The Edge of Dreams (17 page)

“It’s quite unsuitable for a young girl like you,” Mother Sullivan said firmly. “In my day dinner table conversation centered on socially acceptable subjects like balls, and parties, and…”

“And scandals, Mother,” Daniel said. “Don’t forget I’ve been at enough of your dinner parties to know that the conversation often touched on infidelity and other delicate topics.”

“Really, Daniel.” Mrs. Sullivan sniffed in indignation. Daniel and I exchanged a knowing grin and went back to our food. Later, when we were alone in the privacy of our bedroom, he said to me, “I really want to warn you about getting involved in your friends’ problem. You have no experience with insanity and the forms it can take. I have seen people who appear to be quite normal one moment and raging demons the next. It is out of your league and your friends’ too. And from what I know of young Yeats, you might well find yourself locked in the Tombs for obstructing justice.”

“He’s a horrid man, Daniel. I just hate to see that young girl bullied by him,” I replied. “The very least you could do is to suggest the exhumation. Then Mabel couldn’t be arrested until the results are known. And by then, Gus may have found a qualified alienist, who would be taken seriously in court, to treat her.” I pulled my nightgown over my head and slid into bed.

“Enough about murders and courts,” he said. “I come home to let the cares of the day slip away, not to discuss them into the night.” And he climbed into bed beside me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But you know me. I can’t help being interested.”

“You can’t help wanting to stick your nose into any criminal case.” He laughed. “You are still not prepared to stop being a detective. I know you too well, Molly Murphy.”

“I only want to see justice done,” I said. I smoothed down the covers and turned to look at Daniel. “And speaking of criminal cases,” I went on, “have you started making a list of your own cases—ones that ended with the death penalty and might have made your note writer seek revenge against you?”

“I have started, yes, but frankly I don’t see where it’s going to help. Most of the cases I’ve come up with were clear-cut. A man killed his wife with an ax. Found with blood all over his clothes, even admitted his guilt. That sort of thing.” He sat up in bed, propping a pillow behind his head. “But I’ve been giving some thought to what you said about some of the murders being random, to hide the real one for which the killer had a motive. That might make sense, Molly.”

“It might well,” I agreed. “That first victim, the simple old woman. He could have seen her and decided that she was of no use to society, and therefore her death wouldn’t matter. If he was testing himself, trying out how easy it was to kill someone, then she’d have been a likely target. She was too simple to know she was being followed, and probably not as aware as other people of the approaching streetcar.”

“So you’re saying that he killed her simply to see how easy it is to kill someone?”

I nodded. “And the second murder might have been for the same reason. How easy was it to walk through a crowded student café, and drop cyanide into a coffee cup without anyone noticing?”

“But then your system breaks down,” Daniel said. “The murders after that are no longer opportunistic, or in public places. He had to gain access to private homes. He poisoned. He even entered a bathroom where a woman was taking a bath. Surely her screams must have been heard? And what about the man in the meat safe? Wouldn’t it have taken brute strength to force him in and lock the door? If only one of those killings has a clear motive, then why are the others so unnecessarily complicated? Why flirt with failure like that? Servants could have apprehended him in the judge’s house. The woman’s screams could have been heard when a man entered her bathroom. And he might not have been strong enough to force the butcher into the meat safe.”

I sat up now too and wagged an excited finger at him. “I’ve just heard one word that might make sense of this. Judge. I asked you about your trials that led to execution or death. What if he’s also taking his revenge against a judge? You can narrow down your search, Daniel. Have you ever brought someone to trial who was then sentenced by that particular judge?”

“I believe I have, but it would have been early in my career. He’s almost eighty. He retired from the bench some time ago. Let me think about it.…” He paused, frowning. At the end of our quiet little street, I heard the bells of a fire truck as it left the Jefferson Market fire station. In the city, there was a constant reminder that danger was never far away.

Daniel shook his head as he reached to turn down the gaslight. “I do remember a couple of trials, but neither one resulted in the death penalty. And I also remember that this particular judge was known to be soft. A kind-hearted old man who would avoid sentencing someone to death if he could.”

We both lay back against the pillows.

“We don’t seem to be getting anywhere, do we?” Daniel said. “And there is still the threat of his last note—he still wants to kill one more time.” He turned to me and kissed me gently. “But it’s not your worry, Molly. Go to sleep, and sweet dreams.”

But I didn’t have sweet dreams. Instead I was in that dark, confined space again, lying there unable to move, listening to the drip of water and a strange rumbling. And I knew I had to get out before it was too late.

Fifteen

The next morning I awoke with a headache. Daniel’s mother appeared at my door with a cup of tea.

“Daniel said you had a bad night, moaning in your sleep,” she said. “He told me to tell you to stay home and rest. You could be suffering from delayed concussion after your accident, you know. And shock. One can’t be too careful with these things.”

She insisted I have breakfast in bed. I sat up, eating my boiled egg and looking out of the window at the deserted street. Doing nothing did not come easily to me, especially when there were so many questions to be answered. I was itching to find out whether anyone could have had a motive to kill Mabel’s parents, and how easy it would have been to gain access to their house. But I told myself I could wait until the bodies were exhumed and an autopsy was performed. If it was confirmed that they died as a result of the fire, then there was no more to be done. It could never be proved that Mabel started that fire deliberately and then got out.

I lay back in bed and thought about the dream that had been troubling me. The dark, confined space. The drip of water. The strange rumbling. And the awful feeling of doom. Were they taking me back to that train crash, when I was trapped in the car, or did they mean something more? In the dream, I definitely felt trapped. I knew I had to escape before something terrible happened. In Ireland we’d take such a dream as a warning, a portent of something bad about to happen. At home we believed very strongly in psychic powers and the sixth sense. I’d often thought that I had it myself, until it let me down and didn’t warn me of the worst thing that had happened in my life. But Gus would say that the symbols in my dream represented deep-seated fears from my own life. The fear of being trapped? Of no escape? I shook my head. But I didn’t feel trapped. I loved my life and my husband and child. Was the dream maybe a flashback to a time when I had been trapped somewhere? I tried to go over my many adventures as a detective. Yes, there were times I had been in danger, but they no longer haunted me. I’d have to ask Gus and see what she could tell me.

I lay back and tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come and my head throbbed. So I got up and held a hot washcloth to my temples. I actually felt better when I was up and moving around, so I dressed and went downstairs to find Bridie and Liam rolling a ball to each other down the length of the hallway. “Ba!” Liam said excitedly. “Ba!”

It seems he was learning new words almost every day now, and I beamed at him with pride.

“Yes, it’s a ball, isn’t it? You like playing with Bridie, don’t you?”

“Ba!” Liam said again, impatient for her to roll the ball back to him.

How nice it would be to be a child again, I thought. Not a care in the world except playing, eating, and sleeping. Then I remembered that Mabel was little more than a child, and she carried a terrible burden around with her. I wondered if she would ever be free of it.

Mrs. Sullivan looked up from the kitchen, her hands and apron white with flour. “I thought I’d make a stew and dumplings today. It was always one of Daniel’s favorites.” Then a frown crossed her face. “But what are you doing out of bed? Daniel said you were supposed to rest and do nothing until you recovered from the accident.”

“I feel better when I’m up than when I was lying down,” I said. “Can I help?”

“No, you cannot. You go through to the parlor and put your feet up. All that rushing around and excitement yesterday was clearly too much for you. Fires and murder, indeed. I never let my husband bring his work home with him. If he ever tried to mention a case he was working on, he got a black look from me, and he hushed up again quickly.”

“But I enjoy discussing Daniel’s work with him,” I said. “Remember I was a detective myself once. I might even be able to offer him some insight when he’s dealing with a difficult case.”

“You’ve a young child to think about now,” she said, glancing at Liam chasing the ball. “Do you want him to grow up thinking that the world is full of murders and crimes? He’s a right to think that the world is a safe and lovely place. It’s up to a mother to create that kind of haven for her children.”

She was right, of course. I certainly didn’t want Liam growing up thinking that the world was full of danger. But then he’d been in danger himself already and didn’t seem any the worse for it. Certainly no sign of the sort of bad dreams Mabel was experiencing. But I did take Mrs. Sullivan’s point. From now on, any discussion of Daniel’s cases would be when Liam was safely in bed.

My headache lingered through most of the morning, even after I’d drunk a cup of coffee. I had a suspicion that Sid’s strong Turkish coffee might well do the trick. Normally I could hardly bear to swallow it, and the spoon almost stood upright in the cup, but today I needed it. However Mother Sullivan was so adamant that I lie and rest that I didn’t want to risk creating a scene and incurring Daniel’s wrath when he came home. I suppose I must have become meeker since my marriage.

I didn’t feel like reading, and I never felt like sewing. I couldn’t even concentrate on the list of things I needed to buy for the house, as Mabel’s and Daniel’s cases kept flashing through my mind. I was dying to get out and do something. I wondered if anyone had spoken to the firemen who were called on the night Mabel’s parents died. Might they have seen anything strange? Since Mabel’s parents’ house had only been on Eleventh Street, and thus within easy walking distance of my home, the fire engine would probably have come from the Jefferson Market fire station, at the bottom of Patchin Place. And nobody could object to my stretching my legs that far.

I had just moved on to Daniel’s case and was going through the list of victims again, trying to find anything they had in common, when to my delight, I heard a door slamming across the street and saw Sid and Gus heading in my direction. My mother-in-law responded to the knock on the front door and I heard her say, “No visitors today, I’m afraid. She overdid things yesterday and isn’t feeling at all well.”

That was too much for me. I got up from the sofa and went to the door. “That doesn’t include my friends, Mother Sullivan. What I need now is cheering up, and I’m sure they can do just that. Do we have any coffee left in the pot?”

She shot me an angry look, but she let Sid and Gus come in and stalked off to the kitchen.

“Not what you’d call a warm welcome,” Sid said in a low voice. “Is she really banning all visitors, or is it just we who are persona non grata? I have the feeling she disapproves of us.”

“She was just doing what she thought was best for me,” I said, just in case she was listening. “I really didn’t feel well this morning. I also had a horrible dream last night. Maybe Gus can interpret it for me. I’ve actually had it a couple of times before.”

“When did you start having it?” Gus asked.

“After the accident. When I was lying in the hospital.”

“So it’s not a long-term problem you’ve been dealing with.”

“No.” I took a deep breath, making myself recall the details of the dream. “I’m lying in a dark, confined space, and I can hear water dripping and there is a horrible rumbling all around me, and I know I have to get out before it’s too late.”

Gus looked at me and smiled. “I don’t think that one is too hard to interpret, Molly. You were in a train crash. Didn’t you say you passed out and when you came to your senses there were people lying on top of you? And I’m sure the rumbling was the motor of the train still running nearby. You’re just reliving a moment of great terror, the way Mabel is.”

“I suppose so,” I said, “although in my dream it feels as if I’m underground, and I can’t breathe properly.”

“You were buried under bodies in the train, so your brain is playing with the notion of being buried,” Gus said. “Now, what I want you to do, the next time you dream it, is to take control of it. Visualize a square of light in one corner and say to yourself, ‘Why, there is a way out after all.’”

“One can really do that in a dream?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. And it’s very effective. If you wake up after the nightmare, you make yourself go back to sleep, fall back into the dream, only this time you make it have a positive outcome. You face the monster. You stop the horse from running away with you. I’m told it really does work.”

“I’ll try,” I said. “And of course it would make sense that I’m dreaming about my terror in the train crash.”

“And you know you have to get out in a hurry because the car is hanging over the edge and might fall,” Sid said.

“You’re right.” I beamed at both of them. “I feel so much better now.”

We looked up as Mrs. Sullivan came in carrying a tray with coffee cups and cookies.

“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Sullivan,” Gus said. “But you should have called us. There was no need for you to carry it through yourself.”