The Juliet (7 page)

“He’ll sleep back in Hollywood where he belongs. You should have seen his face. It was like he was in one of his old movies.”

Willie’s eyes blinked rapidly. “The Mystery House is
historical
.”

“It’s a shack on a crumbling bluff,” Scottie cautioned. “And besides, it’s all historical. It’s the desert. I’ll take you up to Jackass Spring, show you bean cans still rolling around from when Charlie lived there.”

Tony frowned at his partner. He’d said the C word. They tried to avoid such talk at the Alkali. White people were crazy, coming to the Valley to see flowers, but after only a few days of poppy peeping they had their fill, and all they wanted to talk about was Manson.

Willie tilted and examined the deed as if it might reveal a secret message under different light. “Did Mr. Dexon say where he was going?”

“Not specifically,” Tony said. “But my guess is he’s headed out to see Carter.”

Willie lowered the map. “What for?”

“Pew-pew,” Tony said, cocking finger-guns into the air while doing half a jig. “More cowboy shit, I guess. He signed the deed, and then all of a sudden it was as if he’d snorted a bucket of coke. He was bouncing in his boots and said Carter needed to learn a lesson.”

“Oh man,” Willie said. “I guess I should call Carter.”

“Hold on,” said Scottie. Things were moving too fast for him. “Doesn’t anyone care about why Dexon would do something like this?”

Tony’s mood had definitely improved, and he was clearly proud of having been the catalyst for Willie’s turn of fortune. “Oh, I know why. He wanted to win an argument. We were getting a bit philosophical, and then all of a sudden he whips out the deed to prove a point.”

“Yes, but what point?” Scottie asked.

“That people can change, and also that people can be changed.” Tony turned to Willie. “Rigg Dexon wants to change
you
, Willie.”

Scottie said, “That’s damned offensive.”

Willie Judy placed the deed on the bar and said, “And it’s crap. Dexon adores me the way I am, can’t you tell?”

“Honey, I was there,” Tony said.

“You’re going to Honey yourself into a cast, Tony.” She tapped the documents. “I know what this means. He’s sending a message.”

“What message?”

“It means he thinks I can do it.” Willie smiled. “It means he thinks I can find The Juliet.”

THE JULIET

Chapter 3

Date set but Mystery Remains: Where is The Juliet?

The Indian Murderess, Caroline Firebird, will be hanged to death in The Free Pitch on the 16
^th
of August for the brutal murder of businessman Louis Montgomery Stieg. The widowed father of twin boys and also Firebird’s benefactor, Stieg was stabbed during a struggle over possession of The Juliet Emerald. A Christian Judge and Jury discarded Firebird’s claims of self-defense but were unable to ascertain the fate of the famed Egyptian jewel. Though a Certain Evil will be banished from our midst when this Depraved Killer is sent to Hell, we must ask a final question: where
is
The Juliet?

—From
The Inquisitor
, 1877

February 1893: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Though he had been prepared for the eccentric ways of Sailor and Toby Stieg, attorney Martin Dellaire was nonetheless shocked by their appearance when he met them in person for the first time. The twin brothers were ghost-like, pale with rouged lips. Sailor’s black hair was affixed to his skull with glycerin in a severe style from the previous century, and he wore a dark parson’s coat buttoned up to his throat. In contrast, Toby had somehow managed to color his hair, eyebrows, and even eyelashes a shade of white that was only natural on a child. He wore a pale summer suit, loosely cut.

Young people and their ludicrous fashions. Dellaire was not impressed. They were waiting for him in the firm’s oak-paneled conference chamber. He said, “Mr. Stieg,” to Toby, and then “Mr. Stieg,” to Sailor as he shook their hands in turn. Both brothers only rose partway from their seats, as if it took too much effort to stand erect like men. When Dellaire also sat, he discovered that his hand reeked of perfume. So it was true. The boys were mad. Rumor had it that they soaked themselves in scent to mask the vinegar odor imparted by their affiliation with the Daughter Pickling & Spice Company, even though they had sold the operation a year before, just as soon as they came of age.

Dellaire began. “I’m led to understand you are here on some financial matters?”

“
Yesss
,” said Sailor.

Toby rocked forward in his seat, nodding with his torso. “The family business.”

“Which family business would this be?”

Sailor made a queasy expression that Dellaire understood to be a smile. “That business,” he said. “That bad business of our heritage.”

Dellaire had been raised Quaker and for professional convenience had recently converted to Methodism. Either way, his patience for whimsy was limited, and it looked like the Stieg boys intended to test its limits.

Sailor took the lead. “Mr. Dellaire. What if I were to tell you that we know the answer to The Great Question?”

“The Great Question?”

“Yesss. The question.
Where is The Juliet?
”

Dellaire clamped down a smile. The boys were playing a game. “Before I let you continue, you should know that Miss Firebird’s allocution is legendary within the Philadelphia legal community. She was very detailed in her description of the circumstances surrounding your father’s death, and she was clear about The Juliet. There is no mystery, except the one that sells newspapers. Firebird was an unhappy woman with a story to tell, and she told it all. I apologize if I appear indelicate.”

Toby frowned. “A story that only lawyers remember. How sad.”

Sailor was disappointed as well. “So you know that my brother and I possess the two halves.”

Dellaire nodded. The general assumption was that The Juliet was broken during the struggle, but some suggested it was damaged afterwards, during the investigation of the crime scene. Emeralds are fragile, and police are rough. “You each received a segment with the rest of the estate when you turned eighteen. That is correct, is it not?”

Toby rocked forward again, affirming the terms of the trust. Couldn’t the lad bend his neck?

Dellaire asked, “What happened to the platinum setting?”

“Our father had common tastes.” Toby turned his face to the door as if he expected someone to enter, tilting his head downward. Dellaire and Sailor waited for Toby to continue his train of thought, but soon realized Toby had dozed off.

Sailor continued, “Our father had common tastes. The setting was offensive, so we sold it to a dealer. We are not convinced that we procured full value in that exchange, but we held on to the gems. We don’t intend to squander the rest of our inheritance.”

The rest of it? Now Dellaire was beginning to understand. There was nothing left, was there? Nothing left of the Dakota Mining Company’s fortune, nothing left from the sale of Daughter Pickling & Spice.

The Stieg boys were only nineteen years old. And there was nothing left of their inheritance but a couple of rocks.

Toby shifted, and his head lay against the carved wooden back of the chair. He was still dozing. Sailor leaned over to retrieve a blonde satin kerchief from Toby’s waistcoat. He acted as if his brother always slept this way.

Sailor laid the kerchief out, unfolded it.

Dellaire was impressed at last. “May I?”

“Of course.”

They gems were warm in the attorney’s hand. Two luminous, green blobs, like prizes from an undersea kingdom. Such extraordinary color. One stone was nearly half again as big as the other. Both were cloudy with occlusions.

“I call them the snake eggs,” said Sailor.

Dellaire nodded and returned them to the handkerchief as if they might hatch out at any moment. “And you want me to help you get the most that you can for these, is that right?”

Toby awakened, pushed a flop of stiff white hair out of his eyes. “We know there’s no value in cutting them into smaller gemstones. No real value, anyway. No
lasting
value.”

“Which brings us back to The Great Question,” said Sailor.

Dellaire had almost figured it out. Though the facts were known, for nearly twenty years the press had persisted—and succeeded—with a concocted mystery.
Where is The Juliet?
What the Stieg boys needed now was a new mystery to replace the old, rejuvenating the family business, as it were.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” said Toby, “We rather think that competition is healthy.”

“Healthy,” echoed the darker brother.

Dellaire said, “An auction then? After a bit of strenuous promotion, of course, highlighting The Juliet’s legend, no doubt.”

Sailor touched the tip of the smaller stone, giving it a tender twirl in the center of the kerchief. He said, “We are imagining a more challenging
event,
Monsieur
Dellaire. A hunt.”

“A treasure hunt,” Toby said. He even smiled. “That strenuous promotion, as you say, being a key element. Can you imagine it, people paying for the privilege of looking for The Juliet?”

“Well, that is an inventive idea.” Dellaire straightened, already calculating potential costs. “Have you worked out the details? Where would you conduct this hunt?”

“We have invested the last pennies of our inheritance in the purchase of a very special and historic venue,” Sailor said, pausing for dramatic effect. He leaned forward and opened his eyes wide, and Dellaire observed that the boy’s pupils were unnaturally large. Narcotic or cosmetic?

“We have procured the Bottler’s House.”

Dellaire was speechless. The Stieg twins were madmen, and they’d gone and bought themselves a madhouse. In particular, one that specialized in hysterics, drug fiends, and female offenders like Caroline Firebird. It was widely believed that she was held at the Bottler’s House in the days preceding her execution.

Martin Dellaire decided the Stieg twins were geniuses, the both of them.

* * *

July 1893: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

There were latch locks on the outside of every room of the Bottler’s House, and the worker charged with removing the confinement hardware had amassed a pile of heavy hinges and bolts in the middle of the hallway floor. Toby Stieg, on one of his daily surveys of the renovation effort, paused over the pile of locks and said to the worker, “I cannot tell you how deeply this house offends my state of mind.” The worker listened politely, nodded, and returned to chiseling away at the last door in Wing B. When he was finished, he was supposed to start in on the beds, unfastening their iron frames from the floor.

“What will you do with these?” Stieg crouched, tentatively touching one of the hinges. He was spotless in a suit that made the worker think of fried eggs. The lock pieces were gray and grimy, thick with dust, and in the dust were the deep smudged tracks of the worker’s fingers.

“I’ll take them to the scrapper, sir,” the worker replied. This was the most likely outcome, but in truth he was planning on trying to sell a few as souvenirs. The Bottler’s House, though closed down for almost a generation now, was still notorious, at least locally. Philadelphia mothers liked to threaten their children with the place by telling them they would be sent there to sleep in one of its cold, haunted cells.

Stieg remained crouched. Eventually his eyes closed.

“Sir?”

Toby Stieg tipped forward, and the worker caught him by the sleeves and collar of his jacket. The young man had fainted. The worker knew of Stieg’s spells, but he’d never witnessed one before. He lowered his employer to the floor, arranging him by the pile of hinges and bolts. By the time he was done, the egg-colored suit was covered with several distinct, gray handprints, as if Stieg had been fondled by a family of ghosts.

* * *

Where is The Juliet? A Clue!

In a stunning development, workers renovating the notorious Bottler’s House have uncovered a message scratched upon the wall of the Madhouse Infirmary:
THE JULIET IS HERE.
Are these the final words of the Murderess Caroline Firebird? The Stieg Sons are in seclusion as they consider the ramifications of this discovery.

—
From
The Inquisitor
, March 1894

Toby and Sailor ate supper in a giant black room at a small table covered with a white cloth. Sailor wore a slightly dusty priest’s cassock, and Toby was in the nude. Formerly the patient intake lobby, the area had been gutted along with the administrative offices on the ground floor to create a yawning, soon-to-be grand reception area, but at the moment the room was dim except for a few smoking candles that made Toby’s naked flesh glow. When complete, the room would tremble with chandeliers, and romantic staircases would climb both sides of the room, curling and insinuating—“like a Jew’s sidelocks,” said Toby to the architect.

It was Toby’s preference to float inside the dream of what would be. Every day the workmen were ordered to take away or hide their tools, drop cloths, and scaffolds, leaving the room as bare as a stage. The extra effort was costing a fortune.

“He raped her daily,” said Toby. “She told me so.”

He meant Caroline Firebird. She had been their father’s “companion” in his final years, the years she herself made final. She was the daughter of a business partner before she was made into a gift upon the dissolution of that partnership.

Sailor chewed on the braised cheeks of an animal, though he’d forgotten what kind. The fruit sauce was overpowering. “Poor thing,” he said. Sailor did not believe in spirits, but he did believe in easy conversation. Toby had been a little-to-half mad all of their lives, and there was no benefit in argument.

Toby said, “She told me of that final night.”

“Oh yes?” Sailor did not say
Again?

Toby’s hair was long, well over his collar top, had he been wearing a collar. There were lines like layers in soil where the chemical color ended and began again. Blonde to brown to red. “The Juliet was too heavy for her and it pulled at the lace.” He sat back and laid his fingers just below his throat. “Here.”