Goodnight Irene

by James Scott Byrnside

  “Eyes forward, Williams,” Rowan said.

  Walter ignored his boss and continued shifting his eyes from the road to the valley below and then back again. “Have you ever seen anything like this, Manory? It’s positively biblical.”

  Like so many towns along the Mississippi River, Vicksburg was no more. Most of the residents had fled months earlier. Those foolish enough to stay behind had perished, their bodies to be found three or four towns over. The final numbers of death and destruction had yet to be determined, but it was already the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

  “Williams, you should concentrate on the driving of the car. If we die it will be impossible to collect our three thousand dollars.”

  Walter checked the speedometer. “Applesauce. We’re going five miles per hour.”

  As if excited by the raging water, the wind gusted and shook the frame of the Model T. Rowan stamped his feet and tried to slow his breathing. The violent closing of valves echoed in his eardrums, threatening to take him out of reality.

  The detective rolled a cigarette and placed it at the usual wild angle in the corner of his mouth. With the strike of the third match he finally inhaled balm for his lungs.

  You must focus on the case in front of you and not the one behind. Why did Lasciva hire me? He could have easily found a local detective. Why not simply cancel the party?

  Walter began tapping the steering wheel to the tune of ‘Ain’t She Sweet’.

  Rowan reached over and grabbed his hand. “If you are going to start singing, let me out and I can walk the rest of the way.”

  “Manory?”

  “What is it, Williams?”

  “There is something I’ve long wondered about you.”

  “I detest your incessant tagging of inquiry. If you have a question to ask me, you should simply ask me and be done with it. If I want to know the time, I say, ‘Williams, what is the time?’ I do not say, ‘Williams, I was wondering if you would not mind telling me something, something that has been on my mind.’”

  “Usually, you are unflappable, the coolest customer.”

  “I appreciate the compliment but I still await the question.”

  “I’ve seen you deal with the most barbarous scum society can produce without a hint of sweat on your forehead. But all you have to do is sit in a car with some bad weather and you’re inconsolable.”

  Rowan nodded. “This is very simple. I cannot reason with an automobile and I cannot outwit the weather. I am in my element when I am in control.” He peered into the valley. A cow’s carcass was lodged in the branches of a tree. “I fear there is no control in this situation.”

  “We’ve been driving all day, but we haven’t discussed much about the case.”

  “I am still pondering it. When I reach a conclusion you will be the second to know.”

  “Do you think one of the guests has actually planned a murder?”

  “We shall see.”

  “Surely you have a guess.”

  “What a careless statement. A good detective does not extrapolate feelings or guesses without evidence. I will know when I have read the threat for myself and profiled the partygoers. Until that point, my mind is open to any possibility. Ten o’clock, two o’clock, Williams.”

  Walter sighed and adjusted his hands on the steering wheel. The first rule about working with Rowan Manory was that Rowan Manory was always right. “Now that we’re on our way, could you tell me what Lasciva did that was so bad?”

  Silence.

  “His girlfriend threw herself out the window. He didn’t really do anything, did he?”

  Rowan finally spoke. “The Roberts case was my mother’s first on the police force. The city of Chicago only started hiring women for the sole purpose of interviewing women. Whether it is a suspect, victim, or witness, women feel more comfortable talking to women police officers. It is natural. My mother’s function in the investigation was to interview the witness.”

  “I didn’t know there was a witness.”

  “The daughter was in the room when the mother went through the window, a seven-year-old named Irene.”

  Lightning struck the valley and electricity spread in all directions on the water’s surface.

  “What did Irene tell the police?”

  “Unfortunately, the girl said nothing of any consequence. According to the report, she was traumatized and just kept repeating a nursery rhyme.”

  Walter shifted in his seat and slowly maneuvered a bend in the road. “Perhaps the rhyme was some kind of clue.”

  Rowan shook his head. “I think not. Most likely it was something Dorothy Roberts had read to her before she slept. It was the one about the church bells.”

  “Church bells? How does it go?”

  Rowan hummed and sang the rhyme.

  Orange and lemons

  Say the bells of St. Clements

  You owe me five farthings

  Say the bells of St. Martins

  “It goes on and on like that. There are other church bells and then comes the final part.”

  Here comes a candle

  To light you to bed

  Here comes a chopper

  To chop off your head

  Chip chop, chip chop

  The last man’s dead

  Walter chuckled. “Children’s rhymes can be so incredibly dark. Do you recall the one about the corpse in the well that drags down any child foolish enough to play near it? I still find myself avoiding wells.”

  Rowan cleared his throat and turned conspiratorially to Walter. “Williams, the newspapers ran the story that Dorothy Roberts was found dead outside her apartment, a victim of suicide. Other details were left out. Keep your eyes on the road. It was never revealed to the public that the daughter had been raped, stabbed, and left for dead inside Roberts’s bedroom. It was a miracle the girl survived.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Walter took a moment for this grim revelation to sit in his mind. “Lasciva did it?”

  “He was the primary suspect.”

  “Your mother thought he did it?”

  He nodded.

  The single wiper futilely battled the onslaught of rain as Walter pieced together all that he had heard until he came to a realization. He applied the brake and brought the car to a halt in the middle of the chaos. “Manory, what are we doing?”

  “We are being paid to investigate a death threat, of course.”

  “So, we are working for a... We are working for the worst possible member of society.”

  “That is one way of putting it.”

  “This is the kind of person we investigate. This is not the kind of person we take on as a client. If someone killed Robert Lasciva, it would be no great loss to the world. We can’t go through with this, Rowan.”

  “Do you not believe in innocent before proven guilty?”

  “There’s a finite point when that concept is no longer useful. Don’t you believe in justice?”

  Rowan stared Walter down. He grimaced. “No. I believe in the law.”

  “Technically, bootlegging is against the law.”

  Rowan jabbed his cigarette into the ashtray. “Let us not fool ourselves, my friend. One reason for taking this case is that our firm is in trouble. My incompetence during the Tommy Brent case—”

  “Boss, you mustn’t continue to blame yourself.”

  “My utter incompetence has caused irreparable harm and as a result, we have been on holiday for five months. We need the business.” Rowan rolled another cigarette and absently twisted the butt end. “However, there is another reason. Irene Roberts was taken in by friends of the family, an old German couple. I paid a visit to the wife. Thirteen years ago Irene Roberts was murdered.” He struggled to articulate his next thought. It was as if he could not bear the existence of his fear. Often, in lieu of these premonitions, Rowan would offer something generic to replace the conclusion his mind leaned toward. “There are some questions I have and I feel the answers are high on this rid
ge.”

  The detectives sat quietly.

  Walter finally spoke. “I think I understand. We’re being paid to investigate a death threat, but we’re taking the case for another reason entirely.”

  “That is another way of putting it.”

  Rowan’s vision shifted to the distance. Another flash of lightning temporarily illuminated the treetops. A large network of cylindrical barrels was suspended high in the tallest trees by ropes. The moonshine operation in Vicksburg had thwarted the weather and moved above the flood. This creative solution delighted him.

  And so, man becomes a monkey. Surely this is devolution at its most poetic.

  “Okay, Manory. I think it’s a horrible idea, but I’m on board. Why didn’t you tell me all of this before we left?”

  “You would have tried harder to stop me from coming. Remember, my friend, I asked you to stay in Chicago. You refused. If you do not take my advice, you cannot complain.”

  “If I don’t go with you then no one will have any fun.”

  “That is an excellent point that I have duly noted. Now drive, Williams. No more stopping. We are too late for the dinner, but perhaps we are not too late for the murder.”

  chapter 5

  GUESTS

  Jack Tellum’s mind blanked and his narration came to a halt. A hint of inner fury appeared. “Will you stop prancing around, Paulie? You’re like a fly in an outhouse.”

  Paul Daniels stubbed out his seventh consecutive cigarette and promptly lit his eighth. Covered by a double-breasted white suit, the lawyer’s slight, wispy frame ambulated back and forth along the library’s wall of books as if looking for an exit. He bowed to Charles and Margaret. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to interrupt such a fascinating tale. And it was just getting good too. Any minute now, we’ll arrive at the thrilling denouement. Jack’s going to wrap the whole thing up with a great big bow. Aren’t you, Jack? The suspense is killing me.” He sat on the only empty sofa and crossed his legs. The cigarette dangled from his index and middle fingers with the lit end precariously close to the armrest. “Please, continue.”

  Charles and Margaret Lasciva, ensconced on the library’s center sofa, did not pay Daniels any mind. Their attention rested solely on the squat mass of flesh that was Jack Tellum. Robert Lasciva’s nephew identified Tellum as the most dangerous thing in the room and suspected him capable of committing sudden acts of unprovoked violence. Charles envisioned elaborate scenarios where Tellum would turn on him with rage. His imaginative thoughts concluded with his death at the hands of the brute each and every time.

  Tellum patted down his sweaty skull with a handkerchief. “One day you’ll go too far, Paulie. One day it’ll be too much sauce.” He turned his head and upper torso to Margaret. “Yeah, well, where was I?”

  Margaret held an exceedingly labored smile. “The crowbar?”

  “That’s right.” He drank from his flask. “The crowbar is on the table and I’m two seconds from using it. Jerry says to me – and the whole time he’s sticking out his chest like a dog trying to get some – so, he says, ‘I’m taking the gin today and it’s gonna be for the same price.’ I couldn’t believe it.”

  Margaret gently elbowed her husband in the ribs.

  “Very presumptuous,” said Charles, displaying a ghost of a grin.

  “Yeah, well, you Brits say ‘presumptuous’ but I’d say the guy was begging for a closed casket at his funeral. That’s when Paulie steps in to teach me about diplomacy. Paulie, weighing all of a buck twenty—”

  “A buck sixty,” Daniels corrected him with a slight lisp in his voice.

  “Yeah well, big bad Paulie steps in and looks this pill dead in the eyes. He goes, ‘Perhaps I might be able to elucidate the scenario’ or some such nonsense. And he does. He explains to the guy what it would mean to his future business prospects and what would happen to his family. The man abided.”

  “And you didn’t have to beat him to death with the crowbar,” said Daniels.

  “Yeah, well, that’s why I love you, Paulie.” A tingling sensation caused Tellum’s head to momentarily feel weightless. He bit the skin of his bottom lip. “Brother is it hot.”

  Daniels pointed his cigarette at Charles. “Wasn’t that a good story? Aren’t you glad you stayed around until the end?”

  Charles tightened his grip on Margaret’s hand. “It sounds like everything worked itself out.” He stammered for a few seconds and then looked to his wife.

  Margaret cleared her throat. “Temperance is such a childish idea. One need only read an American newspaper to realize how terribly ineffective the whole thing is. There is the occasional talk of it in England, mostly from fundamentalist types. Cooler heads always prevail. Of course, we have a much longer history. They say the States haven’t had the time to learn these kinds of lessons. What is your opinion on the matter, Mr. Daniels?”

  Paul Daniels held his cigarette inches from his mouth for a few seconds. “And I thought we were boring. Jesus Christ.”

  Tellum snapped his fingers. “Be nice, Paulie.”

  Daniels hopped off the sofa and looked out the window. He checked his pocket watch. “Where is Mr. Manory?”

  “This man we’re waiting on, he’s a friend of Uncle Robert?” asked Charles

  “He’s Bob’s best friend. They haven’t seen each other for a long time,” said Tellum. “A long time.”

  Daniels walked away from the window and tapped his foot. He checked his watch a second time. “Say, Jack, do you think I could get a drink of your panther piss?”

  Tellum nodded. A bead of sweat ran down his bald head and settled on the bridge of his nose. He poured a glass of the ruddy brown liquor from his flask and handed it to Daniels. “This will put some hair on your liver.”

  Margaret began, “If you don’t mind my asking—”

  “Why would we mind you asking?” said Tellum with his obligatory menace.

  “What is panther piss? It doesn’t sound very refreshing.”

  Daniels said, “It’s a bootleg whiskey, stronger than the real thing, right, Jack?”

  “That’s right.”

  Daniels drew a heavy breath. He raised the glass to Charles. “I suppose you could say I’m taking the piss, old boy.”

  The nephew only offered a curious befuddlement.

  Daniels shouted as if Charles had not heard him. “I said, ‘I’m going to take the piss.’”

  Charles stuttered, “Cheers.”

  The lawyer closed his eyes and drank.

  “Attaboy,” said Tellum.

  “Oooohh. No good. It’s too sweet.” Daniels went to the table and poured a glass of vodka from a decanter. He drank the entire glass in one gulp and then repeated the action twice more.

  “Yeah, well, you need to relax. It’s going to be a long weekend.”

  Daniels perched himself next to Charles and Margaret. “And here I thought I was Robert’s best friend. You think you know everything about someone and then one day,” he smiled at Tellum, “they have a few other chapters you’ve never read.”

  Margaret played with her necklace. “Mr. Tellum? You were joking, surely? You wouldn’t have really killed that man?”

  The toad regarded her without expression.

  Daniels giggled. “Did you just clutch your pearls? We’ll get Chuck a monocle to drop and you folks will be all set.” He walked back to the window. “Jesus Christ, where is Rowan Manory?”

  Margaret whispered in Charles’s ear and they stood together. “If you gentlemen will excuse us, I think we’ll go outside for a spot of fresh air.”

  “In this weather?” asked Daniels.

  Charles laughed. “Oh, we’re used to the rain. In England—”

  “Yeah, well, don’t go anywhere,” said Tellum.

  “We weren’t planning on—”

  “Just don’t go anywhere.”

  “Of course not.”

  The couple held their smiles until they reached the hallway and then scurried to the left, out the fr
ont door, and onto the porch.

  The rain showed no signs of stopping. It beat down heavily on the porch’s metallic eave and created a rattling series of bangs.

  Charles tugged his hair and stamped his feet. “Oh, God. Oh, Jesus. What have we done?”

  Margaret stood perfectly still and spoke in a low, calm voice. “You’re going to take it from a boil to a simmer, Charles. Don’t ruin this for us.”

  He stumbled to the edge of the porch and stared past the ridge. The drowned remains of Vicksburg lay visible in the valley below. “I can’t take it anymore. This was a terrible idea.”

  “It’s a brilliant idea and we will go through with it. Listen to me.” She turned him round, straightened his tie, and patted down the wrinkles on his collar with her long, smooth hands. “It’s only a few more days. By Tuesday, we’ll be rid of Robert and we’ll never see him or any of his friends again.”

  “We shouldn’t have come. There’s no way we’ll get out alive.”

  “Look at me.”

  He lifted his eyes to meet hers. The light from the windows reflected faintly off her pupils.

  “Have I ever led us astray?”

  Charles took his wife’s hand and kissed it. “Why can’t we do it tonight? If I have to stay here three more days with these lunatics, I’ll go crazy.”

  “Mad, Charles. You’ll go mad.”

  “Did you hear the way he talked to me? If he catches on to us, it’s all over. He has a gun.”

  “We can play it by ear. When the other guests arrive, we’ll go to bed early and wait for an opportunity.”

  As the couple talked on the porch, their conversation could be faintly heard inside the billiard room.

  Ruth Martice was in front of the window, listening as she calmly bit the skin around her fingernails. The secretary had been waiting for the Model T to arrive but now found herself intrigued by the drama playing out in front of her.