Anna held still and amused herself thinking up clever refutations that she should have said to Officer Singer that afternoon in the stables. Anna wasn't good at clever refutations. Plus, Officer Singer was right. Parts of her had wanted to kiss him. He also had a point when he said she didn't know enough about dead people. She wanted to tell him that she had read A System of Legal Medicine, but, as she had stolen it from the coroner, Officer Singer might put her in jail. The book had all kinds of information about dead people—stomach contents, blood spatters, and tips for identifying a body after its parts had rotted off. It discussed thumb types and measuring criminal's faces. But Anna needed to learn about mental diseases, too—diseases that might lead a sufferer to suicide or murder.
When the fitting was over, Anna read. She had severed the covers of Theo's medical books and replaced them with covers from other books that she had borrowed from his collection and dismembered. She'd taken three volumes from a series called Systems of Medicine and re-covered them as A History of Egypt, Drummond's Spiritual Life, and A Guide to Child Rearing. She pulled them out and snuggled down to read.
The texts were heavy, cumbersome to hold, with lots of jargon that she had to look up in The Wizard of Oz—a medical dictionary. She found little of what she sought, but liked their dusty book smell, and they had interesting pictures—pictures of people with hair covering their entire bodies, Siamese twins, and one of a naked person who had breasts and, so the text said, male parts, too. Regrettably, they were far too small for Anna to get a good look.
She flipped through a book called Nervous and Mental Diseases, which would surely touch on suicide. Out of curiosity, she went to the section on hysteria. It included nothing new about treatment, but various theories as to the cause.
“Behind every symptom of hysteria and the obsession neurosis is a mass of suppressed sexual desire.” So wrote Sigmund Freud. Anna cried out in indignation. In addition to his other crimes, Joe Singer put her at risk of a mental disease. Whether that meant she should avoid him entirely or run into his arms, she wasn't sure—medically speaking. She said a silent prayer to Saint Dymphna, patron saint of the crazy, to save her from the insanity induced by resisting the lips of a delicious police officer.
Anna went to her dresser and picked up A System of Legal Medicine. She had read it thrice already and had mastered most of the information, but she still lacked practical experience. She needed a real rotten, fetid corpse to examine. She yawned and rested her cheek, just for a moment, on the open book. Her breathing slowed. She fell asleep. She dreamed of hairy Siamese twins, moldering corpses, and insanity in the arms of Joe Singer.
The next morning, Anna slumped into the station, out of sorts and heavy with disillusionment. The LAPD cops were nothing like the bright, heroic, upstanding detectives in novels. Detective Snow was incompetent, Detective Wolf was profligate, and Officer Singer was a cowardly, crooning Arrow Collar Man who recklessly sent women over the brink.
Still, whenever Officer Singer was in the station, Anna's eyes wandered over to where he was and lingered there. Whenever he returned her gaze, she looked away. She thought of friendly things to say to him, like, “Do you ever go to the beach?” but she never did.
Late that afternoon, Joe sat at his desk tallying traffic accidents. Wolf sauntered over and leaned his elbows on Joe's desk. His pomade smelled overwhelming. “I'm jealous of you, young Joe.”
Joe grinned, sat back in his chair, and stretched. “Oh, why's that?”
“Mrs. Holmes is always looking at you, although I can't say I approve of her taste.”
Joe's smile melted away. “Wolf, you are full to the eyebrows with horse shit.”
Wolf looked over at Anna, who appeared to be doing nothing, staring at the ceiling with a pen between her lips. “She's always flashing those big blue eyes in your direction.”
Joe followed Wolf's gaze to Anna. “They're not blue. They're more like…ocean gray.”
“The ocean's blue.”
“Yeah. Sometimes. But her eyes are like the ocean when it's overcast—grey. It still sparkles, you know, from sunbeams.”
Wolf flashed his teeth. “Officer Singer, that's tantamount to a confession.”
Joe sighed. “Look. She's a matron—a respectable girl. And she's engaged.”
Wolf snapped his fingers. “I knew she was lying about the husband overseas.”
“I don't have any designs on her.” Joe went back to tallying accidents.
“Watch out. I'm taking that as permission.” Wolf licked his hand, and used it to slick back his gleaming, brilliantined hair. He swaggered across to Anna's desk and leaned over her shoulder, so close that his cheek grazed her hair. He wafted citrus, lavender, and rubbing alcohol. “Matron Holmes, do you know how to lubricate a typewriter?”
Anna smiled in confusion at his proximity and replied in the singsong of the unsure. “Hm. I think so.”
“Why don't I show you, honeybun? Here, you scoot in close.” Anna scooted her chair flush against the desk and Wolf reached his arms around her to fiddle with the carriage. “That's right.” He cut his eyes to Joe and grinned. Joe glowered.
Matron Clemens approached with a file for Anna and a wordless reprimand for Wolf. He straightened up like a guilty schoolboy and race-walked back to his desk.
Matron Clemens's voice was as crisp and clean as a new box of envelopes. “There has been a report that a ten-year-old girl is living at the Poodle Dog. Do you know the place?”
“Of course,” Anna lied. Mr. Melvin would tell her where it was. Or Joe. She glanced over at him. His face was peppermint red.
Matron Clemens continued. “My best hope is that she's the daughter of one of the girls. Please go down and investigate. If you find her, take her straight to Whittier and enroll her.”
Anna nodded. Whittier was a reform school. By reputation, it was more of a training ground for immoral behavior than a haven of reform, but Anna would do whatever Matron Clemens said. Most of the time.
As Anna took the file from Matron Clemens's hand, Snow shuffled by on his way to the door. He held a pair of rubber boots, which were neither the fashion in Los Angeles nor appropriate for the July weather. The last time she had seen him wear rain boots they were covered in blood and feathers. He sat on a bench and slipped the boots over his shoes.
Anna thanked Matron Clemens and sashayed toward the door. She briefly lingered at Mr. Melvin's desk, leaning down as if he had called her over to show her something. “Mr. Melvin, do you have the address of the Poodle Dog?”
Mr. Melvin shrunk away from her, but consulted an address book and began to write directions on a slip of paper. Snow lumbered past them in his rubber boots, trailing the scent of toe jam and whatever horrors he'd stepped in. Mr. Melvin's tiny lip jumped.
Anna whispered, “Did someone report a body?”
He nodded his head and slid her the note.
Anna leaned down and beamed into his face. “Thank you.” His little mouth turned up, ever so slightly.
There was a skip in Anna's step. This was her chance to examine a real, rotting, stinking corpse in situ and improve her detecting skills. She stepped outside and paused at the top of the stone steps, scanning the street for Snow. She spotted him waiting to board a trolley. He held his hat in one hand and was vigorously scratching his head. Anna tailed him at a distance. When he boarded a trolley, she climbed on the car's back fender. When Snow pulled the cord at Orchard Street, Anna jumped off.
Snow lumbered down the dusty street eating a red apple. He slipped between two beer mills into an avocado orchard. Anna followed stealthily. The trees were large and heavy with fruit, their branches dipping down to form caves of cool shadow. She heard his dull, gravelly voice and tiptoed toward it, stepping on soft fallen fruit to muffle the crunching of the leaves. She ducked under the canopy of a tree.
There, peering through the branches was Madam Lulu. She wore a dress the color of a tree trunk.
“What are you doing here?” Anna as
ked.
Madam Lulu whispered, “Didn't you say I needed evidence?”
Anna crept closer. “I'm learning, too. I've been reading about legal medicine…”
Madam Lulu bulged her eyes at Anna. “Shut up. You're gonna give me away.”
Anna covered her mouth in a pantomime of compliance, and crouched down by the madam. She peeked through the curtain of waxy green and saw part of a death scene, the back of a girl who hung by her neck, her long black hair cascading forward, her head bowed in immeasurable sadness. She wore a diaphanous white peignoir, as glamorous and expensive as any that Anna owned, with a long ruffled train that dragged in the dirt. The sleeves of her lingerie were slightly too long, covering her fingers, giving the impression of a child playing dress-up. Anna's stomach fluttered as she angled for a better view of what appeared to be a smartly dressed, upper-class corpse. “Jupiter.”
Madam Lulu wriggled her shoulders. “Stop crowding me.”
Snow was hovering near the girl. He took out a knife and began to hack at the rope above her head. The body landed hard. “Boom,” Snow said.
Anna smothered a gasp, and Madam Lulu sneered in disgust. The coroner called from the street some fifty yards through the trees. “Snow! Are you going to help me with the stretcher?”
Snow grunted and galumphed off through the orchard, out of sight. It was the opportunity she'd been dreaming of. Anna sprinted to the fallen body, which now lay stiffly on its back, and knelt beside it. She looked at the clouded eyes, the slightly opened mouth, the pale parted lips. The girl had once been beautiful. Now her tongue swelled like a balloon, and a trickle of dried blood ran from her nose to the corner of her mouth. How curious when a living person became a thing. Anna poked it.
In a moment, Madam Lulu squatted beside her. “One of Monique's girls. Ruby something.”
Anna's eyes flashed. “She's a prostitute? Are you sure?”
Madam Lulu grunted. “I'm sure.”
Lulu's words set Anna's mind racing. Would Anna soon be taking another helpless baby to the Witch? The thought made her angry. She leaned over the woman's dead face and began to speak in a rapid staccato. “Her pupils are dilated. Belladonna drops, maybe.”
“Lots of the girls use them,” Madam Lulu said.
Anna leaned closer and took a good solid whiff. “She's fresh. That is, she doesn't smell rotten. In fact, she smells rather sweet.” Anna's eyes darted up. “Why would she smell sweet?”
Anna heard Snow and the Coroner on the street. She had, at most, a minute to investigate before the men returned with the stretcher. If they caught her, they'd tell Matron Clemens, or, worse yet, Wolf. Then, she'd lose her job.
Beneath the noose still draped around the girl's neck, there was a dark line the color of a plum, its edges bleeding out into red. Anna supposed such a mark might be expected in a hanging. But could Anna prove that she hadn't hung herself? She tried to lift the woman's arm. It resisted, as stiff as a board. “Dead at least three hours. That's when rigor mortis sets in. I read that in a book. She's warm, but so is the air.” Anna's voice boiled. “It's so hot. I could better estimate time of death if it wasn't so sweltering hot.”
Madam Lulu rolled her eyes. “Who cares?”
In the distance, Snow laughed.
Anna tensed. She quickly examined the girl's hands. The fingers were soft and white, the nails polished, slightly tinted—something girls in Anna's set were not allowed to do. Curiously, she wore a wedding ring. Anna tried to raise the sleeves of the peignoir to examine the arms, but quickly realized that the only way to do so was to unbutton the garment and pull them down. She didn't have time.
She paused for a minute and listened. A scraping sound. The stretcher coming out of the wagon. Anna moved to the girl's legs and quickly lifted her nightdress. She detached the stockings from blue garters exposing two slender gams, and pushed up the girl's silky eyelet drawers. The shins were light pink, but the color of them faded into white the higher Anna looked up the thighs. Her heart beat faster. She rolled the legs to one side. Both the calves and the back of the thighs were uniformly dark, livid, a distinct contrast to the front of the legs. Anna squeaked with epiphany, her heart pounding. “Dual lividity! It's textbook. She's been dead at least ten hours and she didn't die from hanging. Somebody hung her after she was dead. I could prove it in a court of law.” Anna looked up, her eyes wide. “Madam Lulu, she was murdered! I have no doubt.”
The madam gasped in mock surprise. “You're a genius!”
Anna moved on to the feet and vigorously tugged at the girl's slipper. It was tight and resisted. She used a stick to pry it off. Anna recoiled. The foot had been forced, the toes broken. Anna dropped the slipper and a sixpence fell out.
A cold thought flooded Anna's mind, and for a moment, she couldn't move. What if the very small, ill-fitting shoe had belonged to Peaches? And the shoe that had dangled from Peaches’ lifeless foot, it belonged to Anna.
Anna's palms began to sweat, her fingers trembling. “Madam Lulu?” she croaked, but Lulu was gone, sprinting for the trees, hell to split, raising her skirts so her plump legs could move faster. Anna heard the coroner's voice and snapped her head around.
“The world's a better place without a whore like her tempting good men,” he said.
Snow grunted. “Yeah. Fancy whores tease you, show you their legs, when they know you can't afford them. And when you're all riled up, they laugh at you.”
Anna was temporarily stunned by Snow's coarseness and immorality. Madam Lulu called in a loud whisper, “Hustle your frilly britches out of there before you get caught.” She disappeared beneath the canopy.
Anna put the coin in the shoe with fumbling fingers and did her best to shove it back on the foot. She pulled down the gown, leaving the garters unhitched, and fled just as Snow and the coroner emerged carrying the stretcher. Snow squinted at her departing figure and growled.
Anna sped the length of the orchard and cut across a field into the street, fleeing the things she had seen and heard. People stared, and she didn't care. Her lungs burned. She ran until she couldn't, and stumbled to a stop, collapsing against a saloon window, taking quick, gulping breaths. She had to compose herself. The fact that Peaches had worn Anna's shoe must be a coincidence. Anna was, after all, not dead, and she needed to remember it. She inhaled deeply, closed her eyes, and steeled herself. She must think and be calm. Matron Clemens expected her back soon. She was already late to collect the ten-year-old girl. It would be much more difficult to investigate the brothel murders if she lost her job. Anna raced up the street to the address Mr. Melvin had given her for the Poodle Dog, as if the killer himself were pursuing her.
The Poodle Dog was the same ornate stone mansion that she had seen her first day in the brothels. A maid in a ruffled apron hung wet laundry at the side of the building. Anna hurried to the door and knocked. No answer. She knocked again. Nothing. She lingered on the doorstep, unsure of what to do. She tried the doorknob, and the door swung open. Anna poked her head in.
The receiving room was tasteful and smelled of lilac. There was a Persian rug, a fountain that made burbling sounds, a Turkish couch with a canopy, and a feathery palm plant in an urn. Anna could see into the parlor, where a real Egyptian statue stood guard over a staircase that led up to the second floor. To the bedrooms, thought Anna, and wondered what exactly went on there. The place seemed far too elegant for a brothel. It rivaled the finest hotel. She stuck her head inside and called, “Hello?”
Down the stairs came a woman in her forties, her hair in curlers, a burning cigarette in one hand and some knitting in the other. She was striking by any standard, and dripped with an intimidating arrogance. She sauntered forward to block Anna's entrance, and barked in a thick French accent, “What do you want?” She smelled of cigarettes and roses.
Anna cleared her throat and put on her best Matron Clemens imitation. “Good afternoon. I'm a police ma…”
“Then go to hell.” The striking woman slammed the door i
n Anna's face.
Anna was not used to such treatment, not even from a French whore. It set her teeth on edge and she pounded on the door. She pounded and pounded, and planned to continue pounding until the insolent woman let her in, or the brothel opened for business.
Anna shouted into the wood. “You have a ten-year-old living here. I have a court order to take her to Whittier. I'll call the police.”
The woman opened the door a crack and scoffed. “Whittier? The girl is better off here.”
Anna couldn't agree. No matter how awful the reform school was, at least the girls weren't being murdered. She clutched her clipboard firmly. “I would have thought with all the recent deaths…”
The woman began to shut the door on Anna, but at that moment a Pekinese squeezed out with its fluffy ears flopping. The woman lunged for the dog, leaving the door to swing open. “Look what you've done! Noireau! Come back.” She threw a glance over her shoulder and called to someone in the house, “Lucinda! Keep the matron out!” The madam dropped her cigarette and flew off after the dog, her curlers bouncing.
Anna decided to go in after the little girl herself, Lucinda or no. As she stepped over the threshold, a woman appeared at the top of the stairs and stopped. At first Anna didn't recognize her. She was groomed to perfection, her pale complexion glowing, her hair piled high in a stylish mass of waves and curls. She wore a glorious red chiffon dressing gown that flowed down and around her body like water, and a pair of red, heeled shoes. Thus adorned, one would think that Eve was the renowned beauty and Anna was the commoner in her mannish matron's uniform and plain bun. Mrs. Eve McBride, former police matron, mother of two, prostitute.
The women locked eyes. Eve's eyes had no light. They looked dewy and faintly pink. Eve took a long drag on her cigarette and blew out a smoke ring. She smiled. It was a cold, defiant smile. Anna's mouth quivered between a smile and a frown. She tried to speak but found no words.
The Secret Life of Anna Blanc Page 18
