Diamond Duo (41 page)

Beau squirmed around to look at Thad. “Gold jewelry? That’s a crock. We just had one necklace, and ours was silver.”

His brother whirled on him. “Pipe down, you stupid little toad.” Unable to contain his fury, he took him by the throat and wrestled him to the ground.

Charlie grinned. “Nice work, Thad.”

Thad lifted T-Bone by the back of his drawers and set him down hard. “I’m done playing with you, son. Start talking.”

Little Beau sat up crying, his nose red and running. “We didn’t kill that lady. We just wanted to have a look. Ain’t never seen no dead body before. Anyway,
she
was in
our
secret hideout.” An angry look came over his face. “She didn’t have no business there in the first place.”

Bertha pressed her hands over her mouth to stifle a sob.

T-Bone scowled but didn’t go after his brother again.

Thad rested his hand on T-Bone’s shoulder and spoke in a gentle voice. “We know you didn’t kill her. Shoot, everybody in Jefferson knows who did. So why don’t you just tell us what happened.”

T-Bone’s tough demeanor crumbled, and he became a scared little boy. “We didn’t mean no harm. We saw her laying in the woods and ran over to help. I bent down to shake her, thinking to wake her up. That’s when I saw blood on her head.” He ducked his head and ground his fists in his eyes.

Thad squeezed his shoulder. “Just take your time, son.”

The boy lifted his trembling chin. “I wanted to leave.” He gave his little brother a careful glance. “But Beau remembered seeing that same woman in town. He said folks called her Diamond Bessie on account of all the diamonds she wore.”

Beau glared at T-Bone, his eyes like a feral cat’s, but T-Bone kept talking. “Beau started searching all over her fingers and ears.”

Beau stood up. “Did not!”

T-Bone pushed him down and crawled over him with balled-up fists. “Yes, you did.” He faced Thad again. “I swear I never touched her after that first time.” He shuddered. “I couldn’t.”

Thad seemed to weigh T-Bone’s words for several seconds before he leaned over his brother’s head. “I want the truth, Beau. Lying is a useless talent. When the truth comes out, and it always does, folks tend never to trust you again.” He touched the little boy’s arm. “A man’s word is his most valuable possession, Beau. Didn’t your daddy teach you that?”

Bertha elbowed Thad, but it was too late.

T-Bone spoke up behind them. “We ain’t got no daddy. Never have.”

Thad mouthed an apology to Bertha. Scooting closer to Beau, he set him up. “What do you say, partner? You ready to tell us the truth now?”

Beau gulped hard. The shadows under his hollow, darting eyes made him seem eighty instead of eight. “T-Bone’s right. I done it. I figured since she was dead, her diamonds would do us more good than her. Only there weren’t no diamonds. I looked all over. Just when I gave up looking, I seen that silver chain. I pulled on it and that purty cross fell out.” He got up on his knees in front of Thad. “I never would’ve took it, but I looked down and the clasp was right in my hands. So I undid the hook and it slid right off her neck.”

Bertha shoved past Thad and yanked Beau toward her. “Did you say off her neck? Not from her pocket? Or out of her hand?”

Her intensity scared the boy, and he screwed up his face. “No, ma’am. It was around her neck.”

She shook him. “You’re sure?”

He started to wail. “I swear it!”

The minister’s words from the funeral were emblazoned in her mind.
“‘He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.’ ”

Bertha crushed him to her and kissed the top of his tousled head. “Beau, you wonderful little boy. Thank you!” She lifted her face. “Dear Lord, thank You.” When she released him, Beau scuttled back to his brother, staring at Bertha like she’d lost her senses.

Magda rushed over and fell beside her. They toppled in a heap, laughing and crying at the same time. Charlie, Mose, and Rhodie stood gaping at them on one side; Thad, Beau, and T-Bone on the other.

Bertha struggled to her feet and ran to Thad, burrowing into his chest. “I’ll explain later. Right now I need to get my hands on that silver cross.”

Thad twisted around so both of them faced the boys. “I give
you my word of honor no one here today will ever mention what we know. But that necklace belongs to my wife, and I want it back.”

T-Bone’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. “We’ll go fetch it.”

“I’ll go with them,” Mose offered. “Make sure there ain’t no funny business.”

Thad pulled Beau in front of him and patted him on the chest. “I don’t expect any more funny business out of these fine lads, but go ahead and ride with them if you like. We’ll meet you in front of their house.”

Mose motioned to Charlie. He shook his head. “What about that shotgun?”

Bertha grinned. “Don’t worry–I took care of the gun. We can send it to her later, after she calms down.”

Mose and Charlie herded the boys toward the boat. On the way, Charlie slipped his arm around T-Bone’s scrawny shoulders. “Say, I’m in the market for a new fishing partner. You boys like to fish?”

T-Bone shrugged. Little Beau peered up at him from the other side. “Shucks, yeah. You know any good spots?”

Charlie rested his other arm around Beau’s neck. “Good spots? Why, I know the best honey holes in East Texas.”

Charlie’s offer to teach them the words to “Old Dan Tucker” was the last thing Bertha heard before they piled in the boat and pushed off toward Gladys Taylor’s place.

Bertha, Thad, and the rest climbed aboard Mose’s wagon with Thad at the reins. On the way, Bertha explained the significance of Annie wearing the necklace.

Rhodie, her mouth ajar, leaned between them, listening. When Bertha finished, Rhodie gazed up at her. “You’re right, Bertha. If Annie felt unworthy to wear the cross, something happened to change that or she wouldn’t dare put it on.”

Thad smiled over at Bertha. “Only one thing can make that kind of change. So you know what that means.”

Bertha thrilled at the confirming words. “It means Annie heard me. She died at peace with God.”

Magda scooted beside Rhodie and looked up at Bertha. “I do have one question. You told me Annie was drunk that last morning in Kate Woods’s restaurant.”

“Yes,” Bertha said. “I thought about that, too. Only Frank Malloy told Papa that Abe plied Annie with drink. Perhaps she didn’t want it but was too scared to refuse. I mean, how could she explain what happened to her to someone like Abe?”

Magda inhaled sharply. “That makes sense. D. P. McMullen saw them, too, on Austin Street headed for the bridge. He said Annie handed her bottle to Abe, made him take it from her. I don’t think she wanted it.”

Up ahead, Mose, Charlie, and the Taylor boys stood on the road in front of the house. Thad pulled up beside them and set the brake.

Mose approached the wagon and held up a flash of silver. “Here it is, Bertha. I think it’s the same one I gave you.”

Thad took the chain out of Mose’s hand and offered it to Bertha. When she cupped the delicate cross in her palm, she remembered the words she’d shared with Annie.

“The gift this cross represents is more powerful than any laundry list of sins you may be guilty of, no matter how heinous. The cross covered them all. You just have to accept it for yourself in order to be free.”

Sometime after the last time Bertha saw her, Annie Moore came to believe those words. The woman who rode into their lives a misguided sinner left the world a beloved saint. Bertha had trusted God with the details–of her life and of Annie’s–and just like Papa said, God had proved Himself worthy.

Thad wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close. “We have a train to catch, Mrs. Bloom.”

She smiled at him through happy tears. “And adventures to chase, if I know you.”

Grinning, he leaned to whisper in a breathy voice, “And a honeymoon to get started. . .if that’s all right.”

On a mission to mop the confident grin from Thad’s face and light a fire in his dark eyes, Bertha had set out to learn the secret of
Annie’s sway over men. Gazing into his face, aglow with love for her, she realized she’d had the power within her from the start.

She tilted her chin and gave her husband a saucy wink. “Me darlin’, I thought you’d never ask.”

I researched for months to learn why Annie made such an indelible impression on the town. From the considerable distance of 130-plus years, I found it impossible to get an accurate look at her. Even the opinions and attitudes of her day were conflicting. Some judged her a disease-ridden prostitute without morals or conscience. Others considered her an unfortunate young girl who lost her way. Jilted and abandoned by an older man at fifteen, possibly disinherited by her family and left to her own devices, (emphasis on vices) then abused and victimized by Abraham Rothschild, she unquestionably had a rocky start.

As I stood over her humble grave in Oakwood Cemetery, I found myself in the same dilemma as Bertha Maye Biddie, the heroine of this book, who asks, “Devil or angel? I couldn’t tell.” I feel certain of one thing, however. From Annie’s vantage point, whether resting with angels or contending with devils, she would heartily approve of using her life to share my witness.

In my cast of characters, many–too numerous to list here–were actual denizens of 1877 Jefferson and key players in the drama that unfolded before, during, and after the murder of Annie Stone. Their names are still bandied about the streets of Jefferson, especially during the annual play,
The Diamond Bessie Murder Trial
, a reenactment.

Despite the notoriety Sarah King gained from finding Annie’s body, I found no further information on her, even after searching
the library and the courthouse records and speaking with local historians. With apologies to her descendants, I’ve used creative license in writing her story.

On December 30, 1880, after three indictments and two trials, Abraham Rothschild was pronounced not guilty. He boarded the train out of Jefferson, some say for the last time. Others believe he returned at least once. According to the caretaker of Oakwood Cemetery, a handsome elderly gentleman came asking the whereabouts of Annie’s grave in the 1890s. He laid a wreath of roses near her headstone then knelt and said a prayer.

In his book
The Abe Rothschild Story
, historian Fred McKenzie includes a marriage license he uncovered in Vermillion County, Illinois, showing that twenty-four-year-old Abe Rothschild married twenty-two-year-old Bertha Moore on January 10, 1877, a few days before Abe and Annie began their journey from Cincinnati to Jefferson. According to Mr. McKenzie’s research, Abe went on to become a “con man, flim flam artist, and snake oil salesman” as well as “a diamond thief of the first water.”

Blessings,
Marcia Gruver