The Sporting House Killing G. Powell (best free novels .TXT) 📖

stood up. Big Joe appeared in the hallway almost instantly. Catfish’s question must’ve touched a nerve.

“I said all I have to say in court,” she said with a forced smile. “Unless you gents are interested in something else, I have important matters to attend.”

So that was that. With the interview so abruptly ended, they walked up Washington past Miss Ella’s. A girl sat in a rocking chair on the front porch, painting her nails, and waved at them as they passed by.

“Pay me a visit, gents?” she shouted.

“How do, miss. Not today, thanks.”

“Your loss,” she yelled. “I like your dog.”

Catfish glanced at his son. “Friendly folks in this neighborhood, Harley.”

Harley fussed with his tie, eyes straight ahead. “I’m not sure what we learned today that helps us.”

“Main thing, Miss Jessie’s hiding something. Not sure what. She runs a pretty highbrow sporting house and seems well educated. Did you say she came from New Orleans?”

“That’s what Quinn told me.”

“Got a touch of Creole in her accent.”

Harley snapped back into business mode. “I know a deputy in New Orleans. I could wire him and see if he knows her.”

Now he was thinking. “See if she’s been arrested. And if she was a high-class sporting girl there.”

“Right.”

Something, or somebody, was missing from this picture. “Maybe we should talk to the other girl instead of the madam. What’s her name? Sally? Sar—”

“Sadie. But I don’t think Miss Jessie—or her man Joe—is about to let us near her.”

“They’re not, for sure, and it’s not likely she’ll leave the Reservation. But I got an idea I’m chewing on. I think Miss Peach can help us with Sadie. I want you to head over to the Evening News office and see if you can find any reports about a fire at Miss Jessie’s. Probably not important, but I’d like to know anyway.”

“Right. But how does any of that help Cicero?”

“Well, there’s your query, isn’t it?” That missing somebody might just be the killer. “We need to ask Cicero about a few things. That supposed confession, for one. But let’s also ask both Cicero and Jasper about these two other men there that night. Maybe between them they’ll remember something else they haven’t told us. Get Jasper to meet us at the jail in the morning.”

Harley stopped on the sidewalk outside their office. “And we ask Cicero about the fight with Peter, right?”

Catfish shrugged. “Sure, that too.”

Killers got other folks to lie for them. Folks who needed them. They had to find out who Miss Jessie Rose was protecting.

Chapter 11

Jasper went to the jailhouse early so he could visit with Cicero private-like before them lawyers got there. He was feeling real queasy. The place stunk of piss and puke, and the air was stock still. Drunks, likely hauled in the night before, snored loud from cots against the back wall of the cell. Down at the end, somebody was rattling the bars and jabbering about Abe Lincoln spying on him, and he wanted Marse Robert to come bail him out. Somehow, the fat ol’ deputy slept through all of this in a chair by the cell block door.

Jasper knelt outside the bars, and Cicero come over and sat cross-legged on the other side. Inside the cell, a plate of un-eat food drew about a hundred flies. It buzzed like a feedlot. Cicero sure looked poorly, like he nary slept in a month, though he been there just a few days. He didn’t really shave yet, but a weed patch of hairs sprouted from his chin anyways. His eyes was red around the edges.

Cicero leaned over and grabbed the bars with both hands. “Jasper, I sure do appreciate you coming to visit. I’ve been hard up for friends in here.”

“How’re they treating you?”

“Tolerable. They haven’t got me pounding any rocks yet.” He smiled.

Jasper decided he’d get right down to what he wanted to know. It was bothering him bad and had been ever since that night. “Tell me what happened in that whorehouse.”

Cicero cut a glance at the prisoner in the next cell and lowered his voice. “I don’t know. One minute I was dancing with Miss Georgia—you saw that—and the next minute some copper was dragging me from her room.”

“Was Miss Georgia dead?”

“I don’t remember seeing her. My head was real hazy. God’s truth, I don’t remember anything.”

Jasper rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, somehow that girl got herself shot dead, and they’s saying you done it.”

“I know,” Cicero said, smashing his face against the bars, “but I didn’t kill her. I didn’t even have a gun. You know that.”

“I do, but somebody must’ve shot her.”

“Well, it wasn’t me.” He leaned back. “That’s all there is to it.”

“How you know if you can’t remember nothing?”

“You know I’m no killer, Jasper. Why would I go and shoot a whore?”

That was a good question. He couldn’t figure it out neither. “I don’t know. But she’s shot dead, and you was there. Folks is saying they’s gonna hang you.”

“They don’t go and hang anybody who didn’t do anything wrong.” He started shaking the bars like he’d shake them loose. “I’m telling you, somebody else killed her.”

“Who? How’s Mr. Calloway supposed to prove that if you can’t remember nothing?” This was getting exasperating.

Cicero got real quiet-like and let loose of the bars. He lowered his voice a hair above a whisper. “It would help me if you’d tell the judge I didn’t shoot the whore.”

Jasper shook his head. “I can’t do that. I didn’t see what happened.”

“Well, you believe me, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Then you’ve got to say it.”

Jasper looked away. He felt real helpless-like, because he wanted more than anything to help his friend but didn’t know how to go about it. “I can’t tell a judge something’s true if I don’t know it for a fact my own self. That’d be lying.”

Cicero’s eyes wetted up. “I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t kill her. If it’s the truth, then you can’t be lying if you say it too.”

“I ain’t sure.