The Styx

by Jonathon King

  At this point Faustus stepped toward the sheriff, removing an envelope from his inside coat and placing on the table before him.

  “And this, sir, is a bird feather found in the hand of the dead girl. I believe you can easily match it to feathers missing from the suspect woman’s hat.”

  “May we know the name of this out-of-state woman?” Cox asked, reaching out for the envelope.

  “Do you plan to investigator her in this matter?”

  Cox turned to the judge. “Considering what you have brought before this court, it would seem now that I must,” Cox said, and Faustus could see the wheels turning in the man’s head: the opportunity of holding power over one of the Flagler’s guests, the use of such power to demean their haughty ways, or perhaps to be paid off for not doing the same.

  “Then I should say, your honor, her name is Mrs. Roseann Birch,” Faustus said, turning to the judge. “And now, your honor, since there is another viable suspect identified in the murder for which she is charged, I request that my client be released on bail, sir.”

  Judge Born watched the two men, bemused perhaps by Faustus’ chess playing and Cox’s transparencies.

  “Bail will be set in the amount of ten dollars,” he replied.

  “Now hold on one damned second there, yer honor,” Cox blathered, letting his street language slip through. “That cain’t be right!

  The judge had endured enough and, in the absence of a gavel, banged his fist on the wooden table.

  “Not only is it right, sir. It is just,” he barked. “And it will also be just for me to summon a special prosecutor from Tallahassee to look into the whereabouts of the money Mr. Faustus has spoken of, the discrepancies of the medical report on the victim’s death, and the attempts to withhold that information from this court and the legal system.

  “You will find that a new day is dawning in the state of Florida, sheriff. Things will no longer to be done as usual. Welcome to the twentieth century, sir.”

  Cox stared at the judge, his back teeth grinding, the muscles in his jaw flexing, but still he was silenced by his chastisement.

  “And as for you,” the judge said, turning to Faustus. “You with your bevy of bombshells, I would ask one question that may seem basic, but must be entered in the record just the same. Motivation, sir? For a woman of social standing to engage in such heinous crimes.”

  Faustus simply raised his eyebrows in that way of his.

  “We may be entering a new century, your honor, but as the playwright says, and it has ever been, Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

  With the arraignment abruptly ended, Judge Born was quick to toss out the only other business of the day, the motion of a civil suit by the sheriff filed against the local newspaper editor. It would be, under the circumstances, superfluous at this point, the judge said. With that, he seemed to say a silent prayer and called an adjournment.

  The parties involved all exited the room and descended the steps. Led by Faustus, who, after paying Shantice Carver’s ten dollar bail, was at his client’s elbow, trying to explain to the woman what had just transpired. The judge followed, trailed by the sheriff, who was whining vociferously about a miscarriage of justice. He in turn was being harangued by the newspaper editor, who was asking questions about what the sheriff intended to do about accusations of a double homicide on Palm Beach Island. Bringing up the rear was the sheriff’s now-shy deputies and bailiff, who were in no hurry to incur their boss’s wrath.

  At the base of the staircase, Michael Byrne waited, cap in his hand despite the strong sun. When Faustus saw him, he tried to catch his eyes, to indicate that all had gone well. Faustus was worried about the steel baton he feared was concealed under Byrne’s hat. To help deflect the possibility of violence, Faustus quickly turned to the judge behind him.

  “If I may, your honor,” he said. “I would like to introduce you to Mr. Michael Byrne, brother of the deceased victim. He has recently taken possession of the corpse in question and will both verify his identity and give permission for the new autopsy.”

  The judge nodded at Byrne but did not extend his hand.

  “My sympathies for your loss, Mr. Byrne. It is my hope that this extraordinary affair can be sorted out and, be assured sir, that an investigation into the carriage of justice will be overseen.”

  Byrne bowed his head just enough to show respect, but not enough to lose sight of Sheriff Cox, who was glowering at him from the final step of the staircase.

  “If there is anything else, Mr. Byrne, that needs to be brought to my attention, as if enough has not already been elucidated this morning, then do not hesitate to call on my office,” the judge said.

  “There is one thing, your honor,” Byrne said, stepping in front of Sheriff Cox’s before the man could take his final step off the staircase. “I would like my father’s watch returned.”

  The metal baton flicked out from Byrne’s hand like a stinger. Its tip caught the chain on Sheriff Cox’s vest and froze there. The motion was too fast for the fat man, or perhaps he was already too stunned from the day’s explosions to react.

  “By God…” Byrne cut him off. “It is a Swiss made gold fob watch with blue-steel hands and my father’s initials, CHB, engraved on the back.”

  The judge looked at the sputtering sheriff and held out his hand. Byrne lifted the watch out of the vest pocket with the tip of his baton. After the judge inspected the piece, front and back, he unfastened the chain and placed the watch into Byrne’s hand. He winced, as if a terrible odor had just invaded his nostrils, spun on his heel, and walked away.

  “By God, Byrne,” Faustus said, uncharacteristically awed. “You never cease to amaze, my young friend.”

  “Nor do you, Mr. Faustus,” Byrne said. “I trust that since Miss Carver has shed her leg irons, things went well upstairs?”

  “As well as could be expected. Whether there will be any follow-through is yet to be ascertained. I doubt though that Sheriff Cox will be in authority for long. I do not think this particular judge is one to look the other way. But there is little we can do now except to wait, I am afraid, for justice to come around.”

  Shantice Carver was still standing at Faustus’ side, trying to decipher perhaps from their faces and words just what the hell had just occurred. They, however, were both looking out across the lake, taking in the white shine of the Royal Poinciana glowing in sunlight.

  “I suppose you are, by necessity, going to leave us now,” Faustus said. “You are in possession of your brother’s body, you can take him home. That was your purpose, was it not?”

  Byrne kept looking out on the water.

  “This state will need men like you, Mr. Byrne, to succeed.”

  Byrne still did not look at the elderly man. “You mean to build grand edifices to my ego?” he said. “To plunder and devour? To shift a natural beauty to a man-made one in our own concrete and glass image?”

  Byrne closed his lips, realizing he was proselytizing in a manner that was foreign to him.

  “Don’t mock yourself, Michael,” Faustus said. “You are a man of ethics and morality, and in your heart is a sense of justice that a society cannot exist without. The Flaglers and Birches and McAdams of the world can build sanctuaries unto themselves, but it takes men like you to build a civilization.”

  Shantice Carver stood next to the men, drawing a pattern in the sand with the worn toe of her work shoe, and they both seemed to recognize the piety that was being splashed around on all parts.

  “I may take on your challenges someday, Mr. Faustus,” Byrne finally said. “But for now, there is one final thing I do have to do.”

  “Yes,” Faustus agreed, reaching out to shake Byrne’s extended hand. “I suppose there is.”

  CHAPTER 24

  ON Tuesday morning Michael Byrne stood on the rail platform at the southern entrance to the Poinciana. He was dressed in his Pinkerton clothes, the trousers still a bit salt stained but the bro
gans cleaned and polished. He was there on Harris’s orders to help Mr. Flagler aboard the train to New York.

  It would be his final day of work. He had already tendered a resignation and would be accompanying his brother’s body on a train later in the week. He watched the McAdamses, Birches, et al, boarding for their trip back home.

  If a warrant had ever been issued for the arrest of Mrs. Birch, there was no one available or willing to present it. Rumor had it that Sheriff Cox had not been seen since Judge Born left him stammering in the street after the recovery of Byrne’s watch.

  Yet Mr. Flagler, accompanied as always by his entourage, walked imperiously from the hotel. At exactly nine-fifteen, after assisting his wife, he climbed aboard number 90. If he took note of Byrne, he did not let on. Byrne had no doubt that such a man would have been fully informed of the accusations against his inner circle and his guests. But he was a man who built things. The unraveling of human beings, their ethics, their motivations and their morality, were but the detritus left in the wake of his progress.

  Mr. McAdams followed in Flagler’s steps, his head held high and extending handshakes to those seeing off the travelers with manners as cordial and confident as always. He did not notice Byrne until his daughter veered away from his side and headed in the direction of the Pinkerton.

  Byrne stood his ground when Marjory approached, her green eyes holding his, any shame buried, if it indeed ever existed.

  “I’m off for the city, then, Michael,” she said as if leaving a mate at summer camp. He kept all emotion out of his face.

  “Do you have the deed to the former Styx land with you?” he said. It was the first time he’d seen her stumble.

  “I have no idea what…”

  “Kiss my Irish ass,” Byrne said. “You’ve got Danny’s valise and the papers to the property. Did he sign them before you got to the meeting or did you hold the pen in his dead hand to make his mark?”

  Marjory McAdams stood silent, gathering herself, perfecting her words before she spoke. Byrne took it as a victory, but only for a few seconds.

  “You have no idea, Michael, how it is to live in second place behind men who become rich and richer off your expertise and off your talent,” she said.

  “True,” Byrne said and nothing more. Let them talk, just like on the streets.

  “I’m sorry for the demise of your brother. He was actually a charming man in his own way.”

  She raised her chin even higher.

  “He was not as demure as you when it came to lovemaking, and his business acumen was impressively aggressive, though in many ways flawed.”

  Byrne could imagine his brother in the same circumstance as he, standing naked with Marjory in the cool Atlantic. Danny would have taken what he wanted from this she-devil. She could delude herself all she wanted.

  “So you screwed him and then tried to screw him,” he said, matching her crudeness.

  “My father knew Daniel was shopping the binder to the Styx land to the highest bidder. He knew the value. He had helped Mr. Flagler acquire most of this land himself.”

  They always have to justify when they’re caught, Byrne thought, no different than any pimp, scofflaw or pickpocket on Broadway.

  “Others found out about the deal,” she said. “That ass Pearson, snooping through the telegrams. Then Birch wanted his share for lending my father the money to pay your brother’s price for the binder. When I saw Roseann Birch heading into the Styx that night I knew they were going to double cross us. I was supposed to meet Daniel myself an hour later when the fair across the lake was in full swing.”

  “But Mrs. Birch was only avenging a stain to her honor,” Byrne said.

  Marjory lowered her eyes. “And so she did. Daniel was dead when I followed her into the woods that night. I heard the gunshot. I saw her run. She did not see me.”

  “But you saw Danny’s body.”

  “Yes.”

  “And his valise?”

  “It was just laying there. I found it,” she said, a schoolgirl claiming finder’s keepers.

  “So you had it all. And paid nothing for it,” Byrne said. “Why set the fire?”

  “I pulled his body under the shed.” She looked past Byrne’s shoulder, seeing something in the night. “I smashed my lantern against the wood frame. I was only trying to burn away the signs of what had occurred, for everyone’s sake, even the Birches. But the kerosene, it just, just…I never meant to destroy people’s homes.”

  A tear had actually begun to form in her eyes. An actress to the end.

  “Bullshit,” Byrne said. “Your interest in Shantice Carver was only to make sure she hadn’t seen you out there once you’d stolen the valise. You tried to get her away before she could talk and then weaseled your way between her and anyone who might interrogate her. You were protecting your own ass.”

  “I was protecting my father!” she said, raising her voice and letting in perhaps the first true emotion that he’d seen in her. “He needs someone to protect him, he needs a strong woman to watch out for him. But you wouldn’t understand such a thing, Mr. Pinkerton! You wouldn’t understand what families have to do for each other.”

  Byrne watched her eyes, wet and angry and so naïve about the world of people who lived outside of her own sphere.

  “Everyone has a father,” he said. “And when I get back to New York, yours will help me find mine, dead or alive. Your money, the Birch’s money and influence, will help me whenever I need it. I’ll rattle your skeletons until I’m satisfied that my family is reunited, even if it’s in death. That is what happens when you do business with the devil.”

  When she looked into Byrne’s face she saw something that scared her, the young woman who was never scared of anything.

  “And remember, ma’am, my brother was a very sound and able man. Be sure you’re not carrying part of my own family with you back to New York.”

  CHAPTER 25

  LATE season. One could feel it in the rising humidity, the warmer nighttime temperatures, the bundles of cloud in the west. In the afternoon water vapor would rise from the heating soup of the Everglades until the clouds turned dirty and dark and could hold no more. As they moved east, lured by the cooler air over the ocean, the afternoon showers would come.

  Today there was a gathering at the beach; the allure was a unique baseball competition. Carlo Santos, it was said, had been cajoled to challenge the mighty Pittsburgh Pirate slugger John Peter Wagner—in Florida to convalesce a leg injury at midseason—to a test of batting prowess and strength. Such a showdown had never occurred before, and there were more than a few discussions of the properness of pitting a white slugger against a Negro in such an endeavor. But harkening back to the myopic distinction of Santos’s Cuban Yankees, it was pointed out that a Latin versus a white was not unduly provocative.

  So it was that Santos and Wagner were standing bat to bat on the Palm Beach Island beach. The rules had been set: each man would face a pitcher who stood with his back to the ocean and delivered strikes to the batters over a home plate set in the sand. Each batter would receive ten pitches and have the chance to blast the ball into the sea. A set of judges standing out on the wharf would determine whose ball splashed down farthest out. Best out of ten would win.

  The new manager of the Poinciana was posing as umpire and score keeper, the former manager having boarded a train for the north less than a week after both the Birches and the McAdamses had left the island. Judge John Born had posted a statement that “all men are equal under the law of the combined United States of America and if a crime has indeed been committed someone will eventually have to answer for said crimes.”

  Those with money had gone north to their respective homes in New York to await subpoenas that would never come. Michael Byrne had taken his brother’s body back to the city and buried him next to his mother. All charges were dropped against Shantice Carver, but she was surreptitiously fired and moved back to be with her people in North Carolina.

&nbs
p; On this day a home run derby was in progress. Women guests from the Breakers were carrying their parasols, and the men were still in their luncheon attire with boaters shading their eyes as they followed the long arc of baseballs as they catapulted off the ash wood of the hitters’ bats, rose into the cerulean sky and then fell to splash without a sound in the distance. A white flag would be raised from the pier if Wagner’s shot was longer, a black flag for Santos. Nearly everyone, including the daily staff at the Breakers, was in attendance. One spectator in particular was missing.

  “Where Mizz Ida?” asked one of the laundry women who had gathered under the pier in the shadows.

  “She said somethin’ bout getting somethin’ done down in the basement,” said the one next to her. A black flag went up, a tally changed, and Santos took the lead six to four.

  “I cain’t believe she would miss her boy playin’ this out,” said one of the housekeepers.

  “No, no. Here she come now,” said the first one.

  The maids made a prime spot for Ida May to stand. Her work dress was smeared with some kind of heavy dust and there was even a smudge of ash on her face, unusual for a woman known for her fastidiousness. She greeted the others, set her feet in the sand and then looked out at Santos, who was taking a few warm-up swings while Wagner was at bat. He made eye contact with Miss Fluery and a silent message was passed.

  The patrons on the beach were all focused on Wagner, following the parabola as the professional put his tenth ball in the Atlantic at a distance yet unmet in the contest.

  Carlos Santos didn’t watch his opponent’s hit, but concentrated instead on the sky behind them. He detected a curling spiral of black smoke rising directly above the beachfront hotel. A slight smile played at the corners of his mouth. When he approached the makeshift plate, Ida May carried a look of glowing grace as she watched her Santos. One of her underlings turned to another and whispered: “Ain’t like he’s the holy spirit or sumthin’.” The woman next to her cut her eyes to Mizz Fleury’s face, knowing her colleagues’ subject without asking.