Death at the Tavern

by Lee Strauss

  “We’re some of the fortunate ones,” Ben said. “Our soil is staying put. Those poor fellas in the Midwest are watching their farms blow away in the wind.”

  What they didn’t talk about, what they never talked about, was their brother Joseph and his violent death.

  Brother Harley-James was a safer topic.

  “We haven’t heard a peep from him,” Lorene said. “Not that we get much for mail other than bills these days.”

  Haley commiserated. “I just hope he’s keeping out of trouble.”

  Ben scoffed. “Knowing HJ, I doubt it.”

  It was true. Harley-James had been the one who got into schoolyard scraps and had frequent after school detentions. He was the one who’d gotten into bad company and trouble with the law.

  Not Joseph. Joseph was thoughtful and kind, the type of fellow who’d give a stranger the shirt off his back.

  It shouldn’t have been Joseph.

  Haley swallowed back the bitterness.

  They finished their meal and Molly started to clear the table.

  “Delicious meal, Molly,” Lorene said. “Thank you.”

  Ben patted his stomach. “Yes, thank you.”

  “Would you like tea or coffee?” Haley asked.

  “Actually, we should hit the road,” Ben said. “We hate to eat and run, but the cows need milking.”

  “Of course,” Haley said. “I completely understand. It was so nice of you to drop in.”

  As the couple was preparing to make their departure, Lorene gave Ben a long look. “Oh,” Ben said, “I need to check the oil. You ladies can visit a little longer.”

  Ben disappeared abruptly, leaving Haley, Lorene, and Molly standing in his wake. Molly, being the intuitive type, excused herself. “I’ve got to get those dishes washed.”

  Haley guided Lorene to the living room and motioned for her to sit. She asked kindly, “Is everything all right? You seem bothered about something.”

  Even though they were alone in the room, Lorene leaned forward and lowered her voice. “The real reason we came into town was to see a ladies’ doctor. Ben and I want a family. We’ve been married for almost three years and nothing.” The look on her softly lined face grew earnest. “You’re a doctor, Haley. Is there anything I can do? Ben wants a son.”

  Haley sympathized with the desperation in her sister-in-law’s eyes. Barrenness was a terrible burden. Unfortunately, there weren’t any miracle cures.

  “Stress doesn’t help,” she said. “Try to relax.”

  “But how can I? I want a baby!”

  The desire for motherhood resonated from Lorene in desperate waves.

  Haley gently asked her, “Have you considered adoption?”

  Lorene sighed. “We really want a child of our own. But, it’s been so long, and I’m not getting any younger. I’ll discuss the possibility with Ben.”

  Haley reassured her sister-in-law that this was a good idea. With the Depression worsening, more and more children were being abandoned and neglected with fewer families willing to take them in.

  Ben knocked on the door and called for his wife. Lorene pinched back tears and took a deep breath. The window of emotional intimacy closed and propriety took its place. “Thank you so much for your hospitality, Haley,” he said. “Dinner was fabulous.”

  As Haley waved them off she couldn’t help but feel like she’d failed somehow.

  She escaped to her home office where she spent time studying when not at work. It was a sanctuary of sorts, and she purposely hadn’t installed a telephone. The top of her small ornate wooden desk was cleared off, with only a reading lamp and the latest science magazine sitting upon it. Haley picked up a putting iron propped up in one corner. The sparsely furnished room had space for another of her passions: golf, a sport she’d taken up a year after she’d moved back to Boston. The concentration needed to excel forced her to clear her mind of work and other worries. She set a golf ball on the artificial putting hole she’d set up in the middle of the room.

  The ringing of the telephone from the kitchen reached her just as she completed her fifth hole-in-one shot.

  Moments later Molly tapped on the door and stepped inside, her expression serious. “Detective Cluney wants you to meet him at twenty-nine Endicott. There’s been another death.”

  5

  The address Molly had given Haley would be a long walk to get to, so Haley started up the DeSoto and headed northeast to the edge of the Jewish neighborhood. She knew the place—no one in the North End didn’t. Madame Mercier’s “home of ill repute” was quite renowned and somehow managed to break a dozen laws without the hammer coming down. This included gambling, imbibing of alcohol, and of course, intimate relations for a fee.

  Madame Mercier’s clientele had money and often prestige, and included members of the police and those who held public office. Detective Cluney said he’d called Haley instead of Dr. Guthrie because he knew Haley would be discreet. Detective Cluney didn’t know Dr. Guthrie well enough to say the same about him, and Haley didn’t yet know the answer to that either.

  The officer at the door told her the body was upstairs. Haley nodded and headed up.

  Housed in an old two-story townhouse, the brothel looked a lot better on the inside than out. While the bricks on the exterior crumbled, the décor on the inside—including the wallpaper, furniture, and area rugs—was a mix of deep reds and gold and was notably of good quality. While the outside of the house wouldn’t inspire a passing glance, the inside was designed to provoke the wealthy.

  Detective Cluney stood on the landing. “Thanks for coming this time of the evening.” His eyes widened at Haley’s windblown look. She pushed curls behind her ears. “You didn’t walk here, did you?” he said.

  “No. I drove my car. With the windows down.”

  Cluney snorted in approval. “The body’s in here.”

  Several women dressed in knee-length, thin silk or satin chemises, some trimmed with white or pink downy feathers, lined the hallway. Well-coiffed heads poked upward in an effort to see, with worry—real or pretend, Haley couldn’t tell—on their heavily made-up faces. One, Haley was surprised to notice, had a large, protruding stomach, and was obviously expecting a child.

  The room was also a mix of reds and gold with a wooden four-poster bed fitted with white sheets and a matching white summer quilt. Feathers littered the wooden dresser, the night table, and fell to the dark wood floor.

  A semi-naked girl lay on her back, a bullet hole to her head. Haley sighed. Two shooting deaths in one day.

  “What’s her name?”

  “They call her Snowflake,” Detective Cluney said, but the madam says the girl’s real name is Agnes O’Reilly.”

  Haley put her black medical bag on the floor, removed her gloves, and took the girl’s wrists. Her body was warm to the touch. The room itself was overly warm, which made it difficult to pinpoint the time of death.

  “Looks like a trick gone wrong,” Detective Cluney announced. He removed a hankie from his suit pocket and mopped his face. He returned the used piece of linen to its home then removed his straw hat.

  “Detective, who found the body?” she asked.

  A female voice answered, “Chantilly.”

  The woman, who appeared to be in her forties, entered the room. Unlike the girls lining the hall, she wore a full-length Japanese kimono tied snugly around a narrow waist. Her blond hair showed signs of gray and the lines around her eyes and lips were well established. Despite this, she was a very attractive woman.

  Haley wagered a guess. “Madame Mercier?”

  “Zee von and only.” The woman’s French accent was not Parisian. After her time in France during the war, Haley knew a continental French accent when she heard one. French Canadian maybe? Or possibly she was from the French Quarter of New Orleans.

  Madame Mercier held Haley’s gaze in a manner that projected that she was the one in charge in this house. She looked away before making strides toward the electric fan, but
Haley stopped her. “No, please. Don’t turn it on. It could ruin the evidence.”

  “Verry vell.” She folded her arms defiantly over her chest. “As I said, Chantilly found Snowflake.”

  “Bring this Chantilly gal in,” Detective Cluney directed.

  Chantilly—not her real name Haley assumed—was a slight woman with dull eyes and crimson lips. Detective Cluney cleared his throat, and Haley was amused to see his neck reddening with discomfort.

  “Hello,” Haley said kindly. “I’m Dr. Higgins. We understand you found Snowflake. Can you tell us what happened leading up to your discovery?”

  Chantilly’s slender hand reached for her throat. “I wanted to ask her something, she was my friend, you see, and I knew she had, uh, a guest. So I waited. But when time went on, and she never came out, I tried the door. It wasn’t locked, so I went in.”

  Detective Cluney found his voice. “Did you touch anything?”

  “Only the pillow.”

  “What pillow?”

  “The one on her face.”

  Haley and the detective shared a look. There was one pillow on the bed, and Haley pointed to it. “That pillow?”

  “No, ma’am.” Chantilly glanced at another pillow now partially under the bed. “It must’ve fallen to the floor. I lifted it off her face, and that’s when I started screaming. I must’ve dropped it then.”

  Haley leaned over to look under the bed and saw the edge of the pillow there. She grabbed it and lifted it. A big, round hole was blown through the middle of it.

  “That would account for all the feathers,” she said.

  Detective Cluney stated the obvious. “The killer held the pillow over her face and shot her clear through it.” He stepped into the hallway. “Anyone hear a gunshot?”

  Haley couldn’t see the girls but guessed they shook their heads in the negative when the detective repeated his question.

  “No one?” he bellowed.

  “Vee make a habit of playing ze gramophone at a raazer high volume,” Madame Mercier purred in her French accent. “For privacy’s sake.”

  “The pillow would’ve muffled the gunshot,” Haley said.

  Detective Cluney called for one of his officers. “Get the body to the morgue.”

  Haley scanned the room looking for a gun. Something glinted from the light of the gas lamp. Haley picked up the item, held it between two fingers and showed it to Detective Cluney.

  “It’s a bullet casing,” she said. “We should get it to the police lab for examination.” By we, Haley meant him, but the nuance was lost on the detective.

  “Knock yourself out.” He said it in a way that made Haley believe that not much was going to be done to find Snowflake’s killer. Prostitutes weren’t worth spending taxpayer’s money on.

  Once the body was removed, there’d be no need for staying behind, but Haley was reluctant to go. No matter what this girl had done for a living, she was a human being who deserved justice. There had to be a clue somewhere. She scoured the room, wishing she had a photographic memory

  A commotion came from the bottom of the stairs, and a familiar voice reached her.

  “Is Dr. Higgins here?”

  Haley hurried to the landing and stared at the blond woman fighting her way past the officer at the door. “I’m with the Boston Daily Record, and I insist you let me see the doctor if she’s here.”

  Haley noted the messenger bag strapped over Miss Hawke’s shoulder, and that she also carried another bulkier case. “Please let her in.”

  “I must insist that she doesn’t!” Madame Mercier said. “I can’t have theese unfortunate event become a story in the papers. It’s bad for business!”

  “She won’t write a story, I promise,” Haley said, ignoring Samantha Hawke’s sharp look. She motioned for the journalist to come up. Without a greeting, she said quietly. “I don’t suppose you have a camera in there.”

  “I do. It’s just a box camera. It doesn’t have a flash.”

  The long days of June meant there would be sufficient light to make the photographs.

  “It’ll do. Please, as fast as you can, take pictures. They’ll be here soon to move the body, and then the scene will be compromised.”

  Haley was pleased to see that Miss Hawke didn’t faint at the sight of blood or become rattled by the dead body in the room. Some people could write about violence but were unable to stomach it in real life.

  Once Miss Hawke had her gear ready, Haley gave instructions. “The body, of course, several angles please, then the room from all four corners.

  Just as they heard the gurney knocking about as it was lifted up the stairs, they finished the deed.

  “Good,” Haley said. “We can go.”

  Samantha Hawke packed the camera. “Are you going to explain to me why I’m not writing a story?”

  “In my car. I’ll drive you home.”

  “Uh, that’s not necessary.”

  Haley heard the hesitation in Miss Hawke’s voice. “It’ll save you taxi fare. Plus, I want to know how you happened upon Madame Mercier’s abode when murder had been committed.”

  * * *

  The last thing Samantha wanted was for Dr. Higgins to learn where she lived. It was hard enough to get the respect of your peers, much less someone as sophisticated and educated as Dr. Haley Higgins.

  “No, really,” she said. “It’s fine. I was visiting a friend and saw the police. I came out of curiosity.” Even to Samantha’s ears, her words sounded like an excuse. She couldn’t very well say that she lived one street over in a run-down tenement building and had seen the police lights from her living room window. She’d almost had to fight Bina off when she grabbed her bags and headed out.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed and then what will happen to us!” she’d declared. “You’re meshugge.” Crazy. “Your child will be an orphan!”

  “I’ll be fine,” Samantha had insisted. When her adrenaline was up, she always felt invincible. “I won’t be long, I promise.”

  She’d better keep that promise if she didn’t want to spend the night listening to Bina’s reprimands, first in English and again in Yiddish.

  She spoke quickly to Dr. Higgins. “I’ll develop the film tomorrow and deliver the photographs to the morgue myself. I have to go. Bye!” She scampered into the deepening twilight before the doctor could protest.

  Samantha ran through the alley, her bravado dissipating with the hot breeze that blew along the brick walls of the narrow street. Every snap or cat’s meow was a warning she wasn’t alone. She was relieved when she finally stepped into her tenement in one piece, with only Bina’s wrath to face.

  Bina sat in an armchair wearing her nightclothes with her hair in curlers and lips so tight they almost disappeared.

  “I’m back,” Samantha said. “You can go to bed now.”

  Bina’s scowl deepened as she pushed herself out of the chair. “I hope that was worth it,” she said, before disappearing into her room, her nose high with righteous indignation.

  Samantha checked on Talia. Her daughter looked like an angel sleeping there. Everything she did was for Talia’s sake. Even the risks she took. But Bina was right. She should be careful. Talia had already lost one parent.

  Thoughts of Seth Rosenbaum had Samantha unlocking the sideboard cupboard. She poured herself a short glass of bootlegged whiskey and pinched up her face as the poison burned its way down. If only she could afford the real stuff the rum runners brought to shore from Canada or Britain. This rot was from someone’s backyard bathtub. But it took the edge off and was better than nothing.

  Claiming her camera, Samantha snuck out the fire escape. Long ago she’d discovered the space in the attic above their apartment and had set up a makeshift darkroom there. So far no one had discovered it, and if they had, they’d left her chemicals and soaking trays alone. Before blocking the light with a thick woolen blanket, she turned on the large flashlight she’d equipped with a red bulb.

  Samantha could’v
e taken the film to the office and used the darkroom there, but then she’d have to explain what she had, and that would force her to break her promise to Dr. Higgins to not write a story. Samantha was one hundred percent sure news of the prostitute’s death wouldn’t make any of the city’s papers. The editors would call it a waste of ink. No, if she wanted this story, it had to be bigger than a bad trick. Something in her gut told her there was more to it than met the eye. Why else would Dr. Higgins be so keen on getting photographs?

  Samantha waited until the images bloomed on the white developing paper and then pinned them to the string she’d hung between the rafters. In the calming glow of the red illumination, she studied the photographs.

  There was a big story here. Samantha could feel it in her guts. If only she could see where.

  6

  The next morning, Haley found Dr. Guthrie sitting still at his desk. Haley’s pulse skipped a beat. Perhaps too still? The chief medical examiner was approaching his golden years, Haley guessed late sixties, and that was being conservative. She wondered again how an elderly foreigner had managed to snag this coveted position. He must have been well acquainted with someone in power. Haley didn’t know if she’d ever find out because she certainly wasn’t about to ask him.

  She tiptoed toward Dr. Guthrie whose pointy chin was resting on his chest. If the man was breathing, it was shallow.

  “Dr. Guthrie?”

  Haley tapped him on the shoulder, and the man jumped, startling them both.

  “What the dickens?” He seared her with a look of accusation. “What on earth possessed you to sneak up on me like that?”

  Haley blushed, feeling a little foolish. “You were asleep. I only meant to wake you.”

  “Well, I’m awake now. Perhaps you can make amends by making me a proper pot of tea. I gather you learned how to during your time in London living with the posh.”