Except the Dying (17 page)

Cavin pushed aside the flaccid breast, the skin stretched and marked from the suckling of many children, then sliced through the sternum and moved aside the flesh to reveal the ribs, reddened with blood. “Take those pliers and open the ribs for me, Rhodes.”

Owen clenched his teeth, determined not to retch or, worse, faint like a green girl. The woman was dead. He didn’t know her name or her circumstances. He didn’t know who grieved for her, if any did. He pried apart the bones of the rib cage, and Cavin reached in with his snips and severed the arteries and venous system of the right lung. He tugged and the organ came out with a sucking sound as if it were in mud. The blood ran over Owen’s fingers and he bit down hard so as not to gag. He was dimly aware that Hugh had stepped to the rear of the group. All the students were quiet.

“See the holes that the bacillus had made? She must have gone fast,” said Cavin. He held the soggy mass aloft, admiring it. The woman’s chest gaped open, empty. “We’ll see if there are traces in the intestines, and the bones. Gentlemen, work in pairs. Each take a limb. You have one hour.”

There were no traces of disease in the humerus that lay white in its bed of red muscle, but Owen and his partner found that the thoracic vertebrae were riddled with it, the bone crumpling to the touch. Feverell termed the cadaver “TB Tilly,” and all the students laughed. They never knew what her name was because it wasn’t on the card.

Owen decided on his navy merino suit and pulled off his nightshirt. The wardrobe mirror reflected back his pale, naked body. For a moment he stared at his own image, assessing the slim shoulders and hips. He often wished he was taller and heavier, not so much like his father. Tentatively, he touched his finger to his lips. He could still feel the kiss, the soft tongue inserting itself between his lips. He took the sleeve of his nightshirt, spat on it to moisten it and rubbed hard across his mouth until his mouth burned.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14

T
HE WIDOW
J
ENKINS HAD ROUSED
a neighbour to go for help. The man, Jimmy Gallagher, who was not young, ran as fast as he could up the laneway to Mill Street. Excitement gave him strength as he slipped and staggered through the deep snow, but by the time he reached Parliament his chest was close to bursting and he had to stop for breath. A man in a bread wagon was plodding by and, realizing he knew him, Gallagher ran out in front of the horse and stopped him. Through gasps he related what had happened, but Taylor wasn’t too willing to give him a ride to the police station.

“Rosie isn’t so spry any more and I’m not a-going to kill my horse for no strange Jezebel.”

“You don’t know the poor dead woman was one such thing,” said Gallagher.

“Sure she was. Why’d she get herself killed down by the lake, else? Besides, I have my deliveries to make.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, they’ll wait an hour, surely?”

“Ha! And who’ll thank me if I lose my job?”

However, he finally conceded. Gallagher climbed up beside him, and Rosie was persuaded to canter up Parliament to the station. Crabtree had just arrived for his shift and Murdoch was in the orderly room brewing himself a breakfast tea. As soon as the Irishman spit out his story, Murdoch commandeered the police ambulance from the adjoining stables and they galloped off to the lake, Gallagher hanging on to his hat inside the wagon. He hadn’t seen so much excitement in many a long day.

Crabtree pulled up the panting horses at the end of the laneway within sight of the ice-pitted shore. The area was deserted. Either from fear or indifference, nobody else had emerged from the ramshackle huts. Only Mrs. Jenkins and the lunatic were there waiting. She was seated on a rock by the marge and had wrapped herself in a voluminous grey shawl. The lunatic was standing beside her, swaying back and forth, muttering to himself. Murdoch walked over to the old woman.

“Mrs. Jenkins? I’m Detective Murdoch.”

She nodded. “We’ve been sitting here in the perishing cold. Thought it best to keep guard.”

“Thank you. That was very sensible. Is this the man who found the body?”

She cupped her hand to her ear. “Eh? What you say?”

He repeated the question.

“Yep, that’s him.”

“What’s his name?”

“Calls himself Zephaniah. S’not his real name but he’s probably forgot that by now. He don’t understand much.”

The old man’s white, matted hair hung down his back, and the grizzled beard reached to his waist. His head was wrapped around in a woollen turban and his stained and torn coat had once been a soldier’s greatcoat. At Murdoch’s approach, he whimpered and shrank back. He had been jailed barely a month earlier for vagrancy and responded to the police like a beaten dog responds to the sight of the stick.

“She’s out there,” said Mrs. Jenkins, pointing out to the frozen lake.

The lunatic suddenly shrieked. “I will punish the princes, saith the Lord. All the merchant people are cut down –”

“Mr. Zephaniah …”

“A cry from the fish gate … a great crashing from the hills … thick darkness …” His eyes were rolling back in his head, spittle coming from his mouth. “Their blood shall be poured out as dust and their flesh as dung …”

“Perhaps you could take him back to your cottage,” said Murdoch. “I’ll come and talk to you shortly.”

“Eh?”

He yelled in her ear. Stiffly, she got to her feet and took the old man by the elbow.

“She obeyed not the voice …”

They both shuffled off, Zephaniah still shouting.

Gallagher was hovering behind Crabtree. “D’you want me to help with the stretcher, Officer?”

“Probably, but we’ll have to wait until the coroner arrives. You can tend to his carriage when he comes. Wait here for now and don’t let anybody come near the area.”

The old man gave him a soldierly salute and Murdoch and Crabtree set out to the body.

The sky was a brilliant blue and the lumps of ice glittered like glass in the bright sun. Here and there black branches, from bushes that had drowned in the lake before the ice came, reached upwards with desperate fingers. A trail of footprints was clearly visible in the fresh-fallen snow. Murdoch bent down. One pair of prints was wide and flat and would belong to the lunatic, who was wearing clogs; the other, smaller pair that overlapped were no doubt those of the widow Jenkins. He looked closer. Underneath those marks, the snow had earlier been brushed into wide swaths.

“Let’s keep to the side,” he said to his constable. A gust of wind whipped across their faces, stinging, lifting
the snow into a puff of mist that shone in the air like diamond shavings. Murdoch pulled his muffler up around his nose, which was pinching against the cold.

They were about ten feet away when Murdoch realized it was Alice Black who was lying there. There was no mistaking that garish red and black striped jacket and the foolishly overdecorated hat. He felt a pang of pity as they stopped and gazed down on her.

There had been no dignity in her dying. Her brown straw hat had fallen off to the side and one of the dingy yellow feathers, broken in two, lay across her livid cheek. Her swollen tongue protruded from her mouth and the capillaries in her eyes had burst so that the sockets seemed to be swimming in blood. Murdoch knelt down and Crabtree shifted his feet nervously beside him. He wasn’t used to this sort of death.

“Nasty, sir,” he said.

“It is that. The rope has almost broken through the flesh, it was pulled so hard.”

Murdoch found it distressing himself, but he had seen his share of bodies washed ashore. Once, a Norwegian trawler had been shipwrecked off the coast and a young blond sailor had been found jammed in the rocks. A piece of sail rope was wrapped tight about his neck, and he had looked the way Alice did.

“At least we know for sure this one didn’t die from natural causes,” said the constable.

Murdoch nodded. “Too true. Go back to the beach and mark any wheel tracks or prints that you find.”

“What do you think she was doing out here, sir?”

“What she was doing is probably not so much the question. How’d she get here is what bothers me. Look!”

Alice was in her stocking feet and the black wool was torn at the soles. He could see lesions on the skin underneath where the ice had scraped her.

“I doubt she walked all the way from home without her boots.”

He glanced over at the shore where the half-dozen huts were scattered. To the west was the Gooderham Distillery, the smoke stacks etched against the blue sky.

“I suppose she could have been gaying it in one of these cottages,” said the constable.

“It’s possible, but she’s a long way from her own territory. I’m more inclined to think she came in a carriage. Maybe somebody wanted a winter poke. Anyway, let’s search first, then we’ll start asking.”

“Yes, sir.” Crabtree looked down at Alice’s body. “She wasn’t heading anywhere that could help her.”

He indicated the white expanse of lake stretching to the horizon. A flock of gulls were gathered nearby, their underbellies white as the snow, their hooked beaks yellow and cruel.

Suddenly Zephaniah shouted wildly. Gallagher saw them look over in his direction and he saluted again.

“Could it have been the madman as did her in?” asked Crabtree.

“He seems too frail to me, but I suppose we can’t rule him out. What I’m wondering is whether or not this has anything to do with Therese Laporte.”

“Alice was silenced, you mean, sir?”

“Possibly. On the other hand, with women like this, who knows? She just may have angered one of her customers.”

Crabtree nodded and for a minute they both stared down at the dead woman, each with different thoughts. Then the constable saluted and trudged off to begin his search of the shore. Murdoch began a careful examination of the body.

Except for the lack of boots, Alice was fully dressed, drawers intact, no unexpected tears in her clothing that he could see. She was wearing brown leather gloves, old and well mended. Her jacket was undone but none of the buttons were missing or the holes ripped. Her taffeta waist was rose coloured, but he could see dark brownish spots on the bib. She had bitten deep into her lower lip and there was dried blood on her chin. The colour of her face was such that he couldn’t make out any sign of bruising, and he’d have to wait for the postmortem examination to see if she had been marked anywhere else on her body.

Something gleamed in the sun, and Murdoch moved aside the jacket lapels and tugged clear a necklace of
green beads. No, not that, not a necklace. The crucifix was missing but it was easily identifiable. Gingerly, he pulled it over the rigid head and stowed it in his inside pocket.

“Mr. Murdoch! I found something, sir. Marks of a carriage. And horse dropping. Fresh.”

Murdoch shouted back, “Put in a marker. Watch you don’t spoil anything.” He waited while the constable edged away cautiously and went to a bush to break off a wand.

Murdoch too stepped away from the corpse. There didn’t seem to be much more to be gained here. Whoever had killed Alice had taken care to obliterate their footprints, and all around the body the snow had been brushed smooth.

He made the sign of the cross above Alice’s head.

“May God have mercy on your soul, Alice Black,” he said.

“So you didn’t believe this man was a sailor?” Murdoch asked Bernadette. Her face was taut and pale but she’d shed no tears. Murdoch was sitting with her in the kitchen of the lodging house.

“I knew he wasn’t. His hands was as soft as a baby’s backside. I didn’t like the look of him.” She stopped and stared into space for a moment. “I told her not to go with him but she wouldn’t listen. When she didn’t come home, I knew something bad had happened. I dreamt
of spiders, see. They were running up the walls. It’s a sure sign that you’re going to hear of a death.” She stood up and went over to the stove. “Would you like a cuppa?” She spooned tea leaves into a cracked pot, added a ladle or two of boiling water and left it to steep.

Murdoch took out his notebook. “I’ll go to the O’Neil, of course, and see if anybody knew this fellow, but I’d better get the names of all the men who’ve had anything to do with Alice in the last while. Did she ever go down to Mill Street that you know of?”

Ettie shook her head. “Never. She didn’t need to. The men she knew were all regulars.”

“Did she meet them here?”

“Usually at their lodgings or in the upstairs rooms of the hotel.”

She had completely dropped the fiction that Alice made her living mending gloves. “You’re not going to give Jimmy a hard time about that, are you?”

Legally, the hotel keeper should have been charged with keeping a house of ill repute.

“Not at the moment.”

He could see her shoulders lower in relief. When he did confront the hotel keeper, it might mean the end of Ettie’s welcome there.

The teapot was still sitting on the stove untended, but she began to stir an enamel pot that was on one of the burners.

“I bought a leg of mutton yesterday. I was cooking
it up for our tea. She liked mutton stew, she did.”

A sort of hiccough sob came out of her throat. Murdoch expected her to break into tears. However, she simply stirred the pot more vigorously and the cries never came. He waited a moment, then reached into his pocket and took out the broken rosary.

“Alice had this around her neck. Do you know where she got it?”

Ettie turned around, and when she saw what he was holding she flinched. Her body tensed and her eyes regarded him warily.

“She found it on the street.”

“When?”

“I dunno. A few days ago.”

“Where exactly?”

“I dunno. Near the O’Neil, I think she said.”

Murdoch stared at her but she glanced away and concentrated on the pot again. “Did you know it’s a rosary?”

“What’s that?”

“People who are Roman Catholics use them to say prayers. Each bead marks a prayer. It probably belonged to Therese Laporte.”

“God, you’re not going to start up again, are you?”

“How did Alice come to have it?”

“Bleeding hell, you’ve got a short memory. I just told you. She found it. I suppose that girl must have dropped it.”