RAISING THE DEVIL

The New York Public Library, that grand beaux arts queen of books, presides over Fifth Avenue between Fortieth and Forty-second streets with a majesty few buildings can match. At exactly eleven o’clock in the morning, Evie arrived at the bottom of the grand marble steps, confident that she would find just what she needed to break open the case of the Pentacle Killer, and that she would find it in roughly a half hour, give or take. She’d pestered Detective Malloy for what he knew about John Hobbes, which wasn’t much, but he did tell her that the man was hanged, he believed, sometime in the summer of 1876.

“Ev’ry morning, ev’ry evening, ain’t we got fun? Ba-da-bum-bum, la-la-la-la. Ain’t we got fun?” she sang as she passed one of the pair of sculpted stone lions guarding the entrance. She gave its right paw a pat. “Nice kitty,” she said, and went inside. She was directed up three flights of winding stairs into a large, wood-paneled room crammed with bookcases. A librarian whose brass nameplate identified him as a Mr. J. Martin looked up from a copy of Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth. “May I help you?”

“Pos-i-tute-ly!” Evie beamed. “I have to get the goods on a murderer for my uncle, Dr. William Fitzgerald of the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult. Perhaps you’ve heard of us?”

Evie waited while Mr. Martin furrowed his brow, thinking. “I can’t say that I have.”

“Oh,” Evie said, deflated. “Well, then. What can you tell me about a man named John Hobbes who went to trial for murder in 1876? Oh, and could you be a doll and make it fast? There’s a swell sale over at B. Altman, and I want to get there before the crowd.”

“I’m a librarian, not an oracle,” Mr. Martin said. He offered her a scrap of paper and a pencil. “Could you write down the name, please?”

Evie scribbled John Hobbes, murderer, and 1876 on the paper and slid it back. Mr. Martin disappeared for a bit, then returned with two stacks of newspapers bound on a wooden rod, which he placed on the desk in front of Evie. There had to be a week’s worth of work for her in those two volumes. She wouldn’t be shopping that day. Or possibly ever.

“All of this?” Evie said.

“Oh, no,” Mr. Martin said.

“Thank heavens.”

“I’ll be back with the others in a moment.”

“Others?”

“Yes. All fourteen.”

At half past six Evie staggered back into the museum. She clomped into the library, past the table where Will, Jericho, and Sam sat working, tossed her scarf to the floor, and, with a heavy sigh, collapsed onto the velvet settee, her cloche still on her head. “I’m exhausted.”

“I thought you went to the library,” Uncle Will said.

Evie cut her eyes at Will, who didn’t look up from his book. “Why do you think I’m so exhausted? If you’d like to know anything at all about this city in 1876, please raise your hand. No show of hands? Pos-i-tute-ly shocking.” Evie bunched a pillow into a corner of the settee and rested her face against it. “There is a hideous invention called the Dewey Decimal System. And you have to look up your topic in books and newspapers. Pages upon pages upon pages…”

Uncle Will frowned. “Didn’t they teach you how to go about research in that school of yours?”

“No. But I can recite ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ while making martinis.”

“I weep for the future.”

“There’s where the martinis come in.” Evie yawned and stretched. “I thought research would be more glamorous, somehow. I’d give the librarian a secret code word and he’d give me the one book I needed and whisper the necessary page numbers. Like a speakeasy. With books.”

“I don’t see any books,” Uncle Will said warily.

“Got it all right here,” Evie touched her head. “And here,” she said, patting her pocketbook.

“You stole books from the New York Public Library?” Will’s voice rose in alarm.

“O ye of little faith, Unc. I took notes.” Evie drew a stenographer’s notebook from her cluttered bag.

Uncle Will held out a hand. “May I see them?”

Evie clutched them to her chest. “Nothing doing. I’ve lost hours of my precious youth I’ll never get back, and I never made it to B. Altman. I’m playing radio announcer, here.” Evie lay on the settee with her feet propped on the back and flipped pages till she found the one she needed. “Naughty John, born John Hobbes, raised in Brooklyn, New York, at the Mother Nova Orphanage, where he was left at the age of nine. A troubled youth, he ran away twice, finally succeeding when he was fifteen. He shows up in police records again at age twenty-nine, when a lady accused him of doping her up and trying to have his way with her—what a bad, bad boy!” Evie waggled her eyebrows, and Sam laughed. “However, the lady in question was a prostitute, and the case was dismissed. Poor bunny.” Evie riffled through to another page. “He worked in a foundry, where he was told to beat it when they caught him using company iron to make his own goods. He showed up again in 1865 for peddling dope to returning Union soldiers. In 1871, he worked for an embalmer—that’s a real undertaker, not a bootlegger. He set up a profitable side business selling cadavers to medical schools. At some point, he reinvented himself as a Spiritualist, running séances at Knowles’ End, a ritzy mansion uptown on the Hudson. Ida Knowles—who owned the joint—ran out of dough and had to sell it to a lady”—Evie traced her finger to the spot she needed—“named Mary White. Naughty John’s companion, who was a wealthy widow and medium who got pretty chummy with Ida after Ida’s mother and father died. That Ida was a real tomato who was not hitting on all sixes….”

“Beg your pardon?” Will said.

“She was pretty gullible,” Sam explained.

“Because she started spending all her clams on séances with Mary and John. Anyway, the chin music was—”

“The what?” Will asked.

“Gossip,” Sam said.

“That John Hobbes kept a lot of dope around, and these Spiritualist meetings should’ve been called ‘spirits meetings’ because everybody was pretty half seas over on some kind of drugged plonk, and what they got up to would’ve made every Blue Nose and Mrs. Grundy from here to Topeka reach for her smelling salts.”

Will held out his hand. “May I, please?”

“Suit yourself.” Evie handed over her notes, as well as several newspaper articles, which Will regarded with an expression of alarm.

“How did you get these out of the library?”

Evie shrugged. “I’ll take them back tomorrow and tell them I’m awfully sorry for thinking they were my Daily News.”

“Does your mother know you’ve a burgeoning criminal mind?”

“That’s why she sent me to you.”

Sam grinned. “Nice work, Sheba.”

“Ishkabibble.” Evie reclined against the pillows, closing her eyes. “I might be too tired to go to the pictures tomorrow.”

Will paced as he read. “… Mrs. Mary White, a rather colorful widow whose companion was Mr. John Hobbes. Ida continued to live there in the eastern wing, and she and Mary grew very close. Ida was not, however, particularly fond of Mr. Hobbes. In letters to her cousin, she wrote, ‘Mary and Mr. Hobbes hosted another of their spiritual meetings in the parlor last night, which went on well past a decent hour. I attended for a spell. Mr. Hobbes offered a sweet wine, which made me feel very odd. I saw and heard such strange visitations that I could not be certain of what was real and what was not. I excused myself and retired to bed, where I was troubled by peculiar dreams.

“ ‘The old book, which he does not allow me to read, he keeps locked in the curio cabinet. “It is the book of my brethren, given to me by my dear departed father before I was sent to the orphanage,” he told me with a smile….’ ”

“The book of my brethren!” Evie exclaimed. “Hot socks!”

“ ‘But I do not trust a word he says,’ ” Will continued. “ ‘For he seems to lie as easily as some laugh. He lies to gain sympathy, or to frighten. Once he told me that he had the power to raise the Devil if he wished. There is a foul stench in the house, as if the very walls are corrupted, and I hear the most terrifying noises. People come and go at all hours of the day and night. Most of the servants have left us. I fear something wicked is at work in this house, dear cousin. Oh, please do send the authorities to investigate, for I am too ill to see to it myself.’ ”

Will fell silent as he read through Evie’s stolen newspaper accounts.

“So how did this Naughty John fella end up?” Sam asked.

“Ida Knowles disappeared,” Evie said, relishing the wickedness of the tale. “The fuzz came to investigate. Naughty John tried to give them a wad of chewing gum about Ida running away with some drugstore cowboy. He said that he and Mary White hadn’t spilled it for fear of ruining her reputation because”—Evie put a hand to her forehead in melodrama fashion—“they loved her as a sister.”

“What a load of bunk,” Sam said.

“You said it, brother. The police didn’t believe a word of it, either. They searched the house and found ten dead bodies, which Mr. Hobbes confessed were related to his work supplying stiffs to medical schools. But the police couldn’t be sure about that, either.”

“That’s where the song comes about,” Jericho said.

“Cuts your throat and takes your bones, sells ’em off for a coupla stones,” Evie sang like a saloon chant. “The topper is—”

“ ‘When they looked further,’ ” Will read aloud, “ ‘they found the body of a woman. She happened to be wearing a brooch belonging to Ida Knowles.’ ”

Evie dropped her hands to her sides in disappointment. “You stole my big finish, Unc.”

Will ignored her. “ ‘Though he and Mary White protested his innocence, John Hobbes was found guilty of her murder on the strength of her letters and the brooch, as well as the ten bodies, and sentenced to hang.’ ”

“I wonder if they sold his body to a medical school,” Sam joked.

Will took a cigarette from his silver case and searched his pockets and paper-strewn desk for a lighter. “He was buried in a pauper’s grave. No funeral home wanted him, and he had no next of kin to claim him.”

“Do you think there could be some connection to our killer? Could our killer be familiar with this story? Is he taking a page from history?” Evie asked.

Sam reached behind a stack of books for the silver lighter with Will’s initials etched into it and handed it over. The cigarette sparked and Will blew out a stream of smoke. “I still think you’re grasping at straws, Evangeline. I’ll allow that there are some correlations….”

Evie ticked them off on her fingers. “The comet. The Book of the Brethren. The song…”

“How did you know about that song, anyway?” Jericho asked.

Evie looked to Will, who shot her a warning glance. “Women’s intuition,” she said.

“The book of my brethren, Hobbes said—not the same at all,” Will corrected her. “Semantics.”

“Gesundheit,” Evie said. “Well, here’s something that’ll put the ice in your shaker.” She sat forward, relishing their attention, though in truth Will seemed more impatient than held in suspense. “There was a mention of some missing persons and an unsolved murder that took place in the summer of 1875. A body was found with strange markings on it!”

“Fifty years ago,” Will said pointedly. “And you don’t know what those markings were. I fail to see what that has to do with our case.”

Evie sighed. “I do, too. But it is interesting.” Evie drummed her fingers on the end table, trying to make connections that vanished like smoke.

“What happened to John’s tomato, Mary White?” Sam asked.

“After John Hobbes swung, she married a showman named Herbert Blodgett in 1879. They moved away from Knowles’ End. There’s a mention of her falling from a horse and suffering from ill health, but there’s no record of her thereafter.”

“She probably died,” Sam said.

Suddenly a furious knocking sounded through the museum. Evie raced to the door and opened it to find a group of nearly a dozen people lined up outside. The fellow in front held T. S. Woodhouse’s Daily News article aloft. “We’ve come to see what all the fuss is about.”

Within a few days of T. S. Woodhouse’s first article, which was followed quickly by a second and a third, the museum was seeing more business than it had in years. Will had been asked to lecture everywhere from private clubs to high-society ladies’ luncheons where, try as he might to keep things on a scholarly level, all anyone wanted to know about was the murders. In New York’s more fashionable quarters, the smart set, who were too swell to admit fear, organized “Murder Clubs” where they swilled cocktails with names like Pentacle Poison, Voodoo Varnish, and The Killer’s Cocktail—a potent mix of whiskey, champagne, orange juice, and crushed cherries said to make anyone wish she were dead the next morning. Murder was just another reason to drink and dance the night away. It was very good for business. Everyone, it seemed, had caught Pentacle Killer fever. And Evie had every intention of capitalizing on it.

During Evie’s guided tours of the museum, a simple linen cap became the coif of a Salem witch who’d been accused of dancing with the Devil in the woods. A bowl of water Evie had poured that morning and placed on a table with two lit candles was “a blessing from monks to keep the room free from spiritual corruption.” She made a small altar and placed the bone fragment from the Chinese railroad worker alongside a spirit photograph taken in western Massachusetts and told gullible guests it was the bone of the girl in the picture—a girl who still haunted the museum. At that, Sam would blow a hidden bellows, making the curtains move, and the jaded Janes and their dapper dates would gasp and chuckle, thrilled by their close call with a ghost.

It was on one such afternoon that Will returned from a lecture to find the museum crowded with visitors spilling out of the objects room. He tried to get closer and was rebuffed by a young man: “Wait your turn, Father Time.” Will peered over the heads of two flappers and saw Evie holding forth: “Of course, you must be very careful around these objects. They’re quite powerful. You wouldn’t want them to haunt you after you’ve gone.”

“They can do that?” a woman in the front row asked. She looked alarmed.

“Oh, yes!” Evie said. “But that’s why we sell the charms in the gift shop. They’re replicas of ancient tokens said to ward off evil.” Evie held up a small silver disk. “I keep several on me at all times. You can never be too safe, especially with an occult killer loose in the city.”

“Evie!” Will barked from the corridor. “May I speak to you in private for a moment?”

Evie forced a smile. “Of course, Dr. Fitzgerald. This is Professor Fitzgerald, the museum’s curator and the city’s top academic in the field of Things That Go Bump in the Night. As you know, Dr. Fitzgerald is aiding the police in their investigation of the heinous murders terrorizing the city. As am I.”

As one, the crowd turned to look at Will, fluttering with excitement.

“Do tell us more about the crimes, won’t you, Professor,” a young woman called. “Is it true he drinks their blood and wears their clothing? Is he really committing these horrid crimes as a judgment against Prohibition?”

Will glared at Evie, who immediately busied herself with rubbing an imaginary spot of dirt from the wall.

“Evie, in my office. Now, please.”

“Certainly, Unc—Dr. Fitzgerald. I’ll be with you in a moment, ladies and gentlemen. Please do be careful. I wouldn’t want you to disturb the spirits. Anyone who wants to shell out the rubes for some protective charms, please see our associate Mr. Sam Lloyd in the gift shop.”

“Evangeline! Now!”

Evie closed the doors of the small office behind her. The wood thrummed with the gossiping of excited customers. “Yes, Unc?”

“What on earth are you doing?” Will demanded. He’d lit a cigarette and grabbed a handful of nuts at the same time and seemed uncertain which he should bring to his mouth first.

“I’m leading a tour.”

“I can see that. What sort of nonsense are you telling these people?”

“I am creating an atmosphere! Oh, Unc, we’ve finally got bodies in this joint! Paying bodies. We could have a good racket going here.”

“I’m not interested in a ‘racket.’ I’m an academic.”

“That’s okay, Unc. I won’t hold it against you.

“And since when do we have a gift shop?”

“Since last night. Now don’t cast a kitten—there are no precious artifacts being given away. I used your embosser and sealing wax on some tinfoil. Voilà! Instant charms.”

“That’s dishonest!”

“No, that’s business,” Evie replied. Will went to speak, but Evie silenced him with pleading hands. “Unc, when Lucky Strike sells you cigarettes, do they say, ‘We have a tobacco product in a box for you’? Why, of course not! They say, ‘Lucky Strike is the one for me!’ and they show you pictures of beautiful people in beautiful places enjoying that cigarette as if… as if they were making love!”

Will coughed out a lungful of smoke. “I beg your pardon?”

“They make you want it. You have to have it. It’s what everyone who’s simply anyone has, so you’d better get on the trolley, kiddo, or be left out. That is what I’m doing with our museum.”

“Our museum?” Will put the nuts back in the dish and took another drag on his cigarette. Then he pointed it at Evie. “You will not sell any more ‘charms.’ And stick to the facts. Do I make myself clear?”

“As you wish,” Evie said. She opened the pocket doors onto the crowd. “Right this way, if you please, folks. We’re walking to the dining room, where it’s possible that séances took place and spirits might have been conjured,” Evie said with a glance back at Will. “And while we don’t know for certain, it’s rumored that President Abe Lincoln himself may have communed with the other side at this very table.”

Will stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another.

“Ask me how much money we made today.” Evie beamed at Sam and Jericho. It was five fifty, and the last person had been pushed out only ten minutes earlier.

“How much?”

“Enough to pay the light bill and still have enough left over for a cup of tea. Well, hot water.”

“Good work, you,” Sam said.

“Good work, all of us,” Evie corrected.

The thud of the brass knocker echoed in the empty museum. Evie glanced at the clock. “It’s nearly closing time. Go away,” she said on an exhausted sigh.

“Want me to get rid of ’em?” Sam said.

“No, I’ll do it. Jericho, keep an eye on Sam near the till,” Evie teased with a wink.

Just outside, Memphis stood on the front steps of the museum, staring at the massive oak doors. Ever since Sister Walker had mentioned the story of the Diviners and Cornelius Rathbone’s sister, Liberty Anne, he’d wondered about the place. He’d wondered if this Dr. Fitzgerald might be able to shed some light on both the business with Isaiah and the strange symbol from his own dreams. Now, though, he wasn’t sure that he should have come after all. He didn’t even know these people. What could he say that wouldn’t make him sound like a fool? And how did he know if he could trust them? For all he knew, the museum wasn’t even open to black folks. Acting like you haven’t got a lick of sense, Memphis chided himself, as if Aunt Octavia were nearby. He was about to turn and walk back to the subway when the massive oak doors opened and a small, doll-like white girl with blond curls and big blue eyes leaned against the door frame.

“I’m afraid the museum is closing in another ten minutes,” she said apologetically.

“Oh, I see. I’ll come back another day, then. Sorry to have bothered you.” Memphis cursed the waste of a subway fare.

“Ah, gee. Come on in. But I warn you, it’s been a long day, and I may have to take my shoes off.”

Memphis followed her into the grand, dark mansion with its wood-paneled walls and stained-glass windows. It was more like a cathedral than an old house.

“Evie O’Neill, at your service.”

“Memphis Campbell.”

“Well, Mr. Campbell, seeing as we’ve only got ten minutes, I could give you a quick peek-a-loo at the collections room, though you may have to specialize. Pick your poison—witches, ghosts, or voodoo priests?”

Memphis opened his knapsack and removed his notebook. “To tell you the truth, Miss, I read about you in the papers, and I was wondering if you might be able to tell me what this symbol means?” Memphis showed her the drawing of the eye and lightning bolt.

Evie studied it. She shook her head. “I haven’t the foggiest. I’m awfully sorry, but if you’d like to come back another day, you could look through our library and see if you can find it.”

“Thank you. I’ll do just that,” Memphis said. He was frustrated that he still had no answers. He was almost to the door when he turned back.

“Was there something else, Mr. Campbell?” Evie asked him.

“Yes. Um, no. That is, I feel a little funny asking. You see, there’s this old house up north of where I live. It’s just an old wreck of a joint, though I hear it used to be a real showplace.”

The girl was smiling at him in a patient way, like one might with a feeble-minded grandmother, and Memphis was once again struck by how ridiculous this whole enterprise was. Still, he was compelled to tell somebody, even if it was nothing more than his imagination at work and he looked like a fool for worrying about it. He fidgeted with the buckle on his knapsack.

“You see, sometimes I go up there and, well… there’s something funny about that old house lately. It almost seems lived in, and, well…” You sound like a madman, Memphis. “I was just wondering if you might have any books on Knowles’ End or know anything about it. It’s just an old wreck, so—”

“What did you say?” The girl’s eyes were wide.

“I said it’s a wreck….”

“Before that. Did you say Knowles’ End?”

“That’s the name of the house. Or it was a long time ago. Nothing but spiders and rotting boards now.”

She was looking at Memphis in a way that made him very uncomfortable. He saw that her hands were shaking. “Would you mind waiting here, Mr. Campbell? I won’t be a bootlegger’s second.”

Evie O’Neill hurried down the hall, her heels click-clacking against the dingy marble floors. As Memphis stood in the empty foyer, holding tightly to his hat, it dawned on him: What if she thought he was the Pentacle Killer?

Memphis didn’t wait for Evie to return. He slipped out the front doors and ran for blocks, slowing only when he realized that he was drawing odd looks from the white people on the street. He forced himself into a stroll, employing the charm of his smile as he walked, as if he didn’t have a care in the world even though his heart was racing. Still smiling broadly, Memphis turned a corner and walked smack into a girl. He caught her as she stumbled. “I beg your pardon, Miss!”

“Go on, beg,” the girl said in a familiar smoky voice.

Memphis grinned. His heart was racing again, but this time, it was with pure joy. “Well, if it isn’t the Creole Princess!”

“We gotta stop meeting like this, Poet,” Theta said.

Back at the museum, Evie returned with Will, Sam, and Jericho in tow to find an empty foyer and no sign of Memphis Campbell anywhere on the street.

“He was right here!” Evie said on a long exhale. “And, Unc, he was talking about Knowles’ End! Don’t you think that’s peculiar?”

“Are you sure he wasn’t a reporter?” Will asked.

“I suppose he could’ve been,” Evie allowed. “But he seemed very sincere. He was asking about a symbol—an eye with… oh, here. I’ll draw it for you.”

Evie sketched the eye and lightning bolt and held it up for Will. Sam sidled up close to Evie and said, “He was asking about this symbol?”

“What did you say his name was?” Will asked.

“Memphis. Memphis Campbell,” Evie replied.

“You know what that symbol means, Professor?” Sam asked. He was looking at the drawing of the eye with keen interest.

Will glanced briefly at the page. “Never seen it before. Now please don’t disturb me. I’ve work to do.” He turned on his heel and left them standing in the foyer.

Memphis and Theta sat in Mr. Reggie’s drugstore in Harlem with a couple of egg creams, talking and talking. Theta felt like she hadn’t talked this much since she first met Henry. She made Memphis laugh with her stories of the petty antics of the showbiz folks, and Memphis told her about playing the numbers and picking gigs, and about how irritating Isaiah could be, but Theta could tell he loved his brother fiercely. They talked so long that they both lost track of time. Theta had missed her call for the show, which she shrugged off.

“I’ll tell them there was a subway fire,” she said.

“You sure you don’t want something else? A sandwich, or some soup?” Memphis asked.

“For the last time, I’m jake,” Theta said. She was aware that everyone in the joint was watching them. The minute she looked up and caught their eyes, they’d look away quickly, busying themselves with their silverware or pretending to be reading a newspaper.

There were so many things he still wanted to ask her. Where was she from? Did she still dream of the eye? Had she thought of him at all since the night of the raid? Had she, too, lain awake, staring at the ceiling, picturing his face as he had hers?

“A Ziegfeld girl, huh?” was all he said.

“I heard the position of poet was already taken,” Theta joked. “Speaking of poetry, have you read The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes?”

“ ‘And far into the night he crooned that tune,’ ” Memphis quoted, grinning madly.

“ ‘The stars went out and so did the moon,’ ” Theta finished. “I never read anything so beautiful before.”

“Me, either.”

The rest of the drugstore seemed to fall away—the clink of dishes in the back, the bright brrring of the cash register, the low drone of people talking—and there was only Memphis and Theta and the moment. Theta’s hand slid just slightly toward Memphis’s. He inched his forward, too, just grazing the tips of her fingers with his.

“There’s a rent party this Saturday night at my friend Alma’s place, if you’d like to come,” he said.

“I’d like that,” Theta answered.

The drugstore seemed to swirl once more into noisy life. An older man walked past and frowned at them, and Theta and Memphis pulled their hands back and were quiet.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 597