The Secret Life of Anna Blanc (24 page)

“That'll be fifty cents,” Madam Lulu said. She finally lit her cigar.

Anna waved away the smoke. “Which parlor houses have lost girls? I want to know about drug overdoses, suicides, accidents, and disappearances, starting in January.”

Madam Lulu flipped her eyes to the ceiling. “I've lost two, Monique's lost two, the Octoroon—they lost a girl. Madam Van lost two girls. The Yankee Doodle lost one. That's all I know.”

Anna scribbled this down. “Good. Can you tell me about the parlor girls? What their lives are like. What they do. Where they go.”

“Go?” Madam Lulu said. “They don't go nowhere, unless they've been arrested or they're leaving town.”

“Not to buy groceries?” Anna asked.

“Delivery boys bring us everything we need.”

Anna thought about the girls' pale faces. Eve's pale face. “So they never leave?”

“They aren't welcome to share the streets with the proper ladies. But we do go to the races,” Madam Lulu said. “That's just in the fall.”

“And our murders were in the winter, spring, and summer. If they never go out, our killer has to be a patron,” Anna said. “How else would he meet his victims? I need a list of your customers.”

“That's privileged information. Ain't no madam gonna give you that.”

“Then I have nothing to go on!”

“I'm keepin' my eyes open. I'll let you know what I see. What does your sweetheart say?”

“Edgar doesn't know anything about this.”

“No, not your fiancé. Your sweetheart. Joe Singer. The police chief's son.”

Anna lifted her chin. “He's not my sweetheart. I don't even like him.”

Madam Lulu raised one eyebrow. “You want to solve the crime or not?”

Anna walked all the way back to the station in the heat, arriving exhausted and late, but armed with information. She wasn't sure what Madam Lulu had been implying about Officer Singer, but she thought she'd better give him another try. She had new, irrefutable evidence. Once she showed him, he'd help her, because, in spite of the fact that he had blackmailed her, she felt he would do the right thing. Now that Eve worked at the Poodle Dog, Anna felt even more determined to catch the killer. Eve would not end up with a sixpence in her shoe. Only over Anna's dead body.

Anna decided she would need to get Officer Singer alone, away from prying eyes. Snow might have seen her at the crime scene and knew she'd asked questions about the suicide. Anna herself posed no threat to Snow. No one listened to her. They all thought she was ridiculous. But Officer Singer was the chief's son—a genuine threat. Snow was party to the murders—at the very least derelict in his duty; possibly part of a cover up; or maybe even the killer. If he found out that Officer Singer was investigating with Anna, it would put Snow on his guard and put Joe and Anna in danger. Snow must not see them conspiring.

Detective Snow stormed into the station. He blew straight to Matron Clemens, who was typing a letter on LAPD stationary. “Where's Matron Holmes?”

Matron Clemens appraised him coolly. “She's taking a child to Whittier.”

As Snow stomped off to his desk, Anna strode through the front doors.

“Speak of the devil.” Matron Clemens raised her voice. “Matron Holmes, did you take the girl to Whittier?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Anna lied. She felt anxious.

“Monique didn't give you trouble?”

“No, ma'am. She was lovely. We…had tea.”

Matron Clemens raised an eyebrow. “I suppose it's always good to make friends. Mr. Melvin has your paycheck.”

Anna smiled with all her might. When Matron Clemens turned back to her work, Anna strode straight for Joe Singer's desk and dropped a note. Without slowing down, or noticing that Snow followed her with his animal eyes, she hurried through the station and out the back door. Joe picked up the note and read it. “Meet me in the stables. Be discreet.”

Joe closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, mentally bracing himself for whatever it was that Anna had in store. He couldn't think of a single good reason to comply, but he slid out of his chair and went after her anyway.

When Joe was out of sight, Snow crossed to his desk, and picked up the note.

The stables were sunlit. Summer heat made the horsey, leathery smells even stronger. Anna selected the only stall without a horse and threw herself down onto the clean straw to wait for Joe Singer, if he came. She couldn't be sure that he would. He hadn't spoken to her since they had last met in the stables and fought. He had done one thing for her. He'd hunted Douglas Doogan down at the Bucket of Blood saloon, and, because Doogan couldn't be held, knocked him silly and put him in a citrus car on a train bound for Cincinnati. Mr. Melvin had told her so. It was a romantic gesture, and Anna did her best
not
to appreciate it. She never thanked him.

Anna stretched. The straw released a cloud of dust that floated in the sunbeams and made her nose tickle dangerously. She quickly placed a finger on her upper lip to prevent a telltale sneeze. She didn't want anyone to find her except Officer Singer. Her mind whirred, sorting the facts, finding the right words to present her evidence.

She stood up and peeked around a saddle hanging over the side of the stall. Next stall over, a black mare stomped and whinnied, glistening with sweat. She heard a squeak and saw Joe swing the stable door open and come inside. He moved down the long center walk, scanning the two-dozen stalls and looking irritated. He stepped on a fresh road apple and said some unrepeatable word, scraping off his shoe.

When he neared her stall, Anna whispered, “Officer Singer, I'm here.” Their eyes met over the stall front, and his cool eyes made it clear that he had not forgiven her. Her heart beat faster. Joe opened the gate and sauntered in. He leaned on the boards and folded his arms across his chest. “What?”

Anna smiled at him. Her smile lit up the stables like a little sun. It was broad, warm, and genuine. She had asked and he had come, and she felt glad to see him standing there looking handsome and hostile, unaware that he was about to see things her way. Her warmth must have caught him off guard because he cocked his head and squinted.

Anna's eyes snapped over his shoulder. She was no longer looking at Joe, but past him, down the long center path, to where the stable door was once again swinging open. Snow lumbered inside, looking back and forth, like a snake ready to strike. Anna's smile vanished and goose bumps crawled up her arms.

“Sherlock?” Joe said.

Before he could turn to see what Anna saw, she tackled him. He landed in the straw on his backside and winced, rubbing his ribs where Anna had shot him. She crouched next to him and gave him a warning look, holding a finger to her lips. He shook his head. “You're a weird girl.”

She clapped a hand across his mouth, knocking him backward. Joe lay propped on his elbows, watching her like she was a bad melodrama. He obliged her request for silence for the same reason he came to the stables in the first place—one that eluded him at the moment.

Anna held still and listened. She could hear the faint sound of boots on dirt, moving from stall to stall. She now wondered if Joe had been fool enough to leave the note on his desk, and if Snow was specifically looking for them. Anna took her hand from Joe's mouth and crawled on her hands and knees to edge the stall door shut. Her uniform dragged in the clean straw.

At any moment, Snow could check their stall. If he found them in conference, a secret conference, he would think Joe was colluding with Anna. At best, it would complicate their investigation. At worst, if Snow were guilty…Hadn't she read it in novels a hundred times? Murderers did away with people who knew about their crime and had the power to reveal it.

If Joe were brutally murdered at the hands of a killer, it would be his own fault for leaving Anna's note on his desk for anyone to read. Even so, she wanted to save him. She looked into his puzzled, Arrow-Collar-Man face and imagined it cold, white, and dead. She had driven Eve to a life of sin. She would not lead Joe Singer like a lamb to the slaughter. She must convince Snow that they were
not
talking.

From her last visit to the stables, Anna knew that they were used for more than just horses. “Make eyes at me,” she whispered, and gazed
into his eyes adoringly, like they were hat shop windows. Joe gave her a confused, cockeyed look, which would never do.

She lunged for Joe, knocking him flat into the straw, and she kissed him. She kissed him with all the intensity of their situation, and all the passion required to overcome it—their stormy history, his grudge, her guilt, his uncertain life expectancy if he didn't kiss her back, and his possible killer looming in the stables.

Joe pulled away from her, breathless and bedoozled. “You're not going to knee me in the groin again, are you?”

Anna silenced him with a kiss she'd been practicing on her pillow since that night in the park. Joe took the bait. He met her passion and raised it one.

Whether this was good or bad for Anna's mental health, she didn't know, but of all the good deeds she had done in her life, this was her favorite. Snow peeked over the planks just as Joe rolled her in the straw. They were touching head to foot and she was only six blessed layers of fabric away from his bare skin. Snow or no Snow, her nether parts celebrated.

Joe remained oblivious to Snow's presence and desperately kissed his way from her lips down her throat to the inch of her neck that was visible above her high, stiff collar. “I take it back,” he whispered. “You'd be very useful in the home.”

Anna felt her heart falling, falling, falling. She rubbed her silken ankle against his stockinged ankle, wrapped her arms around his back, and couldn't help but slip her fingers through a gap where his shirttails were not properly tucked in.

“You slay me, Anna,” he murmured between kisses. “I mean it.”

“I mean it, too.” And she did. He was so tasty delicious she could die.

He kissed her mouth again, and she was kissing back with everything she had, pressing herself against him, sliding her fingers across the warm, soft skin of his back, feeling his beating heart, his hands playing along the sides of her dress. Joe was whispering endearments between kisses, and Snow was peering into the stall, and Anna was hoping that
Snow would never go away so she could be justified in spooning Joe Singer forever, or at least until five when her shift was done.

Snow grunted and lumbered off. Joe continued kissing Anna, doing things with his tongue that she had not expected but liked very much. When Snow was good and gone, she waited several minutes for the sake of caution, several more for good measure, and an extra few so she could be extra sure. Then Anna summoned all her virtue and pulled herself out from under Joe.

He raised himself up, all dreamy and dewy-eyed. She was intoxicated, suppressing a desire that would very likely send her into hysterics. But she was Catholic and a professional, and the lives of loose women depended on her. When he reached for her, she evaded him.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

Panting, she leaned up against a hay bale, her hair disarrayed, her person speckled with straw. She spoke between heaving breaths. “Snow was here, but he's gone. He followed you. He's involved in the murders. He knows I suspect him. I didn't want him to see us talking, because I suspect he'd suspect that you suspect him, too. It would put him on his guard. I kissed you so he'd think you were only seducing me.”

It took Joe a moment to comprehend the meaning of this statement. His face went scarlet, his nose wrinkled, and his eyes blinked from dreamy to indignant. He fairly shouted. “He couldn't see us
talking
? You knew he was standing there? You threw yourself at me. You spooned me like…like a love-crazed nymph because Snow couldn't see us
talking
?”

He modestly began to tuck in his shirt, which was significantly less tucked in than when he walked into the stables twenty minutes ago.

“What was I supposed to do? You weren't discreet!” she said.

“
I
wasn't discreet?” Joe tried to stand up.

Anna pulled him back down and held onto him. “If you'd hold your horses and pay attention, you'd see that I very possibly just saved your life!”

“Oh yeah? How's that?”

“If Snow thought you actually listened to me, which you should,
and you realized that the suicides were in fact murders…Don't you see? He could frustrate our investigation, or worse yet, kill us both to keep us quiet.”

Joe threw back his head and laughed. “You think Snow is going to kill us? Over something you wanted to tell me? Well, don't keep me in suspense, Sherlock. What is it?” He stared at her, waiting, his arms crossed in front of his chest. He looked good angry, all fiery and glinting, and she almost kissed him again.

Instead, she said, “I have evidence that at least two of the dead prostitutes were murdered, and by the same man.”

“Go on,” he said.

“For one, they both had a sixpence in their shoe.”

“Well, maybe it's good luck for brothel girls to keep a sixpence in their shoe.”

“It
is
good luck. Not for brothel girls. For brides. They both wore white—one a dress that could have been a wedding gown, the second a peignoir suitable for a wedding night, and she had a gold band. It's like the English rhyme: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence in your shoe.”

“Do you have the coins?”

“No. I didn't keep them.”

He stood up and brushed off his clothes. “Well, that was an oversight. Sherlock, you gotta give me something plausible, P-L-A…”

“I've had enough of your diphthongs!”

She was tangled in her skirts and trying to stand. She reached out a hand for his help, but he ignored it. She raised herself from the ground with all the dignity she could muster, brushing the straw from her skirt. “If you want hard evidence, come with me to the morgue. I'll prove it isn't suicide.”

“How?”

“Facts. Snow found the girl hanging by her neck from a tree. But the girl didn't die from hanging. I saw the body. It had dual lividity, which means…”

“I know what it means.”

“You do?” Anna's heart started thumping again, and she beamed at him. He sighed.