Chasing the Devil's Tail by David Fulmer Read Free Book Online Page B

an electric lamp. Then he saw the body of the white woman, the sash and the tattered kimono, a puddle of urine and a black rose. And hanging on the wall, looking out of place in that tawdry room, a dress, a gown really, deep purple sateen, with swaths of fabric, lace, and bows. Valentin stared at it for a moment, then turned his attention back to the body.
    "You aren't here by any choice of mine," Picot said by way of greeting. Valentin kept his eyes on the victim, avoiding Picot's glare in the process. The police detective made a sound in his throat. "Someone downtown got a call from your friend Mr. Anderson, and here you are." Valentin didn't comment and the copper gave up. "Looks like maybe we have a repeat killer, don't it?" He pointed. "This business with the rose mean anything to you?" Valentin said no, nothing. "What about that?" he said, jerking a thumb at the dress.
    Valentin shrugged, and on the edge of his vision, saw Bellocq open his mouth. He made the slightest shake of his head and the little Frenchman remained silent. Picot glanced between the two men with narrowed eyes. "The crip says this is how he found her." He smiled lewdly. "Says he was just coming here to make her photograph."
    "I've seen his work," Valentin said. "What he says is reasonable."
    "Well, I don't think it's
reasonable
," Picot hissed in sudden irritation. "We got nothing but what he says to go on, do we? That ain't enough for me. So we're just going to take him on downtown."
    Bellocq's eyes grew wider still, like blue china saucers, and he gaped at St. Cyr in a mute plea. Valentin stepped around the body on the floor and murmured something to Picot. The copper listened and, after a grudging moment, nodded once, curtly. Valentin waved the Frenchman toward the door and Bellocq scuttled out like some frantic metallic crab. The two men waited as he made his noisy way along the hall and down the stairs. After the clattering faded away, Picot said, "Well, Mr. Detective, why don't you have a look and tell me what we got here?" As usual, there was a sneer lurking.
    Valentin took the lamp from the policeman's hand and knelt over the body of Gran Tillman. Picot yawned and leaned languidly against the wall, but Valentin could feel the copper's stare boring into his back.
    She was a short, plain woman with liverish skin. Her face was round, her mouth full-lipped and filled with crooked teeth, her nose short and squat. Her body was just as round, except for where the flesh was already sagging. At thirty-five or so, Gran Tillman was a senior citizen in Storyville years. Indeed, her dead face looked weary and somehow not ungrateful for the long rest that was now hers.
    Picot fidgeted impatiently and muttered as Valentin lifted the black rose from the palm of her hand, noting the absence of the iron grip of death. It slipped away easily, leaving no thorn pricks on her pink palm. He had only half-listened to Picot, but he got the message: though the sash was in plain view and there was a reddish tinge about the woman's neck (not to mention the amber puddle that had soaked into the floorboards), the policeman was going to report it as a death by undetermined causes. After another few minutes and a half-dozen curt words directed at St. Cyr's bent back, Picot called for a wagon to carry the body downtown. He gave the
Creole detective a hard glance. "If you're all through, you can go," he said.
    Valentin stood up and turned to leave, stopping to study the purple sateen gown, so out of place in those shoddy digs. He had just reached the doorway when he thought of something. "That other girl," he said.
    Picot frowned absently as he stared down at Gran Tillman's body. "What? What girl?"
    "From Cassie Maples'."
    "Yeah, what about her?"
    "Was a cause of death established?"
    "Oh. Yeah, it was." Picot sounded bored, '"phyxiated. Probably with a pillow or something like that."
    "Then it was murder."
    "No tellin'," the copper said, barely listening.
    Valentin frowned.