Real killers.
“There will be many in law enforcement who believe the killings are copycats of one another, and here in New Orleans, copycats of the killer who struck in 1918 and 1919 and perhaps before that as well.”
“About that,” Axel interjected. “Dan has a...contact who might be able to help us with the historical murders.”
“And who might that be?” Adam looked at Dan with curiosity.
Dan hesitated. Was Axel really expecting him to talk about this in front of Adam right now? In front of Katie Delaney? He glanced at Adam, still trying to grasp everything Axel had told him about the man—and his Krewe of Hunters. Adam nodded encouragingly. Dan let out a sigh. “Her name was...is Mabel Greely, and she was best friends with one of the Axeman’s victims,” he said.
To his surprise, no one mocked him.
Not even Katie Delaney.
“She was a friend of a victim—not a victim herself?” Adam inquired.
Dan nodded. After the different ways Katie had looked at him—most of them hostile—she was now looking at him without doubt.
She seemed thoughtful.
“Did she know who did it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, but she believes—as do many people who have studied this—it might have been a man named Momfre.”
Katie leaned back in her chair. “First to die, as accepted by most people as the victims of the Axeman, were Joseph and Catherine Maggio. Then Louis Besumer and his mistress, Harriet Lowe, were attacked, but they didn’t die. The police arrested a man who had worked at their store, but there was no evidence against him, and he was released. Besumer himself wound up being arrested for the attacks. Harriet Lowe began accusing him of being a German spy, claimed he’d attacked her before... It was all kind of confused, and police officers wound up being demoted over it all. Harriett Lowe later died after a surgery that was supposed to relieve the injuries she had received.”
“You just know all this?” Dan asked, frowning.
She shrugged. “I’m a tour guide.”
“Then, go on—though, obviously, whoever it was isn’t the person doing it now,” Dan said.
“But our axe murderer is playing on it,” Adam said.
“I think so, too,” Dan said. “And I think he’s going to copy a lot of what happened. He had nothing like this back in Florida—no New Orleans legend to call up—but this might be... I don’t know...his main play?” He looked at Katie who was staring back at him.
She didn’t seem quite as hostile as she had before.
“George Calabria has no ties to New Orleans,” she told him.
“I said I’m coming into this now with an open mind. Please go on. I just bought a handful of books on the subject, but you seem to have it down pat. What then?” Dan asked.
He noted that, for the most part, Adam and Axel were sitting back, listening.
Katie glanced around at the three of them. “Okay, next, the Axeman attacked a pregnant woman. She survived and so did the child. It was a bit different. Police believed she’d been attacked with a bedside lamp, and they didn’t associate it with the Axeman right away. All she could remember was a dark figure standing over her. They arrested a man that time, too, but once again couldn’t prove it. The fellow ran when police came after him. There was just no kind of evidence that suggested he did it, but he had a criminal record, and the police were desperate. Because of the nature of the attack—a brutal surprise—they began to think it was the Axeman.”
“What was her name?” Dan asked.
“Anna Schneider,” Katie told him.
He shook his head. “Not my ghost’s friend.”
Katie arched a brow in his direction. He shrugged. “I was approached at the cemetery.”
“Approached?”
Axel explained, since they’d had a longer conversation with Mabel as they’d walked out of the Garden District. “There’s a young woman who was friends with a victim—she wasn’t a victim herself. She died of tuberculosis while still young, though. In life, the Axeman murders haunted her, and I believe she’s remained because she is still seeking the truth.”
“And I thought it would be hard to discover the truth after twelve years!” Katie said. “Now we’re looking at more than a hundred. You said her name was Mabel Greely? I’ll get to public records and see what I can find on her.”
“You’ve done that kind of research before?” Dan asked.
She grimaced. “Hey, I’m a guide. Licensed and all. We strive to tell the truth that goes along with our legends.”
“Who were the Axeman’s other victims?” Axel prompted.
“Okay, so next we have Joseph Romano, an elderly man. He survived the attack. His nieces came in when they heard a commotion, and like Anna Schneider, they could report on what they saw, a big man in a dark coat and slouched hat escaping as they arrived. Joseph survived the initial attack but died two days later because of the injuries he sustained. Then...”
She paused, wincing.
“Then...” Dan said in encouragement.
She shook her head. “The worst. He attacked Rosie and Charles Cortimiglia, and their daughter, Mary. Charles and Rosie survived, but Mary was found dead in her mother’s arms. Only two years old. Their lives were ruined. They had lost their baby daughter, and they divorced. Mary accused an old man, a neighbor, and his seventeen-year-old grandson. They were both arrested and did jail time, and the seventeen-year-old was sentenced to hang. Mary later recanted. And with good reason. The old man was too infirm to have committed the crimes, and the grandson was too big to have fit through the panel that had been chiseled away at the back.”
“Cortimiglia? No,” Dan muttered. Katie’s glance at him was hostile again. “Sorry, I’m sorry. Mabel Greely claimed her friend was a victim...”
He knew why Mabel had stuck around, why her passion to find justice had been so great that she’d stayed year after year. Her friend had been murdered by the man.
And he had gone on to kill again.
A child.
The Axeman had killed a baby.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “What was the surname of the first victims again? Maggio? I think Mabel said she knew a woman named Maggio, right, Axel?” He looked at the other man, who nodded. Dan went on. “She must have still been reeling from the loss of her friend when the monster struck again.”
“I know. It’s so hard to think about an innocent child. At least they think the baby died quickly, one blow to the back of the head or neck,” Katie said. “Anyway, a man named Steve Boca came next. He woke up to find a dark-clad man in a slouched hat standing above him and went to catch him only to discover he’d been bashed in the head. He survived. Next, Sarah Laumann. She survived the attack but could remember nothing about it. Then—in what is considered to be the last of the Axeman attacks—Mike Pepitone. He was killed, and his wife was left with six children. But there’s much more in between all that. Mrs. Pepitone wound up in Los Angeles where she purportedly shot and killed a man named Momfre—with various spellings. Some researchers claim they can find no such incident. I don’t know. In that theory, she claimed the man who broke in on her in Los Angeles was the same man who killed her husband. All in all, six were killed and six survived in the number of what most people accept to be the Axeman’s killings. There were incidents before about dark, shadowy men attacking people, back in 1910 and 1911, but in those cases, the killer wanted money. It was over a hundred years ago. It’s unlikely any more evidence will come to light, so no one can prove anything one way or the other. Researchers just go with what is out there and make their best educated guess. But the Axeman didn’t take things. He hacked, sliced and killed.”