Douglas Perry - The girls of Murder City : fame, lust, and the beautiful killers who inspired Chicago

Table of Contents

VIKING

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First published in 2010 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright Douglas Perry, 2010 All rights reserved

PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS

Insert pages 2 (top left), 3 (top left), 6 (top left), 8 (top): Authors collection. Page 2 (top right): Courtesy of Transylvania University Pages 2 (bottom), 8 (bottom): Chicago Tribune file photo. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Page 4 (top left): Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Page 4 (top right): Courtesy of Ron Dixon Page 4 (bottom): Courtesy of Wendy Teresi Page 5 (bottom): Copyright 2009 The Fresno Bee. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Page 6 (top right): Helen Cirese Papers, 1915-1974, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections Page 7 (top): Courtesy of Western Springs Historical Society, Western Springs, Illinois. Page 7 (bottom): Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum

(Credits for other photographs appear adjacent to the respective images).

Map: U.S. Geological Survey

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Perry, Douglas, 1968-

The girls of Murder City : fame, lust, and the beautiful killers who inspired Chicago / Douglas Perry.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-1-101-19031-9

1. Women murderersIllinoisChicagoHistoryCase studies. 2. MurderIllinoisChicagoHistoryCase studies. I. Title.

HV6517.P475 2010

364.152309227731dc22 2010003980

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FOR DEBORAH

Characters

MAURINE WATKINS, aspiring playwrightblonde, comely and chic: a pleasant way to be.

BELVA GAERTNER, double divorceCook Countys most stylish murderess.

WALTER LAW, Belvas boyfrienda man who couldnt say no.

WILLIAM GAERTNER, Belvas millionaire ex-husbandthe most patient soul since Job.

BEULAH ANNAN, the prettiest woman ever charged with murder in Chicago.

HARRY KALSTEDT, Beulahs boyfriendthe other man.

AL ANNAN, Beulahs meal-ticket husband.

W. W. OBRIEN and WILLIAM SCOTT STEWART, Beulahs attorneysbest in the city, next to Erbstein.

GENEVIEVE FORBES, reporter on the DaiLy Tribune.

IONE QUINBY, The Evening Post s little bob-haired reporter.

SONIA LEE, sob sister on the American.

HELEN CIRESE, girl attorneyheadmistress of Jail School.

WANDA STOPA, the bohemianLittle Polands love-foiled girl gunner.

ADDITIONAL PLAYERS: Judge, Jury, Bailiffs, Jail Matrons, Police, Reporters, Editors, Attorneys, Court Fans.

CHICAGO: SPRING AND SUMMER, 1924

CHICAGO, 1924

Prologue

Thursday, April 24, 1924

The most beautiful women in the city were murderers.

The radio said so. The newspapers, when they arrived, would surely say worse. Beulah Annan peered through the bars of cell 657 in the womens quarters of the Cook County Jail. She liked being called beautiful for the entire city to hear. Shed greedily consumed every word said and written about her, cut out and saved the best pictures. She took pride in the coverage. But that was when she was the undisputed prettiest murderess in all of Cook County. Now everything had changed. She knew that today, for almost the first time since her arrest almost three weeks ago, there wouldnt be a picture of her in any of the newspapers. There was a new girl gunner on the scene, a gorgeous Polish girl named Wanda Stopa.

Depressed, Beulah chanced getting undressed. It was the middle of the day, but the stiff prison uniform made her skin itch, and the reporters werent going to come for interviews now. They were all out chasing the new girl. Beulah sat on her bunk and listened. The cellblock was quiet, stagnant. On a normal day, the rest of the inmates would have gone to the recreation room after lunch to sing hymns. Beulah never joined them; she preferred to retreat to a solitary spot with the jail radio, which shed claimed as her own. She listened to fox-trots. She liked to do as she pleased.

It was Belva Gaertner, the most stylish woman on the block, who had begun the daily hymn-singing ritual. That was back in March, the day after she staggered into jail, dead-eyed and elephant-tongued, too drunkor so she claimedto remember shooting her boyfriend in the head. None of the girls could fathom that stumblebum Belva now. On the bloody night of her arrival, it had taken the society divorce only a few hours of sleep to regain her composure. The next day, she sat sidesaddle against the cell wall, one leg slung imperiously over the other, heavy-lidded eyes offering a strange, exuberant glint. Reporters crowded in on her, eager to hear what she had to say. This was the woman who, at her divorce trial four years before, had publicly admitted to using a horsewhip on her wealthy elderly husband during lovemaking. Had she hoped to make herself a widow before he could divorce her? Now you had to wonder.

Im feeling very well, Belva told the reporters. Naturally I should prefer to receive you all in my own apartment; jails are such horrid places. Butshe looked around and emitted a small laughone must make the best of such things.

And so one did. Belvas rehabilitation began right there, and it continued unabated to this day. Faith would see her through this ordeal, she told any reporter who passed by her cell. This terrible, unfortunate experience made her appreciate all the more the life she once had with her wonderful ex-husbandsolid, reliable William Gaertner, the millionaire scientist and businessman who had provided her with lawyers and was determined to marry her again, despite her newly proven skill with a revolver. He believed Belva had changed.