never good.” R.J. shook his head at Seth.

  “I’m sorry,” Seth repeated. He gave a nod. “It’s not you or even me trying to be controlling. It’s . . .”

  “You know what this is,” Claire said, cutting him off.

  Seth nodded.

  “What is it?” Bernice asked.

  “Nothing good,” Seth said.

  “You don’t need to protect us,” Bernice said. “We’re not children.”

  “I’m not trying to protect you,” Seth said. “I’m . . .”

  He looked down at the ground and sighed.

  “This is about an unsolved murder,” Seth said.

  “Murder?” Bernice asked.

  “Unsolved?” Claire asked.

  “It’s a case that Mitch and I were called in to consult on, and we . . .” Seth said. With his shoulders back, he moved his head toward Bernice. “You got this from . . .”

  “Di gave it to my mother,” Bernice said. “Maybe a week before she died.”

  Seth shook his head.

  “It never occurred to me . . .” Seth said.

  “What never occurred to you?” Claire asked.

  “That those murders had anything to do with me or Di or Bud or . . .” Seth nodded.

  “This is what Big Daddy had,” R.J. nodded.

  Seth looked at R.J. for a long moment before turning back to the table.

  “I need to get this to Ava, and . . .” Seth said.

  Claire gave Seth an assessing look; after a moment, she began packing up the envelope.

  “You’ll let us know?” Claire asked.

  Seth nodded.

  “I am sorry,” Seth said. “I was enjoying our time together. I don’t have a lot of friends, and this has been . . .”

  Seth nodded rather than say anymore.

  “Did you solve this case, son?” Bernice asked.

  Seth shook his head.

  “You sure we can’t help?” Bernice asked.

  “You . . . Uh . . .” Seth said.

  His eyes flicked to R.J. and Claire before turning to Bernice. He picked up the envelope from the table. As if to protect them from the contents, he held it instinctively close.

  “Oh, good Lord,” Bernice said. “This is about that poor man who was beaten to death in 1955.”

  Seth squinted at her. Bernice’s head went up and down in a nod, but Seth simply looked at the woman.

  “What do you know?” Seth asked.

  “Not a damned thing,” Bernice said. “Except . . . well . . .”

  The air in the room constricted, as if the room itself was waiting in anticipation. R.J. watched Bernice out of the side of his eyes. Claire turned toward her, and Seth’s blue eyes squinted while the rest of his face stayed still.

  “You remember that case . . .” Bernice said and stopped talking.

  After a few beats, Seth asked in a breezy tone, “‘Case?’”

  “Cigarette Killer,” Bernice said.

  Seth reeled back as if he’d been shot. The envelope dropped out of his hands and landed with a thud on the rug.

  “That was his daddy,” Bernice said. “Or relation of some kind. Big Daddy said it was his father.”

  “Whose father?” Seth asked.

  “That killer,” Bernice said.

  “You’re saying that The Cigarette Killer’s father was killed —beaten to death, here, in New York City — just outside the Savoy where Di was working, Bud was playing, and . . .”

  “Your daddy was there that night, too,” Bernice said, with a nod. “Me, Big Daddy. We were just kids. You must have been . . .”

  “Not born,” Seth said.

  “But . . .” Bernice said.

  “But?” Seth asked, when her voice trailed off.

  “It wasn’t just him that was beaten to death,” Bernice said. “His sister was killed, too. Right there.”

  “She wasn’t in the report,” Seth said evenly.

  “She . . .” Bernice said. “Well . . .”

  “She saw men,” R.J. said. “For a living . . . Under Di.”

  Seth nodded. Big Daddy’s mother, Dinah, ran a service that provided high-class girls to dance with lonely men as well as clean girls and boys to provide “after hours entertainment,” as Di called it, at the Savoy Ballroom.

  “And the man?” Seth asked. “Did he work for Di, too?”

  “Not that I know of,” R.J. said. “His name was . . .”

  “Delmer,” Seth and R.J. said, in near unison.

  “Seurat,” Seth said the man’s last name.

  “Never heard his second name,” R.J. said. “What kind of a name is ‘Seurat’?”

  “French,” Seth said. “What was his sister’s name?”

  “Delilah,” R.J. said. “But she went by ‘Raven.’”

  “Di’s women went by bird names when they were working,” Bernice said. “Delilah — Raven — was in school with my husband and myself. She started working for Di right after we graduated high school. The family needed money and she was a great dancer.”

  Bernice nodded.

  “That’s probably why Big Daddy didn’t want you to have this,” Bernice said.

  “Why?” Seth asked.

  “Didn’t want to involve you, I guess,” Bernice said.

  “But . . .” Seth bent to pick up the envelope. With the envelope in his hands, he took a step forward. “Why would Di put this together for me? I was 12 years old when she died. I hadn’t met Mitch. The idea of becoming a police detective didn’t come to Mitch until ten years later, and it took me a while to agree with him.”

  “You used to read all those mystery books,” Bernice said.

  Claire’s head went up and down.

  “Now that you mention it, you talked about mysteries all the time,” R.J. said. “You were always trying to figure out the latest murder mystery. I’d bring you the papers so you’d have the latest details. You’d read them on the way into the city. You had a real knack for it. You’d solve the crime by the time I was taking you back to school. And you were right every time.”

  Seth’s head went up an
d down slowly.

  “I’d bet she thought it was a mystery you’d solve,” Bernice said. “We knew Delmer and Delilah’s entire family.”

  “Did you know Hamnet?” Seth asked.

  Bernice thought for a moment before shaking her head.

  “I know that Delilah had this sickly kid,” Bernice said. “There was something wrong with his blood, I think. They didn’t come from much, so they couldn’t take him to the doctor. They did know how to work.”

  Bernice stopped talking when she saw the thoughtful look on Seth’s face. She waited a moment until Seth’s face cleared. He gave her a nod, and she continued.

  “Di never had a woman on her staff that she didn’t love like her own child,” Bernice said. “If I had to guess, I’d guess that Di hated that Delilah died and no one cared. Di would have hated that these murders had never been solved. You know how she used to say it?”

  “Black folks aren’t just garbage you throw away,” R.J., Seth, Claire, and Bernice said in unison.

  They smiled for a moment, remembering Di. The gravity of the situation was too heavy for them to smile for long.

  “I need to . . .” Seth pointed to the door.

  “Take a donut,” Claire said.

  Seth’s eyes flicked to the plate. Claire got up. She picked up two powdered-sugar donuts and set them on a napkin. She gave it to Seth and kissed his cheek.

  “For luck,” Claire said.

  “Thank you,” Seth said.

  Seth walked to the door.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed, boy,” R.J. said.

  “Not if we can help it,” Claire said.

  “There’s the truth,” Bernice said.

  He stopped walking. His eyes dropped closed and his hands squeezed the manila envelope. Of course, Claire was right. He could not keep this case to himself. As sure as he was standing here, this case could easily be the thing that brought an end to his life.

  He turned around and set the envelope on the table.

  “I can’t keep you safe,” Seth said. “I don’t have any idea what this is about. I only know that, somehow, some way, someone picked me up yesterday and held me for a while.”

  “You’re saying that your being held could relate to that,” Claire said.

  “My being held, R.J. hearing that my life is in danger,” Seth said. “And now this. I want to say that it’s a coincidence that all of this happened at the same time, but . . .”

  “It doesn’t feel that way to me,” Claire said.

  “No, son,” Bernice said. “This is no coincidence.”

  “Will you . . .” Seth started to ask and then stopped. He looked at them for a while. “I don’t even know what to ask for.”

  “I will help you,” Claire said.

  R.J. and Bernice nodded in agreement.

  “I’ll tell you what,” R.J. said. “Why don’t we start by going through this mess? You can make a list, Claire. Bernice, you can help figure out what this stuff is. We’ll get all the information and feed it to you, like I did when you were a kid.”

  “You’d do that?” Seth asked.

  “We’re not doing anything else,” Bernice said.

  R.J. and Bernice nodded. Claire just smiled at Seth. He nodded.

  “I need to call Ava and warn her,” Seth said. He turned to leave and spun back. “Have you touched this stuff?”

  “I have,” Claire said.

  “You?” Seth pointed to R.J. who held up the ballpoint pen he was handling. R.J. shook his head. “Bernice?”

  “Didn’t want to get my fingers dirty,” Bernice said, with a shake of her head.

  Seth leaned over to look at the contents of the envelope. Oddly, many of the items were coated with a fine layer of dust.

  “From now on, we don’t touch anything without gloves on,” Seth said.

  “I have gloves for cleaning,” Claire said. “They’re in pretty colors. Sorry, R.J.”

  R.J. nodded. Seth smiled at their ease with each other.

  “If you can look through everything — catalog it, like R.J. said — and really think to see if you know anything, any little thing, about anything that’s in the envelope,” Seth said. “You three are my best resource to bringing Delmer and Delilah’s killer to justice. Take lots of notes and photos.”

  Bernice, R.J., and Claire seemed to sit up straighter at the chance to be experts.

  “We can use my phone,” R.J. said.

  “Can it be traced to you?” Seth asked.

  “How stupid do I look?” R.J. asked.

  “Good,” Seth said. “We don’t know who grabbed me yesterday. They could easily be Feds. Mostly . . .”

  Seth paused and looked each of them in the face.

  “Be very careful,” Seth said. “Delmer and Delilah died horrific deaths. Someone has gotten away with it for a long, long time. They aren’t going to be happy that we’re digging into the past.”

  Bernice raised her eyebrows in agreement. R.J. nodded and looked grim.

  “Go,” Claire said and pointed for Seth to leave. “Don’t hover.”

  “You’re sure?” Seth asked.

  “Go,” Claire repeated. “Call Ava, and work on the symphony. When you get back, we’ll have a list of everything and what we remember about it.”

  “If anything,” R.J. said.

  Bernice nodded.

  Seth paused for a moment before returning to his apartment. He looked at his watch and calculated the time in Denver. He should just be able to catch his wife before her morning run. His wife, Ava, was usually getting ready for her morning run at this time of day. Even though she was young, she was a nationally recognized forensic specialist and the leader of a team that was relied on for its expertise in tricky cases. He called her cell phone. When she didn’t answer, he called Maresol, his Denver housekeeper. Not catching Maresol, he called Ava’s office phone. When he couldn’t find her at work, he sent a text to her cell phone.

  Unable to do anything else, he called the first-chair violinist in his makeshift orchestra. She agreed to call the other members of the orchestra. As he knew, everyone was as excited as he was to finish this second score. They arranged to meet him in an hour. In the bathroom, he realized that, in his panic, he’d sweat through his shirt and suit. He showered, changed, and left to work with the orchestra.

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  Five

  “O’Malley,” Seth answered his phone to a number he didn’t recognize.

  “Seth!” Ava yelled into her cell phone.

  “Ava?” Seth asked.

  He checked his watch and scowled. It was seven hours since he’d called. She had never gone this long without calling him.

  “Just a second,” he said.

  Seth told the orchestra to take a short break. There was a heavy wind in the background of Ava’s phone. Her phone jostled, as if she were walking. A door opened, and the wind ended.

  “Ava?” Seth asked. “Where are you?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Ava said. “They’ve sequestered my whole team. This morning. Before you called.”

  Relief coursed through him. She wasn’t in trouble. She didn’t hate him. It was just work.

  “We’re working on a project,” Ava said. “Top Secret. I was only now allowed to call you and only because of your message.”

  “What are you working on?” Seth asked.

  “I cannot tell you,” Ava said. Her voice became very pointed. “I cannot tell you.”

  “Got it,” Seth said with a shrug.

  “Where are you?” Ava asked, the intensity in her voice relaxing a bit. “Sounds like the orchestra.”

  “We decided to work a bit this afternoon,” Seth said. “I’m behind from all of the Big Daddy stuff. We have one last run-through before we break for the night. Should I call you back?”

  “Right, right,” Ava said, with a distracted air.

  A sharp male voice spoke in the background.

  “Listen,”
Ava said her attention back to Seth. “I’m specifically not allowed to speak to you.”

  “Oh?” Seth asked, but Ava continued speaking before he could ask why.

  “I am calling because of your message,” Ava repeated. “You stated that you have received an envelope with information about The Cigarette Killer? You mean, Hamnet Seurat? Is that correct?”

  Seth didn’t respond for a moment. He scowled.

  “Really?” Seth asked.

  Ava was telling him that she’d been sequestered to go through The Cigarette Killer case. Seth swallowed hard.

  “What did you receive?” Ava asked.

  “It’s complicated,” Seth hesitated.

  “Yes?” Ava asked, in a hard tone.

  Seth realized that someone must be listening. As if she could hear his thoughts, she continued speaking.

  “Our conversation is recorded,” Ava confirmed. “It may be used in court. Do I need to Mirandize you?”

  “No,” Seth said. “Do I need a lawyer for this call?”

  “Not yet,” Ava said. “Right now, we just want to know about any evidence you might have discovered in New York City.”

  “Any?” Seth asked.

  “This envelope,” Ava said. “Why don’t you start with how you came to find this envelope?”

  He nodded. She had been a cop when he’d met her, and certainly, before he retired, he’d spent most of his life as a police detective. She was making an effort to limit the amount of information he provided.

  “I woke up this morning to R.J.,” Seth said. When she didn’t respond, he began to understand the pressure she was under. “You’ll remember that R.J. was my driver before I had a driver’s license. He worked for Big Daddy until R.J. moved to Denver with me. He drove me to high school every day, took me and Mitch on many adventures, and even drove our jazz group’s van for me. Bumpy, when he went on tour. He drove for the police commissioner. Well, come to think of it, he’s driven all of them since moving to Denver. Dignitaries. The Hargreaves. Lamberton senior, for sure, but probably Emmy and Amelia. He probably still does. When I went to Vietnam, uh, with the 1st Cavalry Division, um, US Army?”

  A man’s voice clearly said, “Tell him to get over himself and get on with it.”

  He heard other people in the background agree. Clearly, he had an audience.