The Axman of New Orleans

by Chuck Hustmyre

  Emile nodded.

  "One night last week," Colin said, "a saloonkeeper on South Salcedo unloaded his revolver at a man he saw in his backyard. Turned out, the man was his next-door neighbor just looking for his wife's cat. Luckily for the neighbor, the saloonkeeper wasn't a very good shot."

  Emile raised his hand. "I don't want to talk about the Axman."

  Colin leaned closer and pressed his palm against Emile's forehead as if checking for a fever. "I take back what I said about you being a faker. If you don't want to talk about the Axman case, I know you must really be sick."

  Shaking his head out from under Colin's hand, Emile said, "I'm serious. I don't want to talk about it."

  Colin frowned. "That's all you've been talking about for years."

  "Not anymore."

  "Now that I finally got assigned to the case, you've had enough? What's wrong?"

  Emile pushed himself higher against his pillow. "I'm happy for you. I know you've wanted the case for a long time. But I'm ... finished with it."

  "You've been chasing this killer since the beginning, since the Davi case," Colin said. "Why the sudden change?"

  "Because chasing the Axman is what put me in here."

  Colin nodded. "I understand. I spent six months in a hospital, and believe me, I had plenty of time to question the decisions I had made that put me there. But that feeling passes. Eventually, you just want to get back to-"

  "That's you, Colin. Not me. I'm a reporter, not a detective. I'm supposed to report the news, not make it. Not be shot at, not be lured out in the middle of the night to have my skull bashed in."

  Colin laid a hand on his shoulder. "Emile, I understand if you want to take some time off. I felt the same way after I came home, after Maria's death, but this case ... it means something. It made me want to get up and go to work again. The best thing you can do when you get knocked down is get back up."

  Emile realized that Colin wasn't listening. This wasn't about getting back up after being knocked down. Emile crawled higher on his pillow until Colin's hand fell off his shoulder. "You don't get it," he said, his voice rising with emotion. "I was nearly beaten to death, not by the Axman, but by two policemen!"

  At the far end of the ward, at the nurses' station, a chair scrapped the floor. Emile glanced that way and saw the nurse, middle-aged and thickset, striding toward them. He lowered his voice. "The Axman is being protected by the same people who are supposed to catch him, by your people, by the police."

  Colin glanced over his shoulder at the approaching nurse. "That's why I need you back on the case as soon as you're well. I can't trust anyone else."

  "Shh!" the nurse warned. "If you two can't keep it down," she pointed at Colin, "policeman or not, you'll have to leave. These patients need rest. Now the both of you, be quiet."

  Colin nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

  The nurse stood there for several more seconds staring at them, rigid in her starched white uniform, her nurse's cap riding atop her piled hair. Finally, she snapped an about-face and marched back to her desk.

  Speaking in softer tones, Colin continued, "For the last month, I've been thinking about everything you told me, your theory about O'Malley and Matranga, even the crazy part about Superintendent Thompson. I've rearranged the facts every way I can think of, but I just can't figure out the why of it all. I mean, what possible reason would Dominick O'Malley and Frank Thompson have for protecting a killer? What would they stand to gain?"

  Emile had had a month to think too, a long month filled with pain, and the decision he had come to was that he no longer cared. If the police and the politicians didn't want to catch the Axman, neither did he. "I don't care about the reasons," he said. "Whatever it is Dominick O'Malley and the rest of them stand to gain, as far as I'm concerned, they can have it."

  "So you're just going to quit?" Colin's voice was low, but his tone was sharp.

  Emile felt his temper rising. "I'm not quitting anything. I'm going back to what I'm supposed to be doing, which is covering the news. If you catch the Axman, I'll write a story about it. If the case goes to trial, I'll write about that too, but as far as trying to catch him myself, I'm finished."

  "I can't believe you won't see this through to the end."

  "The end?" Emile snapped. "The end of what? These killings have been going on since 1911."

  "We'll catch him," Colin said. "He can't stay lucky forever."

  "Luck has nothing to do with it," Emile said. "That's what you refuse to see. You're not going to catch him because you're not going to be allowed to catch him. Obitz and Dantonio got close and look what happened to them."

  "A whole lot of policemen have been trying to catch this killer for eight years."

  "My point exactly," Emile said.

  "They've canvassed every neighborhood, staked out dozens of groceries, dragged in a hundred people for questioning. It's not like they've been sitting on their hands and letting these murders happen."

  "Are you sure about that?"

  "Of course, I'm sure," Colin said.

  "And what has it produced, those eight years of effort?"

  "Not catching him is not the same thing as protecting him. The police in London tried everything they could to catch Jack the Ripper."

  Emile arched his eyebrows. "Did they?"

  Colin shook his head in disbelief. "You're not going to sit here and tell me that was some sort of cover-up too?"

  "I'm saying that in certain situations, top police officials have decided that it's sometimes better to let a killer go than to catch him."

  "Why?"

  "Because arresting him would expose certain powerful men to public scrutiny and even criminal prosecution."

  "I don't believe that," Colin mumbled.

  "You don't believe it, or you don't want to believe it?"

  Colin didn't answer.

  Emile shook his head. His friend would never change. Despite the war, despite his personal tragedies, Colin was still Colin, still that fresh-faced, naive rookie patrolman Emile had met on the Fourth of July 1911. The same young man who believed in the sanctity of being right and in the clear line between good and evil.

  "The working detectives aren't part of the cover-up," Emile said. "It's only the men at the top who know the truth, O'Malley, Matranga, Thompson, probably Mayor Beauchamp too. It's always the men at the top."

  The frustration was clear on Colin's face. "Why assign me to the case then? The superintendent said he wanted everything examined from a fresh perspective. He said he thought that was what it was going to take to develop new leads. Why do that if he has no intention of catching the killer?"

  "You're the perfect scapegoat," Emile said. "You have a reputation for integrity. You're a war hero, the son of a department legend. When you fail, there will be no question that Thompson put his best man on the case." Emile shook his head. "But make no mistake. You're not supposed to catch the Axman. You're supposed to protect Thompson's backside."

  "He's the superintendent of police," Colin said. "He wouldn't protect a murderer."

  "Then why haven't you been able to find Jimmy Ferrell?"

  "I did find him," Colin said.

  "Where?"

  "He's in Baton Rouge."

  "Baton Rouge?" Emile said.

  "The Legislature is in session. He and his partner were sent up there to work security." Colin held up his hand. "But before you get the conspiracy heebie-jeebies again, just so you know, the department sends a squad of men up there every session to augment the state police."

  "Who picks the men?"

  Colin hesitated.

  "Who sent Ferrell and his partner to Baton Rouge?" Emile demanded.

  Colin looked away. "Superintendent Thompson."

  Emile didn't say anything. He didn't need to.

  "That night on North Villere Street, we almost had him," Colin said. "If the fog hadn't been so thick, and if my damned leg hadn't given out on me ... Next time we'll catch him."

  Emile took a de
ep breath. As he had for the past four weeks, he felt a stab of pain in his right kidney. "I saw Teddy Obitz die," he said. "I saw John Dantonio scared into retirement. They were tough men, a lot tougher than me. I can't help you."

  "You can't," Colin said, "or you won't?"

  Emile shrugged. "Either way, it makes no difference. Chasing the Axman got me fired and nearly got me killed. It destroyed my life. But I am comfortable with my decision, and with who I am, because I am not so desperate as you to try to prove myself."

  "What do you mean by that?" Colin said, his voice edged with anger.

  Emile looked at his friend, standing beside the hospital bed, staring at him with his bright blue eyes, but in some ways blind to almost everything around him. "My friend, your whole life has been a quest to prove yourself, to prove that you are worthy."

  Colin's eyes narrowed and his face tensed. Emile had seen that look, right before Colin knocked him to the ground so many years ago. "Prove myself to who?" Colin asked.

  "To your father, of course," Emile said. "Everything you've done in your life, becoming a policeman, taking on notorious criminals single-handedly, even fighting in the war, has been to prove that you are the equal of your father."

  "My father has been dead since I was nine years old."

  "But his legend is still alive, and you have always been competing against it."

  "Sounds like you could be talking about yourself," Colin said.

  Emile took another deep breath and winced at the pain. He nodded. "I'm talking about both of us. And what I am trying to tell you is that I'm through. My father died a broken man, destroyed by the political machine that still runs this city. I have been fighting that same machine most of my life, but no more. I will not die like my father. I will not leave my wife and son with nothing more than the memory of a shattered man."

  "My father didn't die like that."

  Emile nodded. "You're right. He was a hero like you, but he died early and he left a widow and a young son."

  "We can't choose when we die," Colin said.

  "But you don't have to chase giants either. Because if you chase them long enough, one day you will catch one. And then what are you going to do?"

  "I'm not chasing a giant," Colin said. "I'm chasing a killer. And not because of my father. I'm doing it because it's my job. If you don't want to help me anymore, that's fine. I'll do it by myself."

  Emile stared into his friend's eyes. He saw pain there. "Your wife and son are gone," he said, "and now you don't care what happens to you, but I care what happens to you. I also care what happens to me. I have a wife and son of my own, and I no longer want to tilt at windmills."

  Colin turned and walked away.

  "You can't win this," Emile called after him. "They'll destroy you."

  CHAPTER 45

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1919

  6:15 P.M.

  The telephone woke me up.

  I crawled out of bed and hobbled into the kitchen, but the telephone stopped ringing before I could reach it. I clicked the switchhook until the operator picked up. I asked her who the call had been from.

  She told me to hold the line. After a few seconds she came back on. "The call was from the residence of a Michael Pepitone."

  Gripping the top of the telephone for balance, I leaned close to the mouthpiece. "Ring it back, please."

  "Certainly, sir."

  After several rings a woman answered. "Ciao."

  "Mrs. Pepitone?"

  "Si."

  "This is Detective Fitzgerald."

  "I am so frightened," she said.

  "Of what?"

  "The men say they are coming here tonight."

  "What men?"

  "Can you come?"

  ***

  I caught a streetcar and managed to make it to Ulloa Street in half an hour.

  When Mrs. Pepitone opened the door, she gasped. "Oh, my God. What happened to you?"

  My hat didn't entirely hide the gauze bandage Dr. Delachaise had wound around my head, nor was there any way to conceal the damage to my face. My left cheek was bruised and swollen. My left eye black, with dark blood pooled inside the bottom lid. The bridge of my nose was cut, and some of the swelling from the left side of my face had leaked across to the right side, turning the skin a sickly yellow.

  Dizzy from the trip, I nodded inside. "Please, signura, I need to sit."

  Mrs. Pepitone raised a hand to her mouth. "Ma va scusari," she said. Please forgive me.

  I stepped inside and she closed and bolted the door behind me. Then she led me down the hall and into the kitchen, where she took my arm and helped me into a chair at the dinner table. A fire burned in the stove and the kitchen was comfortably warm.

  Mrs. Pepitone sat across the table from me, wearing a high-collared black dress with her long dark hair pulled back into a tight bun. She looked tired. Exhausted, really. And she had recently been crying. Yet, despite everything she had been through in the last week, and I was embarrassed for even thinking it, she was still a very attractive woman.

  Then I noticed that she was looking at my face. "What happened to you?" she asked.

  "Nothing," I said, waving a hand in the air. "I was at home when it happened. Just a stupid accident."

  She gave me a long look that let me know she didn't believe me, but before she could press me on it, I said, "How can I help you, Mrs. Pepitone?"

  She clasped her hands on the table. "I received a note ... saying that two men would come to see me tonight. They want to buy the store. I don't want to sell it. This was my husband's store. And it's our home. But I am afraid."

  "Afraid of what?"

  "That if I say no to them, that they will kill me and my children."

  I realized we were alone. "Where are your children?"

  "With my sister."

  "Have you told your brother-in-law about this?"

  "No."

  "Why not?" I asked. "You said he was going to help you run the store."

  She hesitated. "Mr. Albano wants to marry me?"

  "He proposed?" I said. She had buried her husband only three days ago.

  "Not yet, but a woman can tell what a man wants by the way he looks at her."

  I glanced away. When I looked back, she was staring at me with a half-smile on her lips.

  "These men who are coming to see you," I said, my tongue feeling a bit thick in my mouth, "do you know their names?"

  "No," she said. "The note did not give their names."

  "Was Salvatore Marcello trying to force your husband to sell the store?"

  She looked down at her hands.

  "Was that why they were arguing the day your husband was killed?" I asked.

  She looked up at me and nodded. There were tears in her eyes. "My husband refused to sell him the store."

  "Who was the other man, the one with Marcello?"

  She didn't answer me.

  I glanced down and saw her hands trembling. She knew I had seen them, so she clasped her fingers so tightly together that the knuckles turned white.

  I laid a hand on top of hers. "I can't help you if I don't know the truth."

  After a deep breath, she said, "I told you the truth when I said I don't know his name. I only know what people call him. How do you say ... a nickname, yes?"

  "Yes," I said, giving her hands a gentle squeeze. "A nickname."

  "The people from the neighborhood, they call him Doc," she said. "Doc Mumphrey."

  Mumphrey didn't sound like a name for a Mafioso. "Is he Sicilian?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "From Naples. I have heard his father was ... Camorra." She whispered the last word as if it were an evil incantation.

  I knew the word. The Camorra was a society of criminals that operated in southern Italy, much like the Mafia did in Sicily. "Tell me what happened the night your husband was killed," I said.

  She slid her hands out from under mine and wiped her eyes. "My husband went out. When he came home it was late. I was in bed. Wh
ile he was getting undressed, we heard someone in the hall. At first I thought it was one of the children. Then a man rushed into our bedroom. It was too dark for me to see his face, but I saw something in his hands. He swung it at my husband. The sound it made when it hit him ..."

  She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  I waited.

  A moment later she continued. "My husband had taken his revolver with him when he went out. He laid it on the bed while he undressed. When the man attacked him, I picked up the gun and pointed it at the man. I screamed for him to stop ... but he kept hitting my husband. So I fired."

  "Did you see his face?"

  Mrs. Pepitone wiped the tears from her cheeks. She nodded. "In the light from the ... esplosione?"

  "The muzzle flash?"

  "Si, in the muzzle flash."

  "Did you recognize him?"

  "Si, he was the same man from earlier, the man with Salvatore Marcello when he was arguing with my husband to sell him the store."

  My stomach dropped into my shoes. "The man from Naples?"

  "Si, Doc Mumphrey."

  I leaned back in the chair. If it was true that this Neapolitan gangster had killed Michael Pepitone, then the Axman wasn't a policeman, the brass button I had found meant nothing, and almost everything I had told Superintendent Thompson ... was wrong.

  I had staked my career on a hunch and lost.

  There was a loud knock on the front door.

  Mrs. Pepitone shot a frightened look in that direction.

  I pushed myself to my feet. "I'll answer it."

  "No," she said. "They will kill you."

  I pointed to my battered face and grinned. It felt like a lopsided grin. "Don't I look like I can take care of myself?"

  She smiled.

  I drew my pistol. "Besides, I brought my friend Sam."

  She looked confused. "Sam?"

  "Sam Colt."

  She stared at me with a blank face.

  "It's an old joke," I said. "God didn't make men equal. Sam Colt did."

  Mrs. Pepitone still looked confused, so I gave up. Comedy was never my strong suit. Tragedy, on the other hand, I had covered. I was halfway down the hall when the knock came again. Harder. More insistent. I sped up.