The Boy in the Red Dress

by Kristin Lambert

  “And before you can blink, the papers will, too.” Marion buried his face in his hands. “The diary was supposed to help me. It wasn’t supposed to do . . . this. Everyone . . . everyone will know I was in the asylum.”

  “No one who matters will care about that, Marion.”

  “But I do.” He swept a hand down his body. “Marion Leslie is an illusion I’m selling up there on that stage. If everyone knows my past, how do I stand up there and pretend I’m glamorous and confident? When I look out there, all I’ll see is pity in their eyes.”

  I touched his jaw and made him look at me. “Marion, the club is your home. It’s my home. There’s not a single regular at the Cloak who hasn’t been thrown out of a home or beaten or ditched by their mother or been heckled on the street or just made to feel ashamed of who they are at some point in their lives. If anyone will understand, it’s us. If anyone will know where the true blame lies, it’s us.”

  Marion smiled weakly, his chin trembling.

  “But if you really want to,” I said slowly, “we still have one other choice. We destroy the box. Burn it. Then no one will ever know what the diary says about anyone.”

  Marion lowered his hands, and we both turned to look behind us at the box, where it still sat firmly shut on the kitchen table. In the courtyard where Arimentha died, there was a barrel where we could light a fire and turn the thing to ashes in half an hour. My heart panged at the prospect of never satisfying my curiosity about what was inside it, the possibility of never solving the mystery. But I’d do it if he asked me to.

  Marion took a deep, shuddery breath. Slowly, he shook his head. “That diary . . . it might be the only way we find this killer. We can’t destroy it just because I’m . . . I’m afraid.” He swallowed, and then his voice sounded stronger. “The murderer is still out there, and we don’t know why they killed her or whether they might do it again to someone else. If we can stop them, we’ve got to. If only for Minty’s sake.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t have to meet Sabatier tomorrow. All he’s got is that key, and if we burn the box, we don’t need it.” I didn’t bring up how he also had my beret and would probably throw me back in jail if I didn’t show up with that diary.

  Marion shook his head more firmly. “No.” He squeezed my hand. “You two open the box tomorrow. And when you read it, remember . . .” His voice thickened. His eyes met mine, shining and dark. “Whatever that book says about me, remember you know who I truly am.”

  An anxious twist spiraled up in my chest like a wisp of smoke. “How could I forget?”

  CHAPTER

  21

  THE NEXT DAY was the feast day of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, the patron saint of New Orleans, which meant sitting through yet another Mass, but also a half day off from school. Sabatier and I had arranged to meet at the K & B drugstore by the St. Charles and Napoleon streetcar stop, the one nearest Ursuline, at fifteen minutes past noon. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be seen in public with a cop, but I couldn’t bring him to my apartment with Marion there.

  Sabatier showed up looking more like a professor than a cop, in a tweed jacket with patched elbows and a gray porkpie hat.

  “What’s with you?” I said, gesturing to the getup.

  “Day off. And you—” He gestured to my uniform. “This again? You really like navy blue, huh?”

  I narrowed my eyes to slits. “This is my school’s choice, not mine.”

  Sabatier sat back on his stool, blinking. “I didn’t picture you going to school. You seem too—”

  “Mature?”

  “Independent,” Sabatier said. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the word he’d been thinking. I didn’t care for the bemused expression on his face, and I wasn’t there for chitchat.

  “You got the key?”

  His smile stiffened. “You got the box?”

  It was resting on my lap, and I didn’t offer it up. “Let me see the key first.”

  Sabatier reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and brought out the little brass key, pinched between his thumb and first finger. I made a move to snatch it, and he quickly folded it back inside his fist.

  “Miss Coleman,” he said warningly.

  “Mr. Sabatier. How are we going to do this? You don’t trust me, I don’t trust you, and both of us have plenty of reasons not to.”

  Sabatier looked around the drugstore, smoothing his mustache, which I was learning he did when he was thinking. His eyes stopped on the soda jerk behind the counter. “What about him?”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “What about him?”

  “I give him the key. You give him the box. He unlocks it for us and sets the diary right here on the counter between us.”

  “How do I know you won’t grab it and run out the door?”

  Sabatier gave me a look that said he judged me more likely to pull a stunt like that. And he was probably right. “We’ll both of us agree not to do that,” he said.

  I sighed. This could go round and round all day. Marion had said he was willing to take this chance. So I had to be willing, too. “Fine. I agree.”

  Sabatier looked pleased. He called the soda jerk over and told him what we wanted. The kid looked skeptical but consented to the job, so long as we ordered something and left a good tip.

  “Done,” Sabatier said. “I’d like a nectar ice cream soda.”

  “Me too.” I hooked a thumb at Sabatier and grinned. “He’s buying.”

  * * *

  The drink was a little too light on the nectar syrup, but I didn’t tell that to the soda jerk. He had the box in one hand and the key in the other, Marion’s fate in both.

  “What’s so important in here anyway?” he said, setting the box on top of the ice cream bins. “Your rich granddad’s last will and testament?”

  “Sure,” I said at the same time Sabatier said, “No.”

  The soda jerk rolled his eyes and twisted the key in that godforsaken lock. He lifted the lid, and I leaned sideways, trying to see around it.

  “Huh,” he said, clearly unimpressed. He picked up the book and studied it, a thick volume with brown leather covers worn at the corners and not a speck of gold in sight. Not what I’d pictured someone like Arimentha owning.

  “Just give it to me,” I said eagerly.

  “To us,” Sabatier corrected. “Put it down, please, right here on the counter.”

  He moved his soda to one side to make room.

  The soda jerk did as he was told and retreated, shaking his head, as both Sabatier and I reached for the book.

  “May I?” Sabatier said.

  I hesitated, took a breath, and let go of the corner I’d managed to grasp.

  He flipped open the cover, and we both stared. Someone had chopped out the first several pages with a sharp object, and only jagged edges remained. I ruffled the ends with my fingertips. More than several—the entire first quarter of the book.

  “Did you do this?” Sabatier said, his voice rising.

  “How? I couldn’t even get the box open!”

  “Maybe you were lying about that. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “If I could get into the box, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be sharing it with you at all.”

  “You would if this was a setup. Maybe this isn’t really her diary.”

  “Are you serious? What would be in it for me to plant a fake diary? Besides, I’m sure her room is chock-full of writing samples you could compare this with.”

  Sabatier’s shoulders dropped a fraction. “That’s true.”

  “Listen,” I said. “I never saw this book until thirty seconds ago, same as you. I, for one, want to see what it says, but if you don’t believe it’s real, then hand it over. I’ll be glad to take it home myself.”

  Sabatier clapped a hand flat on the remaining pages. “No.”

  “Then let’
s read it.”

  Sabatier nodded slowly and moved his hand back to the edge of the book. I dragged my stool closer and finally saw the words all this fuss had been about. The first intact entry was dated only eight months before, when Arimentha was still seventeen. There was no way of knowing how much time the missing pages had covered.

  May 14, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  Today I learned what really became of you. I came home—weeping, I admit—and in a fit of pique, I cut out every page I wrote in this diary before today and burned them to a sizzle in my bedroom fireplace. I wanted to erase what I’d done, but we both know nothing I ever do will be enough for that. I wish I could write you a letter, beg for your forgiveness, but I don’t know your address, or even if you’re still alive. So I’m writing you here.

  “See?” I said. “She burned them up herself!”

  “I see.” Sabatier looked at me keenly. “Do you know who this Robbie is?”

  It was fairly obvious to me who he was, though he’d never told me himself. I shook my head. “No idea.”

  Sabatier’s brows rose. “Really? Because a friend of Miss McDonough’s told me she went to your club that night to see an old friend named Robert Leveque. An old friend who now apparently goes by the alias Marion Leslie.”

  My mouth dropped open, and I quickly closed it into a scowl. Of course, one of the Uptowners had told him—probably that Symphony Cornice, who’d been more than happy to make Marion the bad guy. I’d stolen the photograph from Minty’s purse and hidden the necklace, all to keep the police from finding out how Minty and Marion were connected, but it had been a waste of time. It was foolish of me to assume none of Minty’s friends had known or recognized Marion. Of course, they had. Maybe they even hated him for leaving and breaking Minty’s heart, because she couldn’t have told them why he’d left without exposing him, and herself.

  The corners of Sabatier’s lips quirked as if he were trying not to smile. “I’m a better detective than you thought, Miss Coleman?”

  “No,” I said uncleverly. “Do you want to read the rest of this diary or what?”

  Sabatier riffled through the pages that remained—a hundred or more, I guessed, with writing on front and back. We’d be here for hours reading if Minty had filled the whole diary with her overly flourished handwriting.

  “Why don’t we start at the back?” Sabatier said. “See what she’s been up to the last couple of months.”

  If we found information about the murderer in the most recent entries, there would be no need to read the beginning. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  Sabatier flipped to the last third of the book and opened it flat, so I could see the page, too. We both leaned over the diary.

  October 20, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  You wouldn’t believe what I’ve got myself into now. You would laugh yourself silly at the irony. I didn’t think to begin it myself, but now that it’s begun, I’m rather enjoying myself. Do you know how they say when it rains, it pours? I’m finding that is true for kisses, too.

  October 24, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  My Romeo and Juliette situation continues. To be twice enthralled is such a delicious distraction from the way I’ve been feeling lately—when I am dancing or kissing or lying skin to skin, I can push away the doubts in my head telling me my very existence in the world is pointless. That I was somehow made wrong. How else would I have betrayed a friend the way I did?

  “Romeo and Juliette?” I said. “So she’s falling for somebody she’s supposed to hate?”

  “A political rival of her father’s, perhaps. Or she’s merely using ‘Romeo and Juliette’ to refer to romance in a more general way. I wonder if there’s a reason she’s using this spelling of Juliette? It’s usually J-u-l-i-e-t.”

  I didn’t have the foggiest idea how the name was usually spelled, and I doubted it mattered—Minty probably hadn’t known either. I tapped the page. “What does ‘twice enthralled’ mean? Double the . . . enthrallment?”

  Sabatier smoothed his mustache again. “Maybe she’s fallen back in love with someone from her past.”

  “Hmm.” The only boyfriend I knew of from her past was Philip Leveque. It certainly hadn’t sounded as if they were back together, but then again, that would’ve given her a reason to argue with Daphne the night of her murder. Also, a motive for Daphne or Philip to have killed her.

  The soda jerk appeared in front of us again and gestured to my empty glass. “You want another nectar ice cream soda?”

  “With more nectar this time.”

  “You, sir?”

  Sabatier shook his head and shoved his glass aside, though it was only half drunk. He tugged the diary closer to him, but I smacked a hand on it and shot him a look.

  “Don’t get greedy, Laurence.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  October 31, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  I was lonely tonight, even strutting around in my peacock costume—what a laugh and no one there to laugh at it with me! Remember how we used to call them all peacocks and peahens at these parties—all flash and no brains?

  Thinking of it put me in a melancholy mood, and I drank too much and, well . . . one thing and another happened, and before you know it, I’m sneaking home with my underpants wadded in my purse. Again.

  Romeo. Juliette. Juliette. Romeo.

  I believe I may be a terrible person. I’m sure you would agree. But this bottle of wine I sneaked up to my room disagrees, and the two of us shall soon be great friends!

  November 4, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  They say in Berlin and Paris all sorts of things go on in the clubs and cabarets. They say people of our age go there and enjoy themselves any way they please, then come home and ever after live the boring lives they’ve promised their parents. When I picture you, I picture you there.

  I’ve even heard of a place like that here, though I haven’t a clue where it is. Maybe I will try to find out.

  November 10, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  Romeo, Romeo . . . I won’t finish that thought because I know exactly where he is and how he looks when he is very satisfied and perhaps I could fall for him if I was a person who still knew how to do that and also had no future to think of. Sorry I’m tipsy and forgot how to use commas. Good night.

  November 16, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  I don’t believe I can be someone else’s center of gravity, even a very nice someone’s. I don’t have enough mass. I feel as if I could float off the earth and disappear, and the moment I did, everyone here would forget me.

  Does every relationship lead in this direction? Do kisses stolen on balconies and in broom closets always lead to one party wanting more and more from the other? Do they always lead to doom?

  I should stop this, shouldn’t I? Stop all of it. I wish I could ask you what to do.

  November 26, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  It’s my birthday. I refused both of my invitations. I stayed in my room and sulked and drank every drop of a bottle of gin, which is intolerable stuff and, as it turns out, not as good at inducing forgetfulness as I had hoped. I wonder if you remember it’s my birthday. I remember yours.

  November 27, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  I hope, wherever you are, that you never drink gin.

  December 14, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  I’ve been sucked back into the Romeo and Juliette dance. I tried to stop, on all counts, but failed, also on all counts. It is entirely my fault, as it usually is. It’s just that my empty bedroom is the loudest place in the world, especially when I look across at the window that used to be yours and know I’m the reason it isn’t yours anymore. So, I tiptoe down the hall and
whisper into the telephone and find myself some company.

  Tonight’s result was the drawing tucked between these pages, a gift from Romeo. A sign his feelings are more invested than mine. I shouldn’t call him again. I won’t.

  “Drawing?” I said. “Flip the page and see . . .”

  Sabatier flipped the next page, but we saw no drawing, so he picked up the book and shook it gently. A rectangle of paper about the size of my palm floated out and landed on the bar. I snatched it up before Sabatier could.

  It was indeed a drawing, in pencil, of a plump bird—a wren maybe? On the back were the words, To my Little Bird, From your Romeo.

  “Can you get fingerprints off this?” I said.

  “Besides yours,” Sabatier said pointedly, and carefully grasped it by the edges. I let him take it, and he angled it toward the light. He sighed. “No, with this texture of paper, fingerprints would be nearly impossible, unless they’re already smudged there in graphite from the artist’s hands. But I see no prints like that.”

  “Maybe we can still find out who he is . . .” I tugged the book closer to me while his hands were busy carefully setting aside the drawing. There were only two dated pages left—we had reached the last entries before Minty’s death. I looked at Sabatier.

  “Last chance,” he said.

  I took a deep breath. “Let’s see what we got.”

  December 26, 1929

  Dear Robbie,

  I called Romeo again. But this really was the last time. I told him about looking for a club like the ones in Berlin, about this faint hope I could find you there. He got the most eager look and said he knew exactly the place I meant. He said I should go with him to the Cloak and Dagger club on New Year’s Eve because he had a feeling I’d find you there. I pressed him for more information, but he would tell me nothing, just begged me to go with him. I think it meant something to him, a symbol, an announcement—me and him out in public together, hand in hand on a night when half of New Orleans is out at the speakeasies.