The Axman of New Orleans

By Chuck Hustmyre

Based on the true story...

Detective Colin Fitzgerald, only recently returned from World War I, with scars inside and out, is back in New Orleans and chasing a killer the newspapers call The Axman, a ruthless predator who has plagued the city for years, breaking into people's homes in the middle of the night and murdering them in their beds.

The killer even writes a letter to a local newspaper—echoing Jack the Ripper from three decades earlier—and claims to be a "demon from hell."

The top brass at the Police Department say the killer is a madman, but Colin suspects there is more to these brutal killings than mere madness, perhaps much more.

Yet even Colin is shocked when he discovers the murders are linked to City Hall and a vast corruption scheme, with roots that reach back decades, to the assassination of a legendary police chief and to the murder of Colin's own father, the former chief of detectives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chuck Hustmyre
• Release date: May 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781386919667

Chuck Hustmyre

CHUCK HUSTMYRE spent 20 years in law enforcement and retired as a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), where he specialized in violent crime, fugitive, and drug investigations. In addition to being a published author, Chuck is also a produced screenwriter.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1919

THE KILLER watched the house from across the street.

It was two o’clock in the morning and a hard rain was falling on the city. The storm had come from the north across Lake Pontchartrain just after midnight and was still unleashing explosions of lightning and thunder. It was exactly the kind of weather the killer liked. The rain obscured sight and the wet air absorbed sound.

Screams were muffled and mostly went unheeded.

The small wood-framed house stood on a corner and had a fenced backyard. The killer had been watching it for nearly an hour, standing silently under the overhang of a building catty-corner to it. A single light burned inside the house. He had seen the husband come home a few minutes ago. The man was probably getting ready for bed. It was time to go. The killer tossed his cigarette into the gutter. The burning tip hissed as it struck the water. He strode across the street.

The killer wore a wide-brimmed hat and a long raincoat. Under his coat he carried his tools: An ax with the wooden handle cut down to a length of two feet, for better concealability and so he could swing it with one hand or two. The ax hung below his right arm in a sling he’d fashioned from a length of leather cord. He carried it with the head up so that he could reach under his coat with his left hand, pull the ax out by the head, then grip the handle with his right hand and be ready for a swing, all in less than four seconds. Also concealed inside his coat was a .38-caliber revolver fitted into a special pocket made from a square of heavy-duty canvas that he’d had sewn into the lining on the left-hand side. The revolver was carried butt forward for a quick draw with his right hand.

The killer scrambled over the wooden fence surrounding the back yard and dropped onto the sodden grass. The rear of the house was dark. He drew the ax from under his coat and stepped onto the porch. Lightning flashed and was followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder.

The killer kicked open the back door and stepped into the dark kitchen.

He was a tall man with a long stride that carried him quickly into the hallway, where he saw a ribbon of light seeping from beneath a closed bedroom door. He smashed through the door with his shoulder and barged into the bedroom. The room was lit by a single oil lamp. The man he had seen enter the house moments ago was getting undressed on the near side of the bed. On the far side, his wife was sitting up in her nightclothes. The mosquito net was raised.

A revolver lay on the bed.

The man reached for it.

The killer swung the ax.

The man raised his right arm in a desperate attempt to ward off the blow. The blade of the ax cut deep, almost severing the man’s arm. He fell onto the bed. His wife screamed. Outside, another bolt of lightning flashed and thunder shook the house. The killer raised the ax and struck again. And again. And again. The edge bit deep into the man’s head, face, and neck. Blood spewed from the wounds. The blade flung blood on the walls and ceiling each time the killer raised it.

He had been ignoring the woman. But something she did drew his attention. She now held the revolver in her hand. The ax was buried in her husband’s skull. The killer jerked it free. He wanted to hit her with it, to split her skull just as he had her husband’s.

She pointed the revolver at him. The muzzle was a foot from his face. He didn’t have time to raise the ax for another blow. She turned her head as she fired. That’s all that saved him. Light exploded in his face, the flash searing his cheek. The bullet ripped the air as it blew past his left ear. Lights swirled in his vision. His ears shrieked.

The killer turned and stumbled out of the room. He heard a second shot fired behind him but didn’t feel the bite of a bullet so he ignored it. He reeled down the hallway and through the dark kitchen, then ran out the back door. The rain was still coming down hard, and another flash of lightning burst over the backyard, lighting his way. He clambered over the fence and dropped onto the side street. His ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton, but he heard the sound, carried on the wind, of the wife screaming inside the house.

It was the music of pain and of horror. And it made him smile.

CHAPTER 2

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1919

Asharp knocking jolted me out of my nightmare. The same one I always had.

Exploding German artillery, the crack of machine guns, the wet smack of bullets striking flesh, cries of the wounded, the stench of the dirty yellow gas. Then my own screams as the gas scalded my throat and burned my lungs.

I lifted my head from the sweat-soaked pillow as the knocking continued. Someone very determined was pounding on my front door. And it was still dark outside.

Only half awake, I reached across the bed and felt nothing but damp sheets. The other side of the bed was empty. My wife wasn’t there. She hadn’t been there for a long time. I shook my head to clear it and crawled out of bed.

More knocking.

I found my watch on the nightstand and checked the time. No one knocks on your door at four o’clock in the morning to give you good news. One of my slippers was missing, so I stumbled through the house in my nightshirt and bare feet. The movement made my head hurt, the result, no doubt, of one, or possibly two, too many glasses of John Jameson’s excellent Irish whiskey.

When I yanked open my front door I found a police messenger standing on the porch. The teenager was breathing hard and his wool uniform was soaking wet. His bicycle lay near the curb, just on the other side of the rain-filled gutter that ran past my house on Dauphine Street. The thunderstorm that had hit around midnight had finally slackened to a drizzle, but one look at the heavy black clouds told me that another storm was coming.

Are you Detective Colin Fitzgerald? the boy asked in a brogue even stronger than my own and no more than a generation removed from County Kerry.

I nodded in the affirmative and a wave of pain shot through my skull. I am, I said with breath that tasted like whiskey.

The boy held out a small yellow envelope, the kind the superintendent dispatched from Police Headquarters. I took the envelope. Why didn’t the night man call me on the telephone? I asked. After returning from the war, I had a telephone installed in my kitchen, but the thing hadn’t rung more than five times in the eight months I’d been home, so it was turning out not to be worth the dollar a month I paid for it.

The boy shrugged. Maybe the lines are down on account of the storm.

I glanced up again as a bolt of lightning flashed. I started counting in my head and reached six before I heard the crack of thunder. It was something I had learned in the Army. Sound travels at roughly five seconds per mile, so you could count the time from when you saw the flash of artillery until you heard the explosion and tell how far away the guns were. It worked the same for lightning as it did for artillery. The new storm was just over a mile away.

The boy shuffled his wet boots. Or maybe the superintendent didn’t want the operator to tip off the newspapermen.

Tip them off about what?

About the murder.

Where are you from? I asked.

My parents are from Killarney, but I was born here.

Do you want to be a policeman?

He stuck out his chest. I want to be a detective.

What’s your name?

Kevin, sir. Kevin O’Donnell.

Wait here, lad, I said, then turned around and shambled back into the dark house.

On the nightstand next to my bed, I fished through an ashtray holding several coins. Then I walked back to the front door, where the boy was standing halfway at attention. I handed him a quarter and pointed to the clouds rolling toward the city. Find a dry spot to ride out this next storm, then get yourself some breakfast. A good policeman never gets cold, never gets wet, and never goes hungry.

The boy started to tip his cap. Then he stopped and whipped out a crooked salute. Thank you, sir.

I eased the door shut as the boy hopped over the gutter to his bicycle. Then I brushed my hand against the wall until I found the light switch. I twisted it and the overhead light flickered to life. The bare bulb hung from the ceiling at the end of a length of electric cord and cast a dull glow over my small den. I crossed the rough plank floor, its coarseness scraping the soles of my feet, and sat down on a hard wooden chair.

Holding the envelope up to the light, I saw in the top-left corner the printed words FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE. I turned the envelope over and tore open the flap. Inside was a folded piece of stationary. The note was typed. Superintendent Frank Thompson typed his notes whenever he could. In them, he got straight to the point, using clipped language mostly devoid of articles and pronouns. They reminded me of telegrams. I read the note.

Murder at grocery, Ulloa and S. Scott.

Axman suspected. Meet there.

—Thompson.

I remained seated, feeling a slight flutter in my belly, and not just from last night’s whiskey. I had wanted this case, wanted it badly. For six years before the war, as a patrolman, I had been on the periphery of it. Now I was back from the war, promoted to detective, and the Axman case was mine.

Since I had taken over the case in March, this was the third Axman attack. Sofia Lamonica was dead. Steven Boca had barely survived. This latest attack was the thirteenth overall. Twenty-two victims so far, eleven killed, eleven wounded, and that wasn’t counting whatever had happened tonight at Ulloa and South Scott streets.

The note from Superintendent Thompson rustled between my fingers. I looked down and saw my hands shaking. I took a deep breath. After a minute the shaking stopped. I reread the note, pausing on the word Axman.

For the life of me, I couldn’t remember why I had wanted this case.

IF SUPERINTENDENT THOMPSON had wanted me to get to the murder scene quickly, he should have sent a car. The Police Department now owned nearly two dozen Fords. The new storm hit before I had finished getting dressed, and by the time I stepped onto my porch it was attacking the city with lightning and thunder and great slashes of wind-driven rain that came down like a butcher’s cleaver on a side of raw beef.

Wrapped in a long coat and with a Filson rain hat pulled down low across my forehead, I stepped into the squall. Leaning into the wind to keep my balance, I wound my way through the French Quarter to Rampart Street, where I stood under the overhang of a building for ten minutes until a streetcar stopped. The ticket man looked dog tired and only nodded when I showed him my gold detective’s badge instead of handing him a nickel. On-duty policemen ride free.

At Canal Street I transferred to another line. Then at South Carrollton I jumped onto a moving streetcar that was headed uptown. A few minutes later, I flashed my badge at the brakeman and asked him to pull up at Ulloa Street, a block before his regular stop at Tulane Avenue. Then I slogged through the long two blocks toward the murder scene at the corner of South Scott.

I stood on the porch of a small house across the street from the corner grocery where the killing had taken place and lit a cigarette. Smoking was a habit I had picked up during the war, one I couldn’t seem to stop now that I was back. Given the condition of my lungs, smoking was a terrible idea. I knew that, but it helped calm my nerves and stopped my hands from shaking.

Across the street at the grocery, two uniformed policemen stood under the cover of the porch, trying their best to stay dry. By then the storm had slowed to just a steady rain. Through the clouds to the east, I could see a hint of the coming sunrise.

As I expected, Superintendent Thompson had beaten me to the scene. His Ford Model T was parked in front of the grocery. Behind Thompson’s Ford, which was dented and splashed with mud, stood a shiny new blue Cadillac Type 55 touring car. The only mud on it was on the tires.

I saw the dark shapes of two men in the front seat of the Cadillac and the silhouette of someone standing under an umbrella on the far side of the touring car talking to the passenger. I watched the three of them as I smoked my cigarette, the Turkish tobacco stinging what was left of my lungs and making me cough.

After a couple of minutes, the driver put the Cadillac in gear, and the man standing on the far side stepped back out of the way and tipped his hat. Then I saw a flash inside the car as the passenger struck a match to light a cigarette. For a few seconds the light from the match illuminated the passenger’s face and I got a good look at him. He was in his sixties, with ruddy gin-blossomed cheeks, a small mouth, and a shock of white hair over a pair of bushy eyebrows. I recognized him.

His name was Dominick O’Malley, a man I knew mostly by reputation, although I had seen him around town a few times. Among his many business holdings, O’Malley owned the biggest private detective and security agency in the city, but this was a poor Italian neighborhood. I doubted anyone here ever hired security guards or had need of private detectives.

As the Cadillac drove away, I saw that the man standing under the umbrella was Superintendent Frank Thompson. O’Malley and Thompson were friends and fellow members of the Choctaw Club, the preeminent social and political organization in the city. Seeing them together was not unusual. But what was Dominick O’Malley doing in this neighborhood and at this hour? While I finished my cigarette and pondered the question, Thompson folded up his umbrella and disappeared into the grocery.

I flicked the butt into the overflowing gutter and limped across the street, my left leg aching from the damp air and the long walk, something else left over from the war. As I stepped onto the grocery’s porch, I nodded at the two policemen and got a couple of nods in return. The older one had been my sergeant when I was a rookie patrolman assigned to the 8th Precinct. It’s a bad one, Fitz, the sergeant said as I walked past him.

The building that housed the grocery was long and narrow, what New Orleanians call a shotgun house, because, according to the legend of how that style of house got its name, a shotgun blast could be fired from the front door to the back door without hitting anything in between. The front room was the grocery. Beyond that, I knew, would be two or three rooms where the family lived—a bedroom, maybe two, and a kitchen. There were a thousand groceries like it scattered across the city, one on almost every corner.

Superintendent Thompson stood in the center of the front room with five newspapermen arrayed around him. I glanced at their faces, hoping to see a friend of mine, but I didn’t. But then again, I hadn’t really expected to see him. It had been a while.

About time you showed up, Thompson called out to me as I stood in the open front doorway. The newspapermen all looked at me.

I took off my hat to shake the rain from it. I couldn’t fit on the messenger boy’s bicycle.

The reporters glanced back at the superintendent to see if he was going to make one of his signature barbed comebacks. After a few seconds, it became apparent he was going to let my comment pass, so the newsmen, recognizing the suddenly dimming prospects of a fiery exchange, lost interest in me and resumed questioning the superintendent about the murder.

Frank M. Thompson was a big round man with a nearly bald head and an old-fashioned handlebar mustache, the tips of which he kept waxed and twisted into fine points. He and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, including the long-running series of brutal attacks attributed to the so-called Axman, but I was a recently returned wounded veteran of the Great War, a fact that somewhat limited what he could say to me, at least in public.

I peeled off my overcoat and hung it and my hat on a coatrack in the corner.

The family’s name is Pepitone, Thompson said as I walked past him. The wife and children are in the back with Captain Campo. The body is in the first bedroom.

The superintendent turned back to his audience of newsmen and continued his sensational description of this most recent Axman killing. I suspected Superintendent Thompson secretly wanted to succeed Mayor Martin Beauchamp, although no one knew if Beauchamp was ever going to leave office. He had been the mayor since 1904. I was thirteen then. Now twenty-eight, I could barely remember another mayor.

As soon as I opened the door to the family’s living quarters, I heard children crying. A narrow hallway ran down the left side of the house. On the right side of the hallway were two doors. At the far end was the kitchen. The nearest door was open, and light from an electric bulb spilled into the hall. The second door was closed.

I stepped into the first room. A man’s body lay sprawled across the four-poster bed under a raised mosquito net. I guessed him to be somewhere in his thirties. I had to guess at his age because his face had been chopped into pulp. Blood saturated the sheets and blanket. More blood had spilled onto the floor and congealed into a sticky red puddle. The wall behind the headboard was splattered nearly to the ceiling. The killer had turned the couple’s bedroom into a slaughterhouse.

We let the ambulance go and sent for the coroner, a voice behind me said. I turned around and found myself facing Captain William Campo, chief of detectives and my direct superior. Wild Bill, as he liked to be called, had made detective the hard way, by solving cases, but he had been promoted to chief of detectives because he had connections at the Choctaw Club.

Any sign of the murder weapon? I asked, although I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

Campo shook his head. Like most dagos, the victim kept an ax out back. But there’s no blood on it. Wife says it belonged to her husband. Whatever the killer used he must have taken with him, like always.

Although Campo’s name was Italian, the chief of detectives claimed to be French-Corsican. To back up his claim, Campo liked to point out that he didn’t speak a word of Italian, though he did speak passable French.

Hatred of Italians, who had taken over the French Quarter to such an extent that a lot of locals now called it Little Palermo, still ran high in New Orleans, even thirty years after the assassination of Police Chief David Hennessy. Being saddled with an Italian name was a barrier to promotion in the Police Department, where the standing joke was still, "Who killa da chief?"

What else did the wife say? I asked.

Campo shrugged. Who knows. Mostly what she’s said has been eye-talian, so nothing but jabberwocky to me. Even though the eldest, the eleven-year-old, says her mother speaks English plenty good when she wants to.

When she identified the ax you found as her husband’s was she speaking English?

Campo’s eyes narrowed. "I said mostly, Detective.

I kept my mouth shut.

The captain continued, From what little she did say, looks like she was in bed asleep and woke up when she heard her husband shouting. A tall man was in the room attacking her husband with an ax.

How did he get in?

Kicked open the back door, Campo said. Went out the same way. Looks like he jumped the fence.

Footprints?

The captain shook his head. Too much rain.

Any other witnesses, I asked, besides the wife?

One, the captain said. A sheriff’s deputy on his way home from work heard the missus screaming and came over to investigate. He banged on the front door, which is probably what scared the killer away. Else we wouldn’t be looking at just one body.

I looked into the bedroom again, at Mr. Pepitone lying on the blood-soaked mattress. Something about the scene didn’t make sense. I couldn’t figure it out. I stared at the body for what must have been a full minute. Then I realized what was wrong.

CHAPTER 3

GROCER SLAIN WITH AX

Wife Nearly Killed But Expected To Recover.

Police Find Few Clews.

—The Times-Picayune

JULY 4, 1911

EMILE DENOUX arrived at the murder scene at nine o’clock in the morning. Several other reporters from competing newspapers were already there, peppering policemen with questions and cornering neighbors for commentary. One reporter from the Times-Democrat was interviewing the man who drove the coroner’s wagon.

Emile didn’t see an ambulance, which meant the injured wife had already been taken to Charity Hospital. The body of the dead husband was probably still inside, where he had fallen under the blows of his attacker.

The city editor at the Times-Picayune was going to be livid that Emile had taken more than an hour to get to the murder scene. But Emile didn’t consider the delay to be his fault. He’d had the best of intentions, and as soon as the messenger had delivered the handwritten note from Emile’s editor dispatching him to the crime scene, Emile started to get dressed, but Colette, his ever-amorous wife, had other plans and pulled him back into bed.

Afterward, Colette had fallen into a sated slumber from which she would probably not awaken until the afternoon. While Emile, on the other hand, without even time to wash up, had to throw on a rumpled linen suit and rush to the scene of what his editor had described as a possible ax murder. "Get police confirmation of ax as murder weapon!" the editor had scrawled.

The gruesome attack had been carried out inside a shotgun house at the corner of North Galvez and Arts streets, the business and residence of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Davi. The house stood on low piers, with a narrow set of brick steps leading up to the door. Through the open doorway, Emile glimpsed several detectives milling around inside.

Knowing he needed to make up for lost time, Emile decided to try the direct approach. The reporters outside were fighting over crumbs. The real action was inside. He marched toward the door and had almost reached it when a young patrolman stationed on the bottom step reached out a hand and stopped him. You can’t go inside, sir, the patrolman said.

Emile had never seen the young man before, which was unusual since he knew nearly every policeman in the city, including most of the supernumeraries, the so-called special officers. Emile tipped the brim of his homburg so the copper could see the PRESS card stuck in the band. It’s okay, he said. "I’m with the Times-Picayune. Then he tried to brush past the policeman, but the young cop pushed him back. No reporters allowed, the patrolman said. Chief’s orders."

Where brashness hadn’t worked, perhaps congeniality would. Must be a bad one, Emile suggested.

The policeman didn’t respond, just stood there, stone faced, blue eyes fixed ahead, back straight. If the cop had been older, Emile would have thought he had served in the Army, but the kid barely looked old enough to shave.

How old are you? Emile asked.

The policeman frowned. Old enough.

Something about the cop’s demeanor was unsettling. He wasn’t a typical insecure rookie. Emile was curious. He stuck out his hand. Emile Denoux.

The policeman hesitated, his eyes narrowing. Evidently he had been warned never to trust a reporter. Finally, common courtesy overcame his reluctance and he shook Emile’s hand. Colin Fitzgerald.

Emile smiled. Pleased to meet you, Officer Fitzgerald. Are you by chance any relation to Connor Fitzgerald?

The patrolman nodded and there was a hint of a smile on his face. He was my father.

Emile remembered Connor Fitzgerald well, as did most residents of the city. Connor Fitzgerald was one of the New Orleans Police Department’s fallen heroes. He had been the chief of detectives, promoted to the post by legendary Superintendent David Hennessy. Fitzgerald had been shot dead ten years ago while trying to arrest a fugitive. Hennessy’s and Fitzgerald’s photographs hung side by side at Central Station.

Emile looked at the younger Fitzgerald, seeing a definite likeness between father and son. Colin Fitzgerald had the same steely-eyed look of determination that peered down from the photograph of his famous father.

I met your father once when I was not much older than a boy, Emile said. My own father knew him. Emile wasn’t sure that was true, but he thought it likely. His father had known almost everyone in town, and certainly all the ranking policemen. He was a brave man.

Who’s your father?

"Henri Denoux. He owned the French newspaper La Fois d’Orleans. He passed away last year."

The steel in Fitzgerald’s eyes softened slightly. I’m sorry.

Emile nodded. The seconds ticked by. Neither of them said anything else. Even though Emile couldn’t get inside the house, he still had a story to write. A run-of-the-mill murder barely rated a mention in a city where murder was so commonplace. But an ax murder, now that was a story. But he needed official confirmation... maybe from this inexperienced patrolman.

Emile cleared his throat and said in the most casual tone he could muster, given the deadline looming over his head, It’s not every day somebody gets killed with an ax.

The policeman shrugged. I guess not.

Voila, Emile thought. Just like that, he had police confirmation that Joseph Davi had indeed been killed by a man with an ax, the murderer later to be described in Emile’s article as an ax-wielding maniac.

Did they find the murder weapon? Emile asked. Then added as a seeming afterthought, Perhaps I could take a photograph of it for tomorrow’s edition.

Fitzgerald looked him over. You don’t have a camera.

I can send for one.

The policeman shook his head. I don’t know what they found. He nodded toward the door behind him. This is as close as I’ve been.

A couple of other reporters had noticed Emile talking to the patrolman and were sidling over. He was running out of time and needed to get inside the house so he could describe the crime scene in his article. He felt inside his trouser pocket and pulled out a silver half-dollar. Patrolmen only made three dollars a day, so fifty cents was not a bad bribe for doing nothing more than letting him through a door. Emile hoped his editor would reimburse him.

He held out his hand to Fitzgerald, the liberty head half-dollar lying in his open palm. How about letting me in to talk to a detective. Nodding toward the two approaching reporters, he added, Before those vultures get here.

Fitzgerald swung on him so fast that Emile didn’t know it was coming until the policeman’s fist cracked against his jaw. The blow knocked him flat on his back, dumping him onto the thin strip of grass between the house and street. When Emile raised his head the world was spinning like the images in a kaleidoscope. The only thing that seemed stationary was the enraged policeman looming over him.

After a couple of seconds, everything stopped spinning and Emile saw that the two reporters who had been skulking over to talk to Fitzgerald had stopped dead in their tracks, mouths hanging open as if catching flies.

Emile wondered if maybe he was confused. Maybe the stern young patrolman had not slugged him. Perhaps he had fallen. Perhaps Fitzgerald was standing over him so that he could pull Emile to his feet. Emile raised his hand for help. In it, he still clutched the half-dollar. The policeman swatted the hand away, and Emile heard the silver coin clattering along the brick pavement.

Emile decided to stay where he was. The Irish were a thickheaded race, but what they lacked in quick wits they made up for with quick fists. In general, the Irish would just as soon knock a man down as shake his hand. And that was when they were sober. God help you if you ran into an angry Irishman when he was drunk.

Seconds later a voice shouted, What the devil’s going on here?

Emile turned his head and saw Superintendent of Police James Reynolds standing in the open doorway. The barrel-chested police chief was red-faced as his eyes scanned the crowd of reporters, policemen, and neighborhood onlookers before focusing on Emile. What in the bloody blue blazes are you doing on the ground, Mr. Denoux?

Emile glanced at Fitzgerald and then opened his mouth to speak. He was about to say that he had tripped, but the rookie patrolman spoke first. I hit him, sir.

The superintendent fixed his eyes on the patrolman. Emile wondered if young Fitzgerald’s nascent career might be coming to an end. Despite the sudden turn of events that knocked him on his backside, Emile hoped not. He admired the young policeman’s style.

Why did you hit that reporter, Fitzgerald? the superintendent said.

Fitzgerald hesitated.

The young cop had Emile’s attention. Technically, attempting to bribe a policeman was illegal, though Emile would hardly call a half-dollar a serious bribe. More like buying a hard-working man a couple of shots of his favorite whiskey. At one time or another, Emile had slipped money into the pockets of half the men on the police force.

Well? Chief Reynolds barked. Answer up, man.

Fitzgerald cleared his throat. He was trying to get past me into the house, sir.

Before you hit him, did you warn him not to go into the house?

Yes, sir.

Behind Emile a camera bulb flashed. He turned and saw a photographer from the Daily Item grinning at him from behind his camera.

After you warned him, did he again try to enter the house? Reynolds asked.

Yes, sir, Fitzgerald said.

Reynolds snorted. Good lad.

The superintendent turned to Emile. And you, Mr. Denoux, have you learned anything from this?

Emile stared up at the superintendent. I most certainly have.

Are you going to give us anymore trouble?

Not a bit, sir.

Good lad. With that, the superintendent spun around and marched back into the house.

Emile looked up at Fitzgerald. The policeman glared back at him. For several seconds they stared at each other. Then Fitzgerald reached out his hand. Emile grabbed it, and the policeman hauled him to his feet.

CHAPTER 4

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1919

W hat time did the sheriff’s deputy pass by the house? I asked Captain Campo while the two of us stood in the hallway outside Mr. and Mrs. Pepitone’s bedroom.

A little past two o’clock, Campo said. He was walking home after his shift at the Parish Prison. He lives around the corner on South Pierce.

I checked my watch. It was 5:30. The sun would be up soon. And the wife said she and her husband were asleep when the attacker broke in?

Campo nodded.

Then why is he wearing shoes? I asked.

Mr. Pepitone’s body was splayed across the blood-drenched bed. He had on brown wool trousers and a white undershirt. His shoes were still on his feet.

Superintendent Thompson stepped into the hallway. There must be a vendetta moon out. He pointed to Mr. Pepitone. He’s the second dead Italian tonight.

The second? I asked.

Captain Campo nodded. Had another one killed on North Rampart around midnight.

Why didn’t you tell me?

I’m telling you now, the captain snapped. Besides, that’s not your case. This is your case.

All the Axman cases are mine.

That first one was shot walking home from work, Campo said.

Who was he?

Campo pulled a notebook from his pocket and flipped to a page covered in penciled scratch. A well-known Black Hand man named Salvatore Marcello. Thirty-seven years old. Worked for Carlo Matranga as a part-time fruit checker at the Thalia Street Wharf. We picked him up for questioning several times. A few years ago he shot another dago in some squabble. Didn’t kill him but he did a few years for it.

I pulled out my own notebook and jotted down Marcello’s name.

Black Hand gangs had come over from Sicily and specialized in extortion. They sent letters to Italian businesses demanding payment in exchange for protection against future misfortunes, such as property damage, injury, even death.