Devil by the Tail

by Jeanne Matthews

  “More than a jot. She’s a prevaricator of the first order. Handish was never looking for Stram. He didn’t give Stram money to pay her to lie about Elfie, but somebody did and that somebody made sure she worked Handish’s name into her statement. We’ll definitely have to have another session with Jemelle Clary.” Quinn recalled that cornered animal look in her eyes. “Do you think she’ll cut and run if she feels pressured?”

  “I’d be surprised if she stuck around for Elfie’s trial.”

  “That’s the day after tomorrow,” said Quinn.

  “Then I reckon we’d best corral her this morning after we’ve talked to Tench.”

  They each went back to their reading. After a few minutes Garnick slid the City Business file across to her. “Have a gander at this. Hiz Honor’s interest in prostitution started before he graced us with his presence here in Chicago.”

  Quinn pulled out a yellowed newspaper clipping, a review of a play, The London Merchant, in which the young John Rice had acted. He had toured the East Coast performing in the tragedy about a young apprentice seduced and corrupted by a prostitute. She read aloud. “To supply the deceitful fille de joie with money, he robbed his kindly master and murdered his wealthy uncle. Tortured by guilt, he repented all and his uncle forgave him with his dying breath. The woman remained remorseless. Like the impious harlot Jezebel, she declared herself doomed before the world began.”

  Garnick said, “Reminds me a little of Megarian’s style.”

  Quinn folded the piece back into the folder. “There must be a journalist’s manual on how to write about women.”

  There was another clipping about a fire that broke out at a theater Rice owned after he moved to Chicago. He had taken to the stage and commanded the audience to remain seated, which they did until flames started licking at their ears. She sighed. “Winthrop may have learned something about Rice’s past and was blackmailing him, but it’s not apparent from what’s here.”

  “Keep reading. There’s several pages on each alderman. I can guess some of the abbreviations, AS, Annie Stafford. CH, Cap Hyman. But the numbers could be anything – bribes, money extortion, votes. All creation, it could be donations to the widows and orphans society for all we know.” He got up and refilled their coffee cups.

  Quinn had already drunk enough coffee to galvanize a stuffed bird but felt as if they were on the verge of a major discovery somewhere in this mishmash. She perused the file page by page. Winthrop’s precisely slanted Spencerian penmanship was as clear as her thoughts were messy. On the page headed Tench, a double column of initials and numbers might as well have been hieroglyphics. In frustration, she sandwiched the papers back together, stood the folder on end, and rapped it against the table.

  An old envelope fell out, one engraved with a picture of a Union soldier saluting the Stars and Stripes. It was addressed to Winthrop in a cramped, untidy hand. She opened it and read the note. Who is Jack Stram? Imperative! JBR says find at all cost. Enclosed with the note was Megarian’s article about Gentle Annie horsewhipping “a mangy, no-account jasper named Jack Stram” after he punched one of her girls. It brought Quinn up short. Had Winthrop gone looking for Stram, himself? Had he talked to Jemelle before she did?

  “Caught red handed!”

  Her heart jumped into her throat.

  A mountainous man in a black wool suit strutted into the room like a monarch. His white beard jutted over his black string tie, his watch chain stretched across his magisterial paunch, and his probing eyes heralded power. “I should have you arrested.”

  Garnick stood. “Good day to you, Mr. Mayor. Would you care to sit and discuss the charges over a cup of coffee?”

  “Murder’s the charge. My police informant tells me you killed a man last night.”

  Quinn collected herself and went to stand beside Garnick. “He attacked me and I shot him. If you are of a mind to make common cause with us and pool information, perhaps together we can fill in a few of the blanks in the life of Jack Stram.”

  Rice puffed his chest like a pouter pigeon and took hold of his lapels. “The meeting you requested is being held earlier than planned. Tench will be here soon. Regrettably, Mr. Megarian has been detained.”

  Chapter 28

  Madam Lou, crapulous after her evening of champagne, watched from the back door as the mayor and his party assembled around the bench under the gazebo. Her eyes skipped from face to face. Probably wondering which bodies would have to be dragged into the alley when the conference was finished, thought Quinn. The mayor’s scowling police bodyguard stood like a totem pole watching from the far corner of the hedge. He had a sloping forehead, a protruding jaw, and the physical attitude of a man primed for assault. She’d feel a lot less nervous if the lunk hadn’t disarmed Garnick. Did he still have the derringer she’d given him in his pocket?

  Rice seated himself first and occupied more space than the others put together. When not bounded by walls, his girth seemed to expand. His gestures appeared broader and more commanding as he bade Quinn and Garnick to take their places opposite him.

  Henry Tench, a gangling man of about fifty with pomaded black hair, squeezed in beside the mayor and opened the meeting with a double-fisted, table-rattling whap. “What’s your game? That runt of a news hound you sent to chum the waters says you want to play dirty.” He had a pointy nose that tipped up sharply on the end as if it wanted nothing to do with the sinister mouth below.

  “They’re de-tec-tives,” said Rice, each syllable rich with disdain. “Mr. Winthrop hired them to investigate the murder of Rolf and Delphine Kadinger. And with a minor deception, to find Mr. Stram. They found him last night and as Sergeant Chesterton tells it, Stram fared ill.”

  “That’s right,” said Garnick. “Your attorney keeps more irons in the fire than a cavalry smithy. Seems he can’t turn away a single client, strings ’em all along with a morsel of hope. Ned Handish, Elfie Jackson, Verner Kadinger, my partner. As we’ve gotten forrader down the road with Mr. Winthrop, he’s proven a mite too treacherous to keep on with. Has that been y’all’s experience?”

  The mayor nodded toward Winthrop’s files. “Let’s begin with an explanation of where you got those documents.”

  “Let’s begin,” said Quinn, “with what you’ve done with Mr. Megarian.”

  He cut his eyes at her. “There are times when a saucy comeback from a pretty woman can be charming. Now is not one of them. Where did you get these documents?”

  Garnick grinned. “We stole them.”

  Tench’s mouth quirked toward his right ear.

  His Honor’s eyebrows climbed higher.

  “Did you think your legal eagle gave ’em to us voluntarily?”

  “If he had,” said Rice, “it would seriously alter my opinion of his professionalism.”

  With an unconcerned, almost lazy manner, Garnick paged through the city business file. “There’s some choice reading here. I knew you boys had your hooks into Annie and Cap and a few of the big bugs, but this is an impressive record, Mr. Mayor. I surmise the lawyer keeps track of who’s paid up and who’s holding out?”

  “He handles, shall we say, certain ticklish matters as they arise. Now quit the jousting and come to the point. Why have you poked into our business? What is it you’re after?”

  “Besides the individual who murdered the Kadingers, you mean?”

  Rice glared.

  Bolstered by Garnick’s audacity, Quinn said, “Why did you want to find Jack Stram? Was that the ticklish matter Winthrop was taking care of for you?”

  “Did I not make myself clear, madam? I’m the one asking the questions. Defy me at your peril.” His voice rang with a theatrical resonance.

  Quinn could see him treading the boards upon a stage, matching his face to the role, his voice to the script of the play. How much of his performance this morning was theater? The mayor of Chicago might engage in a little graft on the side, but he couldn’t afford to inflict actual bodily harm on any of his constituents. She said
, “What did Stram have on you and your crony Mr. Tench that makes you so fearful?”

  Tench came off the bench, murder in his eyes.

  Garnick’s right arm shot out and clapped him hard in the chest with the heel of his hand. Madam Lou yelped and the bodyguard rushed forward.

  “Down!” ordered Rice in a peremptory voice. “Stand down, all of you.”

  Tench sat and the bodyguard backed away.

  “Lou, my sweet.” The mayor seemed to notice her for the first time. “Go back inside. I wouldn’t allow anything unpleasant to happen in your charming garden.”

  Lou didn’t look convinced.

  “Do as I say. When we’re finished here, I’ll stop in to say goodbye.”

  She hesitated for an instant, but apparently thought better and retreated.

  Garnick closed the file. “What say we call a truce, gents, see if we can’t help each other out? Miz Paschal is fierce to find out why Stram tried to kill her and who it was burned down our office.”

  Rice shrugged. “Hard luck. But as you will have deduced from Winthrop’s note, we know less about Stram than you except that he made himself a fixture in the Kadinger house.”

  “You saw him there?”

  “Mr. Tench saw him.”

  Quinn pulled the framed photograph of Delphine out of the satchel. “Do you know this woman?” she asked Tench.

  “Sure I know her. It’s Delphine Kadinger.”

  “Her brother says you were her lover.”

  “Then he’s a dunce.”

  “What would cause him to think such a thing? Did you buy her jewelry?”

  “In a pig’s eye. Maybe he saw her cooing and fawning. She carried on like that with every man who walked in the door.”

  “So you did visit Delphine?”

  “I went to the Kadinger’s house plenty, but not to see her. The city had business with Rolf Kadinger.”

  Garnick skewered Tench with an accusatory stare. “What kind of business was costing the city a thousand a month?”

  Tench tweaked his nose, then an earlobe, then his nose again. “Private business.”

  Quinn took for granted he was hiding some kind of hanky-panky, but she had to admit it was a stretch to picture this fiftyish, peaky-nosed alderman pitching woo to a girl like Delphine. “While you were conducting your business with Mr. Kadinger, did you have occasion to talk with Jack Stram?”

  “Nah. I saw him mooching around, all eyes and ears, like he was looking for something to blab or to filch. I asked the maid who he was and she gave me his name.”

  Rice said, “We asked Kadinger about Stram, where he lived and what he did when he wasn’t dallying with his maid, but Kadinger knew little or nothing about the men who came and went in that house.” He assayed the photograph from under hooded eyes. “She was made for the part of the temptress, the lady of pleasure who lures the innocent young man to commit theft and even murder.”

  Quinn dared ask another question. “How did Winthrop know where to look for Stram?”

  “After Annie Stafford whipped him in the street and got his name in the paper, we knew the sorts of places he frequented. Winthrop questioned the girls Stram liked, but his efforts came to nothing.”

  Garnick took the city file out of the satchel and spread it out across the table. “Did Stram stumble onto something jeopardous to you, Mr. Mayor? Is that why you were so het-up to find him?”

  Rice inhaled prodigiously, which lifted his shoulders and expanded his chest. “I fail to see how any details regarding the city’s business with Mr. Kadinger can help you. More importantly, you haven’t suggested how it is you can help us.” He executed a smile perfectly calibrated between cordiality and menace. “That being the upshot of this meeting, we will relieve you of Mr. Winthrop’s files and be on our way. You can expect the police to follow up with questions in a less congenial setting.”

  Quinn reassessed the situation. Garnick had regarded Chesterton as a friend until this morning. She had trusted him enough to tell him about this meeting. But he’d known that Rice and Tench wanted Stram found and he’d gone to them immediately last night without the least concern for Garnick & Paschal. She glanced at the uniformed bodyguard, idly slapping a truncheon against one palm. The mayor might not soil his own hands with violence, but his police minions could do his bidding anonymously at a time and place of their choosing.

  Tench reached for the satchel and started to replace the file, but Garnick caught his arm. “No call to be hard-barked about it, Mr. Mayor. In case you don’t know it, this lady’s by-name aside, she’s the widow of Thomas Sinclair, of the Sinclairs. And while I may not look what you’d say well-connected, Edmund Allbright of the Merchants Bank is a friend of mine. His daughter Josabeth has entertained Mrs. Sinclair and me in her drawing room. An uncongenial follow-up would consternate more upstanding citizens than I reckon you want to cross.”

  Rice’s gaze was locked on Garnick and Garnick’s on Tench. The bodyguard held his truncheon poised in mid-air.

  Garnick let go of Tench’s arm and focused on Rice. “I hope you haven’t been too uncongenial to Mr. Megarian, but he’s not the only scribbler in town and there’s parts of your lawyer’s files we could repeat from memory like the lines of a play.”

  “You mis-reckon my capacity to eradicate obstacles in my way, Mr. Garnick.” Rice’s gray eyes stared back, implacable as a meat fork.

  The back of Quinn’s neck prickled. Either Rice was a very good actor or Garnick had seriously mis-reckoned. They both had. She wanted to kick Garnick under the table, tell him to hand over the files and promise not to throw up any obstacles.

  “I won’t ask,” said Rice,” what impelled you to go beyond the task Winthrop set for you or why this alleged lady has chosen to slum with prostitutes. A pair of down-and-out snoopers who consort with strumpets and involve themselves in shooting frays? Come now. You over-value your importance. No person of standing would sully his name to defend you or believe your allegations against me or the city. But for the sake of argument, what would it take to scrape the two of you off the soles of our shoes?”

  Garnick’s expression tautened, but he remained cool. “What did you pay Kadinger’s employees to do for you?”

  “His employees?” Rice frowned.

  “Laborers,” said Garnick. “Don’t palter. His clerk gave us the crux.”

  “We had no use for Kadinger’s workers. His clerk doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” The mayor’s eyes narrowed, then widened, as if something had begun to fall into place in his mind. “If I were to give you your answer, what would you do with it?”

  “Not a damn thing unless it led to the Kadingers’ deaths, or the dumping of Confederate corpses in the lake, or it turns out you tried to scupper our investigation by burning our office.”

  “The woman who killed the Kadingers is in jail,” said Rice. “Winthrop will be lucky if he keeps her from the gallows. Your investigation has been of no avail.”

  “It isn’t finished,” protested Quinn. “She’s innocent and we’ll prove it yet.”

  With a roll of his eyes Rice relegated her to insignificance. “What is your arrangement with Megarian?”

  “We’ve promised to give him the inside story on what happened to the Kadingers, if we uncover it.”

  Rice stroked his beard. “Tell the man what he wants to know, Henry.”

  “Are you crazy? They’ll double-cross us. We’ll be outed in tomorrow’s Tribune.”

  “The paper can’t afford to print an unsubstantiated rumor.”

  Quinn smothered a laugh. Megarian was having a field day with an ancient myth.

  “Nothing they say can hurt us,” said Rice. “Mrs. Sinclair dispatched the one person who might have caused us problems. Go on, tell them, Henry.”

  Tench’s upper lip curled over his teeth. “We paid Kadinger under the table to put it about to his wealthy investor friends that the city would default on the water-works bonds. We mopped up when the dupes started selling at
a loss.”

  “The rumor spread with remarkable speed,” added Rice. “We advanced the funds for Kadinger and certain other friends to buy back the discounted bonds for our account. At the same time they acquired as many as they could for themselves.”

  “Is Edmund Allbright one of your friends?” asked Garnick.

  “He was Kadinger’s friend,” said Rice, “and too credulous for his own good or that of his clients. The city was never in danger of defaulting. Each bond is worth its coupon value of a thousand dollars, redeemable on the due date at seven percent interest. Unfortunate if some early investors got cold feet and sold for less. We’ve denied the rumor from the beginning.”

  “Bonds!” The sheer banality of their malfeasance jogged Quinn out of her funk.

  She couldn’t believe it. And Rolf Kadinger was complicit in the swindle. “With all the other laws you break, that everybody knows you break, you’re fiddling bonds, too?”

  “A five-hundred-thousand-dollar public work,” said Rice, “yields a higher return than our modest take from the brothels. Henry and I plan to stand for re-election in sixty-nine, which is why Mr. Megarian was disinvited. To quell any unwelcome disclosure, we need to know who Jack Stram worked for. Whether during his visits to the Kadinger home he pilfered evidence of our payments to Rolf and whether you…” the mayor inserted a dramatic pause, “removed any such evidence from Mr. Stram’s person after his untimely demise.”

  “No,” said Quinn.

  “I took four hundred dollars off him,” added Garnick. “Later on we’ll pass it to the woman he was friendly with, but for now we’re keeping hold of it. We never found out whose payroll he was on, nor even what he was paid to do.”

  “He was afraid of the man who hired him,” said Quinn. “I think because that man murdered the Kadingers. Stram called him the ‘man upstream,’ obviously meaning someone in a position of power. Someone like you, Mr. Tench. I’m still not sure it wasn’t you.”

  Tench leaned in, mouth working, but Rice held up his hand and Tench’s jaws shut with a pop. Rice said, “With such a figurative turn of mind, you would be better suited to a career as a novelist than a detective, Mrs. Sinclair. But I can assure you neither Henry nor I desired the death of Rolf and Delphine Kadinger. Quite the contrary. And if you are looking for the grave robbers who are trying to scuttle the water-works by dumping corpses in the lake, Mr. Garnick, I suggest you concentrate your search on those individuals who bet against the project. And now, if you will hand over Mr. Winthrop’s files...”