by Ed Ifkovic
Mildred began to speak but her words were garbled, thick. We all waited. Slowly, that one fierce hand still gripping the doorjamb, she looked from me to Sam to Mac. When her eyes caught Gustave’s, they hardened. She looked ready to lash out, but then the hand slipped from the doorjamb, fluttered around her face, and her head started to roll back and forth, a doll’s head with the wiring snapped.
“Stop her,” she mumbled so low I thought I hadn’t heard it. She started to sob in short, hiccoughy gasps, and then closed her eyes. “Gustave…backed off…unable. And she was standing in front of me, taunting. ‘Why are you here? He loves me, not you.’ Laughing, foolish, her hands on her belly, mocking me.” She shot me a sharp look. “I slapped her. The next thing I knew she was lying there at my feet.” Her voice swelled, hysterical. “It wasn’t supposed to happen. Finally I was going to be…happy.” A deep wail escaped from the back of her throat, a trapped animal’s cry. “Wrong, all of it. All…Why? I was promised…Why?”
Suddenly she started to rock against the doorjamb, arms flailing, head bobbing. She still spoke but the sounds she made were dark noise. She hugged her chest, seemed ready to topple. That awful moaning unbroken now, she disappeared back into the office, and I watched her drop into a chair, her arms still wrapped around her chest, her body rocking, rocking, rocking.
When I turned my eyes away from Mildred Dunne, I expected to see the men staring into the room at the distraught woman, the sad woman who had just confessed to the unthinkable. I expected someone to go to her, someone to summon Chief Stone. But no: the men were all staring at me, and the look in their eyes was one of reproach and disapproval. Sam, with a face I’d never seen before, was shaking his head back and forth.
In the other room Mildred Dunne was beating her fists against her chest. Her careful pompadour had unraveled; long strands of hair covered her face like a veil.
At that moment Homer sobbed so loudly we all turned toward him. He covered his face with his hands and slowly sank to the floor, his legs stretched out before him. We watched as he crumpled up, but my eye caught the magnificent poster of Houdini in the display case. Powerful, fierce, resolute, brilliant, Houdini’s muscular physique dominated that space. And under it lay a shattered man, loose-jawed, a man in pieces.
Gustave was mumbling something to Sam Ryan. “No one understands. She was so beautiful. No one understands…beautiful girls have a special power, a…lure, a control over men that cripples, corrupts. Temptation.”
“You killed beauty.” My verdict was plain.
Gustave sneered, his hatred palpable. “There is no way you can ever understand, Miss Ferber. Not a chance in hell.”
Chapter Twenty
I sat on the front porch with my father. The end of June had been balmy, with warm, serene days and cool drifting nights; but the first days of July were unbearably hot, more like August dog days, the air static and dry, the leaves wilting. The late afternoon sun was shrill and orange in the sky. For a while neither of us spoke. It had been over three weeks since that awful day at the Lyceum. What immediately followed had left me frustrated and angry. Gustave Timm had been arrested, of course, but it took both Chief Stone and Deputy Moss an hour to grapple with Mildred Dunne. She’d vacillated between periods of shrieking hysteria and chilly stupor. Carted off indecorously in the police wagon, her parents summoned, she was seen by the family doctor, declared to be in a state of nervous collapse, and, within days, quietly delivered to the Women’s Asylum in Dubuque, Iowa, where, Chief Stone confided to me, the doctors predicted she’d spend the rest of her life.
Meanwhile, Gustave Timm was charged with murder, confessing to plotting and carrying out Frana’s death. His brother Homer resigned his position, and the splashy front-page accounts in the Crescent and the Post—and in the Milwaukee papers—recounted Gustave’s admission. What was missing was any mention of Mildred Dunne’s real role—those grasping hands choking the hapless Frana—but, instead, a brief note that Gustave’s intended bride, Mildred Dunne, school librarian, had suffered a complete breakdown and was now under a physician’s care out of state.
I bristled at the lie. Chief Stone didn’t sympathize with me, though he admitted, “Fact is, sounds to me like Gustave told her about it and she went into action.”
But a genteel lady of the town could not be prosecuted. It just wasn’t done.
I whispered back, “If I’d been caught with a gun in my hand, I’d certainly be taken away.”
He’d laughed. “And there’d be a crowd of angry citizens ready to lynch you, too.”
Within the week, the Lyceum closed its doors, canceling a revival of Ten Nights in a Barroom, as Cyrus P. Powell announced the building was for sale. Privately he’d told Chief Stone that he’d been planning on removing Gustave Timm from his post.
“A man I didn’t trust,” he’d reportedly said.
The day after the arrest, at the Crescent office, I listened as Sam Ryan and Matthias Boon concocted the front-page story. Not only was the truth squelched, but there was no mention of my role in solving the crime. I, who cracked the mystery. Somehow, filtered through Matthias Boon’s autocratic lens, diligent police work had solved the case.
Sam, still shaken, suggested that it was unsuitable for a young girl like me to be so prominent a part of such a sordid story, girl reporter or not. Murder, seduction, abandonment. I fumed. He seemed sheepish and hesitant. Civil War veteran, this man; old-fashioned, man of his time, a Midwestern gentleman—all that prehistoric claptrap that insisted that only men had province on the front pages of a newspaper, especially in a murder investigation.
“Mr. Ryan, you know the truth…”
“I’m doing it for you, Miss Ferber.”
I’d gotten testy. “I can take care of myself.”
Matthias Boon, sitting nearby, smoking his pipe, had a complacent look on his broad face. “Would you ruin your chance for marriage, Miss Ferber?”
“Marriage has nothing to do with it.”
“We were thinking of you.”
“I doubt that.”
Matthias Boon was nonplused. “Our readership would frown on such reportage.”
“I doubt that.”
Sam tried to be kind. “Miss Ferber, Appleton is not ready for the New Woman.”
“But you hired me.”
“To do society reporting, to describe luncheons, to record property transfers, not to be at the center of a sordid murder.”
“The Crescent mentioned earlier that I helped find the body.”
The men looked at each other. “That was a mistake. We had comments on that.” A heartbeat of silence. “Letters, in fact. The Women’s Temperance League thought it indecorous. To mention an unmarried woman in such a story.”
Matthias Boon clicked his tongue. “You’re just lucky you weren’t the next victim.”
“Then my name would have been on the front page of the paper.”
“That would have been a difficult piece for me to write.”
I sucked in my cheeks. “You’d have found the words.”
I sat patiently as Boon read his copy aloud. Then I erupted. “And you accuse me of being a fiction writer, Mr. Boon.”
Sam glared at me. “You have to understand the way things are in Appleton, Miss Ferber.”
“I understand duplicity.”
“Enough.” Sam turned away.
“I’m sorry,” I continued, “it’s not enough. I got Mildred Dunne to confess to the actual murder.”
Sam paused, chose his words carefully. “She was hysterical, Miss Ferber. You heard her. It was a lot of babble. You can’t seriously…”
“This is wrong. An injustice. Yes, Gustave was in on the murder but she…”
“Stop!” he yelled.
Matthias Boon, a sliver of a smile on his face. “Yes, stop, Miss Ferber.”
Both men turned to the fiction they were assembling, ignoring me. They began to squabble over some wording, Boon insisting on heightening the melodrama. Sam wanted
to commend Homer’s role—the brother doing the right thing—but Boon pooh-poohed that idea, informing Sam that he knew how to write copy. The anger grew, and Boon stormed away. Sam stared at his retreating back and I knew at that moment how much Sam disliked the strutting rooster. But it gave me little satisfaction now.
“I can’t work here any longer,” I said into the silence.
“What did you say?” Sam turned to me.
“I can’t stay in a place that celebrates a lie.”
Sam’s face turned red. “Miss Ferber, please.”
I started to gather my belongings.
Sam watched me closely, mumbling that perhaps I needed a vacation—take two or three weeks, think about it, rest, go shopping in Milwaukee—but I drew on my gloves, adjusted my hat, and for the last time began climbing those dreaded five steps to street level.
I looked back into the city room. “No.”
***
Three weeks became ancient history, the sensationalism and the surprise giving way to shrugged shoulders, shaking heads, and the passage of days. Weeds grew around the gravestone of Frana and her unborn baby. Mildred’s mother was heard telling a customer at Pettibone’s that she’d never approved of Gustave, that she thought him a shady man who simply wanted into a rich family. Everyone had a similar story to tell. Nobody, it seemed, had trusted him. After all, he was from out of state. Back East. Heads nodded. But by then everyone was getting ready for the Fourth of July parade, patriotic bunting already being hung on College Avenue, a grandstand being erected by the fountain, and boys stockpiling fireworks. Folks congratulated Chief Stone for saving the Fourth of July. Life, they said, was getting back to normal.
I no longer knew what that meant. Too much had happened. I sat with my father in the early heat, sweat on my brow. He looked drained.
“Hot, Pete.”
“Like August, Bill.”
“We should walk by the river.”
“Too hot.”
I looked at him and my heart raced. He looked so withered now, so pale. The shadow of death hung around him. I had to look away.
I had news to tell him and I didn’t know whether it was good news or bad. When I’d delivered the news of my resignation three week back, news that startled my family, my mother seemed happy, though my father just shook his head. I welcomed the time away from the city room. Then, just last week, I found a note from Matthias Boon inserted into the front door, informing me that I’d been fired. That baffled. Had he forgotten that I’d quit? Had anyone listened to me? But I realized Boon probably needed to assert his feeble authority one last time. When I read the note to my father, he smiled. “Some men like to have the last word.”
That afternoon I’d met Miss Ivy on College Avenue and she’d whispered that the bickering between Mr. Boon and her brother had escalated since my departure. “Sam seems a different man these days. Unhappy with the paper.” Then she leaned in. “Boon’s days with the paper are numbered.”
She told me that Mac and Boon battled over a misplaced piece of writing; and the pugnacious Boon had pushed Mac. The tramp printer, already moody since my departure, had exploded, hurling Boon into the chicken-wire enclosure surrounding Sam’s desk. Since then Boon avoided Mac and refused to return to Mrs. Zeller’s rooming house, renting rooms at the Sherman House. Miss Ivy ended, “He’s a bunch of nerves, my dear.”
That afternoon I’d walked home with a smile on my face, and was immediately greeted by an excited family. “Ed, Ed, a letter from Mr. Houdini,” my mother called as I walked into the front yard. I took the letter from her. The outside of the thick creamy envelope was splashy with his name and picture: “HARRY HOUDINI! The ONLY Undisputed King of Handcuffs and Monarch of Leg Shackles.” Sitting in the parlor, my family around me, I opened the envelope. The letterhead covered the top of the first page and announced that he was world famous. To the left were five snapshots of his legendary escapes. A dazzling display of boasting.
I read the letter aloud, modulating my voice and leaning toward my father. David Baum had sent clippings from the Post and Crescent, the story of Gustave Timm’s arrest. Houdini’s note, written in a tight, cramped script, sent greetings from New York, hours before he left for Europe. I read out loud: “‘Strange, though your name is nowhere mentioned in the articles, I sense your presence, dare I say your resolution, in the matter.’”
I looked up, pleased, and continued. “‘I have to make a confession, and it embarrasses me. I must tell you that I began to distrust that theater manager. You remember how I told you I always sense danger? Gustave was too friendly with the young girls; and the night I walked you home, I had become nervous. That scene on the stage with your friend Esther bothered me. I had no idea what was going on, but the man talked too often of the beautiful girls who passed by when we strolled College Avenue; and that night, with his fawning attention to your pretty young friend Esther, I sensed something wrong. Even Cyrus P. Powell had hinted that brother Homer whispered about dark family secrets. I felt uncomfortable with Gustave. He could be dangerous. I might have acted a little odd that night, rushing alongside you, but I didn’t want him walking you home alone. I wanted to see you to your door, safe and sound. You know, I can escape handcuffs but sometimes I can’t escape the worry and confusion that floods me. You are safe now, and that is all.’”
My mother interrupted, “My, my, he senses a man is a murderer, and he says nothing.”
“He’s not exactly saying that, Mother.”
“What is he saying?”
Something slipped out of the envelope onto the floor. I picked up a worn handcuff key wrapped in a piece of paper. Houdini had written: “A key for you, Miss Ferber, though you don’t really need it.” I tightened my fingers around it, this talisman of good fortune. My eyes moist, I hid it in the pocket of my dress.
Stubbornly, I read the rest of the letter in silence, while my mother and sister debated Houdini’s moral character, his lapse of judgment. When I was through, I folded the letter, placed it in the envelope, and laid it on the table. My father was nodding his head.
“Bill, what do you think?”
“Pete, I think his letter is an apology to you.”
***
I sat with my father, and I was nervous. I cleared my throat.
“It feels like it’ll shower,” my father said.
I looked out across the yard. Yes, the air felt heavy, and at the horizon the slate-gray sky had turned a pale white. I heard cracking, and suddenly there was a flash of lightning in the sky. We waited for the downpour that would drench the heat of that long day.
“What is it, Pete?”
“What?”
“You’ve been trying to tell me something all night.”
I saw the first fat drops of rain splatter on the railing, and the wind blew a mist onto the porch. “We’re gonna get wet.”
“I’ve been wet before.”
“Your clothes will be ruined.”
“Edna.” He raised his voice.
Inside the house Fannie and my mother were moving a large oak sideboard. A grand piece, heavy rococo with frilly latticework, it was always too large for the long narrow room. For a month it had been wedged by the piano, and now, again, my mother had decided she wanted it near the hallway arch. So the two women, chattering and bickering, were sliding it across the polished walnut floor. Fannie wanted to sell it. My mother said no. “When I die, you can do what you will with my possessions.”
Fannie whined, “I only said…”
“I know what you said.”
“It clashes with the wing chair.”
My mother, furious. “So does the shawl on your back.”
On and on, some verbal game they played, a cat-and-mouse skirmish that excluded my father and me. Glancing through the window at them, I felt the isolation.
“Bill…It’s nothing.”
My father was not to be assuaged. “It isn’t your resignation from the Crescent, I know, though that’s left you stranded. It is
n’t the murder of Frana, because that’s finally justice. And it isn’t even the letter from Houdini, which bothered you…”
I was surprised. “How did you know that?”
“I’m your father. I know everything.” He chuckled. “Houdini is a good man, but I think his arrogance bothered you. And you were annoyed that he sensed Gustave was untrustworthy and didn’t act on it. True?”
I nodded. “True. Somehow the letter suggested that he sensed all along who killed Frana.”
“No, not true. What he sensed was a weakness in a man,” my father said, completely without irony.
“Which led to murder.”
“He didn’t see the whole story. But you’re bothered because you sense a weakness, too, in Houdini.”
That surprised me. “What?”
“He didn’t come through for you. Though he did…in a way. The mystery of the latched doorway. Even walking you home that night. I think Houdini gave you much more than a glimpse into his frailty. He let you understand things about yourself…your dreams of a world out there. You’ll carry him around for some time, Edna. The thing with Gustave, well, he did what he knew how to do.”
“Is that a weakness?”
“Edna, all around you are weak men.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you get impatient with weak men.”
“No.”
“And that includes me.” He paused. “It’s your mother’s legacy to you.”
The rain started, full blown now, gusts of heavy pelting rain against the earth. The spray covered us.
My mother called from inside. “Get in here, you fools. Would you catch your death out there?”
Neither of us moved.
I hurried to say, “I got a telegram today from Henry Campbell at the Milwaukee Journal. He’s offered me a position as a reporter. In Milwaukee. He liked my work with the Crescent.” A rush of words, choked and heavy.
My father sat up. “Well, that’s good, Pete.”
Was it? Milwaukee was one hundred miles away. I’d have to leave home, build a life on my own, a world removed from my mother, my sister Fannie…and my father. Who sat with me now. Who walked with me through the quiet Appleton streets. Who relied on me when the Pain struck. Who let me be his sight. Who singled me out.
