Chasing the Devil's Tail

by David Fulmer

  He stared balefully at Valentin for another moment, then sat back and began absently fingering his watch chain. "But I hope it won't come to that," he said, his voice now matter-of-fact. "Let me present the situation. You go chasing after this supposed guilty party. In the meantime, King Bolden will go on trial for those murders. Justice will be swift. He will be convicted and sentenced to death and that sentence will be carried out. He will be hanged by his neck in the yard at Parish Prison." The blue eyes shifted. Anderson released the watch chain, leaned over the table, and made a conciliatory steeple with his fingers. "However, if you let the matter rest, I can promise you he will only be adjudged insane and remanded to Jackson. His life will be spared."

  Valentin stared at Tom Anderson, stunned at the open threat. "That means guilty or not, he's marked down as murderer."

  "Guilty or not, he's marked down as an insane person," Anderson said. "A sick man. Exactly what he is."

  "There's still no proof that he killed any of those women," Valentin said thickly.

  Anderson now laid his hands flat on the table. "We're not going to discuss it any more," he said. "You have a choice to make. Make it."

  Valentin sat stiffly for a long minute, then rose from his chair and walked away.

  SIXTEEN

  Description of the Insane Person Named in the Within Warrant

  Name: Chas. Bolden

  Sex: Male

  Age: 29

  Color: Negro

  Color Hair: Brown

  Color Eyes: Brown

  Occupation: Laborer

  Single: Yes

  Residence: Parish Prison and 2719 First Street

  Nativity: La

  Character of Disease: Insanity

  Cause of Insanity: Alcohol

  Is this his First Attack? Yes

  How Long Been Insane? 1 mos.

  Is Patient Dangerous to Himself or Others? To Others

  Has Suicide Ever Been Attempted? No

  Is There a Disposition to Destroy Clothing, Furniture, etc? Yes

  Are the Patient's Habits Clean or Dirty: Filthy

  What was the Patient's Natural Disposition? Quiet

  Have Any Members of the Family Ever Been Insane? No

  Has the Patient Ever Been Addicted to the Intemperate Use of Alcohol, Opium or Tobacco? Alcohol.

  Has the Patient Ever had any Injury of Head, Epilepsy or Hereditary Disease? No

  What is the Cause of this Attack? Alcohol

  Has Any Medical Treatment Been Instituted? Yes

  Any Restraint or Confinement been resorted to? Yes

  If So, What Kind? Parish Prison, seven days

  General Remarks: Received Thursday, June 4th, 1907 and on Friday, June 5th, 1907.

  I delivered to Dr. Clarence Pearson, superintendent of the Insane Asylum at Jackson, La. the within named Interdicted Insane Person Charles Bolden. Returned same day.

  G.A. Putfark

  Deputy Sheriff

  The double-seated hack creaked along the dirt road that meandered from the depot to the hospital on the outskirts of town.

  The papers stated that the fellow in the rear seat of the wagon with his hands and legs manacled to an iron ring on the floor was Charles Bolden. Two uniformed guards, young white men with sunburned faces, slouched in the fore seat, enjoying the trip away from the hospital grounds.

  It was mid-afternoon and the sun was high in a near-white sky. The two wagons far ahead, filled up with white inmates, kicked up a cloud of gray dust that drifted back down the road and the guard driving the hack cursed lightly and then slowed the team of mules to a languid, flopped-ear pace. When the first two hacks, led by Sheriff Putfark, rounded a turn in the road and fell out of sight, the guards exchanged a look.

  "Well, whaddya think?" the driver said, starting to laugh a little.

  "I think it's a mighty hot day," the other said.

  The driver pulled up on one of the reins and steered the team off the road and into the shade of a pale oak. To the right, not fifty feet down a slope and through a stand of pine trees, a creek ran, green water flowing in slow eddies. "What about him?" the driver said, jerking his head at the back seat.

  The other guard looked at the patient's eyes, placid pools full of dark, quiet shadows. "He won't be no trouble."

  The driver began pulling off his high-topped shoes while the other guard grabbed the chain and gave it a hard tug. The links jangled. "He's good," the guard said.

  The driver was already hopping down from the seat. The second guard kicked off his shoes and started after him.

  The patient watched as the two men trotted through the low brush, pulling at the buttons of their uniform coats, then their trousers. The clothes fell to the wayside and the naked bodies, as pale as the bellies of fish, came out of the brush, arched through the air and collided with the still green surface of the water in one wide splash.

  He stared in wonder as the two heads reappeared, throwing water in long silver sheets, making coarse music with their laughter. Above him, on a branch of the oak tree, a mockingbird began to warble. He looked up, listening with every bone, every muscle. The dark bird's song trilled up and down, up higher and down lower, and then began again.

  The moment was still: the sun glowing hot, the smell of the dark earth, the sway of the deep-green leaves, the rippling of the silver-blue water, and a bird song that went on and on. Time did not move at all, until the two men came out of the water, laughing and clapping their hands. The bird flew from the branch with one last shrill call and Buddy watched it go until it became invisible against the bleached afternoon sky. He sighed and tried to move his hands, but the weight, the hard iron weight of the chain, held them fast.

  The men climbed the bank, laughing, shaking brilliant cords of water from their red arms and legs. They hurried into their uniforms and trotted to the side of the road, with their shirts and trousers all soaked damp. The guard looked up at the patient. He knew the expression, becalmed, composed, beholding something far away that no one else could see. "What'd I tell ya?" he said to the driver as they clambered back into the wagon. "This one ain't gonna be no trouble at all."

  The driver snapped the reins and the hack lurched forward. Behind them, the road disappeared in Louisiana dust.

  The week came and went without fanfare around the District, almost as if nothing so remarkable had transpired over the past two months, with the usual amount of drunkenness, debauchery and petty violence from the army of men who marched through the gilded doors of the mansions and slipped like furtive rodents into the creaking cribs.

  But those who paid close attention noticed a lingering tension on the streets. Doors were locked and checked twice, the sporting girls and madams and floor men were more than watchful. But the days passed by without incident, and the extra caution was soon forgotten. After all, word had it that the killer had been King Bolden, of all people, and he was gone for good.

  Any citizen who came down Rampart Street looking for the King Bolden Band was told that it was no more, but those same fellows jassed regularly at Longshoreman's Hall with Freddie Keppard on the horn. They went by the Crescent City Band.

  The rumors on the street made their rounds, of course. The sporting girls clucked in dismay that such a fine man would come to such a terrible end; and the rounders, nodding over short glasses of Raleigh Rye, allowed how they knew it would end up like this, what with the way he acted and all. Those who had despised him all along, who were disgusted with his music and his antics, or had nursed bitter jealousies over his fame, pursed their lips, narrowed their eyes, drew up all prim and righteous and said: Now, didn't I tell you so?

  It was rainy one day, bright and hot the next. Valentin waited uneasily through the long week, but nothing much happened. It was quiet, as if Bolden's departure had calmed the turgid Uptown waters. No women were assaulted. Indeed, Storyville seemed all too happy to accept that the nightmare was over and move along.

  If Valentin held himself to blame, it appeared he w
as a minority of one. His mistakes had been either forgiven or forgotten. Messages came to his door, offers of a night's work here and there, entreaties from the madams. He ignored them, and instead spent the hours when he wasn't caring for Justine pacing his front room or wandering the nearby streets, turning the case over again and again, searching in vain for the missing piece.

  Beansoup was released from the hospital the Wednesday following the incident, and Justine on Friday. The boy went to a Catholic orphanage where the nuns fussed over him day and night. He was a pint-sized hero.

  Valentin settled Justine in his bedroom to recover. He was solicitous with her, tending to her every need, feeding and bathing her, barely allowing her to raise her head from the pillow. After a few days, the soreness where she had taken the blows eased, but she still felt weak and often dizzy. A doctor visited every third day to check on her. He said her fractured skull seemed to be healing nicely.

  She slept much of the time away and while she slept, he sat by the bed, long hour after long hour. At first, he would simply study her face, then turn to stare out the window, all in brooding silence. Then he found himself at odd moments murmuring to her, as if she was wide-awake and listening to every word.

  It began with whispered apologies for not protecting her. She had been attacked while he was playing detective and he was ashamed. He guessed that it was his pride, that he was out to prove that he was right and everyone else was wrong. That he was better than they thought. And that his friend Buddy Bolden was not a murderer. He did not entertain the possibility that Bolden had attacked her and Beansoup—at least not aloud.

  Because he didn't believe Buddy was guilty. There was plenty to point to him, but Valentin didn't buy any of it. There were too many pieces missing.

  He told her he had always expected that Buddy would go out in a blaze of light, his heart exploding from too much of everything; either that, or shot dead by a jealous rounder or a woman he had wronged. But to see him voided of everything, a tattered, hollow shadow, was one possibility he had never imagined. In his pride, he had betrayed every one of the people he cared about. But, of course, she didn't hear any of this.

  The hack pulled to the gate of Jackson State Hospital. Valentin asked the driver to wait and stepped down.

  The doctor, a white man about his own age, ushered him through a set of heavy doors. A large room stretched out before them, the ceiling arched like a cathedral, with hallways to the wards running off at right angles. Tall, barred windows made patterns of dusty yellow afternoon sunlight on the white tile floor.

  Thirty-odd male patients shuffled aimlessly about or stood as still as stones beneath the domed ceiling, each one seemingly lost in a private world. The doctor touched Valentin's arm and pointed to a gaunt figure in a blue hospital robe who was shuffling absently along the far wall, one hand held out tentatively before him. As he moved along, he laid fingers on the wall molding, then the windowsill, then the next piece of molding. Valentin watched, feeling a tightening in his throat.

  "He has to touch everything," the doctor said in a quiet voice. "He gets very upset if he misses anything."

  "That's all?"

  "Yes. He's very docile. Never any trouble. He sleeps a lot, of course. They all do."

  "Can I speak to him?" Valentin said.

  "I doubt he'll recognize you," the doctor said. "He doesn't recognize anyone. His wife came up just last week." He shook his head. "Nothing. He didn't even blink. She was very upset, but..." The two men watched Buddy for a moment.

  "Do you know what caused this?" Valentin said.

  "We give it the name dementia praecox. The truth is we really don't know. There's too much pressure, and something in the mind bends until it breaks."

  "Will he get any better?" Valentin said.

  The doctor was about to launch into a well-practiced speech about always keeping hope, but after studying Valentin's face for a few seconds, he said, "Not likely, no." He glanced at the object under the Creole's arm. "Is that a gift?"

  "It's his horn. He was a musician, you know and ... I thought he might like to have it." The doctor looked dubious, but he nodded his permission.

  Valentin walked across the room and stood by the wall. When the patient's gaze came to rest on the obstruction in his path, his feet stopped moving, his dark brow furrowed as he held his searching hand suspended in mid-air.

  "Buddy," Valentin said, very softly. There was not the slightest flicker in the patient's expression. "It's Tino, Buddy." He slipped the horn from the coverlet and held it up before the dull eyes.

  The black scarecrow before him took a slight, shuffling step to the side and moved past, his hand already stretching to caress the next piece of polished molding. Valentin felt no difference in the air around him. It was empty, as if no one had been there at all.

  The two men shook hands and the doctor went back to the ward. Just before the doors closed behind him, Valentin caught a last glimpse of King Bolden, patiently padding along the blank wall, touching every surface with that gentle hand.

  He stopped outside and leaned against the building, his forehead in his hand, trying to grasp what he had just witnessed. Buddy didn't know him anymore. He didn't know anyone. He was gone.

  He walked down the hill and back out the gate, ready to leave that place. The hack driver blinked awake, yawned and reached down to give him a hand up. At that moment, Valentin happened to glance back and saw the building that housed the White Wards, the very place where he had delivered Father Dupre. It seemed like it had been a long time ago, but he realized that it had only been a matter of weeks. Back when the whole terrible mess began.

  "Sir?" The hack driver was waiting.

  Valentin hesitated another moment. "I forgot something," he said and went back through the gate.

  He found himself in the lobby, standing on the very spot where he had turned the priest over. Nurses and attendants bustled about on soft-soled shoes. An old Negro was mopping the tiled floor. He walked up to the man and spoke to him in a low voice. The Negro mumbled a name and he tilted his head politely in the direction of the staircase.

  On the second floor, Valentin found the attendant named Henry pushing a tiny, enfeebled white man in a wheelchair. He stated his business and was directed to a room with two beds. On one of them, Father Dupre sat staring out the window. He looked small and lost inside his white hospital gown and his flesh seemed to have retreated from his bones. He blinked slowly and whispered to himself.

  At the foot of the other bed was a dapper little Frenchman, dressed nattily in a white shirt and cotton trousers and sporting an impeccable mustache. He sat quite upright in an ornate wooden wheelchair, a book in his lap. He looked at Valentin with bright bird eyes. Valentin nodded a greeting and returned his attention to the priest. "Father Dupre?"

  Dupre looked around, his eyes milky blue. After a moment, he said, "I know you," in a calm voice.

  "Valentin St. Cyr. I escorted you here from the city." The priest nodded slowly, though he didn't seem to have heard. "How are you feeling, Father?" Valentin said.

  The old man made a noncommittal motion with one thin hand. "You come from New Orleans?" he inquired presently.

  "Yes, Father."

  "You're familiar with St. Ignatius Church?"

  "Yessir."

  "Could you tell me, is someone tending my flock?" The voice took on a slightly fretful note.

  "I'm sure they're in good hands," Valentin said.

  Another long silence followed, but Valentin could see something working about behind the priest's eyes. He heard a deep sigh and then, "How I failed them. I pray to God to forgive me." The old eyes roamed beyond the window to the hospital grounds and rolling green fields. "That poor child," he said. "The black one. What happened to her?"

  Valentin was startled. "She died, Father."

  Dupre closed his eyes and sighed again, a deep, weary echo. "God rest her soul. God forgive her. God forgive us all." The priest's silence lasted a minute, then two.
Valentin heard a low whistle and turned to see the Frenchman in the wheelchair curling a finger at him. Valentin stepped around the foot of Father Dupre's bed.

  "He won't say nothin' now," the Frenchman whispered in an accented voice. "That's how he does when the others come by."

  "What others?"

  "Them nuns and such. People from his church. Some tall fellow wit' a mustache, he come by once a week. It's always the same t'ing. 'God forgive her. God forgive us all.' Then he won't say one more word. I'm tellin' you, he get that look, he's not gon' talk to no one, comprenez vous?"

  Valentin nodded. He was still fixed on the priest's mention of Annie Robie. He'd been right. There had been a connection. But he didn't know what it meant.

  The Frenchman gave him a quick smile. "Name's Beauchamp," he said and rapped his knuckles on the arm of his chair. "You take me down the kitchen. Time for my au lait."

  They went out of the ward and along the corridor until they reached a set of double doors near the top landing of the stairwell. Beauchamp pointed a finger and Valentin pushed him into the ward kitchen, a sunny room with tall windows. A fat mulatto woman at the sink turned around when she heard the doors swing open.

  "Ah, Monsieur Beauchamp," she said with a rich laugh. "It's that time, ain't it? Comin' right up." She splashed milk in a copper pot and threw it on a burner. In two minutes, a steaming café au lait was placed in Monsieur Beauchamp's gnarled hands. Valentin declined the offer of a cup for himself.

  "Like to get over by the window," Beauchamp said and Valentin started pushing.

  "Sun side of the house," the Frenchman said when they reached the destination. The view was the back of the grounds, over the rice fields that stretched to the horizon. The old man sipped his au lait with satisfaction and Valentin began working on an excuse to get away. Between seeing Bolden like that and then the old priest talking about Annie Robie, he felt like he had been pushed through a wringer.