The Big Mitt (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 1) (5 page)

“Look at the footprints leading out of here,” Queen said, pointing to the ground. “Big boots and women’s shoes. I’d say three men and two women.” He followed the prints to the street, where they disappeared in a wagon’s track. He walked back to the gate and kicked it hard, but it made no movement. “I guess we’ll just have to go over, then.”

Norbeck groaned. Queen was the older of the two, but capably climbed to the top, put his leg over, and jumped. He landed on the other side standing up. It hurt a little in his knees.

“Can you unlock it from that side?” Norbeck asked with a wink. Queen ignored him and trotted up the path to the front porch. He climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. “This is Detective Harmon Queen of the Minneapolis Police,” he announced through the thick wood, knowing already that no one would answer. He tried the knob, but the door was locked tight. Norbeck came hobbling up behind him. “Stand back,” Queen said. His kicking leg was sore, so he used his shoulder instead, and heaved it hard against the door. It opened with a crack of breaking wood.

“Jesus, Queen. We can get a patrolman to do this kind of work. We should be saving our strength for collars,” Norbeck groaned.

“Dander isn’t here, and the sooner I know for certain, the quicker I can go home and sleep,” Queen replied. They went through the door and into a small hallway. It was decorated with floral wallpaper and dark wainscoting, and a narrow staircase with a polished mahogany banister ran to the second floor. The stink of cheap perfume hung in the air. “You mouse around outside and in the basement. I’ll look upstairs.” Norbeck pursed his lips slightly and then nodded.

Queen climbed the staircase, listening for sounds from above. Nothing. He slipped by the door at the top and into the hallway. The rooms were open as he went by, and he was disgusted at their filthiness. Grimy paper peeled from the walls and cobwebs clung in ceiling corners. The shabby furniture looked barely usable. Dull shadows from the morning light crawled over the rough floors, and made the lack of any color or life strikingly bleak.

Emil Dander, for all his gentlemanly airs, ran a low-grade operation. Queen had been in this house before on occasion, not to sample the wares but instead to collect fees as part of official city business. The two men weren’t friends, and Dander had never done anything to personally rile him, but Queen found the house’s entire business offensive. Perhaps it was because he had grown up in a family of sisters and couldn’t fathom an existence like this for the women in his life. Gambling, drinking and opium dens did not offend his own morality, but something about a brothel made him seethe if he considered it for too long. Dander was nothing more than a slaver, a far cry from the more elegant madams in the city’s tenderloin districts. I’ll see he never owns a business like this in Minneapolis again, he thought. I should have paid more attention to this before.

He saw more blood at the entrance to the last room and stepped in. The bed was in shambles, caved in on itself. There were bloody ropes tied to the posts, ropes that had likely made those deep gashes in the dead girl’s wrists. This was a miserable existence for a young girl. Something must have led her to believe she had a decent chance to escape. That, or she just couldn’t take it anymore and was desperate enough to risk her life. Everything culminated in a confrontation here. Had she finally had enough from a pushy customer who made her snap? Or had Dander or one of his hired thugs discovered her trying to escape? He got down on one knee to examine the blood on the floor more closely, wincing as he heard a crack in his right knee joint. There in the splatter was an enormous handprint, made by a much bigger hand than the dainty one he had examined outside. He felt a twinge of satisfaction in the guess that whoever confronted her here had fallen to the floor in a tussle, and he hoped she had extracted a little revenge for her suffering. Queen stood up and walked to the window, looking out. His eyes flicked from the Church of the Redeemer’s steeple to the fence the young woman had fallen from. Beneath it was a shed, and he could see from the disturbed snow where she had scrambled across the roof. He looked down, closer to the house, and spied Norbeck carefully examining the ground for clues. He pushed open the window and called down.

“Shake up anything?”

Norbeck shielded his eyes from the snow’s glare and looked up. “There was a scuffle down here,” he replied. “At least two people were rolling around on the ground. I can see where she ran to the fence, and right there,” he pointed to an indentation in the snow, “she fell. Probably scared witless over whoever she was running from. And here, too, more footprints. Two pairs of men’s boots, same shape as the ones we saw out front.”

“Do you see anything strange on the ground? Dropped or out of place?”

Norbeck fished out a wet pair of women’s shoes from deep inside a snow bank. “These must be hers,” he replied, holding them up high.

“Fine. What did you see on your way through the house?”

“The kitchen opens to the back door. Someone tried to make a barricade with a barrel of flour. Most of the cupboard doors were open and the floor was a mess.”

Had someone been packing food for a hasty departure, or had they been looking for something? That thought reminded him to make a thorough search of her room. He closed the window and walked back to the bureau. He opened the drawers, but they were empty. He eyed the broken bed and lifted its splintered frame as best he could, looking under it and the mattress and even peeling back the soiled sheets. What little she had, she must have taken with her. Literally the clothes on her back. Her anguish must have been excruciating, and the thought of her being forced to endure the whims of monsters made his stomach churn.

Queen exited and moved down the hall, glancing into the adjacent room. The window was slightly ajar and a draft chilled the air, so cold he could see his breath. He walked over to shut it and then paused, eyes widening slightly in realization. Dander would lie of course, as would his henchmen, about having anything to do with the murder. The girl in this room, though, could easily have been witness to what he suspected might have happened. When he finds her, he thought, things will clarify.

He went back down the staircase and stood at its foot.

“Norbeck! Did you check the basement?”

There was no response, so Queen stepped into the room to his left to investigate a little more. It was dark and the curtains were drawn, and he pulled them back to let in a little light. This was the parlor, a small waiting area with simple furniture and a worn rug. On a typical business night the women would descend from their rooms above to greet and mingle with paying customers. Unless they were bound to beds like dogs, that is.

Back into the hallway he went, and then to a larger room on the right. In a respectable home this might have been a dining room, but Dander had transformed it into something one small step up from a saloon. A bar lined the wall, and a battered piano sat in the corner. Paintings of nudes, distastefully done, hung from the walls. Stepping over sheet music scattered on the floor, Queen examined his surroundings. All signs pointed to a hasty departure, and Queen had his suspicions about where that might be. Dander had saloon-owning friends who would hide him, but if Dander were smart and really had something to do with the girl’s murder, his best option would be a fast train out of town. Traveling with a retinue of toughs and painted-cats would slow him down, but if anyone was arrogant enough to try it, it was Dander.

“Look what I found in the basement,” Norbeck said. Under his arm in a tight grip was a skinny, scared-looking boy. Norbeck shoved him forward, and the boy caught his balance, sized up Queen, and eyed the door in one wary, lightning glance. Queen was impressed with the kid’s instincts, but stepped between him and the exit.

“What’s your name, son?”

“He said his name is Eddie, but it’s not. This is the Ollie kid that manned the gate and ran errands for Dander’s bunch,” Norbeck said.

“Well? True?”

Ollie nodded.

“My name is Queen, and this is Norbeck. We work for the police. Have you heard of us?”

The boy just looked at them. He was breathing heavily and his eyes darted between the two detectives from under a tuft of tousled hair.

“So what were you doing in the basement?”

Silent, his eyes finally focused on Queen.

“Well, son,” Queen said calmly. “Here you are, in the devil’s own den. Problem is, the devil seems to have taken a holiday, and left you behind to rot. Now why would he leave you behind?”

Norbeck shook him a little, trying to rattle out a response. None came.

“You don’t trust us, isn’t that right? Well, that means you’re a smart young man. You’ve seen us here before, taking money from your boss. You think that makes your boss and us good pals? Makes us boon companions?”

That made Norbeck chuckle. Queen gave the boy his best honest-cop smile, and continued.

“We need to know where he went. He’s in trouble, and your best recourse is the two of us at this moment. Forget anything you ever saw before. One of the girls that worked here is dead, and we’re trying—”

“What did you say? Who is dead? Which girl?” Ollie’s face went pale. “Where? What’s her name?”

“Her body’s outside. I’ll take you to her in a moment.” Tears streamed down the boy’s face. He sniffled and wiped them away. “What were you doing in the basement?” Queen asked.

“I freed her!” Ollie cried. “Oh, hell, this is my fault, ain’t it? She was good to me, and she asked me for help. I told her not to go, but she went anyway.” His face contorted at the memory. “These men that came here did awful things to her. To her and the other girls. I tried to help ‘em when I could.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Queen replied. “So what happened after you let her go?”

“I was supposed to give her a whistle, a code, you know? Higgins caught me as I was practicing it. He figured it out fast.”

“You wouldn’t think that by looking at the fat asshole,” said Norbeck.

“He threw me down the steps. It hurt, but I’m fine. ‘Relax,’ he told me. ‘I’ll be down in a little bit to pull your arms from their sockets.’ It was pitch black down there, but I got lucky and found an axe. I was waitin’ for him when I heard the gunshot.”

“Just one?”

Ollie nodded. “Then there was shouting in the house. Lots of walking around. I figured they’d gut me or somethin’, but either they forgot, or didn’t care.” He paused, grief filling his face again. “Take me to her.”

“Should I bind him up?” asked Norbeck.

“Are you going to run?” Queen asked the boy.

He shook his head. “I got nowhere to go. I wanna see him pay for this. If you catch him and string him up, all I want is to stand in front as he drops and swings.”

All three trudged back to where the girl lay. The coroner’s wagon was already there, a couple of the coroner’s assistants standing by to retrieve her body. The boy Queen had left to guard her had disappeared. Queen groaned when he saw reporters from the
Journal
and the
Tribune
jotting notes in their books. Ollie burst into tears when he saw her. The reporters looked up; their scribbling intensified.

“Can you move them back a little?” Queen asked Norbeck. “Gently. Remember what happened after the Leonard Day murder? The
Journal
reporter claimed you shoved him into a dirty puddle.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Norbeck mumbled. He straightened his tie, rolled his eyes, and slunk towards the newspaper men, who licked their pencils in anticipation of his arrival.

Queen pulled Ollie by the sleeve and spoke in a hushed, gruff tone.

“So, what’s her name?”

“Maisy. Her name is Maisy.”

“Maisy what?”

“Just Maisy. Don’t know her last name.”

Queen squinted. “I thought you were friends. She didn’t confide in you?”

“I never asked her, and she never told. She don’t know mine, neither. All the girls just go by first names here.”

“Did Emil Dander want her dead?”

Ollie stared at him, shocked. “Well of course. She’s dead, ain’t she?”

“That’s true. I want to know why, though. She was making money for him. I can’t believe they thought she’d outrun them, dressed like this, in this weather.”

“Yeah, that’s true. I never thought of that. But who else might have done it?”

“Well, tell me about the men who paid to visit her. You said they did horrible things. Can you think of anyone in particular she was afraid of?”

“Some of them who come here are pretty mean, but Mr. Dander never let them clout the girls. Other things, yes, but not anything to leave a mark that would hurt their looks.”

“Did she have anyone special that she talked about? A regular customer?”

Ollie scrunched his brow. “Sure. She saw lots of men. Important ones, too. A judge I recognized from the courthouse –”

Queen put up his hand to stop what was about to come. “I don’t need a list of any law-bending muckity-mucks to complicate my life. Just tell me if there was anyone who seemed overly affectionate, or showed unusual behavior towards her. Said queer things and such.”

“Well.” The boy took a moment to collect his thoughts. “I can think of one. He seemed awful bughouse to me, whenever he came around. All jittery and shaky and nervous when he talked.”