The Conductors

by Nicole Glover

  “His wife is the one selling dodgy brewed magic.” Benjy hooked a thumb along one of his suspenders, as he nodded along. “So there’s a good chance they’re both liars and you can trust nothing they said.”

  “Although the broken pump is just one reason for murder. The building is in poor shape, worse than it has been in the past. Or maybe I never noticed. I can’t believe Charlie let the place get into such a state. It makes me want to take the money they’re collecting for Marianne and give it to those poor tenants.”

  “What did you tell Marianne?”

  “Not a word about the sigil. I should have, perhaps.” Hetty frowned. “She thinks he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Charlie left early from a dinner party last night.”

  “Why?”

  “Marianne didn’t put it to words, but I suspect they argued.”

  “Were they having trouble?”

  “Marianne would never admit it, even if Charlie was having an affair. Especially to me. She likes the façade she put together far too much.”

  Benjy’s face twisted and Hetty forgot her petty annoyances with Marianne as she recognized his expression.

  “You believe Marianne might have something to do with his death?” Hetty asked.

  “Do you?” he countered. “You neglected to mention her reaction to the news.”

  “She was devastated,” Hetty replied, sharper than her words merited. “I didn’t think such an obvious fact needed to be mentioned. She all but sobbed on my shoulder. I don’t think she’s involved.”

  “I need a better reason than that to discount her,” Benjy said. “Not,” he added hastily, “that I don’t trust your judgment. But in this particular case I think it’s clouded.”

  Hetty stood up from the table, bristling at each offending word. “How kind of you to say that.”

  She started to cross the room only to be stopped by a gentle tug on her arm.

  “Hetty, I didn’t mean—”

  “What did you mean?”

  At the snap of her words, Benjy let go but didn’t retreat. He stood there and replied in a measured tone, “You tend to discount people for very odd reasons.”

  “Odd reasons,” Hetty echoed, stepping forward as her anger raised the volume of her voice. “I believe Marianne couldn’t have killed Charlie. She loved him. How is that odd? The oddness is the circumstance! Marianne loved Charlie. If she killed him, it would have been a passionate move done in a moment of distress. She would not take the time to carve symbols into his chest and then deposit the body in an alley. Nor would she take care to dress him in a drunk’s clothes. Marianne would have stabbed him in the neck or the chest and probably been too startled to think about what to do about the bleeding body on her floor.”

  “What about magic?” Benjy prompted.

  “That requires thinking.” Hetty curled her left hand into a fist, raising it high. “Especially when Marianne can’t work even the simplest spells quickly! A knife, on the other hand, doesn’t require thinking to make its mark!” She made to swing her hand down, but Benjy caught her wrist.

  They stood there, locked in this oddly intimate pose. There was no knife in her hand, or murderous intent in her heart. But in the moment he touched her wrist, she remembered the knife he had once given her.

  It fit her left hand perfectly, and instead of a tool it was an extension of herself.

  He had given it to her knowing she didn’t trust him. When his words of assistance in helping find her sister were met with suspicion. Back when his touch on her arm got the knife’s tip pressed to his throat.

  At some point it all changed. But he never took the knife from her, even when it almost cost him an eye.

  “I think you proved your point.” Benjy released her wrist. “Though you forget he was stabbed in the back first. It must have been two knives.”

  Although he faced her as he spoke, his words weren’t meant for her. Benjy’s gaze had gone beyond her to study their map, his mind whirling as if powered by clockwork pieces.

  Benjy was smart in a way Hetty did not have words for. It was something greater than the books he read, or his ability to craft something out of metal. It was in how he saw the world, not just for what was there but what it could become. When things fell apart, he saw how the pieces moved back into place. He figured solutions to problems that hadn’t occurred yet.

  Benjy tried to explain it to her once, and she did her best to listen, but Hetty never fully grasped it. In a way, she didn’t need to. People saw the world in a hundred different ways. Benjy’s view was no better or worse than any others.

  So when he got quiet and lost in his thoughts, Hetty just settled and waited for him to come back to her.

  “If there are two knives,” Benjy resumed, “It could complicate things. Two means another person. We can’t know for sure.”

  “Oliver would, if he found different marks. I will make time to see him tomorrow. I have plenty of it now.”

  “What did you do once you quit the shop?”

  “Nothing much.” Hetty sat back down at the table and began to pull out the pins that kept her hair in place, grabbing most by touch and chance. “I stopped by to see Mrs. Evans on the way home . . .”

  As Hetty tied down her hair for bed, she outlined the conversations and events of the evening. Benjy made all the little comments she knew he would make, including scowling at the mention of the burial society.

  “We’re not doing that,” he grunted as he focused on the map. “How can you enjoy living if you’re saving for death?”

  “I think it’s about peace of mind.”

  “You want to join, then?”

  “Of course not. I just realized I don’t have a plan if you died before I do.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Those simple words unraveled a knot in her chest crowded with more fears than she realized. Fear—not of death, but of the loss of the many moments that would follow.

  She had lost so many people over the years. She couldn’t do anything about those losses then, but she could do a bit more to prevent losses now.

  “I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Hetty replied airily.

  She dropped a bent hairpin into his hand.

  He started, clearly not expecting the small gift. His reaction tugged a small smile out of her. “Can you put this on the map for me?” Hetty said. “I think this mysterious note is going to be quite interesting.”

  SCORPIO

  9

  ALTHOUGH HETTY WALKED THROUGH the doors to the telegram office the moment they opened the next morning, she found herself waiting longer than she’d expected.

  The white clerk took his time straightening papers, polishing the machine, and adjusting eyeglasses, until he very slyly placed his wand within arm’s reach.

  “What can I do for you?” the man asked when it was clear she was the only person in the tiny office.

  “I would like to send a telegram.” Hetty slid the coins and the note across the counter.

  The man didn’t even look at the slip of paper.

  “You’ll need a bit more if you’re sending it this far,” the man remarked.

  “The price changed?”

  “Yes, just last night.”

  Hetty knew the price hadn’t changed, not recently and not for long distance. However, little would come of an argument this morning.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a few more coins. Without clarifying or asking for a certain sum, the man snatched her coins and her note.

  This was the last bit of money she could spare, and now she doubted it would even make it.

  How ironic, she thought with a bitter smile. She went through great lengths to hide working on the telegram, and it might just come to nothing.

  Her jaunt to the telegram office took her away from more familiar streets, but she was in no rush.

  She headed south, leaving behind Twenty-Second Street to make her way to Oliver’s house on Juniper. It was a long walk, a
nd to walk it was to see nearly every face the Seventh Ward had to present. Everything north of Twenty-First Street was white and bright, filled with businesses, offices, and places where people like her were only brought in to clean. But south of there, things changed for the better. More places had brown faces, as well as the immigrant populations: the Chinese who recently settled along Race Street, and the Italians and Russians on the east end.

  There was a stretch along Lombard where gambling and political clubs got on with their business, hiding in plain sight. They were the same caliber of places found in the worst of the slums, only with a gleam of respectability. Hetty had been to her fair share of saloons and gambling dens, and she favored the places where she was likely to get stabbed over those where she might face a professional con man trying to sell her a bridge that went nowhere.

  A streetcar rolled to a stop in front of a knot of people at the corner. With the sky turning a concerning gray, Hetty elbowed her way through the crowd. At the last moment, she jumped up and grabbed the outer rail.

  In her haste, she had leapt right into a group of men who had the same idea as her. They called out to her in playful cheers as she found her footing along the metal edge.

  “You know, miss,” called a grizzled man, “we’re allowed to sit inside now. Some very fine people went through a great deal of fuss so the likes of us can ride with no trouble.”

  “I like the fresh air.” Hetty hooked her arm securely around the bar. “It’s a lovely day.”

  “Looks like rain to me,” called another on her left. “Why do you think people are crowded together?”

  “Don’t you worry, miss. We’ll make room for you if the skies open up.”

  But the skies stayed temperamental as the streetcar lumbered southward, stopping only to shift its burden. While she could have moved, Hetty stayed where she was for a bit longer, soaking up the strands of conversation nearby. She might only hear bits of the stories, but those bits were interesting and sometimes got woven into her own tales.

  “I saw it in the Eventide. They went straight up to the prison and dragged him from his cell. Ain’t it something when a man can’t expect to be safe behind bars? And I heard—”

  “. . . I’m sure proud of my little girl, but ten dollars for a year of schooling ain’t easy to part with . . .”

  “. . . can’t find any work here, I’m going to leave town. There’s jobs up here, but if you aren’t turned out for your color, they boot you right quick for having a touch of magic . . .”

  “. . . if you want the best stuff you go to Miss Sal’s, best fried chicken around, so fresh it’s practically still kicking . . .”

  “There’s a show tomorrow evening,” a young man at Hetty’s left called to his companion. “It’s supposed to be a real hoot. They got these ladies that—”

  “Shut your mouth.” His friend swatted him on the back. “We got a lady right here listening in. Excuse him, miss,” he said with a gap-toothed smile. “He ain’t got much sense.”

  At the next stop, enough people got off that it was silly for Hetty to cling outside any longer. Slipping inside, she adjusted her sewing kit in her hand and walked through the lurching car.

  She had a few choices for seats. Some right behind the driver, some further in the back, but once she saw a familiar face, the adjacent seat was the one she chose.

  “Well, well, looks like you’re traveling my way,” Hetty said to Maybelle Lewis. “Is this chance or fate?”

  Maybelle was the eldest of Penelope’s five cousins, and she had a warm, cheerful air. There was little resemblance between them, except for dimples in the exact same spot in their cheeks. A so-called contraband of the war, Maybelle escaped slavery with her two young children to a Union camp. There, under the dubious protection of the army, she cooked and washed laundry, often to her great peril. Maybelle always said her prize for such hard labor was her husband, and the shoe shop they ran together.

  “If I knew I would see you today,” Hetty said, “I would have brought the christening gown.”

  “No need to worry about that!” Maybelle brushed a hand along the curve of her stomach. “This baby will not come for some time. So I have plenty of time for my other baby. I should have asked you from the start to make Annabelle’s wedding dress. You should see what we were given. It’s a star-forsaken shame.”

  “I could fix it for you,” Hetty said. “Or make a new one.”

  “I hate to ask that of you,” Maybelle said, “and a new dress from scratch—”

  “Will be easier than fixing a downright mess,” Hetty interjected. “I can start on it right away. I know her measurements and her tastes. I just need materials.”

  “Truly?” Maybelle’s eyes filled with sudden hope. “Even by the end of the week?”

  “Yes,” she promised. “Sooner, even.”

  “That would be lovely.” Maybelle paused and then frowned. “Won’t you be busy at Harper’s?”

  “I no longer have a job there.”

  Maybelle grinned. “Which explains your eagerness for this job.”

  Hetty’s protests were cut off with a wave of Maybelle’s hand. “I’d do the same in your place,” Maybelle said. “Though I expect people will be asking all sorts of orders from you once they find out you’re a free agent. Why, I see this as getting to you before you become too popular.”

  As the streetcar rolled through town, Maybelle rambled on about the shoe store’s business and passed on harmless gossip and chatter. Hetty had long passed the stop she should have gotten off, but rain tapped against the window, so the conversation was welcome.

  When the car emptied of enough people so no one sat nearby, Maybelle stopped in the middle of her own chatter and leaned forward. “Are you stopping at the hospital?”

  Hetty had been waiting for this. Maybelle had also missed her stop, and not because of the rain. While their conversation had been pleasant, she could tell Maybelle had been drawing it out as she waited for the right moment.

  “Why would I go to the hospital?” Hetty asked.

  She knew why Maybelle had made the suggestion. But Hetty liked to ask such questions anyway. It gave her a sense of control over the events that would occur next.

  “My son is working nights as a cleaner,” Maybelle said. “And one night he saw Samuel Owens on a slab.”

  “He died from breathing too much smoke,” Hetty said. A building on Ninth Street had gone up in flames two weeks ago. The fire was quickly contained and no one died. Except for Samuel, who’d returned multiple times to the building to look for anyone still inside. He seemed fine besides a few bruises, but when he went to sleep that night, he didn’t wake the next morning.

  “It’s not that he died unusually,” Maybelle continued. “But that he was there at all. He was buried. I was at his funeral.”

  “So was I,” Hetty recalled. “We put that on with Oliver’s help. It was a small affair. He didn’t leave much family behind. I suppose that makes it easier for people to dig up his body and sell to students. No need to ask permission of anyone.”

  “Can’t anything be done?”

  “Grave robbers will keep coming as long as hospitals make it worth their while,” Hetty said, repeating what Benjy had told her as they watched a group dig up a body one summer night.

  They could do something about this group of men, that woman, that lone man, or that couple sneaking about, but neither Hetty nor Benjy could be around to stop it completely. After all, grave robbers were not the problem. It was the value placed on Black bodies and circumstances that allowed theft to occur in the first place. Unlike white cemeteries where even simple tombstones were dusted with enchantments to protect the dignity of the dead, a series of laws forbade enchantments in the few cemeteries they were given access to. These were laws that gnawed at even the most conservative and placating members of their community. For without those protections, the dead remained vulnerable to harm from the living.

  “This is worth looking
into,” Hetty continued. “Can’t say if it’ll be soon.”

  “Oh yes, I heard about Charlie Richardson. There’s been chatter these past few days.” Maybelle’s face grew thoughtful. “Did he ever pay you back for the dresses?”

  “No, but it was never about the money,” Hetty replied. “I’m grateful that you told me about them.”

  “It was nothing.” Maybelle waved her hand. “My daughter just happened to be wearing the dress you made, so I had a nice comparison to the other dress. You have such distinctive work. Anyone who knows it can recognize it later. It’s why I thought your friend foolish to sell them.”

  “He did many foolish things.”

  And one of them got him killed.

  ARROW

  10

  STANDING ON OLIVER’S DOORSTEP, Hetty lifted her hand to knock. It only took a moment for her to realize there was no need for such action, as it would not be heard.

  “For the last time!” Marianne’s voice rang out through the open door. “I want to see my husband! And if you protest even a word more, I’ll take him out of here on my own, and you can’t stop me!”

  Hetty coughed, stopping the argument in its tracks.

  Using the surprise to skirt around Marianne, Oliver greeted her as if they had parted many moons ago. “Hetty, I need to talk to you!”

  “You will not!” Marianne stomped her foot on the polished wooden floor. “I want to see my husband!”

  Oliver turned pleading eyes to Hetty.

  Hetty did her best not to sigh.

  She should have turned around at the first sign of yelling. Because she hadn’t, she was now required to do something or risk the situation going further off the rails.

  “Would you like some tea?” Hetty said, and without waiting for a word of protest, she ushered Marianne into the kitchen.

  Thankfully, there was no congealed stew on the stove, or muddy shoes lying around. The surfaces were clear, the papers stacked tidily, and there were even clean mugs waiting in the cupboard.