Wilde West (6 page)

She turned back to Oscar. “I read in the newspapers that you met Mr. Walt Whitman at his house in New Jersey.”

Oscar nodded. “I did. I admire him very much.”

“The man or his poetry?”

He shrugged lightly. “For me, the two are inseparable.”

“I've never met him, of course, but I enjoy the poetry. I find it so very”—she cocked her head lightly, smiled—“physical.” And so she would've found the man: for two hours old Walt hadn't taken his thorny speckled hand off Oscar's knee. “Don't you?”

“I make no distinction,” Oscar said, vaguely aware that Vail was squirming in his seat and digging plump fingers into the snug pocket of his waistcoat, “between the physical and the spiritual.”

Vail had produced his watch. “Gee,” he announced with elaborate regret, “look at the time. I'm real sorry, folks, but I got to get Oscar here back to the hotel.”

Oscar frowned, surprised. “Come now, Vail.”

“Nope,” said Vail, and stood up. “Sorry, Oscar boy, we got a matinee tomorrow, and then another lecture tomorrow night. And then on Wednesday we got Manitou Springs.” He turned to Tabor and Elizabeth McCourt Doe and he made a quick awkward shrug. “You folks understand how it is.”

“Sure, sure,” said Tabor, grinning as he rose from his chair. “I know how you artistic-type people need your rest.” Not at all displeased to see them leave.

Well, to be sure: he had the woman; what did he need with poets and business managers?

Presented with a fait accompli, Oscar pulled himself slowly and reluctantly to his feet. As he did, he looked over at the woman and saw that her glance was traveling, calmly, reflectively, up the length of his frame. When the glance met his, she smiled.

Electricity surged up his spine. His face, he realized, was flushed and taut, flesh suddenly too full for skin.

Betrayed once again by his treacherous, ungainly body.

The woman turned to Tabor. “Perhaps Mr. Wilde can join us tomorrow for breakfast.”

For the first time, Tabor's grin vanished. “Gosh, Baby, I've gotta leave early in the morning. That cattle thing, I told you. But
hey.
” He turned to Oscar, the grin suddenly back in place. “
You
could come, couldn't you, Oscar? Baby loves company in the morning. Be a real favor to me if you stopped by and joined her. What do you say?”

Oscar looked at the woman, who sat there smiling faintly up at him, violet eyes sparkling over the rim of her brandy snifter.

From the Grigsby Archives

March 3, 1882

DEAR MARSHAL GRIGSBY
,

I understand that you knew my predecessor, the late Mr. Henry Bettinger, former Sheriff of Leavenworth, Kansas. You no doubt have heard of his unfortunate and untimely death. Two months ago the good citizens here appointed me his successor. I am sure that you and I will enjoy the same friendly relations that existed between yourself and Mr. Bettinger while he was alive.

The reason I am writing to you is this. Two nights ago, on the 1st of March, a young woman was murdered here in Leavenworth. Her name was Carolyn Mullavey and she was the wife of Thomas Mullavey, who operates the general store here. Mr. Mullavey informs me that his wife has a brother, a Mr. Benjamin Whelan, who lives in Denver. I would be grateful if you would verify this statement for me, and if you would verify for me that Mr. Whelan was in Denver on the night of April 1st, when Carolyn Mullavey's homicide was perpetrated. If he was not, I would be grateful if you would ascertain his whereabouts on the night of March 1st. If you have reason to believe he was here in Leavenworth, Kansas, I would be grateful if you incarcerated him.

So far, of course, Mr. Whelan is not actually a suspect. But in policework, as you know, it is always necessary to eliminate the innocent in order to determine the guilty.

I have sent a telegram to the Chief of Police there in Denver, Mr. William J. Greaves, which contained a similar request, but so far I have had no response. I have heard some unfortunate stories about Mr. Greaves and so I took it upon myself to write to you, in your capacity as Federal Marshal.

I enclose a clipping from the
Leavenworth Sentinel
which gives some details as to Mrs. Mullavey's death. The actual facts were even worse than those reported there.

If Mr. Whelan, the brother of the deceased, was actually in Denver at the time of the murder, please extend to him my deeply felt sympathy and assure him that I am fully confident we will bring to justice the madman who perpetrated this heinous crime. Scientific policework and careful investigation will produce results every time. As you know, of course.

Thanking you in advance, I am

Your humble servant,

Lawrence Draper

Sheriff of Leavenworth

MUTILATION ON MAIN STREET!

Woman Found Butchered!

A Leavenworth woman, Mrs. Thomas Mullavey, was found savagely mutilated early Thursday morning in the alleyway between Mullavey's General Store and Harper's Hardware Emporium. The body was discovered by Cecil Cooper, of Leavenworth, an unemployed house painter who often utilized the alleyway as his “sleeping quarters.”

According to recently elected Sheriff Lawrence Draper, Cooper stumbled upon the unfortunate woman's horrible remains at three o'clock on Thursday morning. He immediately notified Deputy Sheriff Orville Cleaver, who, after viewing the mutilated body, promptly roused Sheriff Draper from sleep. Cooper is not suspected, Draper says.

According to Draper, Mrs. Mullavey and her husband had attended last night's lecture by Oscar Wilde, the celebrated English esthetical poet, at the newly built Leavenworth Opera House (see story on page 2), leaving the hall at ten o'clock. She and her husband, the owner of Mullavey's General Store, then returned to their home on Sheridan Street. At twelve o'clock, Mrs. Mullavey, discovering that she and her husband were out of whiskey, left the house with the intention of procuring a bottle from their store on Main Street. Witnesses, said Sheriff Draper, have testified that they saw her walking along Main Street unaccompanied. She was never seen alive again.

Her husband, meanwhile, had fallen asleep and was unaware of the fearful fate that befell his wife until awakened and informed of it by Sheriff Draper.

Dr. Hiram Buckley, who examined the body of Mrs. Mullavey, said that her death apparently was caused by a single wound to the throat, such as might be made by a long-bladed butcher-type knife. Asked to respond to reports that the body had been brutally mutilated, Dr. Buckley declined further comment. Sheriff Draper also refused to discuss the nature of Mrs. Mullavey's dreadful mutilations.

The husband of the deceased was unavailable for comment. Witness Cooper, however, interviewed at the Blarney Stone Pub on Grant Street, provided additional information regarding the mutilations. “It was awful,” he said. “He chopped her up like a hog. There were parts of her lying all over the alley.” Mrs. Mullavey's ferocious wounds were of such gruesomeness that they cannot be described in a family newspaper.

Mrs. Mullavey, with her vivacious ways and her flaming red hair, was well liked here in Leavenworth, to which she came five years ago from St. Louis, Missouri. Neighbors and friends, all outraged at this despicable act, agreed in describing her as outgoing and gregarious. “She was a swell gal,” said neighbor Kathleen Krebs. “Sure, she liked a good time. Don't we all? But there wasn't a mean bone in her entire body.”

While admitting that no arrests had been made as yet, Sheriff Draper asserted that several suspects had been interviewed, and he vowed a speedy solution to the case. “I personally promise the good citizens of Leavenworth that I will apprehend the craven coward who perpetrated this horrendous crime. Murderers such as he stand no chance when confronted by the irresistible juggernaut of Scientific policework.”

T
HE JUNIPER LOGS BURNING
in the cast-iron stove had warmed the air in the room and spiced it with the delicate peppery smell of woodsmoke.

“I think the chartreuse,” said Oscar thoughtfully. “Yes. Definitely, the chartreuse.”

His left arm extended to display the four draped cravats—blue, mauve, chartreuse, and red—Henry Villiers nodded his long black solemn head. He plucked away the chartreuse cravat and hung it carefully over the back of the wooden chair. He slid his right hand under the other cravats, deftly slipped them off, and then turned and carried them back to the closet.

Sitting in the room's only comfortable chair, his legs crossed, wearing black leather slippers lined with rabbit fur and, over his saffron yellow cotton pajamas, a black dressing gown of Japanese silk, Oscar enjoyed his first cigarette of the day.

The night had been lovely and restful, his sleep artfully interwoven with dreams, forgotten now but for the lingering impression of a slow deliberate sensual surfeit. Languorous, pleasantly sated, he sat and watched his exhaled smoke roll into the golden light slanting through the opened lace curtains and become, magically, a precisely defined, incandescent slab of bright white whirls and swirls and spinning convoluted arabesques.

Henry called from the closet, “You be wantin' the green jacket, Mistuh Oscar?”

“Indubitably,” said Oscar, and exhaled another elaborate rolling plume. Silently, brilliantly, it flared in the sunlight.

What a truly glorious morning this was. How absolutely top drawer.

It was the sort of morning when even a rustic Denver hotel room could seem as hallowed and sacred as a Doric temple. The sort of morning when the simplest, most mundane objects—the round white porcelain water basin atop the pinewood dresser, the plump white porcelain pitcher beside it, the squat black wood-stove, the round red bedposts gleaming in the sunstream—abruptly acquired a profound beauty and significance. Each of these, by its very uniqueness, its irreducible singularity, was suddenly numinous, suddenly resonant with import. Each in its own way was flawless, and each by its perfection implied a higher Perfection which, however transcendent, still somehow lay, miraculously, just within the scope of human understanding and achievement.

Everything this morning, including Oscar, was divine and immortal.

Henry emerged from the closet carrying the green velvet jacket and a white silk shirt with a ruffled front. “You be wantin' the knee britches?”

“Trousers, I think,” said Oscar. “The black ones. And the patent leather shoes. Black stockings.” Conservative, subdued. Mustn't overwhelm the woman on our first rendezvous.

Henry nodded, set the jacket and shirt upon the quilted bedcover, then returned to the closet.

Had she appeared in his dreams, this miraculous Elizabeth McCourt Doe? Had she stalked through them like a red tigress, those violet eyes glowing in the night?

What a thoroughly stunning, what a remarkable, woman.

And soon, in only an hour or so, he would see her again.

Poor Vail had been entirely against this breakfast tryst. Outside Tabor's mansion, climbing into the carriage behind the business manager, Oscar had asked him, “Why the sudden departure? I thought we were supposed to charm this Tabor fellow.” He pulled the carriage door shut.

“Yeah?” said Vail. He plucked the cigar from his mouth and turned to him. “You figure raping his doxy, that's gonna charm the guy?”

Oscar was clapped back against the seat as the carriage lurched forward. “Raping? What on earth are you talking about?” But glad that the darkness hid the sudden blush that bloomed across his face.

Vail shook his head. “Jesus Christ, Oscar, I gotta tell you, I never saw anything like it. The two of you were going at each other like a pair of minks. Right in front of the guy. Another five minutes and you would of been humping right there on the floor. Yeah, that would of charmed him pretty good, I guess.”

Oscar made his voice curdle with disdain. “
Humping
?” (But, unbidden, inescapable, the vision flashed across the back of his brain: he and the woman atop the Persian carpet, a tangle of white arms and legs, a tumble of red hair.)

“Look,” Vail said. “You got to forget this breakfast deal tomorrow.”

“Don't be absurd. I've already told them I'll be there. He asked me himself. You heard him.”

“Oscar, I'm telling you, the woman is poison. Poison. You get involved with her and Tabor's gonna find out. Nah, you think. Not him. Sure, right, he looks like a dope. He acts like a dope. He
is
a dope, prob'ly. But he's rich, Oscar boy. He's powerful. And people like to tell stuff to rich folks. The servants, the neighbors. Believe you me, he'll find out. And he's not gonna take it kindly, you putting the hose to his chippy.”

“Putting the
hose
?”

“He could hurt you, Oscar. Hurt you bad.”

“The man is three feet tall, Vail. What will he do, kick me in the shins?”