These Shallow Graves

by Jennifer Donnelly

  There would be no help from anyone here. Her uncle had told them all she was insane and had likely signed papers attesting to that. They wouldn’t listen to anything she had to say. Her only hope was to get to Eddie. He and Oscar would back up her story.

  “To do that, though, you have to get up, get out of this basement, and get through the gates,” she told herself.

  But how? her mind countered. They’re locked, and the watchman has the key. Flynn had to sneak you in last—

  “Flynn! That’s it!” she whispered.

  The gravedigger lived on the grounds. He might agree to smuggle her out if she offered him enough money. All she had to do was find his cottage.

  If he could get her through the gates, she could work her way south to Reade Street and Eddie’s boardinghouse. She stood, heartened by her plan, and fumbled her way across the basement until she found some stairs. She had no idea what lay above her.

  “Fac quod faciendum est,” she said to the darkness.

  And started to climb.

  Jo stood at the top of the basement stairs, her hand on the knob, for nearly a minute before she worked up the courage to turn it.

  She opened the door slowly, trying to be as quiet as possible. The hinges whined, but only a little. Stepping through the doorway, she saw that she was in a large kitchen. A range loomed to her right. Pots hung overhead. Two sinks. A wooden icebox.

  And a guard.

  He was sitting with his back to her. His head, cushioned by his arms, was resting on the large wooden table in front of him. His jacket was on the back of his chair. A brass key ring hung from his belt. He was snoring loudly.

  Looking all around, Jo saw that the kitchen had a row of windows on the right and an open doorway on the left. She tiptoed through the doorway and found herself in a long, narrow hallway that ran from the back of the building to the front. Directly across that hallway was another, shorter one that terminated in a dead end. It had a single door on its right side.

  She walked to that door now, hoping it might be an exit, and saw a sign bolted to it. danger: authorized access only, it read. And below that, male ward for the criminally insane. A warning followed advising personnel to enter in pairs, tuck in loose clothing, and refrain from confrontational behavior.

  Thwarted, Jo turned back. She started down the long hallway, walking quietly past the kitchen, where the guard was still snoring peacefully. There were no doors on the left wall of the hallway. On the right, she saw one with a sign that said day room and another with a sign that said supplies, both of which were locked. At the top of the hallway was the front door. To its left was another short hallway, mirroring the one across from the kitchen. It was a second door to the men’s ward.

  Jo tried the knob to the front door. It was locked. She needed the key to get out. And she knew who had it.

  Flattery, Flirtation, Finesse, Fay had said. Those were what was needed to pick a pocket, or lift a ring of keys.

  I can do without the first two, Jo thought, hurrying back to the kitchen, but I’ll need plenty of finesse. Slowly, she walked up behind the guard. Halfway there, a board creaked under her foot and she froze. The guard snorted but didn’t wake. She waited for two whole minutes, timing herself by a clock on the wall, then continued walking until she reached him. Crouching by his side, she examined his key ring. Five long brass skeleton keys hung from it. With painstaking care, she threaded the fingers of her left hand through the keys to make sure they didn’t clink.

  Next, she unbuckled the thin leather strap that connected the ring to the guard’s belt. Carefully, one hand grasping the brass loop, the other still cushioning the keys, she pulled the key ring free. Now all she had to do was get back down the hallway to the front door. She made her way out of the kitchen and had just stepped into the long hallway when she heard it—a pounding, loud and insistent.

  “Open up! Open up in there!” Mallon shouted. His face appeared in the window of the front door. Jo gasped and flattened herself against the wall. There was a light on by the door, but it was dark at this end of the hall. Mallon hadn’t seen her.

  “What the hell?” said the guard groggily. Jo heard his chair scrape across the kitchen floor. “Who is it?” he bellowed, stumbling across the room.

  In two seconds, they’d be face to face. Jo shot into the short hallway that led to the men’s ward. She ran past the door to the end of the hallway and squeezed herself into a dark corner. An instant later, the guard rushed out of the kitchen and down the main hallway, buttoning his jacket. He hadn’t seen her.

  “Let me in! It’s an emergency!” Mallon shouted.

  “Keep your hair on, will ya? I’m coming!” the guard yelled back. And then, in a panicked voice, he said, “Where are my keys? I haven’t got my keys! Wait there, I’ll get the master! Wait right there!”

  He raced back to the kitchen. Jo heard him swearing and fumbling and then he was running back to the front door. Mallon would soon be in the building. Was her uncle with him?

  I’m trapped, she thought frantically. They’ll search this place and find me cowering here. There’s nowhere to run.

  And then her fear-filled eyes fell on the door to the men’s ward. There was that second door, covered in warnings like this one, at the front end of the building. The ward ran parallel to the hallway. If she could walk through it while Mallon was coming down the hallway, she might be able to get to the front door. While he was searching the building, she’d be on her way to Flynn’s cottage.

  Jo jammed one of the skeleton keys into the lock of the men’s ward and turned it. Nothing happened. She tried another. And another. And then, just as she heard Mallon enter the building, the fourth key worked. She wrenched the ward door open, stepped inside, and locked it behind her, hoping that her pursuers’ footsteps and voices had covered up her noise.

  She took a deep breath to steel herself—and immediately regretted it. The stench of urine and dirty bodies hit her hard. Sighs and moans filled her ears.

  Clutching the key ring tightly, she took a small step forward. The door to the men’s ward had a small window of thick glass. It let in a little light, enough that she could make out a walkway about five feet wide with barred cells at either side of it. Ahead of her, she could see dim light coming in the window of the opposite door.

  All she had to do was get to it.

  “I want to touch you.”

  “I want to kiss you.”

  “I want to kill you.”

  Do you? Well, you’ll just have to get in line, sir, Jo thought.

  She moved slowly down the walkway, doing her best not to veer from the center. Hands were thrust toward her; fingers clawed at the air. She kept her eyes on the square of light ahead of her and tried not to look at any of the faces pressed to the bars—some furious, some anguished, others hateful. She tried not to see the bodies clothed in nightshirts, straitjackets, or nothing at all. Or hear the voices whispering, wheedling, and hissing.

  Heel to toe she walked, one foot in front of the other. The square of light came closer with every step. She was almost at the door when it happened.

  One of the patients hurled something at her—something warm and sticky. It hit her arm. Recoiling, she lost her balance, stumbled, and fell. Suddenly there were hands all over her, tugging at her skirt, clutching at her feet and legs. The whispers and growls became shouts.

  Jo had to force herself not scream. Someone got hold of her coat and started to pull her toward the bars of his cell.

  The keys! Her mind shrieked. Don’t let them get the keys!

  She tossed the ring away, aiming for the center of the path, but it landed well past it. More hands shot from between the bars, straining toward the splayed keys.

  Jo’s arms were still free. She grabbed the front of her coat and ripped it open. The man tugging on it pulled it off her. She kicked her feet hard, connecting with some
one’s head. He fell back, howling. She was able to rip her skirt out of someone else’s hands, crawl back to the middle of the walkway, and snatch the keys.

  Shaking with fear, she scrambled to the door and started jamming keys into the lock. The second one worked. As she pulled the door open, the door at the other end of the ward opened, too.

  “Quiet down in there!” the guard bellowed. “What are you— Hey!” His eyes widened as he spotted Jo. “Hey, you! Stop!”

  Jo shot through the doorway. She ran for the front door and yanked on the knob. It opened and she nearly cried with relief. The guard must’ve forgotten to lock it after he’d let Mallon in. Slamming it shut, she fumbled a key into its lock, and luckily, her first try worked. Just as the tumblers turned, she felt a hard thump against the door. She looked up and saw Mallon’s blood-streaked face in its window. He threw himself against the door again, then shouted for the guard.

  Jo yanked the key out of the door, stumbled down the stairs, and ran for Flynn’s cottage. She was getting out of this place. She wasn’t going to die. Not here. Not tonight.

  She didn’t see her uncle step out from behind the huge old oak tree in front of her until it was too late.

  The blow knocked Jo to the ground.

  She tried to get up but couldn’t. Phillip hauled her to feet and began to drag her through a carpet of wet, rotting leaves to the main building. She fought as hard as she could. She kicked, clawed, and slapped. She screamed the word murderer over and over until he backhanded her across the face so hard that she sank to the ground once again, blood dripping from her lip.

  He stood over her, breathing heavily. “You stupid little fool!” he spat, his eyes dark with fury. “Why did you have to meddle? You had everything! You had Bram Aldrich and a life of ease ahead of you. I saw to it myself. But that wasn’t good enough for you, was it? You threw it away!”

  Jo, her head bent, started to weep. She would never get to the gates. Would never see her home or her mother again. She would never see Eddie.

  “Mallon!” Phillip bellowed. “Over here!”

  Footsteps crashed through the brush.

  “Get her up,” Phillip ordered.

  “Why? I say we kill her right here, right now. Bitch broke my nose!” Mallon hissed. He was carrying a good-sized rock in his hand.

  “No, too many people are hunting for her. They might see us. We have to go back to the original plan.”

  “To hell with the plan,” Mallon growled.

  Jo heard a sickening sound then—a small, metallic click. She recognized it, having shot guns with her father. She closed her eyes, weeping with fear. She prayed that Mallon had good aim, grateful that at least it would be a bullet—quick and clean, not a rock.

  The shot, when it came, was deafening. Jo smelled gunpowder. She felt blood on her cheek, warm and wet. She waited for the pain and the darkness, for the voices around her to fade.

  But they didn’t.

  Instead, a new voice spoke up, loud and clear. “Move an inch, Montfort, and I’ll blow your head off as well as your kneecap.”

  “Fay?” Jo whispered, unable to believe her eyes.

  “Get her!” Phillip roared, holding his gushing kneecap.

  Mallon advanced.

  “Sit down, you ugly bastard,” Fay said.

  When he didn’t, she raised her little silver revolver and shot him in the knee, too. He dropped to the ground, screaming in pain. He looked at the ugly hole in his leg, and the dark blood pulsing out of it, and passed out.

  “Get up, Jo,” Fay said.

  Jo rose and staggered to her friend, wiping Phillip’s blood off her face as she did.

  “How did you get here?” she asked, her voice shaking as badly as the rest of her.

  “Mad Mary,” Fay replied, her eyes on the two men. “Tumbler saw her running up Fourteenth Street like someone had set her on fire. She was crying and carrying on and yelling my name. I was working Union Square, like I do at night. He brought her to me. I got her to calm down and she told me a man had taken you away. She heard him say Darkbriar, told me it was a wicked place and begged me to help you. She knew we were friends; she’d seen us together at the Brooklyn Bridge. I got in a cab and got over here. Mary’s still in the cab. She won’t come out. What the hell is going on?”

  “My uncle’s trying to kill me,” Jo said. “He’s the murderer, not Kinch. Eddie, Oscar, and I … we found out that Kinch was Stephen Smith. My uncle tried to have him killed in the Seychelles, but Smith survived, so my uncle had Mallon kill him here at Darkbriar. I never saw the connection. I stupidly told him everything I’d found out, and he used it to convince my mother I’m insane.”

  “I’ll be damned. Your uncle?” Fay said. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Jo said.

  Fay’s face hardened. Without any warning, she shot at Montfort again. The bullet buried itself in the ground an inch away from his good knee.

  “Talk, Montfort, you son of a bitch,” Fay demanded. “Or next time I won’t miss.”

  Phillip Montfort glared at her hatefully. “I’ve nothing to say to you. Go ahead. Kill me. They’ll hang you within a week.”

  “Oh, I’ll kill you, all right,” said Fay. “But they won’t hang me. I’ll be long gone by the time the cops get here. I’ll leave this place and melt back into the shadows, like I always do. But one night, I’ll come out of the shadows and I’ll burn your house down. With your family in it. My friend Tumbler will get me in. Ashcan will set the fire. In fact, he’ll set two. One at the bottom of your front stairs, one at your back stairs. No one will be able to get out. I’ll take them all—your wife, your son, and your daughter—unless you talk. Now.”

  Jo thought Fay was bluffing, but her uncle must’ve thought she meant every word she said.

  For he closed his eyes as if gathering his strength, then opened them again and began to talk.

  “It started in 1871,” Phillip said, taking off his belt. He looped it above his knee and pulled it tight. “Van Houten was in trouble. We took on a new partner, Stephen Smith. The money he paid to buy in propped us up for a bit, but it wasn’t enough. So we made a plan, and bought a ship to carry it out.”

  “The Nausett,” Jo said.

  “Yes,” said Phillip, grimacing in pain.

  “But it sank off the coast of Portugal.”

  “No, it didn’t. We paid the captain and crew to say it did so we could collect insurance money on it. We changed the ship’s name to the Bonaventure. We had papers forged identifying her as a Portuguese vessel.”

  “We?”

  “The Van Houten partners.”

  Jo was afraid to ask her next question. She dreaded the answer.

  “All of the partners?”

  Phillip smiled baitingly. “Are you asking if your father was involved? He was. Everyone was except Stephen Smith. He was too new. We didn’t know if we could trust him. We kept the whole thing—the ship, its cargo—a secret from him.”

  “What cargo?” Jo asked.

  Phillip didn’t answer her.

  “Speed it up, Montfort. We don’t have all night,” Fay growled, her eyes, and her revolver, trained on him.

  “Smith meddled. He discovered what we were doing and tried to make us stop. He found some documents and threatened to make them public if we didn’t.”

  “The manifests. The ones he sent to Eleanor Owens,” Jo said.

  “Yes,” Phillip said. “They contained accounts of the ship’s cargo. There were also contracts made with its captain, signed by me. Records of payments made to its crew. And a passbook for a bank in Durban made out in my name into which we funneled the profits. I took the cash there myself once a month. The bank’s president was the type who didn’t ask many questions. Van Houten would have been ruined if these documents came to light. I couldn’t let that happen, so I did what needed to be d
one. As Montforts always have.”

  “You abandoned Stephen Smith in the Amirantes,” said Jo. “Or had someone else do it. That story about a ship going down in a storm—that was a lie, too, wasn’t it?”

  Phillip nodded. “I told Stephen we would stop sailing the Bonaventure and find new avenues of income. I persuaded him to scout out the Amirantes to see if we could start our own spice plantations there. He went in a small ship, the Gull. Smith didn’t know it, but the Bonaventure preceded him. It waited off the coast of one of the islands, and when it spotted the Gull, it approached her. The crew of the Gull scuppered their vessel and left Smith on board.”

  “To drown?” Jo said, shocked.

  “Yes. The Bonaventure carried the Gull’s crew to the port of Cochin, in India. There were only four of them, and they were paid well to disappear.”

  “You tried to take an innocent man’s life!” Jo said, her hands clenched into fists. “How could you do it?”

  “Because no one else had the guts to. Fac quod faciendum est,” he said bitterly.

  “Did my father know the truth about Smith?”

  “I think he suspected. He never challenged me, though. It was easier that way. If he had asked me, he would’ve had to live with the knowledge that his own brother was a murderer. The Bonaventure sailed for two more years, until a fire took her.” Phillip paused; he smiled darkly. “I have to hand it to Stephen, he kept his word.”

  “What do you mean?” Jo asked.

  “The Bonaventure’s captain told me that Smith stood on the deck of the Gull as it sank and watched them sail away. There was a moment when the wind died down and they heard him screaming. He said he would come for us one day. For all of us. And he did.”

  “But why?” Jo asked brokenly. “Why did you kill him?”