Shrouded In Thought (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 2)
Read Shrouded In Thought (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 2) Online
Authors: N. S. Wikarski
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SHROUDED IN THOUGHT
by
N. S. Wikarski
Shrouded In Thought
Book Two—Gilded Age Mystery Series
Copyright © 2011 by N. S. Wikarski
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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The mere wish to sin entails the penalty,
For he who meditates a crime within his breast
Has all the guilt of the deed.
—Juvenal
Satire xiii – line 208
Chapter 3 – A Respectable Trade
Chapter 4 – Questionable Characters
Chapter 7 – A Striking Coincidence
Chapter 8 – The Presence Of Spirits
Chapter 9 – Fired With Conviction
Chapter 11 – A Fair To Remember
Chapter 12 – The Solution To The Problem
Chapter 15 – Portrait Of A Lady
Suitable For Framing
Chapter 16 – Pressed Into Service
Chapter 17 – A Break In The Case
Chapter 19 – Chanson De Roland
Chapter 21 – Gone For Evermore
Chapter 22 – Your Latest Admirer
Chapter 25 – Manufacturing Evidence
Chapter 30 – The Tide In Men’s Affairs
Prologue
April 23, 1894
Desmond Bayne woke from a fitful sleep—the only kind possible when he was huddled in a frayed overcoat, in the filthy corner of a concrete loading dock on a dank and windy spring night. His eyelids fluttered open briefly and resettled themselves.
“Please don’t!”
There it was again. He thought he’d heard voices. Voices coming from below by the edge of the river. Indistinctly, he heard the low rumbling of a man’s voice. He couldn’t catch the words. The wind carried them in the other direction but the tone was coaxing, seductive.
The girl’s voice, more shrill, carried farther. “No, I said stop! Heights make me dizzy!”
Desmond edged out of his corner, but all he could see was a hulking shadow that leaned against a wooden guard rail fastened to the retaining wall of the river. The next sound he heard was the crack of dry timber and the girl’s scream. Desmond leaned even farther forward in time to see the shadow split in half. One part tumbled into the churning, oily water. The other part stood above, looking down.
The shrill voice cried, “Help me! For God’s sake! You know I can’t swim!”
The demi-shadow standing above seemed to be craning its neck in the darkness, trying to focus on the hapless creature struggling to keep afloat.
The waves frothed around her as she tried to tread water. “Why... won’t you... do something!”
The garbled cries became less and less distinct over the rush of the current. Desmond could hear the desperate pitch of her voice rise in volume as her body sank.
“Why... wh... why... won’t... Please... help...”
The demi-shadow turned and, without an appearance of undue haste, walked away from the last ripple disturbing the surface. The river resumed its serene course. Desmond waited long enough to make sure it had and then, with all due speed, he followed the sound of retreating footsteps.
Chapter 1
—Current Events
Frederick Ulysses Simpson had never seen a freshly drowned corpse before. As a junior reporter sent to cover an important story, he felt a thrill of joy that transcended mere verbal expression. There she lay, on the cobblestone carriageway between the loading dock of a factory and the retaining wall of the river. A girl in her early twenties with damp brown hair curling around a pale, bluish face. A fragile puff of pearl-gray silk surrounded by a ring of men dressed in blue and brass with bullet-shaped helmets bearing the insignia of the Chicago Police department.
Freddie Simpson allowed himself to savor a sense of exultation for several more seconds before his innate decency asserted itself. He sternly reminding himself what a cad he was. Still, he said to himself, he wasn’t the only one. He paused a moment to drink in the sounds around him. The relentless clop-scrape of horses’ hooves pulling delivery wagons over the
North Avenue
bridge. The clang of the trolley motorman’s bell warning pedestrians to get out of the way. The booming whistles of the barges churning up and down the river making their appointed deliveries the same as any other day. Even the cooing of the pigeons foraging for food did not diminish respectfully as they scavenged ever closer to the corpse. Freddie brushed a flake of soot from his coat sleeve and looked up absently at the bleak sky. The air was thicker with it than usual. Every factory smokestack in the city seemed to be conspiring to blot out even the wan light that a cloudy April morning could provide. Still life went on. It went on even in the face of an event that defied reason. A girl barely out of her teens, dead and gone for no reason that he could fathom.
Clearing his throat self-consciously, he took a notebook from his pocket and stepped up to one of the policemen standing guard over the body. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
The officer thus addressed swung toward him with a face that would have done a bulldog credit. “Who might you be, boyo, to be asking questions around here?”
Freddie stepped back a few paces, eyeing the policeman’s billy club nervously. “I... I’m a reporter for the Gazette. The City Desk sent me down to cover the murder.”
Freddie’s explanation did nothing to diminish the cop’s belligerence. “You look more of a dandy than any newshound I ever saw!” he barked. “And who told the City Desk it was a murder in the first place? We don’t know that for sure yet!”
Freddie tried to sound inoffensive. “Well, it does seem kind of odd that a girl would go diving into the
Chicago River
for a swim at midnight, fully clothed, with the temperature barely above freezing.”
The cop twirled his billy club strap around his thumb contemplatively while he pondered the matter.
Freddie retreated a few steps farther. He was mentally debating the wisdom of abandoning his short-lived search for truth when another policeman intervened.
“Sean, lay off the kid. I’ll take care of it.” The officer who stepped forward had a face somewhat less canine than his colleague’s. He motioned with his head that Freddie should follow him toward the loading dock to talk more privately.
“Thank you, officer.” Freddie’s gratitude was tinged with no small measure of relief.
The policeman chuckled. “Sean’s all right but he’s a deal happier when he’s protecting the public than when he’s speaking to it.”
“More like barking at it,” Freddie murmured sotto voce as he held out his hand in greeting. “Simpson’s the name. Freddie Simpson. I’m a reporter for the Gazette.”
Freddie was over six feet tall and big-boned, yet the policeman who shook his hand managed to cover it with a paw that was twice as wide as his own.
“My name’s O’Rourke. I’m in charge of the investigation. I’ll tell you what I can, but that’s not much.”
With no need for further encouragement, Freddie flipped open his notebook and drew a pencil out of his vest pocket. “Well, for starters, who is she and what happened?”
The cop smiled. “Isn’t it always the way of things that the better part of a copper’s job is answering just those two little questions.” He scratched his head as a spur to recollection. “The people here”—again he motioned with his head to a knot of onlookers several feet away—“tell us her name is Nora Johnson and that she worked as a secretary in the factory we’re standing in front of. Her roommate from the boardinghouse reported her missing early this morning. Said she didn’t come home last night. Well, we’d already gotten a call from the factory this morning. Seems one of their fellows had walked out onto the pier to look for the coal barge when he noticed something pale bobbing up and down across the way. It looks like the current carried her down a ways from the pier until her coat snagged on a piling on the other side. It’s a good thing she washed up near enough to where somebody knew who she was, otherwise she might have floated down past
Goose
Island
and then we would have had a time of it. As it was, we had to call for a police boat from the
Rush Street
dock to fish her out. Then we hoisted the body up this side for identification.”
“Any idea where she drowned?”
The sergeant nodded. “Right on the factory grounds is where it must have happened. You see that guard rail?” O’Rourke pointed to a broken piece of wood hanging suspended from the top of the retaining wall overlooking the river some ten feet below.
Freddie looked up briefly, barely taking his eyes off the page where he was furiously scribbling notes.
“Well, it looks like she went over the railing right there and drowned.”
“Was she pushed?”
O’Rourke shrugged matter-of-factly. “Hard to imagine her crashing through that rail any other way but we can’t rule out that it might’ve been an accident.”
Freddie frowned in concentration, wanting to make sure he left no questions unanswered. “What about suicide?”
O’Rourke gave a half-smile. “It seems to me there’s easier ways to kill yourself than running full-tilt through a guard rail. That’s a thick piece of timber, that is. As small as she was I’m not even sure that at full-tilt she could’ve managed it. If I was her and wanted to end it all, I’d just walk a few yards farther to the company pier, close my eyes and jump in.”
“Yes, I suppose that makes sense,” Freddie murmured, half to himself, as he continued writing. “What’s the next step? Will there be a murder investigation?”
O’Rourke scratched his chin. “We don’t have enough evidence to make a case for murder. The coroner will probably rule cause of death as accidental drowning and it’s all the same to me if he does. We’ve got plenty to do with a city full of drunken idiots shooting each other at point-blank range on a Saturday night and fifty witnesses standing by to point the finger. Why go chasing our tails after something like this when nobody was around nor heard nor saw anything to help us find a killer, if there’s one to find at all.”
“Really?” Freddie registered surprise. “No one saw anything?”
O’Rourke scanned the faces clustered along the brick wall of the building. “No, lad, but you might try talking to the factory guard. He’s up there in the blue uniform with all that extra-fancy gold braid. We’ve already got the short version but you may as well have a crack at him before we get round to him again for an official statement.” He pointed to an arthritic-looking septuagenarian who was seated on the loading dock sunning himself in the fitful rays afforded by the cloudy, sooty sky.
Freddie, his attention momentarily drawn to the watchman, turned back to realize O’Rourke had walked away to rejoin the company of policemen trying to keep spectators and a few other reporters away from the body.
“Thank you, sergeant.” Freddie doubted that O’Rourke heard him. He then turned to walk up the stairs to the loading dock platform. The old man hadn’t moved. His eyes were closed.
“Uh, excuse me?” Freddie began his interrogation feeling all the swagger and self-assurance that a novice reporter usually possesses.
“Hmmm? What’s that?” The old man jolted himself to attention, his hand instinctively going for the gun in his holster.
Freddie leaped back. “Hold on there, mister, I just want to ask you a few questions. I’m a reporter.”
The old man relaxed his newly awakened vigilance and his grip on the holster. “Oh, oh, I see.” He lapsed into a vacant stare, looking out over the choppy current of the river.
Since no other information was forthcoming, Freddie unceremoniously sat himself down on the cold platform beside the old man. “My name’s Simpson with the Gazette and you’re...” He waited for a response.
After a few seconds the watchman roused himself again. “Thaddeus Sparrow. I’m the night watchman here.”
Freddie quickly scanned the notes his editor had given him earlier. “This would be the Hyperion Electroplate Company?”
Sparrow nodded. “Sorry to be so slow, Mr. Simpson. I’m the night watchman, you see. It’s a good deal past my usual bedtime.”
The young man let down his guard. Sparrow’s odd behavior seemed less attributable to senility than to fatigue. “The police asked you to stay around for a while?”
The watchman nodded again.
“Did you hear or see anything suspicious last night?”
The old man sighed. “Like I told the coppers, not a thing. They all think because she’d been in the water awhile when they found her, that she probably drowned some time around midnight. Well, I didn’t see or hear anything around then. Just made my usual rounds—every hour just like always. Mr. Allworthy, that’s the owner of the factory, he left at around half past nine or so. He was the last to go. Miss Nora, she must have left at the regular time with everybody else, six o’clock. I didn’t see anyone else about except for Mr. Allworthy when I made my first rounds at nine.”
“Is he here now?” Freddie glanced around at the faces nearby.
“Was here but got called away. The coppers already talked to him. He didn’t see anything either.” The old man looked down self-consciously at his hands. “She was a nice girl, Miss Nora. Always sweet to everybody. I wish I could’ve done something, that’s all. I just wish I could of...” He hesitated, looking out over the river again.
Freddie, not knowing what to say by way of comfort, merely said, “Thank you”, stood up and dusted himself off to go.
At that moment, his attention was caught by a young woman with a ridiculous amount of red hair piled precariously on the crown of her head and covered by a small waffle of a hat. She was walking straight up to the police and after a brief interchange, they let her through their line to view the body. Freddie was far enough away that he couldn’t hear what transpired, but he witnessed a pantomime of grief and agitation that ended with O’Rourke escorting the young woman across the carriageway and seating her on the loading dock near where Freddie stood.
She pressed a handkerchief to her face and began sobbing violently. “There, there, miss.” O’Rourke patted her shoulder awkwardly. “I know this must be hard for you. I’ll have one of the lads fetch you some water.”
The girl shook her head vehemently, rejecting the offer. “I’ll b... be all r... right,” she quavered. “It’s j... just the shock of seeing her that way.” The image triggered another bout of tears.
“Well, if you need anything...” O’Rourke trailed off lamely and glanced at Freddie for sympathy.
Sensing a potential for some additional information, Freddie sat back down and gallantly offered to keep an eye on the young lady.
“Thanks.” O’Rourke appeared happy to divest himself of his charge. “Her name’s Sophie Simms. She was the drowned girl’s roommate.”
“Oh!” Freddie exclaimed. “Don’t worry. I won’t let her out of my sight.”
O’Rourke turned away with a half-smile. “No, I was fair certain you wouldn’t, Mr. Simpson.”
Freddie shuffled the pages in his notebook. “Is there anything I can get you?”
The only response he got was a shake of the girl’s head. Her face remained buried in an increasingly sodden handkerchief.
Freddie sat in silence as the sobs turned to sniffles and the sniffles subsided by degrees. Finally, with a coquettish glance in his direction, Miss Simms began to dab delicately at the corners of her eyes to indicate the bout of weeping was over.
“I’m very sorry.” Freddie decided to try a new tack. “I understand you shared a room with her? At a boarding house?”
She mouthed the word “yes” in a barely audible, but altogether tragic, whisper.
“You reported her missing to the police?”
The girl nodded, her waffle hat flapping in agreement, infirm on its shifting pillar of hair. She finally spoke. “Yes. It wasn’t like her. She was gone all night. In the morning I panicked. Instead of going to work, I went to the police. And they...” Her lower lip began to tremble, signaling a new eruption of grief. “And they...” She tried and failed again.
“There now, miss.” Freddie patted her hand soothingly. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He secretly prayed she would contradict him.
“No, it’s all right,” she sobbed. “Maybe it will help to talk.” Wiping her eyes, she took a deep breath and began again. “The police said they’d try to find her. They said I should run along. I was already very late for work. I work as a sales girl at Campion’s Department Store, you know.” Her voice carried a tinge of pride at announcing her occupation. Belatedly catching herself, she continued. “Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. So I went to work and about an hour after I got there the floor manager called me aside and told me the police wanted me to come here to...” She wavered. “To...” Her lip was trembling again.