These Shallow Graves

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “Jo,” he said, his voice low.

  Her heart was pounding so hard, she thought it would burst. She closed her eyes. Wanting him to kiss her. To touch her. Feeling as though she would die if he didn’t.

  “Jo, I think I …”

  “Yes, Eddie?” she whispered.

  “… hear something.”

  And then the door was wrenched open and she was hurtling backward. She hit the floor with a painful thud. Eddie fell on top of her, breaking his fall with his hands to avoid crushing her.

  “Hidin’ out in a closet, eh?” an angry voice said. “I knowed you’d try to gyp me, you sneaky bastard. Gimme me my dollar right now. Or I’ll set the Tailor on you.”

  Jo and Eddie looked up.

  It was Tumbler.

  “Everything all right?” a willowy blond girl asked. She was the girl who’d been standing outside the bar with Tumbler. Now she was standing outside Van Houten’s.

  Nothing was all right. Jo’s backside hurt from the fall she’d taken. Her feet ached from standing in the bucket. She was flustered by what had happened in the closet, and what hadn’t.

  “I found ’em, Fay,” Tumbler said as he relocked Van Houten’s door. “They was hiding in a closet.”

  “We weren’t hiding,” Jo clarified. “We got locked in.”

  “Where’s his money?” Fay asked. Her dress, made of sprigged cotton, was faded and worn. Her face was fine-featured and pretty.

  Jo pulled a dollar note from her skirt pocket and handed it to her. Fay’s eyes, hard and predatory, lingered on Jo’s pocket.

  “Don’t do it,” Eddie cautioned.

  Fay gave him a dirty look. She was about to say something when a piercing whistle sounded from up the street. Her expression changed. For a second, she looked like the hunted instead of the hunter.

  “Come on, boy. He wants us,” she said to Tumbler.

  Jo heard the lock’s bolt shoot home. Tumbler pocketed his tools; then he and Fay hurried off into the night.

  “Who’s that girl?” Jo asked, staring after them.

  “One of the best pickpockets in the city. She works for the Tailor. Tumbler does, too. You shouldn’t keep your money in your pocket, by the way. Put it down your … your …” He pointed to his chest, reddening slightly. “To keep it safe.”

  Jo was not about to unbutton her jacket in front of him. She tucked her money into her boot. “Who’s the Tailor?” she asked, straightening again.

  “New York’s very own Fagin,” Eddie replied. “He takes in orphans and teaches them how to thieve. He’s called the Tailor because he makes clothing for his army of little pickpockets so they blend in with their victims. Some of it’s really sharp.”

  “But Fay’s dress wasn’t sharp, it was shabby,” Jo said.

  “She dresses for the neighborhood she’s working. First rule of picking pockets: don’t stick out.”

  Two beggar women were walking toward them. One was agitated and the other was trying to calm her. Jo recognized the woman who was upset; it was Mad Mary, the ragpicker. She was whimpering about some fearsome ghost come back from the dead to haunt her.

  “Here, Mary, take a slug of this,” the other woman said, handing her a bottle. “It kills ghosts dead.”

  Jo’s eyes lingered on them. It was a chilly night, and neither was dressed for it. They were both so thin. Impulsively, she went to them and gave them each a dollar. Mary, still upset, asked her if she’d seen the ghost.

  “I haven’t, Mary. I’m sorry,” she said.

  The other woman offered Jo a slug from her bottle if she’d give her another dollar. Eddie stepped in then, took Jo’s elbow and steered her up South Street. Mary said a forlorn goodbye as they left.

  “That was a lucky break we caught,” he said, nodding back at Van Houten’s. “Did you see Kinch’s face?”

  Jo nodded.

  “Any idea who he is?”

  “No,” Jo replied. “Mr. Scully knew him, though, but by another name. ‘A new face, a new name,’ he said. And then Kinch said, ‘I could hardly go by my old one.’ ” She paused, then said, “Do you think Kinch did it? According to my father’s agenda, he saw Kinch the night before he died.” A shiver ran through her at the thought of being in the same room with her father’s murderer.

  “No, I don’t. It doesn’t make sense,” Eddie replied. “Your father had plans to see Kinch again. On September seventeenth and tonight. He had a thousand dollars in his agenda. It was for Kinch. Kinch said as much to Scully. Why would Kinch kill a man who was going to give him a thousand dollars? Maybe more?”

  “You’re right,” Jo said. She was half relieved and half disappointed. The mystery of her father’s death only ever seemed to deepen.

  “We need to find out who Kinch is, though, and what the partners of Van Houten did to him,” Eddie said as they skirted a drunk passed out on the sidewalk and continued uptown.

  “I have difficulty believing anyone at Van Houten did anything to him,” Jo said. “They are all upstanding men.”

  Eddie rolled his eyes.

  “What was that for?” Jo asked indignantly.

  “You better get used to the idea that maybe someone at Van Houten isn’t so upstanding.”

  “Why?” Jo countered. “Because a strange, shadowy man shows up and says so?”

  “Because Scully would never hand over a thousand dollars of the firm’s money unless he absolutely had to. No one would. Kinch has dirt on Van Houten. Scully knows it. Sounds like your father did, too.”

  Eddie’s reasoning made sense to Jo, but it was hard to accept. She’d known the partners her entire life. They’d come to her home for dinners and parties; she’d gone to theirs. And now, according to Kinch, they’d done something very wrong.

  “If the firm did do something to Kinch—and I still don’t entirely believe they did—I’m certain my father was trying to put it right,” she said. “Scully said so. ‘Charles made promises he shouldn’t have.’ It’s just the sort of thing he would have done—promise to help.”

  Eddie gave her a doubtful look and pressed his point. “Kinch talked about manifests and something called the Bonaventure. A ship, maybe? He also said, ‘He promised to help me find her.’ A ship is referred to as she and her. If the Bonaventure is a ship, could Van Houten have taken it from him somehow? Did your father or uncle ever mention it?” he asked.

  “Not to me.”

  “Maybe they had some sort of business deal and it went sour. Maybe the Bonaventure was a ship and Van Houten sold it to Kinch and it was no good. Or maybe the ship belonged to him and they did him out of it somehow. Maybe—”

  Jo groaned with frustration. “Maybe we should try to come up with some facts. Because all of our theories are just that—theories,” she said impatiently. “If we want answers, we have to find Kinch.”

  “No, I have to find him,” Eddie said. “You will not, under any circumstances, attempt to find him. It’s too dangerous. I’ll ask the Tailor about him. He knows every shady character in the city. After I ask Bill Hawkins and Jackie Shaw about the Bonaventure.”

  “And what do I do? Twiddle my thumbs?” Jo asked.

  Eddie thought for a bit, then said, “We still don’t know who Eleanor Owens is. Her name was in your father’s agenda, too. Maybe you could track her down.”

  “Where do I start?” Jo asked, thrilled by the idea.

  “At the Bureau of Vital Records. If she was born in the city, her birth records will be there. You might be able to find an address and—”

  “Eddie!” Jo said excitedly, stopping dead on the sidewalk. “I just thought of something! Could Eleanor Owens be Kinch’s her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe when Kinch said, ‘He promised to help me find her,’ he was talking about Eleanor Owens!”

  “I hadn’t thought of th
at. Nice work,” Eddie said admiringly.

  Jo flushed with pleasure at his praise. They’d made progress tonight. She wanted to make even more. “Let’s go to Walsh’s to see if Jackie Shaw is there,” she said. “We still need to find out what the Bonaventure is. If it is a ship, maybe he knows about it.”

  “Uh-uh. The only thing we’re going to find tonight is a cab so I can get you home,” Eddie said, looking around for one. “You can’t come down here again, Jo. I’m dead serious. This is no place—”

  His words were cut off when a door opened two houses up from them. Light, laughter, and perfume spilled out of it. A few seconds later, two young men spilled out of it as well, and stumbled into the street. Women crowded into the doorway, at least a half dozen of them, giggling and waving. They were wearing nothing but thin silk chemises, stockings, and garters. Their hair was loose; their lips were rouged. One was drinking champagne out of the bottle. She looked no older than Jo.

  “What is this place?” Jo asked, appalled.

  “That’s … um, well … that’s Della’s,” Eddie said, flustered. “It’s her house. One of them.”

  “Bye-bye, Georgie!” one of the women cooed.

  “Come back soon, Teddy!” another called.

  Jo looked at the men and gasped.

  “What’s wrong?” Eddie asked.

  “That’s George Adams and Teddy Farnham,” she said in a choked voice. “I know them!”

  George and Teddy were walking backward down the street, blowing kisses to the girls. It was too late to make a dash for it. They were only a few feet away. Any second now, they’d turn around and see her.

  Eddie grabbed Jo’s hand. He pulled her into the shadows of the neighboring stoop and spun her around so that her back was toward the two young men. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her. It was not the soft graze of lips she’d longed for inside the broom closet, but a hard, hungry smash of a kiss that took her breath away.

  “Hey, fella, get a room!” George bellowed as he passed by.

  Teddy hooted, and the two of them staggered off singing. As soon as they were gone, Eddie released her.

  Jo stumbled backward. She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to catch her breath. “How dare you!” she sputtered, blushing furiously. “How could you?”

  “Hey, you’re welcome,” Eddie said.

  “What?”

  “I just saved your backside. I think a thank-you’s in order,” he said.

  Jo advanced on him, intending to give him what for, but his slow, teasing smile and his eyes, so deeply blue, stopped her cold.

  She grabbed his lapels, pulled him to her, and kissed him back.

  “Bram knows.”

  Jo’s breath caught. She dropped the teaspoon she was holding. It clattered to the floor.

  “He … he does?” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  “Of course he does,” Addie Aldrich said, picking up the teaspoon.

  “But how? Who told him?” Jo asked, panic-stricken.

  “No one, silly. It’s written all over your face. Bram knows how upset you are at having to miss the Young Patrons’ Ball. We all do. Just look at you. You look so unhappy.”

  Jo laughed, weak with relief. “Oh, Addie, you know me too well. I can’t hide anything from you,” she said.

  For a few heart-stopping seconds, she had been terrified that Addie meant Bram knew about Eddie. All she’d thought about for four days straight was Eddie and the kisses they’d shared at the waterfront. She remembered the thrilling feeling of his arms around her and the taste of his lips—and the terror she felt right afterward.

  “I … I shouldn’t have done that,” she’d said, breaking away from him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes! Aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you should be, Mr. Gallagher.”

  “It’s Eddie, remember? And why should I be?”

  “Because I … Because you … Because—”

  Eddie had pulled her back to him and kissed her again. Slowly and deeply.

  “Still sorry?” he’d asked, his voice husky.

  “Yes,” Jo had said.

  He had kissed her cheek, and then all along the delicate line of her jaw.

  “Still?”

  “Yes.”

  He’d kissed her neck and the soft hollow just below it.

  “Oh, Eddie, no. Not a bit.”

  She hadn’t wanted to find a cab. She hadn’t wanted to be parted from him. So they had walked to Gramercy Square hand in hand. They hadn’t said a word until they’d reached the square and then Jo had spoken first.

  “Eddie, I have—”

  “Bram Aldrich. I know. Will Livingston and Henry Jay are sweet on you, too. I read the social pages.”

  “And I can’t—”

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “Then what—”

  “I don’t know, Jo. I don’t know.”

  He’d taken her face in his hands then and kissed her again, and his body was so warm, and his lips so sweet, and the beat of his heart under her hand so strong, that the questions hadn’t mattered. He’d let her go and then waited outside in the street until she’d snuck into her house and up to her room, and had lit a candle and held it in the window so he’d know she was safely inside.

  As she’d undressed for bed, she’d glimpsed herself in her mirror and seen a girl both familiar and unfamiliar staring back. This girl looked rumpled and flushed from her adventures. Inquisitive. Determined. Jo had known she wasn’t that girl, not yet, but she wanted to be. And Eddie had showed her that she could be. She was so different when she was with him. Bolder. Better. Alive.

  She had lain in her bed, staring up at the ceiling, for more than an hour, trying to name what she was feeling. Bram had never made her feel the way Eddie did—desperate for his touch, his kisses. Was this how Trudy’s apple boy had made her feel? No, it couldn’t be, because she’d discarded him faster than last season’s hat when Gilbert proposed.

  And then, right before she fell asleep, Jo had realized what the feeling was. “I think I’m falling in love with him,” she’d whispered to the darkness.

  It was Sunday afternoon now, and Jo and her mother were receiving some close friends and family members. Jo was sitting with her cousin Caroline and a few other girls. More visitors were standing by the mantel or milling about the room. Most everyone was chatting about the ball, which was to be held two weeks from yesterday.

  Jo smiled and tried her best to be a good hostess, but she didn’t want to be there. She wanted to be with Eddie, walking the streets of the city, meeting Bill Hawkins and Fay and Tumbler, hiding out in a broom closet. She felt like a fairy-tale princess woken by a kiss to a new world, new people, new emotions. Leave your sleep, this new world said. But how? Heads would turn if she so much as left the room.

  “It’s these mourning ensembles that make you look so miserable, Jo,” Caroline said now. “Black makes any girl look like a sour old maid.”

  Jo was dressed as etiquette dictated—in a black day dress, simple and dull. Katie had styled her hair in a plain knot. A jet brooch was fastened at her throat.

  “Elizabeth Adams ordered a gown from Paris especially for the ball. Edie Waring saw it and says it’s spectacular,” Jennie Rhinelander gushed.

  Jo had been looking forward to the Young Patrons’ Ball before she’d lost her father—and found Eddie. Now she wanted no part of it.

  “I don’t care what Elizabeth’s doing. I think any girl who doesn’t put her Paris dresses away for at least a year is vulgar,” Addie sniffed.

  “You know she’s wearing it for one reason only—to turn Bram’s head,” Jennie said. “She’s after him. She wants him to escort her to the ball. Anyone with eyes can see it.”

  “Jennie, dear, yo
u have a talent for saying the most inappropriate things,” Caroline scolded.

  “It’s not inappropriate, it’s true!” Jennie protested.

  “You are such a child. The truth is usually inappropriate,” Caroline said. “That’s why we avoid speaking of it.”

  “Elizabeth’s wasting her time. Bram’s sweet on someone else,” Addie said, squeezing Jo’s hand. “And do you really think Grandmama would allow her grandson to take up with an Adams? Elizabeth’s father made his money from shoe polish, for goodness’ sake. She’s only invited to the ball because the organizers had no choice—her father donated ten thousand dollars to the museum.”

  “It’s such a shame you can’t go, Jo,” said Jennie. “Isn’t there some way?”

  “Aunt Anna would never allow it,” Caroline said. “Not so soon after Uncle Charles’s death.”

  “Oh, we’ll see about that,” Addie retorted smugly.

  “What do you mean?” asked Caroline.

  “Anna Montfort follows the rules, but Grandmama makes them. And when it suits her, she breaks them,” Addie said. “She’s here and she means to have a word with Mrs. Montfort about the ball.”

  With a sense of dread, Jo remembered the conversation between Grandmama and Mrs. Aldrich that she and Trudy had eavesdropped on. Grandmama, it appeared, meant what she’d said.

  No! Jo thought, alarmed. She mustn’t speak with Mama. I don’t want to encourage Bram.

  Jo looked for her mother, trying not to show the sense of urgency she felt. If she could sit down next to her before Grandmama did, perhaps she could thwart any talk of balls. Finally, Jo spotted her. She was sitting with Phillip and Madeleine in a corner of the room Jo called the jungle because it was dominated by four giant palm trees in pots. There was an empty chair next to her.

  “Oh, dear. Uncle Phillip hasn’t been offered any lemon wafers and he’s so partial to them. Where is that maid? I’ll have to bring him some myself. Do excuse me,” Jo said to her friends.

  She hurried to the sideboard, where the refreshments had been set out. As she did, she spotted Grandmama by the piano—only a few feet away from her mother. Jo would have to move fast. She quickly arranged some cookies on a plate and was just about to take them to her uncle when Bram stopped her.