Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter

by Beth Fantaskey

  I craned my neck—not to see the casket, which was silver, as if Mr. Bessemer were stuffed in a big bullet getting shot to heaven. Or to the other place.

  No, I was looking at one of the men who’d ushered me and Maude to our spot.

  Flora Bessemer’s uncle.

  Up close, he loomed even bigger and was shaped like a barrel that had a head balanced on top. Honestly, he had no neck to speak of. And his face was like a bulldog’s, the features all pushed in.

  I peered closer.

  And was he eating something during the service? I could see his big jowls flapping.

  I didn’t know much about funerals, but I was pretty sure you shouldn’t bring a snack. It just seemed disrespectful.

  I guess I wasn’t very respectful either when I tugged Maude’s sleeve and whispered, “Get a load of the guy chowing down!”

  She started to grin—then abruptly got serious and returned her attention to her notebook, her pencil poised. I stood on tiptoes to see the front-row mourners again and perked up my ears, trying to figure out what had captured her interest.

  And lo and behold, I got pretty intrigued too, because none other than Flora Bessemer was stepping up near the minister, preparing herself to say a few words about her father.

  Chapter 46

  THE FLORA BESSEMER I SAW AT THE CEMETERY WAS NOTHING like the one I’d met in the alley.

  No, the girl in the black wool coat who stood framed by a huge horseshoe of roses was almost cloyingly cute. She didn’t vow revenge for her father’s death. She just talked about how sweet “dear Papa” had been. The ice in those blue eyes had melted into tears too—although I thought they seemed a little forced.

  Back in the alley, I’d seen Flora get genuinely sad, if only for a moment, but this was different. And if I hadn’t met her before and listened as she coolly promised to settle a score, I probably would’ve bought the whole act.

  “Oh, Papa!” she cried, her eyes toward heaven, although the more I thought about it, I was pretty sure that really was the wrong direction to be looking. The crowd lapped it up, though. A bunch of old ladies started sobbing when Flora sniffed, “How I shall miss your tender, generous heart!”

  Don’t get me wrong. I believed Flora loved and would miss her dad.

  But she wasn’t a weeper.

  And as for her father having a “tender” heart . . . well, anybody who palled around with Al Capone wasn’t exactly a big softie.

  Heck, there were guns at the funeral. I’d seen one, only half hidden under Flora’s uncle’s coat.

  My eyes must’ve gotten wide because when he walked away, Maude whispered, “There are lots of firearms here. No respectable mobster would be caught in a crowd like this without one!”

  But to hear Flora talk, her dad had been a saint.

  “Father always took care of our neighbors . . .” She droned on, almost as bad as the minister. “Even when we had very little, before I became famous . . .”

  She had to put that in there. Like being in a bread advertisement was all that great!

  “. . . Papa would share what we had with those around us . . .”

  I tugged Maude’s sleeve. “Flora’s layin’ it on a little thick, huh?”

  Maude leaned close, laughing. “Now who’s being cynical?”

  She was teasing me because I believed Miss Giddings was innocent but thought Flora was full of baloney when it came to “Papa’s” virtues. “This is different,” I said. “Everybody knows mobsters are bad.”

  “Yet this city loves them,” Maude said softly, poising her pencil over her notebook again. She shook her head. “It’s a mystery.”

  “Sure is. Why make such a fuss over men who break the law then end up killing each other?”

  I might’ve said that a little too loud. All at once, Mount Carmel Cemetery got very quiet, and some people turned to look at me. Including, unfortunately, Flora Bessemer, who wasn’t crying anymore.

  Nope.

  Those blue eyes were deadly ice again.

  Chapter 47

  “THAT WAS QUITE A SCENE WE CAUSED,” MAUDE NOTED, keeping one gloved hand on my shoulder so we wouldn’t get separated as we exited the graveyard. Even more people had shown up while we’d been listening to Flora’s big eulogy. And Mr. Bessemer wasn’t even a bigtime mobster. If he hadn’t gotten shot, nobody would’ve known who he was.

  What a crazy city. No wonder the whole rest of the country thought Chicago was loony for guns and gangsters. I guess we were.

  “Flora looked like she was going to kill me,” I said without exaggerating. I searched for little Miss Bessemer in the crowd. The barrel of a man was helping her into a long, dark automobile.

  But right before she climbed into the seat, Flora spotted me too—and stopped dead in her tracks.

  Chapter 48

  “WOULD YOU MIND IF I SPOKE TO HER IN PRIVATE, PLEASE?” Flora asked Maude, pointing to me. She was being overly polite in that way adults always like. “It will just take a moment.”

  “There’s quite a crowd,” Maude noted, glancing around. “I’d like to stay close to Izzie.”

  I knew Maude wasn’t really worried about me getting lost in a cemetery or stolen away by strangers in broad daylight. I sold papers alone on a street corner, for crying out loud.

  She was just being a nosy reporter, trying to finagle that interview she wanted with Flora. However, before I could say it was fine with me if Maude listened, Flora’s uncle stuck his bulldog nose into the conversation.

  “They can talk in the car,” he offered—not in a friendly way. In a Butt out, lady way. “They’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Maude frowned with more genuine concern at the prospect of me actually getting into a mobster’s automobile. “I feel responsible for Isabel today, and she doesn’t really know you . . .”

  I was positive that Maude would’ve leaped into that long, black sedan, though, if it meant she could get an interview. Reporters did things like that, right?

  “I’ll be okay,” I assured her, trying to give her a look that said, I’ll ask questions. Tell you what she says!

  Maude hesitated, then turned to the big uncle. “All right. Just for a moment, though.”

  Then she gave me a look. One that said, Be careful—but get news.

  All at once I realized that we were kind of working together. And although I was excited, I wanted to act very professional. “I’ll be right back,” I promised, as if I helped out famous journalists every day. Then I followed Flora into the biggest auto I’d ever been in—and lost a little of my nerve when the uncle slammed the door on both of us.

  Flora, meanwhile, lost her charm.

  The second we were alone, she started to interview me, dropping the polite, sweet voice and demanding, “What are you doing here, alley cat?”

  Chapter 49

  “WHY’D YOU CALL ME THAT?” I ASKED, MY CHEEKS FLUSHING WITH INDIGNATION.

  “I found you crawling around garbage cans,” Flora reminded me. She looked me up and down, and I knew Maude hadn’t been completely right about my outfit. At least one person had noticed that I wasn’t exactly dressed for a funeral. “What are you doing here now?”

  “I’m trying to find out what really happened to your dad,” I told her. It was hard to concentrate, though, because I felt like I was in a coffin. The sedan was huge, but somehow cramped and suffocating. Maybe it was the way the door had thunked shut behind me, or the fact that I couldn’t hear anything outside. “Jeez,” I added, tugging at my collar, “is there enough air in here?”

  “The car is bulletproof and sealed tight,” Flora explained impatiently. “You get used to it.”

  So she obviously knew her father’s real business. “What do you want with me?” I asked, suddenly afraid that I was going to get “taken for a ride.” And not a nice Sunday drive either. No, the kind mobsters gave each other. Meaning somebody ended up dead. “Why’d you wanna talk to me?”

  “First I find you snooping
around where my father got killed,” Flora said, watching me with her shrewd eyes. “Then you show up at his funeral with a reporter. Seems kind of funny to me.”

  Obviously not “ha-ha” funny.

  “So you know who Maude is?” I asked, thinking maybe Flora and I had something in common. Newspapers. “Do you read the Tribune?”

  But she looked at me like I was stupid. “I don’t read the newspapers. I am in the newspapers. And Maude Collier has been trying to talk to me for days.”

  “Oh, right.” Here I was, with a chance to get information out of Flora Bessemer, and the first questions I asked were the dumbest ones possible. And my next question probably wasn’t much better. “Why don’t you wanna be interviewed?”

  “Uncle Carl doesn’t think it would be in my best interest,” Flora said. “If a reporter misunderstood something I said and it got into the papers, it could ruin my movie contract.”

  I hated the snooty way she said that, with a flip of her curls, but my eyes got wide anyhow. “You’re gonna be in a movie?”

  She had already given up caring about me now that the topic was her. “Yes,” she informed me. “A real Hollywood movie! With Marion Davies!”

  Okay, that was impressive. Marion Davies was famous, right up there with Clara Bow and Mary Pickford. “How’d you go from selling bread to being in a movie?” I asked. “That’s a pretty big jump!”

  “Uncle Carl knows people with the studios,” she said. “So did my father. They got me a screen test when we visited California last year.” She glanced at my clothes again. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  All of a sudden I forgot that Uncle Carl probably also had connections that could get me killed, and I warned her, “I ought to pop you one! Why are you so mean?”

  Flora didn’t answer. “Why, really, are you poking your nose into my father’s murder?” she asked again. “Tell the truth!”

  “I just want to help Miss Giddings,” I said. “And her son, Robert. Because Miss Giddings is going on trial, and Robert is—”

  “I know all about Robert Giddings,” Flora interrupted. “His mother was worried about taking him to California, if that’s where we had to move for my career.” Flora rolled her soon-to-be-even-more-famous eyes. “She doesn’t like to ‘disrupt’ him.”

  “I was just going to say that he’s my friend,” I told her. “I want to help Miss Giddings and Robert because we’re friends.”

  Flora Bessemer might’ve had a “career,” but I was pretty sure she didn’t have any more friends than I did. Maybe fewer. I also got the feeling she didn’t care.

  “Who do you really think killed your father?” I asked, cutting to the chase. “And let’s not pretend that everything you said a few minutes ago, about him being a saint, was true.”

  I thought Flora might pop me for saying that. “Don’t you ever say anything bad about my father,” she growled. “You didn’t know him!”

  The tears at the funeral had definitely been a bit much, but once again, I saw a flash of genuine grief, expressed as anger. “Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  I didn’t think she’d forgive me, but she muttered, “It’s okay.” Then she paused, and I got the feeling that as hard and cold as she was, she wished she had somebody to confide in. “I’m not sure who killed him,” she said. “But I have suspicions . . .”

  I was about to burst with excitement, and I held my breath, afraid that if I even sucked in some air, she’d stop talking.

  Unfortunately, at that very moment Uncle Carl opened the door and poked his head in. “Flora? We need to get going.”

  His breath stank up the already close air, and I fought the urge to wave my hand in front of my nose.

  What had he been snacking on during the funeral? Garlic cloves and . . . what was that other smell?

  “Just give us one more minute,” Flora snapped. It was clear that, though she was only a kid, she was in charge, just like Detective Culhane bossed around the older Hastings. “Shut the door!”

  Uncle Carl did as he was told, and Flora returned her attention to me.

  “Look,” I said. “You and I have different reasons for wanting to solve this crime. Me, to save somebody. And you, so you can kill somebody.”

  Flora didn’t object to that. In fact, it seemed to strike her as quite reasonable. So I kept talking. “Why don’t we team up? Because—even though I think you’re snooty and mean—you’re obviously very smart. And I am too.”

  Flora blinked at me about ten times, and I thought she was going to say I was crazy.

  But I guess being direct worked with her. “Fine,” she agreed. “What do we do next?”

  It struck me then that maybe she’d wanted a partner all along.

  As I left that sedan after making plans to meet her again, I also realized that I’d just formed an alliance with a mobster’s daughter to track down a killer who might turn out to be an honest-to-gosh hit man. And between Flora and me, only one of us got to travel in the safety of a bulletproof auto.

  Worse yet, when I opened the door of that car, who was waiting for me, standing next to Maude?

  Why, Detective James Culhane, of course!

  Chapter 50

  “I SUPPOSE I SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED THAT YOU WOULD SHOW up at the funeral, Miss Feeney,” Detective Culhane said without taking his eyes off the traffic. I was riding in his official police car again, stuck in the back seat this time because Maude was up front. He frowned at her. “However, I am a little surprised that you two seem to be collaborating.”

  By “surprised,” he obviously meant “disappointed” and “disapproving.”

  “Isabel is quite insightful and helpful,” Maude said, turning to smile and wink at me, as though she found his grumpiness amusing and wanted me in on the joke. She turned back around. “I’ve been trying to get an interview with Flora Bessemer for days, with no result, and Izzie got invited right into Flora’s private auto.”

  “I didn’t learn that much,” I pointed out. That wasn’t entirely my fault, so I added, “Just as she was about to name a bunch of people who might’ve killed her dad, Uncle Carl had to stick his big nose into the conversation and ruin everything.”

  Detective Culhane gave me a quick, intrigued look. “Is that true? She has suspicions?”

  It was the first time he seemed interested in pinning the crime on anybody but Miss Giddings, and I got so excited that I jumped forward, so my nose was in between him and Maude. Of course, he immediately advised me, “Sit back, please, Isabel.”

  “Okay, fine.” I did as I was told, but at least I didn’t have to button my lip. “Flora doesn’t think Miss Giddings killed her dad,” I informed him. “She thinks Miss Giddings is innocent!”

  That was a bit of a stretch. Flora hadn’t exactly said that. But given how she loved revenge, if she believed, for one second, that Miss Giddings really was guilty, she’d probably go to the Cook County Jail in person and make good on that vow she’d made in the alley.

  Maude shifted in her seat—she was allowed to move around—so she could see me again. “What else did you and Flora speak about, Izzie? You were in there quite a while.”

  I almost confided that Flora and I had formed a partnership, but something—or, more accurately, someone—made me keep that to myself. A certain detective who had gotten quiet but was no doubt listening carefully and watching me with those eyes he had in the back of his head. The ones that had caught Hastings napping. “Aw, she was mostly bragging about how she’s gonna be in a big movie with Marion Davies,” I finally said. “She’s all full of herself about how her family ‘knows’ people in Hollywood.”

  I thought the stuff about the movie wasn’t very important. In fact, that was why I said it. So I was surprised when Detective Culhane glanced sharply at Maude, while she smiled in a knowing way and arched her perfect eyebrows. “Interesting,” Maude said, as if she’d just learned something big. “Very interesting!”

  What . . .

  I poke
d my nose up front again, looking from one to the other. “What’d I say?”

  They ignored me. Detective Culhane didn’t even tell me to butt out. He spoke quietly to Maude, as if he’d forgotten I existed. “All these thugs have connections to the movie studios. Booze and entertainment . . . it’s all intertwined.”

  To my disappointment, Maude seemed to have forgotten me too. “A very pretty young department store clerk might have desperately wanted those connections,” she mused aloud. “What an easy way to fame and fortune!”

  I finally understood that they were talking about Miss Giddings, and how she might’ve been using Charles Bessemer to get a career in the movies. I’d always thought she was pretty enough . . .

  “Miss Giddings wouldn’t do that!” I cried. “She only wanted his money—for Robert! To cure him!”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I’d made a big mistake. It was too late to fix it, though. Maude and Detective Culhane had just heard me admit that Miss Giddings had wanted her dead boyfriend’s money. They probably hadn’t even noticed the part about Robert.

  I thudded back in my seat. “Why would she kill him if she wanted fame—or his money, even?” I asked glumly. “Didn’t she need him alive to get that stuff?”

  “Oh, Isabel . . .” Maude said. “These complicated affairs don’t always end logically. Maybe Bessemer told your Miss Giddings that he couldn’t get her into the movies. Maybe he was cutting the money off. You don’t know what they were arguing about the night he was shot.”

  “Miss Giddings didn’t want to move to Hollywood,” I told Maude, crossing my arms over my chest. “She didn’t want to ‘disrupt’ Robert. That’s the exact word Flora used. Disrupt.”

  Maude and Detective Culhane shared another look, only this time they weren’t smirking. “That is surprising,” Maude conceded.