The Girl on the Edge of Summer Read online

  Two messages came into my dating inbox. One asking if I was butch or femme? Since it was written as U btch or femme, I decided the sender wasn’t interested in a listing of the ways my characteristics could be a mix of both. My answer was Neither, a bit of both, which got no reply. The second asked how tall I was. At least it was in grammatical English. I answered, five feet, ten inches. That got an immediate reply. That’s too tall. I’m only looking for women between five-five and five-seven. Are you trans? Most women over five-eight are trans in my experience. Because I was bored and didn’t have anything else to do, I answered her. No, not trans. Why would that matter? Just tall. She replied, Very tall for a woman. Sure you’re not trans? I replied, I am tall. Maybe I should check. You could be right. She answered, So you are trans. I hate it when people aren’t up front and honest in their ads. I guess she had disabled sarcasm-font on her phone. I glanced at her ad, she made no mention of a specific height. She did say no trans. I didn’t bother to reply. Silence seemed to be a wiser option than telling her she was a fucking bigoted idiot. That also meant I’d managed one smart thing today, so I was off the hook for the next twenty-four hours.

  I closed the dating app. Maybe that was also wise and I could stretch it to forty-eight hours.

  Since I was already out on the long, commercial stretch of Veterans Highway, I did the other errands that could only be done out there. (Oh, Target, why must you be so far away?) After Katrina almost all the car dealers had moved out of New Orleans. Since my Mazda was still under warranty, I had little choice but to go out there.

  After unloading everything and putting it away, that was enough of a day for me. Dinner was real, cooked food (the payoff of the errands), a coconut cashew curry. And a few beers.

  The real advantage of going to the main library on a Saturday was that parking was much kinder. It’s located near City Hall and the Civil Court, so on weekdays parking is a shoot-to-kill sport.

  Today I was right in front of the library. I’d even been a good girl and allowed myself only one cup of coffee instead of my usual weekend lingering of two or three cups. Of course, I intended to bill Mr. Douglas Townson for every second I was here. I wasn’t optimistic, but would do an exhaustive search both for the billable hours and to be able to give him a long list of every scrap of paper I’d looked at so he would know I’d found what could be found. I suspected, without that lengthy list, he might be the type to argue over the bill, not understanding that he was paying me to do the searching, not for the results.

  It wasn’t very crowded, a few homeless people, a few developers looking over city plans to see what they could scoop up.

  Why do librarians all look like lesbians? With same sex-marriage available these days, even a wedding ring doesn’t help. Tempting as it was to flirt, it probably wasn’t safe. I might be hitting on Mrs. Three Kids in the Suburbs.

  A woman who was either a butch dyke or a too busy to mess with her hair mom came over to ask me if I needed help.

  As a kid I’d always loved libraries, and now I found a reason to love them all over again. I knew I was going after the proverbial needle in a haystack, but the archivist who helped me restored my faith to order and filing. She guided me through the digging it took—maybe I was a better option than the other patrons, the scurvy developers looking at city maps, the runny-nosed teenagers looking for a shortcut to an A, or maybe I was just more charming—but she found the police record of the murder, court records for several names listed in the police report—with no arrest, there was no court proceedings for the murder—and newspapers I’d probably already perused at the New Orleans Historic Collection.

  “Happy hunting.” She waved at me as I made my way to the microfilm machines. Maybe she was flirting.

  The police record confirmed what I’d surmised from the newspaper articles. No, it didn’t spell out my theories, but the terse language left a lot of space to read between the lines. The involved officers weren’t treating this the way Townson’s story spun it: the heinous murder of an upstanding and innocent citizen.

  I jotted down some of the telling lines, the laconic “no witnesses, no one says they saw anything” and “body found at 7:15 am by barkeep taking out trash” and “no mention at hotel of evening plans, no one admitted to being in his company.” Mr. Townson had come to Storyville for the reasons most men came there, and the police were kind—or smart—enough to leave out that detail.

  I jotted down the other names mentioned in the report.

  Robert Byrnes, the barkeep who had found him, the police judged as too in his cups to have been the murderer. Evidently Robert, or Rob, as they called him, was well known to the constabulary for his frequent spells in the jail to sober up. The three witnesses who saw nothing were Mr. Michael Fordeaux, Mr. Gregory Herring, and Mrs. Consuela Taite-Carsen. The report also listed four houses of ill repute, three residential houses, two bars, and one coffeehouse / restaurant on the block.

  The kind of block where a man shouldn’t lie in the streets until 7:15 in the morning before someone notices him. Even if he was a rich man looking for what he’d find in Storyville.

  I again found my friendly archivist and got street maps of the area back then. It was in the back part of Storyville, one that likely catered to the dock worker, the seaman, the ones who couldn’t afford anything fancy. It was several blocks back and in from the train station that had been there at the time.

  It was easy to see how Frederick Townson got killed. He was a posh-looking dude out of place in this part of town. Any thief would have jumped him. He fought back and the thief killed him. What nagged at me was why was he there? Douglas had indicated that he often came to New Orleans on buying trips. It didn’t seem likely he’d gotten lost. Surely if he was looking for the nice houses on Basin Street, he would have turned back long before he reached this location. Maybe he had a taste for the low life. But even so, there were ways for gentlemen to make discreet inquiries—or to consult the infamous Blue Books that listed what was available—to find what he was looking for. He shouldn’t have been wandering the streets. Nor did that adequately explain the police report. A rich man looking for a little on the side wasn’t enough to shock back then. He was rich and powerful; the police should have been diligently searching for his killer rather than merely noting no one saw anything and leaving it at that.

  Maybe he had pissed the police off. Accused them of taking bribes or been robbed before and not appreciated how they treated him.

  My back was stiff. A look at my watch told me I had been sitting here for over three hours. No wonder I was creaky. Not to mention hungry.

  However, the downside to the easy parking was that most of the nearby food options that were fast and easy closed over the weekend. I decided to push through for another hour or two. Maybe I could find a few court cases to indicate Rob Byrnes had a habit of rolling customers and make a case that he was the likely murderer.

  Another two hours convinced me that Rob would be a hard sell as the murderer. He was variously listed as Robt. Burns, Robert Bryns, Robin Byrns, and Robert Byrnes, the latter being the most frequent, with an address a few digits’ variation, but always in that block. The arrest was almost invariably drunk and disorderly.

  Lunch. And another, kinder sitting position.

  I managed food, but it was standing, as the best option was a food truck near Tulane Hospital, around the corner from the library.

  The food was good, the weather was nice, and standing wasn’t bad after all the sitting. I debated going back; all I’d probably get were more drunk and disorderlies on Mr. Byrnes.

  But I was here, and Mr. Townson was paying by the hour. I trudged back to the library.

  Trying another tack, I did a search for Mr. Frederick Townson. At first look, he appeared to be as his grandson portrayed. He had a plantation upriver, on the Westbank, and did well with cotton and sugar cane. In the one picture I found, he was expensively dressed, a fat watch chain, presumably gold, hanging at his waist. B
ut as I dug deeper, the cracks began to appear. There was a property deed in his name with an address on Burgundy Street in the French Quarter. Over a hundred years ago, the French Quarter was run down, not the real estate jewel it is now. It was common practice for the rich men to keep their mistresses, especially the ones who were considered mixed race, in the so-called “back” of the Quarter, up on Dauphine and Burgundy Streets.

  If Frederick was indeed keeping a mistress on the side, what was he doing in Storyville? I sighed. Too bad I couldn’t get access to his bank account. Follow the money is a tried and true adage in my business.

  As closing loomed, I did one final search for any court records on him, at least the ones the database would have.

  Another crack. No, a fissure. A Mr. Frederick Townson was arrested in Shreveport in 1902 on charges of assaulting a woman, a lady of the night, the report made clear. He paid a fine and was let go. The police report called it a business dispute. One of the cops was clever enough—or unschooled enough to put in the report, “Victim alleges ‘he tried to make me do something no one should do’ and she fought him.” His version was, “She tried to take my wallet and we had a struggle.”

  It was closing time. I hastily made a copy, returned the microfilm, and thanked the archivist for her help.

  The days were getting longer, summer approaching, but now it was the balmy days of spring, a perfect day for idling outside. I enjoyed it for the brief walk to my car.

  I was headed home but took a detour instead, heading up to the lake, stopping for a frozen daiquiri on the way. A small one. I found a relatively uncrowded place to park and sat on the levee, sipping my drink, watching the waves roll in, the sailboats in the distance, and then the sun as it set.

  Then home to leftover curry and a few more beers.

  That was my exciting Saturday night.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  If the library was open on Sunday, I would have gone. Other than the usual chores, home had little to distract me. As a small business owner, I rely on what comes through my doors to set the rhythm of my days. I was finished with the case Mrs. Susie Stevens had brought me. I could spend a few more hours doing a paper dive on Frederick Townson, but it wasn’t likely I’d ever find who killed him, and it seemed that additional research would only dredge up more things his great-grandson would not want to know. Medical records with “pox” in red letters on it. I was skating at the edge of not getting paid—beyond the handsome retainer—as it was. “Your great-grandpa was a serial philanderer and seemed to like it rough,” is not the ticket to a bonus.

  But the sad reality was I had little else to do other than the hated filing and billing or chores that I had so far put off successfully, and I didn’t want to mar my winning streak. (I needed to prune the vines growing over the absent next door neighbor wall, but I needed to be zen enough to do the job and not toss the entire heap back on their side. Zen was not on the horizon at the moment.)

  I did what any reasonable Southern girl would do, decided I’d think about it tomorrow, because after all tomorrow was another day, and settled myself in with a good book, accompanied by coffee in the morning and wine in the evening.

  By the morning spring had fled. It was a blustery, rainy day, chilly in the way only places with a damp, persistent wet of constant high humidity can be. I had to shrug on a jacket.

  As predicted, the piles of filing and billing had not vanished overnight nor been done by fairies. They were waiting for me when I got to my office around ten. Even most of a pot of coffee didn’t up the energy level much above file one piece of paper and play two games of solitaire on the computer.

  I was almost to the point of violating one of life’s lessons, be careful what you ask for, as you may get it, and hoping for an interesting case, something challenging, anything, to walk through my door.

  I edged too close to that wish.

  The phone rang. I picked it up to hear, “I shouldn’t be doing this, but you may want legal counsel.”

  I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

  “What?” I said. My caller was one of my oldest friends, Danielle Clayton, now one of the top prosecutors in the DA’s office.

  There was a banging on my door, immediately followed by it being thrown open.

  Joanne Ranson, another friend and a NOPD cop, stood there with two other men, also clearly cops I didn’t know. She looked so far from happy I had to doubt joy existed in the world.

  I put the phone down. I suspected that Joanne was going to explain it all to me. I could only hope it wouldn’t be in handcuffs.

  She strode across the room until she was leaning over my desk.

  “Did you murder Edward David Springhorn?” she demanded.

  “Who?” Then it filtered in. I considered him Fast Eddie and had forgotten his real name.

  Joanne said nothing, making me fill the silence.

  “Wait, he’s dead?”

  She still stared at me.

  “And you think I did it?” I stood up. I didn’t want her looming over me.

  “Tell me about your relationship with Edward Springhorn,” she asked.

  “There was no relationship. I knew him only in passing in reference to a case.” The surprise was wearing off and I was able to regain a semblance of my professional cool.

  “What case?”

  “Cases are confidential,” I replied.

  “This is a murder investigation,” she replied. One of the other cops was taking notes in the background.

  “Look, sit down. Let me get you some coffee,” I said, stalling for time.

  Joanne let out a barely perceptible sigh. She probably hoped her unexpected arrival and questions might trip me up, but that moment had passed.

  I busied myself with making another pot of coffee, pulling extra chairs around my desk, and finding passably clean mugs. I suspected I was going to need the coffee more than they would.

  But it wasn’t just busywork; it gave me time to think. The only person who had seen my fight with Eddie was Susie Stevens. Well, the only person who had seen it and knew who I was and where to find me. Maybe Eddie, in his towering rage, had mouthed off, but I hadn’t told him my name, and it was doubtful in the brief glance I’d given him of my license that he’d seen enough to lodge in his lizard brain.

  Which pretty much left Susie Stevens. She was smart enough to know she had to be a suspect. And evidently cunning enough to mention the fight I’d had with him. But had she done it to give herself time to get rid of evidence? Or had she panicked and grasped any way out to get them away from questioning her? Or had she just been a good girl and completely honest with the cops? There was no way of knowing; I could count on Joanne not revealing anything.

  “I need to take possession of your gun,” she said as I placed a cup of coffee in front of her.

  I considered replying, “Et tu, Brute?” but thought better of it. I took my gun out of my desk drawer and handed it to the cop who held his hand out for it.

  He placed it in an evidence bag, taken from the bulky briefcase he was carrying. They’d come prepared. I wanted to think Joanne knew me well enough to know I wasn’t the killer and she was doing her best to get evidence proving that.

  And if I had killed him, well, she’d get that evidence, too.

  “Can you tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

  “We need to ask you some questions. Where were you last night?”

  I waited before answering, trying to game her or one of the other cops into giving me more. But she was too good to fall for it. “I was home reading a book.”

  “With anyone?”

  “No, just me.”

  “What book?” one of the other cops asked. It was clear I wasn’t going to get introductions.

  “Holy Rollers, by…I’ve forgotten the author’s name.”

  “What’s it about?” he asked.

  “About a gang of thieves who plan to rob a hypocritical, homophobic megachurch. And all the things that can go wrong with
their plans.”

  “Any good?”

  “Lots of fun if you like wryly sardonic caper novels with gay and lesbian protagonists.” Joanne had been inching her way out of the closet at work, but there was still enough bigotry around—both for women and queers—for her to be cagey about who knew. I wasn’t making it easier on her by talking openly about gay subjects, but she wasn’t making this easier on me, either. Since I worked for myself, I could be as out of the closet as I wanted. I added, “I downloaded it online around ten a.m.”

  “Did you call anyone? Talk to anyone?”

  “Some email, but no actual phone calls. That’s so 1990s. Oh, I downloaded some more books after I finished the one I was reading. I think about nine p.m.”

  “What books?” the other cop asked.

  Joanne interjected, “Tell us about Edward Springhorn.” She wasn’t interested in my reading habits. Or was worried that I’d say The Joy of Lesbian Sex.

  “You probably know more than I do.”

  Silence. She wasn’t going to tell me anything.

  “I was hired by a client. She wanted me to find the person threatening to send out private pictures of her daughter.” I paused again, but they were too well trained to say anything. It was up to me to talk. “Her daughter had sent pictures to someone she thought liked her. Less than fully dressed pictures. But he used them to coerce her into having sex with him. When she refused, he threatened to send the pictures out to people in her school.”

  “Go on,” was all Joanne said.

  “She killed herself, the girl. The mother hired me to find out who sent the texts.”

  They didn’t react. I had watched closely enough that I’d see even a blink. No reaction meant they already knew, had already reacted.