Fallen Women Page 4

  “Perhaps he was a thief who despised women,” Beret suggested. “Lillie might have reminded him of someone he’d known and hated, his mother perhaps. Maybe his wife. Men are crazy like that sometimes.”

  “I’ve heard of theories like that. There are doctors in the East who say such things. It makes sense, I suppose.” Mick narrowed his eyes at Beret. “You know something about crime, then.”

  “Something.” Beret picked up her cup and gazed at the coffee. She was used to poor food, but this coffee was so foul that she wondered if she could stomach any more of it.

  Mick watched her. She glanced up suddenly and caught him, and Mick reddened, but he pushed forward. “And you know about prostitution.”

  “Should I not? Wouldn’t you be surprised if I were innocent of such knowledge?” She looked directly into Mick’s eyes, noticing for the first time that they were green, a shade like unsettled water. Then she had a humorous thought, and she gave a slight smile. “If you are wondering, Sergeant, I have not myself been what the newspapers call a soiled dove. Nor have I worked in any capacity in a house of assignation.” Another woman might have been horrified at such an assumption, but Beret found it amusing. It took her mind off her sister for a moment.

  “No, I never thought that,” Mick said, then grinned, giving the lie to his words. He glanced down at the pie in front of him as if surprised to see it. While Beret had finished her chili, Mick had not touched the pie, and he picked up his fork, carefully cutting off a corner of the cheese that was moldy and shoving it to the edge of his plate. The pie itself was flat, unappetizing, and the crust looked as if it had been cut out of a paper box. He caught Beret looking at it and grinned. “Better than nothing.”

  “I am sure there are some people who have never tasted pie in their lives, who would find it manna.”

  Mick looked at Beret curiously, perhaps because that was an odd thing for a lady to say. “I never thought of it.”

  “No, most people haven’t—most people of our class.”

  Mick gave a slight smile and dipped his head at being included in Beret’s “class.” It was obvious from the woman’s manners and way of speaking that she had breeding. After all, her uncle, the judge, was prosperous and her aunt threw galas that attracted Denver’s ton. The Stantons were far superior in social standing to most detective sergeants.

  “Now that we’ve established that I’ve never been a denizen of the tenderloin, let’s talk about the progress of your investigation,” Beret said.

  Before he answered, Mick sighed and looked out at the street, where a patrolman was threatening a man with his billy. He watched as the miscreant cowered against a building, then slunk off after the officer released him. He turned back to Beret. “Frankly, Miss Osmundsen, as you suggested earlier, there hasn’t been much.”

  “I suspected that. I am well aware that the police department will not spend the time solving the death of a prostitute that it would finding the killer of, say, a prominent businessman.”

  “You’d be right if this were New York City. Murder’s common enough there. But it’s not so usual in Denver. Besides, the dead woman is the niece of a judge, who is also a member of the Fire and Police Board. Your uncle has a great deal of influence. He told Chief Smith that he wants us to leave no stone unturned—” Mick stopped, apparently remembering his earlier platitude. “Well, put it any way you like. The chief wants this murder solved double-quick.”

  “I suspect my aunt would like it brushed under the rug.”

  “Murder is an ugly business.”

  “So is a member of the family who takes to the streets.” Beret was trying to keep her bitterness in check and was immediately sorry for the remark. Before the sergeant could respond, she said, “If it was not a thief and not one of the other girls, who could have killed my sister?”

  “She might have had a mac—a macquereau. That’s a—”

  “I know what a mac is.”

  Again, Mick gave her a look of curiosity. “Macquereau” was not a word used by society ladies.

  “And have you identified this pimp?”

  “No. Miss Hettie didn’t know him. He might be new around here. We’ll check the gambling halls farther up on Larimer Street. That’s where most of them hang out. He is said to be good-looking.”

  Beret let her face go blank so that no emotion showed on it. “And do you have a description of him?”

  “Several. He is tall and blond or he is short and swarthy, but most agree he is dark.”

  Beret tossed her head back so that the detective wouldn’t see how flushed her face was. Then, aware that she was wearing a hat, which was hot and heavy in the steamy air of the restaurant, she unpinned it and took it off, shaking her head and pushing at her hair with her fingers. That her hair was blue-black, thick, and lustrous was obvious, even though it was pulled back into a knot at her neck. Without the hat, she looked less severe. In fact, while clearly not a beauty, she was attractive, nonetheless.

  Beret and Lillie had looked nothing alike. Their parents had come from Norway, and Lillie had been pale skinned, her hair so blond it was almost white. She was short and well formed. Beret was a “black Norwegian,” dark-skinned with dark eyes and hair, and she was tall and angular.

  “She wouldn’t have mentioned him to you? I suppose it’s not really a thing sisters would talk about…” His voice trailed off.

  Beret stopped toying with her hair and put her hands into her lap. “My sister and I were estranged, Sergeant. We had not seen each other, nor written, in a year.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “No, you may not.”

  Mick studied Beret a moment, as if deciding whether to pursue the question. Finally, he said, “It couldn’t have been too serious since you’ve come here to find out about her death.”

  “You may write that off to guilt. Our parents crossed over some years ago, and I should have looked out for her. I’m to blame for her leaving New York. So for that reason, I am culpable in her death. I owe it to her to find her killer.” That was not entirely the truth, but Beret had no intention of taking the detective into her confidence. What had been between Lillie and her was not his business. Besides, Beret was a little afraid of his disdain.

  “The police will find her killer.”

  “You haven’t done much of a job of it so far, have you?”

  Mick likely was not used to women talking to him in that manner, and he flared. “The department’s stretched. I’m the only one assigned to investigate. But I’ll find who did it. I promise you.”

  “I think you promised my sister, too,” she said softly. It was a statement, not a question.

  Mick looked startled, and Beret continued, “Lillie had that effect on people. They always wanted to do for her—even in death, it seems. Now we’ll work together to find him.”

  “We? No, ma’am. I will solve this murder.” It was clear to Beret the detective sergeant was annoyed with her. Well, that was not her problem. She had no intention of backing off. He would just have to accept it.

  A woman sat down at a table near them and ordered coffee and rolls with jam. She stared at Mick until she caught his eye, and then she winked.

  “Hello, Elsie,” Mick said.

  Beret gave a tight-lipped smile and said, “I did not think prostitutes would frequent a restaurant so near City Hall, but maybe the food is that good.” She glanced at the sergeant’s pie and grimaced. “Or perhaps it’s to pay protection money. Are you on the take, Sergeant?”

  Mick had cut another bite of the gluelike pastry and was raising it to his mouth. Now he set it down and cocked his head. “You fancy you know about graft—and prostitution, do you?” he asked in a voice that told Beret she had been impertinent.

  “I don’t fancy. I know.”

  “How is that, since you say you’re not in the business?”

  “I work in a mission.”

  He leaned back with a look of contempt on his face. “I see now. You’re one of those mugw
umps who tell the poor out there in their filthy rags that if they’ll only pray to God, He’ll give them food and decent jobs. Then you go home to your fine dinner, thinking you’ve done your good deed. Well, let me tell you, lady, the poor are onto you. They despise you.”

  “Do I look like one of those women?”

  He smirked.

  Beret sighed. “I will explain to you. Our parents—Lillie’s and mine—were wealthy, but when they came to America, they were exactly like the poor you describe. The difference was they were smart—and lucky. Papa became a manufacturer and made a fortune. Mama never forgot the filth they’d lived in, the poverty into which I was born.” Mick started to interrupt, but Beret put up her hand. “Oh yes, I remember what it was like in a tenement—the human smells, the dirt that blew through the cracks in the walls, the cold, the rodents, the human refuse. Mama could not go to the market without being accosted.” She shivered.

  “After Papa became successful, Mama made him pay the women who worked for him a decent wage. And instead of becoming a society lady, she set up a mission, not one of those religious ones, but a place where poor women could get care for themselves and their children. The mission took in women who’d been deserted or beaten by their husbands, and girls who had taken to the streets to survive. None of the women Mama hired was allowed to preach. Mama herself worked there, and I did, too. I am in charge of the clinic now that she’s gone. Lillie tried to help, but the filth and the vermin made her sick. So did the people. I couldn’t blame her. She didn’t remember living in a tenement the way I did. So you see, Detective Sergeant McCauley, I am as familiar with life in a tenderloin as you are. And yes, I recognize that woman as a prostitute, and the one behind you in the green hat and the smart dress, sitting with her pimp, or as you call him, a mac.”

  Mick turned to look at the woman and said, “That’s Sweet Billy Bowen, and the woman is Bricktop. He has a stable of three or four women, but Bricktop’s his big earner. She makes five dollars for a quick date and thirty for a stay-over.” He paused, perhaps to see if he had shocked Beret. He hadn’t, and he continued, “You asked if your sister had a mac. Well, let’s ask Elsie. She works at Miss Hettie’s.” He raised his chin at the woman who’d sat down near them. “Hey, honey, come on over here and meet somebody.”

  Elsie looked up, and when she saw Beret, she scowled. “Thanks all the same. Looks like she’s a Jesus peddler, and I ain’t looking for salvation just yet.”

  “I said come on over,” he ordered, and the prostitute stood reluctantly. Carrying her cup and saucer and the plate of rolls, she walked slowly to the table and sat down.

  “This here’s Miss Osmundsen.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Elsie’s tone told that she wasn’t.

  “She’s Lillie Brown’s sister.”

  Elsie’s face softened. “Yeah? Oh well, then, I sure am sorry about her. She was real nice. I told that to Mick, didn’t I, Mick?”

  “You did.”

  “You in the business, lady?” Elsie asked.

  “I’m from New York,” Beret replied, as if that answered the question.

  “She came here to find out about Lillie’s death,” Mick explained.

  Elsie broke off part of a roll, which was hard and stale, and looked longingly at the pot of jam she’d left behind. Beret got up and fetched the jam, setting it down in front of Elsie, who nodded her thanks. She spread a dab on the piece of roll, then crunched it between her teeth, crumbs falling onto her jacket. It was an expensive jacket, and despite the age on her face, Elsie was attractive, her hair fashionably arranged, her cheeks touched with only a trace of rouge. Beret could see she was a high-class prostitute, and it gave her a slight bit of satisfaction to know that Lillie had worked in a good house. At least, she hadn’t taken to the streets or worked in a crib, having to accept any man with a coin in his pocket.

  The two waited for Elsie to finish eating, then Mick leaned forward and asked, “Well?”

  “Well what?” Elsie asked innocently, although her face showed she knew what Mick was asking.

  “You told me you thought it wasn’t suicide,” Mick said.

  “Well, it wasn’t, was it?” She looked at the sergeant coyly. “You never came back to ask me about that.”

  Beret gave Mick a questioning look, and he said quickly, “I’m asking now.”

  “I don’t think Miss Hettie wants me to talk about it.”

  “If you’d rather, I can run you in for soliciting. Miss Hettie wouldn’t like that, either.”

  Elsie pouted, but the look was spoiled by the crumbs on her mouth. “Ain’t there a reward or something?”

  Mick started to answer, but Beret interrupted. “I will pay a hundred dollars to anyone who gives us the information that leads to the arrest of the killer.”

  Mick scowled. “That’ll bring out every tout in town.”

  “Then I will offer it only to Miss Elsie.”

  At that, Elsie turned to Beret and studied the woman, taking in her finely tailored suit, the expensive mourning brooch at her throat, the gloves as soft as pudding. High-class prostitutes knew the prices of such things. “That ain’t so much for a lady like you. If it was my sister, I’d pay more.”

  “Don’t be greedy, Elsie—” Mick began, but Beret interrupted.

  “We are being played, Sergeant. She’s wasting our time. I doubt this woman knows anything worth ten cents.”

  “Oh, I don’t, do I? Well, I can tell you Lillie had one or two gents that was crazy mad about her.”

  “Who?” Mick asked.

  “I don’t know. I never saw them. But she told me there was one that wanted to marry her. Of course, he was already married, but he was going to leave his wife. He wanted to set her up until he was free, but she wouldn’t do it.”

  “And she didn’t tell you who he was?” Beret asked.

  Elsie shrugged, and Mick explained, “All the girls like to brag they have somebody on the side wants to marry them.”

  “Well, some of us do, but I can’t say I wouldn’t miss the life.” Elsie grinned at Beret. “I don’t think Lillie made it up. You can ask Miss Hettie.”

  “What about her mac?” Mick asked.

  “Did I say she had one?”

  “Didn’t she? Most of you girls have somebody on the side.”

  Elsie thought about that a moment. “You think I could get a drink?”

  “Coffee or tea? They don’t serve liquor here.”

  “Well, ain’t you swell!”

  Mick and Elsie stared at each other in a kind of standoff. Finally, Beret reached over and took Elsie’s hand, which she noticed was softer than her own, the nails better manicured. “Elsie, please, I would like to find out who murdered my sister. Wouldn’t you like that, too? Wouldn’t you feel safer knowing he’s not around anymore?”

  Elsie sighed, and tears came to her eyes. Beret smiled sympathetically, although she knew that most prostitutes were actresses of a sort and could cry at will.

  “I don’t know if she had a mac or not. But I know there was one man I saw her with twice. First time I did, I thought she was a mixer.” Elsie looked up at Beret to see if she understood, but Beret didn’t and turned to Mick for an explanation.

  Mick, embarrassed, wouldn’t meet her gaze when he replied, “That’s a white woman who keeps a Negro man.”

  Elsie said quickly, “But up close, I could see he wasn’t. He was a white man, only dark. You don’t have to worry about that, lady.”

  Beret’s nostrils narrowed, and her face took on a look of distaste. She wondered if she could hear this without crying.

  “I said he wasn’t no colored man,” Elsie repeated.

  “I heard you,” Beret said, then added slowly, “It’s just that it shocks me to think my own sister would support a man like that, any man.”

  “Well, plenty of us does it. I’m not saying she done it, only that twice I saw her with that man outside the House of Dreams. One time, they was having words.”

 
; Mick leaned forward, his arms on the table. “About what?”

  She dunked the rest of the roll into her coffee, then ate it. “I didn’t say I listened in, did I?”

  “The hell you didn’t,” he said.

  Elsie pouted a moment, then pointed with her chin at Beret. “Maybe she don’t want to hear it.”

  “I do want to hear it,” Beret said.

  “He was telling her he don’t want her to see that man no more. That’s what he said, ‘that man.’”

  “What man was that?” Mick asked.

  “Now how should I know?” Elsie sat back in her chair and plucked the crumbs off her jacket one by one with fingers that were crooked, as if they’d been broken and not set properly. Beret had seen such hands before and wondered if Lillie had been tortured or beaten during her time in the whorehouse. She’d ask Mick about it later.

  Elsie caught Beret staring at her hands and put them in her lap.

  “Could you identify the man?” Mick asked.

  “Naw, Miss Hettie wouldn’t like that. She told us we wasn’t to talk about Lillie. She’d switch me good if she was to find out I told you. I guess you owe me, Mick.”

  “Yeah. Next time you get rounded up, I’ll make sure you aren’t charged.”

  “I ain’t never been picked up yet.”

  “You will be.”

  Beret opened her purse and took out a coin and slid it across the table. “We’ll consider that the first payment on the hundred dollars.”

  “Ten dollars. Gee, thanks, lady.” Elsie got up then, saying Miss Hettie would be wondering where she’d got to, that with the House of Dreams short a girl, the others had to take up the slack. “Like I said, I sure am sorry about Lillie,” she told Beret, who was touched by the woman’s sympathy. Then as an afterthought, Elsie asked, “You don’t s’pose you could give me her clothes, do you? She had some pretty things, and since a lady such as yourself wouldn’t be wearing them, you wouldn’t mind if I took ’em, would you?”

  “Aw, go on with you,” Mick told her.

  “It’s a shame to let them go to waste,” Elsie persisted.