FOUR

Flip caught a streetcar south as far as it would go. Then he walked until the roads ceased to be paved and there was no longer electricity or gaslight in the buildings. The men here were mostly white immigrants from Eastern Europe. There were Negroes too, but only here and there, and not many. Dust blew across the roads.

Flip found a corner saloon with swinging door. He dipped inside, flashed his star and gun at the barman, and asked where he could hire a horse. The barman rented Flip his own, and they went out back to get it. The horse looked rotten and sick, but Flip did not want to go searching for a better one. He paid the barman twice what he should have, and rode the beast southeast to the camp where the canal was being dug.

The sunlight was still bright as Flip approached the outskirts of the massive project. So many men and so much machine settled among the swampy edges of the water. Some workers lived in the city, or down in Indiana, but it was clear most had chosen simply to reside in nearby tents and makeshift hovels for the duration of the dig. Flip rode the wheezing horse to the top of a sandy dune and looked down, surveying the diggers. It looked like miserable work. The men were dusty and tired.

As they began to knock off for the day, some workingmen headed straight for the clusters of tents and outbuildings where they were camped. Some headed north, back to town. Others lingered to chat or relax. A few looked as though they would go and have an impromptu bath in Lake Michigan before they retired for the night.

Flip tied up his horse and walked toward the nearest mass of men. He heard many languages that he could not understand. Flip looked for a supervisor. Eventually, he found a bald, broad-shouldered white man in grease-blackened overalls handing out what might have been pay slips. Flip joined the crowd and waited his turn.

When he got to Flip, the bald man said: “We hire through O’Malley. You got a letter?”

Flip had some things that were even better than a letter.

“I’m here about the twin boys from Arkansas,” Flip said, opening his coat. “They were called Horner. Might have had an uncle around by that name?”

The bald man just scowled.

“That’s a Chicago badge,” he said. “You and your horse crossed out of the city limits a ways back there.”

The man folded his arms, as though he would not be of help. The men around him stared and smiled derisively. It was a pleasure for them to see their boss standing up to an officer of the law.

“These Horner boys, maybe they lived in Chicago,” Flip tried. “That makes it a Chicago matter.”

“Maybe anybody lived in Chicago,” the bald man said, laughing. “That ain’t no kind of answer.”

The workmen laughed as well.

Flip knew effective ways of dealing with these types, but they were not quick . . . or else were not cheap. Flip remembered the mayor’s request. An update in a week. Progress. And the mayor was apparently more than willing to pay.

So Flip figured it must be all right to do what now occurred to him.

Even as it churned his stomach, Flip looked into the bully’s eyes and said: “Now that I think on it, I did bring a letter to show you.”

The bald man raised a hairy eyebrow.

“It’s something best kept private. You want to come see? I left it over by my horse.”

“What?” said the man angrily.

Flip winked at him and nodded to the horse.

The man—still smiling contemptuously—left his workers and walked with the exaggerated pantomime steps of a clown to where Flip had tied the horse, lampooning him all the way. The workmen guffawed loudly.

When they reached the horse, Flip was all business.

“They lookin’,” Flip said low, gesturing back to the throng, “so I’m a just shake your hand.”

Flip shook the bald man’s hand and left a $100 bill in it.

The man closed his fist around the dough, and was immediately transformed. He gazed up at Flip as though they were long lost relatives, reunited after ages apart. His expression said that now they were forging new bonds that would never be broken.

Even as the man smiled at Flip like they were literally related, he also tilted his head to the side. The tilt asked if anybody throwing around hundred dollar bills really gave a fuck about two dead Negro boys from Arkansas. Was there not something else? Something more important he could do for his wealthy new friend? Wine, women, or song, perhaps? All were to be had along the dusty banks of the Cal-Sag.

“Yes,” Flip confirmed, reading the expression. “The two boys name of Horner. That’s my aim entirely. Show me whatever you got, even if you think it’s nothing.”

The bald man returned to his group and called aloud for a person named Salazar. Salazar—muscular, stooped, and dirty all over—soon appeared from one of the tents. Salazar squinted and rocked back and forth on his heels, wondering what was happening.

“Salazar found them,” the bald man announced.

The bald man explained to Salazar that this was a police officer who wanted to know about the crime.

“Ahh,” said Salazar. “You mean the-”

Salazar drew his finger across his throat and made the noise of a death rattle. Then he mimicked removing his own head. Then he laughed uproariously. The men watching laughed as well.

“Yes,” Flip said. “That. Can you take me to where you found them?”

Salazar said he could.

The land was flat and swampy, with sand dunes every so often. They walked past the last of the diggers leaving the worksite—a final trickle of the exhausted, the lame, or the simply slowmoving. At a spot where the excavation had long since been completed, Salazar pointed to a small tin shed used to store equipment. On the ground at the back of a shed was an oil stain. Salazar looked down at it. Flip looked too. (The bald supervisor looked only at Flip, hoping desperately that his wealthy guest was getting what he wanted.)

“This where it happened, then?” Flip asked. “Where you found the bodies?”

“Some people—later—they put down oil to get rid of the blood,” said Salazar. “To cover it up. I don’t know why.”

“Did you find them?” Flip pressed.

“That’s right,” Salazar said. “Early in the morning. I came here and saw both boys. I thought they were sleeping at first and yelled at them. Then I saw their heads were cut off. The police came and looked, only then we saw they had stakes down their necks, and the heads were switched.”

The bald man stepped up.

“As I told the officers, these boys were not members of our crew—or of anybody’s crew. They were just hanging around. Hoping to be hired, I guess. There’s lot of people out here. Folks come and go.”

“Uh huh,” Flip said, turning back to Salazar. “And how did you know the heads were switched? The boys were supposed to be true identicals.”

“It was little things,” Salazar answered. “One boy had a scar on his lip; looked like a dog had bit him. The other one had a swollen ankle and a broken shoe. We stood there looking, and someone noticed one had both the busted lip and the broken shoe . . . and the other had neither.”

“They switched the heads, and sent all the faults to the one twin,” the bald foreman pronounced. “Made the other more perfect, yeah? Hahaha!”

This time, nobody else laughed. The looky-loos began to drift off.

Flip considered the oily spot in the dirt. He got down on his knees and took a scoop with his hand. From his pocket he produced an empty tin for shoe polish. He put the handful of dirt inside and sealed it.

“Anybody know their first names?” Flip asked, rising.

“We didn’t truly know their last names,” Salazar said. “Horner was a guess. Somebody’s guess. I forget who. Boss man, did you know?”

The bald man shook his head.

“Well somebody said it,” Salazar continued. “Somebody said the boys had an uncle around here. I never met him. I bet it was a lie. People come to Chicago and say they’re related to somebody local, just to get a job.”

“Is there any man named Horner on your work crew?” Flip asked.

The bald man said there wasn’t.

“You know that off the top of your head?” Flip challenged him. “Without checking? You’re sure?”

The bald man’s face processed a string of emotions. The first was outrage over being questioned at all, and then a greater outrage over being questioned by a Negro policeman from the city. Then, when it seemed his anger would boil over, his face showed that he remembered his new friend had already handed him enough money for a down payment on a Model T. . . and that there might be more where that came from.

“I suppose I could take a look at the rolls,” said the bald man. “Might take some time, though. Be a hell of a lot of work.”

Flip diagnosed the situation perfectly, but the envelope of hundreds stayed in his coat.

“No,” Flip said. “No need for that. I believe I have what I came for.”

Flip headed back into the city as dusk fell. The sun turned to a savage orange fireball that hung lazily in the sky and waited there for a while, as if it had no place to go.

Flip, to the contrary, had plenty of places to visit before the evening ended.

He reached Miss Heloise’s home for orphan girls just before the sun set. It was a three flat on the southeast corner of a city park. The park was strewn with trash and debris, and several bums were already settling down to camp for the night. A pair recognized Flip and worried he might have come to roust them. When he did not, they smiled to one another as if some great catastrophe had passed them over.

Decrepit, broken toys made of metal and wood littered the stone porch of the orphanage. It took Flip a while to realize they were indeed toys; most looked like rejected scraps from a carpenter’s bench. The lights within the home were bright, and Flip could hear children’s voices and the clink of silverware. He could also smell the unique odor of a place filled to bursting with children who did not particularly like to bathe.

Flip knocked on the thick wooden door.

For a moment, there was nothing but the continued sounds of children. Then a heavy tread came, punctuated by squeaking wooden floorboards. It grew louder, and then the door swung wide.

The woman revealed could not be bothered to look immediately at Flip.

“I said to stay in the kitchen!” she barked into the chaos behind her.

Down the hallway, Flip could see fifteen or twenty children seated, standing, or playing around a long wooden table. A small child who had toddled after the woman thought twice and retreated back down the passage.

“Yes?” Miss Heloise said, her eyes finally training upon the guest on her porch.

She was heavyset, light skinned, and might have been forty years old. She had black rings under her eyes—probably from a thousand nights kept sleepless by little ones—but was not unattractive. She wore a brown shawl and a flowing, stained skirt.

Flip displayed his star.

“Miss Heloise?”

“That’s right,” she answered.

“I’m here about Doreen and Netty,” Flip said.

The woman’s lips closed tight. Her eyes narrowed. Something in the expression indicated that Flip had said something distasteful. For a moment, he could not imagine what it was.

“And Katherine,” Miss Heloise said with grim insistence. “There was a third girl too. Or doesn’t she matter to the police?”

“Yes,” Flip said. “She matters. Her too.”

Flip noticed that Miss Heloise was holding a dishrag in her hands. She worked it back and forth anxiously between her fingers. She looked up into Flip’s eyes, wondering if the police officer was being genuine.

“You all been here several times,” Miss Heloise stated, working the rag. “You any closer to finding who done this? What do I have left to tell you that you don’t already know?”

“I only need to take a look at the room,” he told her. “Shouldn’t take but a moment. I could come back in a few hours if that would be easier.”

“In a few hours the children will be asleep,” Miss Heloise answered, as though he was being impossible.

“Then I suppose I ought to do it now?”

She regarded Flip hesitantly, then let him inside.

Miss Heloise retreated to the kitchen, where little girls of all ages played and shouted to one another. She quickly deputized an older child to hold the fort until she returned, then conducted Flip to the foot of a winding wooden staircase that smelled like many small, bare feet. Miss Heloise heaved and groaned as she took the steps two at a time. She seemed to know them like the back of her hand. Flip, on the other hand, had to watch his footing and use the rail. At the top was a large space that might have originally been a family living room. The floor was wood and the walls were plaster. There was a large fireplace set into the wall that Flip recognized from the crime scene photo.

“The girls. . .” he began. “The twin girls. . .were found here and here, yes? The heads switched and reattached with barbed twine?”

Miss Heloise nodded back.

“Was there much blood?” Flip asked.

The woman thought for a moment.

“For Doreen and Netty? No. For Katherine, yes. There was a pool underneath her. It leaked down through the floorboards. Started coming through the ceiling. Scared the children something awful.”

Flip walked to the center of the room. He stood in the shadow of the great fireplace, right where the twins had been found. There was nothing there. No sign that a murder had taken place. No indication that mutilated bodies had once been left in this spot. Flip ran a naked finger across the floorboard. No dirt. No grime. Nothing at all.

Flip then headed to the fireplace, to the spot where Katherine’s body had been left hanging. There was a deep hole in the plaster where the poker had run her through. It would take a man of great strength to do such a thing.

Beside the fireplace was a metal container for the fireplace tools, including—it appeared—the offending implement. Across the room, Miss Heloise followed Flip’s gaze.

“I had to put it back—after I’d cleaned it, of course,” she said. “Otherwise the children would notice. They don’t know the details of what happened. They know the girls died, but not the details. I’m hoping to keep it that way. I didn’t want to leave any clues that might make little minds wander. Every child in this house has already been through enough. They understand something bad took place in this room. That’s plenty.”

“You yourself saw nothing, heard nothing?” Flip asked.

“How could we?” Miss Heloise answered. “We weren’t home. I had taken the children to play on the beach. Kathrine wasn’t feeling well, and the twins were both scared of water. But they were good girls; they knew my rules and obeyed me. I had left them alone before, with no problems.”

Flip smiled and nodded.

“Of course they were good girls,” he said. “How long were you away at the lake?”

“Three hours for the entire trip,” answered Miss Heloise.

Flip picked up the fireplace poker and tested its weight in his hands.

“Doreen and Netty, what can you tell me about them?” he asked, swinging the poker slowly through the air.

“Showed up a couple years ago with no explanation,” said Miss Heloise. “Half of the girls come that way. Someone drops them on my doorstep because they know we take care of the lost. I don’t press the girls for details if they don’t wanna talk, and they seldom do. Doreen and Netty said they were from South Carolina, which I told the police. Said they had no mother or father anymore. Said a man had brought them here to Chicago in a railcar, and then he disappeared. They said they were eleven years old. That was all they said.”

“How did you tell them apart?” Flip asked, gripping the poker now like baseball player trying a new bat.

Miss Heloise paused for a moment. Flip realized her mind was processing something very terrible indeed.

“They came branded,” Miss Heloise said soberly. “I don’t know in what circumstances they were birthed and raised, but it must have been awful—a place where such things were done. You see, someone had burned a D into Doreen’s back, and an N into Netty’s. Just below the right shoulder. Course, I didn’t have to use the marks to tell. The girls had their own personalities. Their own souls.”

“Anybody ever threaten them? They make enemies?”

Miss Heloise shook her head no.

“How’s a child supposed to have ‘enemies’ in the first place? It’s a child.”

“And you said they were good? Obeyed your rules?”

Miss Heloise nodded.

“They were some of the best,” she said quietly. “Two perfect little girls. Not selfish. Played good with the others. They were a blessing. Our Father above made the one so perfect, he had to use the mold a second time. That’s how I look at it.”

Flip took another slow swing through the air with the fireplace tool, chasing a lazy, invisible curveball.

“Do you mind if I borrow this?” he asked, pivoting; he gripped the tool by the center of the shaft, and held it up to her face. “I can bring it back before the children notice, I expect.”

Miss Heloise grew annoyed.

“Are you really going to catch whoever did this?” she said, placing a hand on her substantial hip.

Flip smiled.

“Maybe,” he said. “But please . . . can I take the poker?”

“Yes, fine,” Miss Heloise said sternly. “Will there be anything else?”

“No,” Flip said, lowering the implement. “That should be everything.”

Miss Heloise gazed at him with great suspicion.

On his way out of Miss Heloise’s house, Flip lingered at the edge of the park across the street. He looked over the trees and shrubs, and at the familiar forms of the sleeping bums. He thought to himself that there would be a lot of places where you could kill somebody and not be seen in a park like that.

Places where blood could be spilled on the ground, with nobody ever the wiser.