Kopp Sisters on the March

by Amy Stewart

  Fleurette had talked about nothing but this concert for weeks. Was it possible that Freeman Bernstein’s name had never come up in Roxie’s presence?

  Constance couldn’t remember. It hardly mattered, at this point.

  She slipped behind the fence and ran up the trail, swinging her lantern and calling for Roxie. The clearing was empty and utterly silent, save for the faint sounds of Clarence’s piano drifting over from the mess hall.

  Would it do any good to go deeper into the woods? If that girl didn’t want to be found, she could easily stay hidden.

  Constance knew she couldn’t draw her out by shouting, so she kept her voice soft.

  “Roxie, if you can hear me, just let me take you somewhere safe for the night. You can stay in the infirmary again. Tomorrow this will all be cast in a different light. Mr. Bernstein will be gone, and we can decide what’s best for you. If you want to go home, I’ll arrange your ticket myself.”

  Not a sound. Nothing but laughter and music from across the way.

  “I’m going back to the show,” Constance said. “If you’re here, come find me. Don’t stay out all night in the cold and the damp. We’ll look after you.”

  She waited another minute to let that sink in. She listened for a crackle of dead leaves, the snap of a twig, a soft footstep in the mud. The noise of the crowd died down a little—May Ward must’ve come to a quiet verse in one of her songs—and Constance held her breath, hoping for any sound that might betray a girl in hiding.

  That’s when she heard it, from across the camp: the ring of a hammer, coming down hard. It could’ve been the front gate, it could’ve been a fence post—she didn’t know, but she ran toward it.

  Another hit, just as Constance reached the fence, muffled this time behind an audience singing along to a chorus. It wasn’t coming from the gate, but from somewhere in the center of camp.

  Crack! came the next hit, as she drew closer. What on earth was that girl pounding on? It could be a trunk in any one of the tents. It could be the medicine cabinet in the infirmary—and that was easy enough to check, so she jogged past it. Still dark and deserted.

  There wasn’t another sound after that, but it occurred to Constance that if a hammer was involved, it must’ve come from the supply shed.

  She picked up her skirts and ran toward it, flying, really, her boots hardly touching the ground. She knew what was hidden in that shed.

  May Ward was leading the audience in a rousing rendition of “America the Beautiful.” There was no time to go to the shed: if Roxie had a gun, she could be headed straight for the mess hall, and all two hundred campers.

  “Hack!” Constance called as she tore around the corner. But the mess hall was unguarded.

  Constance ducked inside and saw nothing out of the ordinary. May Ward was on stage with her chorus. Fleurette stood right next to her. The audience was on its feet, singing and clapping in time with the music. Constance ran along the edge of the crowd to see if Freeman was seated in the front row. He wasn’t.

  Norma was, however. When she saw Constance duck in and bolt out again, she jumped up and followed her.

  Roxie had to be right back where she started: in that makeshift dressing-room tent with Freeman Bernstein.

  Constance flew around the back of the mess hall and practically threw herself into the tent. Roxie had only just stepped inside. Constance hit her with such force that they both fell face-down into an unyielding wooden platform. Constance heard the crunch of breaking bone, but it wasn’t hers.

  The gun went off in Roxie’s hand, and Freeman Bernstein screamed.

  38

  THE LAST TIME Beulah saw Freeman was in the much shabbier hotel room to which she had been shifted after the verdict was announced. He claimed that reporters had discovered her, leaving him no choice but to stow her away in a less prominent location. It was obvious, though, that he didn’t wish to pay to keep her in a comfortable suite charged to his account any longer. At the new hotel, she paid for the room herself, using a few crumpled bills he pressed into her hand, the implication being that the responsibility for the hotel charges now rested more with her than him.

  She found herself sequestered in a narrow single room with nothing but a twin bed and a writing desk. The window permitted no sunlight: it looked out across an air shaft to a brick wall. She was obliged to share a toilet down the hall with the other women on her floor, all of whom came and went so infrequently that she rarely saw them. She might as well have been in jail, for all the comfort her lodgings provided.

  After a week in this dismal room, Freeman arrived to tell her, with a resigned, hang-dog look, that no theater, whether a live stage or moving picture, would allow any sort of performance connected to Beulah Binford. Ladies had formed committees. Town ordinances had been passed, even in places Freeman never intended to send her. It had become fashionable to banish her, as a way of taking a stand against indecency.

  “I think you’re up against it, sweetheart,” Freeman said, chomping on a wet cigar. “I don’t know just why New York has gotten on its hind-most moral legs at this late date when it stood for Nan Patterson and others I have booked.”

  “Why do you keep talking about Nan Patterson? She was nothing like me. She shot a man!”

  “That was never proven,” he said hastily. “I mean to say that if Nan was welcomed back to the stage after a scandal, there’s no reason to push you out. I speak as a practical theatrical man, not as a moralist, but I do stand for consistency.”

  “Well, what are we to do about it now?” She’d been in New York for three weeks, and had yet to see a penny of the salary she’d been promised.

  “I think we let ’em cool off, girlie,” Freeman said. “Give it a year. Maybe we try for that photoplay later. I know the best fellow in the business. He’ll write your story, and we’ll get a girl who can play you beautifully. It’ll be grand.” He turned to leave, as if he couldn’t wait to go speak to that fellow about a photoplay.

  “If she’s playing me, then what am I doing?” Beulah called.

  Freeman’s hand was already on the doorknob. “Listen, sweetheart. I can’t carry you for another year. I’ve already put myself to considerable expense on your behalf. No one wants to see you get rich as much as Freeman Bernstein does. But you’re too hot right now. Find yourself a nice office job. You’re paid up here through the end of the month. There’s plenty of respectable houses where a girl can rent a room. Go find one of those, and live a quiet life.”

  He opened the door. “And stay away from married men, why don’t you?”

  He was gone before she could say a word. Beulah never saw him again.

  39

  THE GUN WENT OFF, uselessly, into the damp earth beneath the tent. Beulah’s face, however, did not enjoy such a soft landing. She hit the wooden platform at full force and saw stars. Her nose felt the way it did when she inhaled a full head of bath water as a little girl. She tried to breathe out of her mouth, but with Constance’s full weight on her, she could only cough and sputter.

  She felt the gun being jerked out of her hand. After a little fumbling around, Constance shifted off her and pulled her wrists behind her back.

  Beulah would’ve laughed if she could even take a breath. “Are you about to put me into handcuffs?”

  “I was thinking about it,” Constance admitted. That’s when Beulah knew with certainty that she used to be a cop.

  Beulah felt herself yanked up to her knees, which allowed the blood to run right out of her nose, and also put her directly in front of Freeman Bernstein, who was crumpled on the floor and staring at her with an expression of wild-eyed terror.

  It might’ve been worth it, Beulah thought, just to see him looking like that.

  She craned her neck around—although Constance did not, in fact, possess any handcuffs, she held Beulah’s wrists behind her as if she did—and saw Norma standing just inside the tent flap, huffing a little from having dashed in behind her sister. Now there were four of them,
but there was no question as to who was in charge. All eyes were on Constance.

  She pulled Beulah to her feet and spun her around. Norma gasped when she took in the ghoulishness that was Beulah’s face. Constance was unmoved.

  “It’s only a broken nose.” Constance pushed a handkerchief against Beulah’s face and turned to Norma. “I’m going to take this girl to the infirmary. You stay here and keep an eye on him. Don’t let anyone else in.”

  “You can’t hold me here!” Freeman said, scrambling to his feet. “I was nearly killed, and now I’m to be arrested? You might be able to subdue a man like me, Miss Kopp, but your sister damn well couldn’t.”

  Constance thought about that for a minute and looked down at the pistol in her hand. She passed it to Norma, who took it without expression, as if she handled a gun every day.

  “You will stay here,” Constance said to Freeman, “and you will not say a word. Norma has the gun.”

  That seemed to settle it.

  Constance stepped outside with her arm around Beulah. Hack came running toward them. Campers were already streaming out of the mess hall, having been excited by the gunshot.

  “I went to look for—” Hack was panting from the exertion. “This one.”

  Beulah turned her head away. She didn’t like a young man to see her like that.

  “Never mind,” Constance said. “Listen to me. You are to stand outside this tent. Don’t let anyone in or out. Not even May Ward. Do you understand?”

  Hack straightened a little. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “If anyone asks about the gunshot, tell them . . .” Constance paused. Beulah could see her debating with herself. She wouldn’t order him to lie. “Tell them it was a misfire, and no one was hurt.”

  Hack didn’t flinch. “Yes, ma’am,” he repeated. “I can see that much for myself.”

  “Good. We’re going to the infirmary. If you see Nurse Cartwright, send her over. Don’t move until I come back.”

  It was quite a sensation to be tucked up under Constance’s arm when she was giving orders, much like leaning up against an engine when it starts. Constance moved under considerable power. Beulah yielded to it and allowed herself to be swept along, limp as a rag doll.

  Constance spoke into the top of her head as they marched up to the infirmary. “You’re going to tell me everything, and you’re going to do it tonight.”

  Beulah could offer nothing but a cough in response to that.

  “We’ll get your nose set, and then you’ll tell me,” Constance said.

  Beulah managed to ask, “Is it broken?”

  “Oh, certainly,” Constance said. “But a nose is nothing. It’ll be good as new.”

  They were only in the infirmary tent for a few minutes before the nurse bustled in.

  “I am the guilty party,” Constance said. “Let’s get her fixed up and bandaged, then I’ll need a few minutes alone with her.”

  “Certainly,” said Nurse Cartwright, equally unable to resist Constance’s crisp orders.

  What followed was too unpleasant for Beulah to form a definitive memory of. There was a slug of the nurse’s anesthetizing tonic, followed by a great deal of gauze over her face, and Constance’s hand in hers so that she could squeeze as hard as she liked, and another terrible whack to the nose, this one twice as painful as the last, because the nose had begun to swell and throb by then. After that, a few caustic and foul-smelling ointments were applied, a bandage was wrapped all the way around her head, and she was eased down into that familiar well-cushioned hospital bed.

  Beulah gave a little cough in hopes of another round of medicinal brandy, but was offered only tea and aspirin. She wanted neither, but Constance insisted.

  “I’ll take one of each,” Constance said, having refused any other attention from the nurse over the injuries she might’ve inflicted upon herself when she threw Beulah down.

  As soon as they were alone—and Constance had taken a look outside after the nurse left, to be sure she wasn’t lingering around the infirmary—she settled into Nurse Cartwright’s chair and put her questions to Beulah.

  “Let’s start with your name, dear.”

  “You know my name! It’s Roxanna Collins.”

  Constance looked cross at that and took Beulah’s tea away, which pained Beulah a little. It had been lovely and warm between her hands.

  “You’re out of time, and you’ve exhausted my patience. That name never did fit you. Tell me the real one, or we’ll bring Mr. Bernstein in here and let him tell us.”

  Beulah had forgotten, already, that the man who knew her secrets was only just down the hill. Could Norma really stop him from talking? Beulah decided that she could: she’d seemed quite at home with that pistol.

  “All right, then,” Beulah said. “I’m surprised you haven’t guessed it already. I’m Beulah Binford.”

  Constance snorted and wiped the tea from her chin. “Don’t play games.”

  “How do you suppose I know Freeman Bernstein?”

  Constance sat back in her chair and stared. “I wish I could take that bandage off and have another look at you.”

  “Don’t you remember the pictures?”

  “Not particularly. It’s been so long. But I’m surprised Norma didn’t recognize you.” Constance was still staring at her with such intensity that Beulah wanted to pull the covers over her head.

  “That was six years ago. It was an old picture even then. I’ve lost my baby face, and I changed my hair.”

  “I suppose you would have. But what are you doing here?”

  “What do you think? I wanted to go to France.”

  Constance stared up at the top of the tent pole. “Beulah Binford wants to serve her country,” she mused.

  “Don’t you go writing headlines,” Beulah snapped. “I only wanted to get away. It hasn’t been easy all these years.”

  “Have you been in New York the whole time?” Constance asked.

  “How did you know I was in New York?”

  “You claim to live there, or was that a lie, too? But I do remember that story just two or three years ago. ‘Beulah Binford Makes Good at the Telephone Company,’ something like that. They went through exactly what you were paid, and how much it cost you for room and board and subway fare, and wondered if you’d be able to live an upright life on so little, or if you’d fall prey to the first man with money in his pocket.”

  “Yes, well, that story was the end of the telephone company job, as they also happened to mention that I was working there under an assumed name. You can only imagine the clever little lady supervisors doing their detective work.”

  “Oh, I can imagine it,” Constance said mildly. “Now, what have you got against Freeman Bernstein? I do know that he managed you. Norma was very eager to remind me of that last year, when Fleurette joined up with May Ward.”

  “Why, because it shows what a shady character he is?” Beulah asked. “I suppose Norma didn’t want Fleurette associating with anyone who associated with Beulah Binford.”

  “It might’ve been something like that. But Norma was proven wrong. Mr. Bernstein did Fleurette no harm.”

  “Well, I can’t say the same.” There were tears in her eyes, unbidden, that rolled into the bandage across her face. Now her nose was starting to swell again, and to throb unbearably.

  Constance put a hand on hers. “I’m not going to make you tell it all tonight. But didn’t you expect to see Mr. Bernstein? Surely you knew he was married to May Ward.”

  “I didn’t,” Beulah insisted. “He mentioned a wife on the stage, but I thought she’d be named Bernstein.”

  “But the two of them were in the papers together all the time. You must’ve kept up with him.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t bear to look at a paper after . . .” She choked and put a handkerchief to her mouth.

  “I’ve heard enough,” Constance said. “I can guess at the rest. I’m going to call Nurse Cartwright back in here, and I’ll put Clarence on guard duty outside
the infirmary all night long. I suggest you go right on being Roxanna Collins for the moment.”

  “What’s the use? The entire camp knows by now,” Beulah groaned, “and you’re only going to show me the gate in the morning.”

  “If Norma’s held fast, the entire camp doesn’t know yet,” Constance said. “How do you suppose she’s handled Mr. Bernstein?”

  Beulah would’ve smiled, but the bandage wouldn’t allow it. “I haven’t heard another gunshot, but I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “Nor would I. Get some sleep. We’ll sort you out in the morning.”

  40

  BEULAH KNEW WHERE Nurse Cartwright kept the extra blankets, and she just happened to remember that a spare bottle of brandy was stored in the same cupboard. She took one of each—a blanket, and a generous and (to her mind) well-deserved slug of brandy—while Constance and Nurse Cartwright murmured outside the infirmary. When the nurse returned Beulah feigned sleep, having already made herself entirely comfortable.

  She would explain herself to the nurse in the morning. There would be a great deal of explaining in the morning, and decisions to be made about her future. Under any other circumstance she would’ve stayed awake all night worrying about it, but firing that shot at Freeman Bernstein had cleared her head remarkably. There was a rousing finality to that gunshot, even if the bullet had only gone into the ground. (Was it lodged there forever, or would someone dig it out? Beulah thought she might like to have it as a souvenir.)

  Whatever news the morning would bring, Beulah felt that she had, improbably, brought the darkest chapter of her life to an end. Her misfortunes, it now occurred to her, had begun with a bullet. Perhaps it was true all along that a bullet was the only way to end them. If she’d known that, she would’ve fired off a near-miss in Freeman Bernstein’s general direction years ago.

  With the benefit of hindsight (for she now viewed the last several years as an epoch that had ended and could be put upon a shelf and studied from a distance), she knew that her situation could’ve been much worse. She emerged, as it were, unscathed—which is to say that after everything Henry Clay inflicted upon her, he did not leave her with what Louise’s mother called the “evidence of his sin.”