The Axman of New Orleans Page 9

  CHAPTER 15

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1919

  10:00 P.M.

  I made a stop along the way, so it took me an hour to reach Ulloa Street. The walk helped sober me up. From a block away, I saw a Ford Model T parked at the curb in front of the Pepitone grocery, the tailpipe spewing exhaust fumes. An electric lamp outside the grocery revealed the silhouette of a man sitting in the passenger seat. The driver's seat was empty.

  The front door of the grocery was open, and I saw Mrs. Pepitone talking to a man on the porch. I slipped into the shadows between two houses on the opposite side of the street and watched.

  The conversation at the grocery did not look like a pleasant one. The man towered over Mrs. Pepitone, and he kept raising his hands in aggressive gestures. His skin was fair, and his hatless head was covered with thick red hair. Clearly, he was not Italian. I could hear their angry voices, and could tell they were speaking English, but I couldn't make out the words. I needed to get closer.

  Leaving the shadows, I crossed the street and turned toward them. The air was muggy and I was still sweating after my long walk. I tugged down the brim of my hat and shuffled down the sidewalk, hoping I looked like a neighborhood man returning home from a night of drinking.

  I reached under my coat and adjusted my pistol. The checkered wooden grip of the Colt .45 had a reassuring feel. This was the very same pistol I had used in France to kill the kraut bastard who stuck a bayonet in my leg. It had saved my life twice that day.

  After getting hit with mustard gas and stabbed, I lost my Springfield rifle but managed to cling to my Colt like a baby to its blanket. Because of the fighting still raging around my company's position, it took the litter bearers six hours to carry me to a field hospital, and during those six hours the Huns charged our lines three times.

  In the midst of the third charge, a black-helmeted Jerry dropped into the trench where I lay on the stretcher, my lungs on fire and my left leg swaddled in bloody bandages. As the German rose to attack, I glimpsed the long bayonet fixed to the end of his Mauser rifle. One of my litter bearers tried to pull his pistol, but the boy panicked and dropped his gun in the mud. My forty-five was already in my hand, and I emptied the seven-round magazine into that sausage-breath son of a bitch.

  So if there was going to be trouble tonight, I was glad to have my old friend with me.

  Walking down Ulloa Street, I was fifteen feet from the back of the Ford when Mrs. Pepitone slammed the door in the man's face. He stepped off the porch but paused on the top step to light a cigarette. As the match flared, I saw his face, early thirties, clean shaven, blue eyes to go with the red hair. Irish for sure, but no one I recognized.

  Then he bounced down the steps to the sidewalk and stopped right in front of me as I was passing between the Ford and the grocery.

  "Mi scusassi," I mumbled in my best imitation of a drunk Sicilian.

  The redhead jabbed me with his elbow as I angled past him. "Get the fuck out of my way, dago," he said in a thick brogue.

  I turned my face away and tipped my hat with my left hand. At the same time, I slid my right hand under my coat and grabbed the handle of my pistol. As I brushed along the side of the Ford, I glanced through the window.

  The lamp outside the grocery illuminated the inside of the car and I got a good look at the man sitting in the passenger seat. He was about sixty, with ruddy, gin-blossomed cheeks, a small mouth, and a shock of white hair set over a pair of bushy eyebrows. When he noticed me looking at him, he turned away but not before I recognized him. That was the second time I had seen Dominick O'Malley parked outside the Pepitone grocery that day.

  I kept walking as the big redhead rounded the front of the car and climbed behind the wheel. He let off the parking brake and gunned the engine. For a couple of seconds, I heard one of the wheels spinning in the mud along the edge of the street. Then the tire found traction on the brick pavement, and the Ford barreled past me, its taillights shuddering as the sedan careened down the street. I stopped walking and watched them go. Two blocks up, the Ford braked hard, swung a sharp left onto Carrollton Avenue, and disappeared.

  I turned around and walked back to the porch, my mind churning as it tried to find reasons for all of the connections I kept stumbling over. Like, why was Dominick O'Malley, personal friend of the mayor and of the superintendent of police, the president of the Choctaw Club, and therefore, the most powerful man in city politics, sitting outside the home of a murdered Italian grocer at ten o'clock at night while his big Irish driver argued with the grocer's widow? And why had he been at the same place early this morning?

  Just as I raised my hand to knock on the front door the outside light switched off and left me standing in the dark. I banged on the door until it opened a crack and Mrs. Pepitone peeked out. She looked frightened, and I got the impression she didn't recognize me. "I'm Detective Fitzgerald, ma'am. We spoke this morning."

  She nodded in recognition and what I took to be relief, but she didn't open the door. "It's very late, Detective."

  "I'm sorry, but I need to talk to you."

  "My children are in bed ... and my sisters are here."

  "I'll only take a few minutes of your time."

  "I'm sorry, but you'll have to come back tomorrow."

  "Open the door, Mrs. Pepitone."

  She regarded me for several seconds, then stepped back and let me in. The grocery was dark, but a light shone down the hall in the kitchen. Mrs. Pepitone faced me, arms folded, eyes narrowed with suspicion. I could see that the dreadful day had taken a heavy toll on her, seeming to have aged her well beyond her thirty years in just a few hours. "What do you want?" she demanded.

  "Why was Dominick O'Malley here?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know who you are talking about."

  My voice rose in frustration. "He was here this morning and again just now. Parked outside your front door." I jabbed my finger at the door. "His driver was standing right there arguing with you two minutes ago."

  "The man who just came here-I don't know his name-but he wanted to buy something. I told him the store is closed, that I am in mourning."

  "Stop lying to me, Mrs. Pepitone."

  She stared at me.

  "I can help you," I said. "But I can't do it if you're not honest with me."

  When she spoke there were tears in her eyes and her voice was thick with emotion. "You can't help me. No one can."

  Two pretty, dark-haired women stepped out of the hallway into the grocery. No doubt, they were the sisters Mrs. Pepitone had spoken of. Both were staring daggers at me.

  "Ma chi minchia voli?" one of them asked. What does he want?

  "Shh!" Mrs. Pepitone said over her shoulder. "Capisci Sicilianu."

  I had come to the grocery with two objectives. The first was to try to talk Mrs. Pepitone into telling me more about the two Italians who had been arguing with her husband yesterday afternoon. The second was to find those two extra bullets. The fact that I had not found them had preyed on my mind all evening. If either Mr. or Mrs. Pepitone-and I was convinced it had been the latter-had fired four shots at an intruder, all four bullets should be found in close proximity to one another, not just two. If they weren't there, that meant I was misreading the crime scene.

  Because it was clear that Mrs. Pepitone was not going to tell me the truth about any of her visitors, I was determined to find those two missing projectiles.

  "I need to search your house again," I said.

  "No," she said. "I already told you, my children are asleep."

  I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the Eveready Daylo flashlight I had picked up from home after leaving the Red Stag. I switched on the flashlight and aimed the beam at the feet of Mrs. Pepitone's sisters, causing them to scamper back into the kitchen. "I'm not asking permission," I said. "I'm telling you what I intend to do."

  She scowled at me. "What are you looking for?"

  "The truth, Mrs. Pepitone. The simple truth."

  The
master bedroom had been mopped and the bedframe was empty, the blood-soaked mattress having been carried away, but Michael Pepitone's blood had stained the wooden floor and that stain would probably never go away.

  A wardrobe and a dresser stood against the wall.

  In the wardrobe, I found Michael Pepitone's jackets and his wife's dresses. The late Mr. Pepitone had owned one suit, a heavy coat, two lightweight jackets, and a silk tie. On a shelf above the hanging clothes sat a black derby hat. At the bottom of the wardrobe were two drawers. In one, I found men's socks, undershorts, and undershirts. In the other drawer were women's undergarments.

  In the dresser, I found neatly folded dresses, a housecoat, lace socks, shawls, and scarves. Buried in a bottom drawer, under what looked like an old dress, was a small wooden box. I lifted the lid. Inside were several pieces of old jewelry, probably handed down from Mrs. Pepitone's mother. I closed the box and put it back.

  As I searched another drawer, pushing aside Mrs. Pepitone's intimate things, looking for secrets that might have led to her husband's murder, she glared at me from the bedroom doorway. I was embarrassed and felt my face flush.

  "Did the killer go into the grocery?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "Only here."

  "What about the kitchen?"

  She nodded.

  I stood. "I need to see it."

  "My sisters-"

  "I won't disturb them."

  Without another word, she turned and walked down the hallway. As I followed her, I shined my flashlight along the floor, sweeping it from side to side. It was habit. I didn't expect to find anything.

  Then I did.

  At the end of the hall, lying on the floor next to the baseboard, was a flat metal disk a little bigger than a quarter. I bent down and picked it up. Holding it between my thumb and index finger, I could feel that the other side was convex. I turned it over. It was a brass button, old and worn. I focused my light on it.

  I knew that button well. The face bore the raised image of a crescent with the two ends nearly touching at the bottom. Set inside the crescent was a five-pointed star. Arrayed in an arc above the crescent were two words, while below it, in a reverse arc, was a single word. Together, the words read NEW ORLEANS POLICE.

  The brass button was from a department-issued uniform coat. The Police Department used the same button design for the heavy winter coat and the long raincoat, but the raincoat buttons were just a tad larger. This button was from a raincoat.

  A brass button torn from a police raincoat in a house that had been tramped over most of the day by policemen wasn't that unusual. What was unusual was not the button itself, but what was on it. In the upper right quadrant, about the two o'clock position had it been the face of a clock, was a single drop of dried blood. The drop had a tiny tail, as if it had flown through the air and struck the button at an angle.

  I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

  A policeman at a murder scene always gets blood on his shoes, and sometimes on his hands, but not usually on his coat. By the time the police arrive at a murder, all the blood has been spilled. Sometimes he might brush against a wall and pick up a smear of blood, but not a perfectly formed drop.

  Cops don't get splattered with blood. Killers do.

  Michael Pepitone's murderer had been wearing a policeman's raincoat.

  CHAPTER 16

  MYSTERY SHROUDS MURDEROUS ATTACK ON UPTOWN GROCER

  Father And Son Hacked With Hatchet Early Saturday Morning.

  -The Daily Picayune

  DECEMBER 22, 1917

  3:00 A.M.

  A cold rain was falling. The lightning and thunder had already passed, but the rain was still coming down steadily and would likely continue to do so for a few hours. The air was thick and wet and sound wouldn't travel very far in it. That was certainly in the killer's favor. What was not in his favor was that there was no ax on the back porch of the house on Apple Street. At least not a full-sized ax. There was only a small hand-ax, with a short handle, no more than a foot in length. A hatchet, really. It hung from a piece of twine on a nail beside the back door. It would have to do.

  The killer yanked the hatchet off the wall. The twine snapped and fell to the plank floor of the porch. He stood in front of the paneled wooden door, holding the hatchet in his right hand and drawing his revolver from his coat with his left hand. He breathed in the damp air. It was good to be back, he thought. Then he lunged forward and kicked the door hard. The wood splintered and the door flew open.

  The kitchen was dark. Straight ahead was the hallway. There were three doors, all on the left. One for each bedroom. He charged down the hall, past the first two doors, both closed, to the third door, which was also closed. His information was that this was the bedroom shared by the grocer and his wife. The other two bedrooms were for the children. The killer smashed through the third door.

  The grocer and his wife were still in bed, but the sound of the killer crashing through the house had woken them and they were both sitting up. The wife was closest to the door. She screamed. The bed was pushed against the far wall, and the husband was trying to climb over his wife to stand up.

  The killer struck him on the head. Blood spewed from the ugly wound, but he could tell that it wasn't a mortal blow. The wife kept screaming. The killer struck the man again, this time catching him on the cheek and opening up a big piece of his face, but again the lightweight blade of the hatchet had not cracked through the skull. The man did, however, collapse on top of his wife after the second blow and choked off her screams. The killer hit him again on the back of the head, and he went limp, but the killer could feel that the blade had not reached the man's brain.

  Before the killer could raise the hatchet for a fourth strike, he heard shouting behind him. Then strong hands grabbed his coat and jerked him backward into the hall. He spun around and found two strapping boys, teenagers at least, close upon him, punching and kicking him. One punch landed on his nose and he felt it crack. He had been told the grocer and his wife had three children, two boys and a girl, and he had assumed they were all young. But these two were almost grown men.

  The killer tried to swing the hatchet but he was too close. So he cocked the hammer on the revolver and aimed it at the nearest boy, but just as he yanked back on the trigger the boy managed to knock the gun aside and the shot missed. Then the boy grabbed the revolver and held the cylinder so tightly that it wouldn't turn.

  So the killer stepped back and swung the hatchet. The blow was only a glancing one, but it hit the boy on the head. The boy let go of the revolver and fell to the floor, both hands gripping his head. Blood was already seeping between his fingers.

  The killer didn't waste time trying to cock the revolver again. He just chopped the barrel down on top of the second boy's head. The boy didn't fall all the way to the floor, only dropped to his knees. But the first boy was lurching up onto his feet and still looking like he wanted to fight, despite the blood now gushing from his slashed scalp. The killer swung the hatchet again, but the boy ducked and the blow struck the wall. Then the second boy was back on his feet, the two boys looking almost like they were fighting each other to get to him.

  The killer turned and ran.

  ***

  DECEMBER 22, 1917

  6:00 A.M.

  "I'm leaving the Police Department," Colin Fitzgerald said.

  Emile looked at him. "You're what?"

  "I joined the Army."

  They stood on the front porch of a double shotgun house at 8301 Apple Street, both sides of which belonged to Mr. Edward Andollina. One side was his grocery and saloon, and the other side was the home he shared with his wife, their two grown sons, John and Salvadore, and their thirteen-year-old daughter, Mary.

  Emile and Colin were trying to stay out of the cold rain that had been falling since yesterday. An ambulance had already carted the severely-injured Mr. Andollina to Charity Hospital, while his two sons, though injured themselves, had chosen to remain
at home to look after their mother and sister.

  "You know there's a war going on, right?" Emile said.

  "That's why I signed up."

  "I don't understand."

  "I'd rather go to Europe and fight an enemy I can see than stay here and fight the backstabbing crooks who run this city."

  "Do you think the politicians in Washington who are running the war are any different than the politicians here?"

  Colin pulled his heavy uniform coat tighter. "I hope so."

  Emile hesitated, then said, "Is this about your son?"

  Colin shook his head.

  Emile had seen little of his friend the last three years. Colin's mother had passed away. Then his son, Colin Junior, had died from the typhoid fever outbreak that followed the great hurricane of 1915. Looking at Colin now and seeing his sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, Emile thought the back-to-back losses had drained his friend's spirit.

  Emile stared out at the cold rain for a few minutes. Then, just to have something to say, he asked, "What do you think of your new superintendent?"

  "Just another Ring stooge. And not even a policeman. What was he, a switchman at a rail yard?"

  Emile rubbed his hands together to keep the blood flowing through his fingers. "Superintendent of the Illinois Central Railroad."

  "Being superintendent of a railroad doesn't qualify him to be superintendent of a police department."

  "I agree," Emile said. "I was as surprised as you."

  Colin shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets. "Imagine if they put a railroad man in charge of your newspaper."

  They stood in silence again. Emile cupped his hands and blew into them. A little more than an hour ago, he had seen Detectives Obitz and Dantonio go into the house to interview the family of the wounded grocer and saloonkeeper.

  From what Emile had learned, the intruder had kicked open the back door of the residence side of the double house at around three o'clock this morning and struck Mr. Andollina repeatedly with a hatchet while the man slept next to his wife.