Part 15 (2/2)
She swallowed, looking across the room to the great oak desk where Daniel had been poring through some of his very old books, giving them all bits and pieces of Louisiana and New Orleans trivia through the decades.
”Here, Son, not that the tragedies of times gone past give you any pleasure, but here's a piece on the New Orleans Axe Man. They think he killed thirteen people, and though the relative of one of the victims claimed to have shot and killed the killer, the police never knew the truth.” He looked across the room at Sean, his eyes bright over the rim of his reading gla.s.ses.
”Dad, they didn't have half the techniques we have now,” Sean reminded him.
Daniel shook his head. ”Some crimes are never solved. You know that. You have open cases on your books. These murders have just occurred. It takes time to catch criminals.
Weeks, months-years, in some instances.”
”Yeah, but we've got to solve these murders quickly!” Jack said.
”We'll be victims of the good citizens of New Orleans if we don't,” Mike Astin agreed.
”Him. Are there good citizens in New Orleans, do you think, Miss Montgomery?”
Daniel queried her lightly.
”Oh, definitely! And like good citizens everywhere, they battle the crime beneath their noses and try to make it a better city,” Maggie a.s.sured him.
Daniel sat in the swivel chair behind the desk. ”Now, it all depends on what we see as crimes, right?”
”Well, naturally,” Maggie agreed.
”Okay, Dad, what's the moral dilemma we're getting to now?” Sean asked.
Daniel stretched out a hand, indicating the book. ”All right, let's ponder this. In 1862, New Orleans is taken by the Yankees. Now, we all know that there were lots and lots of good, moral Yankees, men of character and concern. Unfortunately, one of the men taking charge of New Orleans under martial law definitely did not seem to be among their number. I refer to-”
”Beast Butler!” Jack interrupted.
”Precisely! Now, the Southern ladies of New Orleans still have kin out on the battlefields-brothers, fathers, husbands, lovers ... so they're not friendly to the invading soldiers. All right, they are downright rude, stepping off sidewalks if the soldiers are on them, spitting upon occasion. Still, nothing that an invading soldier wouldn't understand.
But old Beast Butler puts out an order about the behavior of Southern women. Any lady acting so rudely to the Yankees was to be considered a prost.i.tute, and treated as such.”
”Now, that's rude,” Angie murmured.
Daniel smiled. ”There was a Yank soldier who took Butler's order to heart. He was most probably guilty of several rapes before he picked up a young girl named Sandra Hill.
She most probably put up quite a fuss and gave the soldier one fierce battle. In his efforts to quiet her, he killed her.”
”Poor thing. How awful!” Cissy said. ”Back then, I a.s.sume he was executed right away.”
Daniel shook his head. ”No. The Yank was arrested, but an investigation determined Sandra to be a woman of loose morals-since she had been rude to the soldiers. The soldier was chastised and given a dishonorable discharge while poor little Sandra lay rotting away.”
”That's horrible, pure and simple. So what is the moral dilemma here?” Jack asked.
”What happens next,” Anne-Marie advised.
”While the Yank soldier is being held, some good citizen of New Orleans took the law into his-or her-own hands. The room where he was being kept was broken into late at night. He was found the next morning-beheaded by a broadsword stolen off his sleeping guard.” ”Grisly,” Cissy said, shuddering.
”But was it justice?” Sean asked softly.
”My point. Was his murder a crime, or was it justice? Naturally, that's a debate we go through continually here in the States. When we execute a criminal, are we equally guilty of murder? And if not, was the Yankee soldier's death murder- or justice?”
”Was the killer ever found?” Maggie asked.
Daniel looked at her, smiling, shaking his head. ”Never. If the good citizens of New Orleans knew anything about the killing, they never breathed a word. The whole incident was kept hushed, Beast Butler was finally removed from New Orleans. Naturally, we've other such interesting cases. One involves your family, Maggie.”
”Really?” Sean turned toward her. ”Do you know what he's up to now?”
Maggie nodded, smiling at Daniel. ”I think so.” She laughed, realizing that the light in the library was low, only the desk lamp giving any real illumination. Outside the handsomely draped windows, the night sky still seemed to be glowing with deep red overtones. All eyes were on her.
”One of my great-great-I'm not sure how many greats- grandfathers-was accused of murdering a French n.o.bleman.” She grimaced. ”Apparently, he thought the man was a vampire.”
”Really?” Jack laughed. ”Oh, well, this is New Orleans.”
”Did he kill the n.o.bleman?” Jack asked.
”I'm not sure. He was very rich, and had a lot of power in the community. If he killed the man, he had the sense to get rid of the body.”
”Nothing was ever proven against Jason Montgomery,” Daniel informed them. ”It seems that the young n.o.bleman was after Montgomery's daughter, Magdalena.”
”Ah! The lady on the stairway landing!” Sean said, looking at Maggie with an even greater interest.
Maggie smiled. ”The very one.”
”Some say that despite the fact Jason Montgomery lived and worked here, he didn't trust Frenchmen in the least. And the Frenchman most probably seduced young Magdalena.
She did disappear to Europe soon after and bore a child, so rumor goes.”
”There is, of course, the possibility that the Frenchman merely returned to France- and that Magdalena later joined him, and that the whole thing is nothing but a great, late- night story,” Maggie said dryly.
”But it is a good story. The young lover slain by the young beauty's father ... the girl leaving, never to return. Perhaps she never forgave her poor father for slaying her lover.
Who knows?” Anne-Marie mused.
”There's another little twist to that story,” Daniel said, winking at Maggie.
”Oh, yeah?” Sean asked, his eyes alight with amus.e.m.e.nt.
”I think,” Maggie said slowly, ”that your father is referring to the fact that Jason Montgomery wanted to have his daughter married to a Canady.”
<script>