Devil’s garden

“How’d she get to the bed?”

“Mr. Arbuckle said he carried her.”

“Other witnesses?” Geauque asked.

“Cops are looking for a couple of showgirls who were in the room when Miss Rappe made the statement to Maude Delmont. About Roscoe hurting her.”

“Names?” Sam asked. He opened his tweed coat for a little notepad and pencil.

“Alice Blake. Zey Prevon or Prevost-something like that. Roscoe said one of the girls, Miss Blake, worked at a joint called Tait’s. You know it?”

“Sure,” Sam said.

“This Prevon or Prevost woman worked as a cigarette girl somewhere.”

“I’m on it,” Sam said. And the men turned away from each other, but Sam stayed by the door until Geauque turned back and caught Sam’s eyes.

Geauque showed him the palm of his right hand and nodded. “Of course.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a check ledger, writing one out to Sam for a week’s advance.

“How’s Jose?” he asked.

“Big as a house.”

MAUDE DELMONT HADN’T LEFT the St. Francis except to visit Virginia once at Wakefield Sanitorium before the poor girl died. She’d told the day manager she just didn’t have the energy to change hotels and he instantly started an account to pay for all her room service and phone charges, as she called down to Los Angeles every other hour looking for that rat bastard Al Semnacher. She ordered room service a lot, had her two outfits laundered daily, and read stories in The Call, the Examiner, and the Chronicle about a producer she knew named Henry Lehrman calling Arbuckle a beast for what he’d done to Henry’s poor sweetheart. He said if he came face-to-face with Fatty, he’d kill him.

That was a riot. Last she’d known, Lehrman wouldn’t answer a single cable Virginia sent to New York.

That afternoon Maude lay on the thick feathered mattress in a black housecoat-thinking black was a nice touch when she had the doorman go out and fetch some items for her-with one arm draped across her eyes, the Victrola from the party now in her room but this time playing a slow funeral dirge and some other kinds of depressing music, mainly opera. She really liked the stuff from Tosca, and the bellman told her they were going to do a performance of the opera in a couple weeks, it being opera season and all.

Maude thought San Francisco was some kind of town to actually have a goddamn season for opera.

An hour later, two cops stood at the foot of her bed. Another one stood by the hotel door. A big woman in a big blue wool sweater and big skirt down past her ankles. She wore a woman’s version of a police hat pi

The cops, Griff Ke

“Now, these two girls, were they friends of yours?” Ke

“No.”

“Had you met them before Mr. Arbuckle’s party?”

“No.”

“Were they with Miss Rappe before she went to room 1219?” Tom Reagan asked.

“Yes,” Maude said, dropping the arm from her eyes. “Yes. They were admiring her dress and hair. I remember that.”

“What about after?”

“When I beat down the door?”

“When you said you knocked on the door,” Reagan said.

“Hammered with all my might against that beastly lock?”

Ke

“Do you know where we can find these young ladies?” Kate Eisenhart asked, stepping away from the door and out of the shadows. A window was open in the hotel room and they could hear the high ti

“No.”

“What about Mr. Semnacher?” Eisenhart asked.

“I don’t know what’s become of Mr. Semnacher. He left shortly after Miss Rappe became ill.”

“Did he speak to Miss Rappe after she became sick?” Reagan asked.

“Did he know Miss Rappe well?” Ke

“Did he see the girl sick in 1219?” Kate Eisenhart asked.

Maude Delmont tossed her head from side to side on the pillow and groaned. “My head feels like it’s going to explode. All these questions and I’ve yet to put my best friend in the world in the ground. Can’t I mourn for her?”

Ke

Kate Eisenhart sat on the bed and there was a noticeable shift in the mattress as she felt Maude’s forehead and traced the line of her jaw with the tips of her stubby man fingers. Maude smiled up at the big woman and the woman’s cheeks flushed.

“Did anyone else hear Miss Rappe say that Roscoe Arbuckle had hurt her?”

“Just the girls.”

“Alice and Zey?” Reagan said.

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know them?” Reagan asked.

“No.”

“And you don’t know where to find them?” Ke

“One of them sang at a speakeasy. I don’t know what the Zey girl did. To be honest, she was the less attractive of the two, although I think she fancied herself as an actress.”

Maude watched the two men grow restless and play with their felt hats in their hands, kneading the wool and exchanging glances, and all Maude wanted was for room service to arrive with her lamb chops with mashed potatoes and a cherry tart on the side.

Maude closed her eyes and opened them again, and Kate Eisenhart was smiling at her, and, from the big weight on the bed, Maude could feel the policewoman’s breathing grow heavy and labored whenever she met her eye. The thick roll of fat under Kate’s jaw trembled a bit.

“Now, now. I know what it’s like to lose a friend. I bet you can’t even eat.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Tom, Griff-you two skedaddle. I’ll stay with this poor creature.”

“We have a few-” Tom started.

“Thank you,” Maude said. “My nerves are raw as a side of beef.”

The big fat policewoman tucked the covers up to Maude’s chin and turned off the bedside lamp. She stood and pushed Ke

“I dreamed of her last night,” Kate said.

“Ma’am?”

“Virginia. She wanted people to know what that Fatty had done to her. He’s a monster. A vile, disgusting creature. If I had my way, they’d chop his man bits clean off.”

The boys looked at each other again.

“You fools,” Kate Eisenhart said. “You poor fools.”

“THE CHRONICLE’S BEEN RUNNING this serial ’bout this detective named Craig Ke

“Four of ’em?”

“Four of ’em.”

Haultain and Sam walked out back of the Flood Building, heading toward Powell.

“See, this guy’s some big brain who can smell a brand of cigarette on a woman and uses a microscope to match hairs found at a murder. He also wears expensive clothes and knows how to talk to women.”

“Nothing like us. We can’t talk to women.”

“See, Craig Ke

“You mind if we drop by Marquard’s? I’m out of smokes.”

“Thought you rolled your own.”