by Sara Donati
“I shouldn’t have agreed to this,” Anna said. “You need another month to recover.”
“You didn’t drag me there,” Sophie said, managing a very weak smile. “I wanted to go and I’m glad I did, if I contributed in any way at all. But I will admit that this case will stay with me until there’s some resolution. Do you have a sense from Jack how likely it is that they’ll be able to find the person responsible?”
Anna considered how best to answer the question. “My understanding is that the more time passes between the crime and the discovery of the crime, the less likely it is that they’ll bring someone to trial. And this Jane Doe was abducted or detained many months ago.”
“I feared as much,” Sophie said. “Jack was right, you know. There’s no logic in the idea that they wanted to save the child. If there’s anything this city has enough of, it’s children without parents.”
“It makes no logical sense,” Anna agreed. “But logic doesn’t really come into this, does it? A truly disturbed mind has no need of logic. And now I have to ask something very self-serving.”
Sophie smiled. “Please.”
“Could we put this aside for now? I can’t remember the last time I had a weekday free, and I would like to spend it some other way. For example, going over your plans for the house. Doesn’t that appeal? We could go out to eat, too, and linger over dessert as long as we like. Or at least until it’s time for my shift to start. What do you say? Lüchow’s for lunch?”
Sophie paled, visibly. “Lunch, yes. Lüchow’s, no. After almost a year in Switzerland I’ve had enough of sauerkraut and bratwurst. No, I want to go to Delmonico’s. And I want to take Aunt Quinlan with us, my treat. See if you can get the driver’s attention, would you? Let’s go get her right away.”
“I really did miss you,” Anna said. “You always come up with the best schemes.”
* * *
• • •
AT DELMONICO’S THEY ate fresh oysters, flaky boneless shad grilled on a cedar plank, broiled mushrooms, spinach braised with bacon, soft white rolls, and finally, strawberries and cream.
“What a treat,” Aunt Quinlan said. “Now, what story to tell?”
Anna grinned. “They’ll ask us to leave if we get to really laughing.”
“Let’s see if they do,” Aunt Quinlan said. “Who wants to start?”
“I think I’d like to hear the story about how you threw a paint pot at Simon Ballantyne’s head,” Sophie said. “I was trying to remember the details and I couldn’t recall, exactly.”
“First of all,” Anna said, “it wasn’t a paint pot. It was an inkpot.”
Aunt Quinlan shook her head. “Both of you are wrong. It was a little jar of attar of roses. It broke when I threw it at him and hit him in the forehead. Because he wouldn’t kiss me, though at the time I would have denied that.”
“Do you still think about him very much?” Sophie asked. “Your Simon Ballentyne?”
Aunt Quinlan leaned toward her and put a hand on Sophie’s wrist. “He’s with me every day.”
“I wish I could count on that.” Sophie managed a smile, but could not control the wobble in her voice. “But we had so little time.” She stopped herself there, biting back the rest of what there was to say and could not be denied: Lily and Simon Ballentyne had brought children into the world, and those children—some of those children—were in the world still. They would be here when their mother left it.
Her aunt’s expression said she heard the words that remained unspoken. There was nothing Lily Bonner Ballentyne Quinlan did not understand about loss.
11
THE MORNING AFTER the Jane Doe post-mortem, Jack and Oscar headed uptown to find Neill Graham. Neither of them believed they would be able to connect Graham to Jane Doe; they weren’t even convinced that she was a multipara victim, but Graham was due a visit anyway.
“How many times have we done this?” Oscar asked.
“This is the seventh, I think.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t filed a complaint yet.”
Jack thought about that. For months they had been going to some lengths to make Graham uneasy. For the most part he managed to look unconcerned when they cornered him to ask questions, but just lately the attention had begun to wear on him. They were waging a war of attrition in the belief that he would let something slip, sooner or later.
“My guess?” Jack shrugged. “He doesn’t want to draw any more attention to himself. I doubt the board of directors at Woman’s Hospital would be happy to know why we’re so interested in him.”
Oscar gave a satisfied grunt. He liked the idea of causing Neill Graham trouble and would be glad of any excuse to cause him even more. For that reason Jack had not told Oscar about Graham running into Sophie and Anna at Bellevue, or the things he had said to them. Oscar would have needled Anna until he heard all the details, and at that point there was no predicting what he would do. Graham was a bully, and bullies brought out the worst in Oscar.
During his training at Bellevue, Graham had lived in one of the nearby many boarding houses that catered to medical students, but with his appointment at Woman’s Hospital he had gotten himself rooms at a residential hotel for gentlemen. The Carlton was overpriced, but it was also just across from Woman’s in one direction and the Infant and Children’s Hospital in the other. Doctors tended to be practical, in Jack’s experience, and many of them were willing to pay a premium if it meant a five-minute walk to work and no worries about traffic. Given the hours they kept, it made sense.
Living at the Carlton made Neill Graham’s life simple, but it also made him easy to find. Oscar wondered out loud—as he often did when they made this trip—whether this was arrogance or stupidity on Graham’s part. Jack sometimes brought up the possibility that the man might actually be innocent of wrongdoing—something he himself did not believe—but he wasn’t in the mood to play devil’s advocate.
In the Carlton lobby Oscar marched straight to the reception desk and asked the clerk to announce them. It wasn’t the first time they had come looking for Graham, but the clerk was new. The tag on his lapel said simply Mr. Mudge, an unfortunate name, in Jack’s opinion, but not nearly as unfortunate as the man’s bulging eyes and thin neck.
“Dr. Graham isn’t in.”
“Did you see him go out today?” Jack asked.
Mudge raised one eyebrow and pursed his lips in displeasure. “Residents are free to come and go as they wish without fear of being spied upon.”
Oscar bristled. “Spied upon?” He slapped his detective’s shield onto the counter.
The clerk glanced at the badge, as bright and polished as it had been on the day Oscar received it. The brow peaked again, and Jack wondered if he practiced doing that in a mirror.
“As I said: Dr. Graham isn’t in. Would you like to leave a note for him?”
* * *
• • •
THEY CROSSED THE street to Woman’s Hospital, where the porter on duty broke into a broad smile populated by a lot of square white teeth that were no product of nature.
“Joe Becker,” Oscar said, grabbing the man’s hand to shake it. “It’s been too long. Must be what, two years since you left the Forty-third.”
“Three years,” said Joe. His dentures clacked like castanets when he talked, but he didn’t seem to mind or maybe he didn’t notice it anymore. “Good to see you, Oscar. You too, Jack. You here on a job?”
Coppers were notoriously closemouthed with everybody but other coppers. It was good luck to run into Joe, who would tell them whatever they wanted to know.
“Neill Graham is the man we’re looking for,” Oscar said.
“Neill Graham.” Joe rubbed a splayed thumb along his jawline. “Well, I can tell you straight off, he ain’t showed his face yet today. Wasn’t here yesterday neither, I don’t think. Wait, I’ll see what I can find out.
” He trundled off, a neat, compact loaf of a man on two short legs, and disappeared through an office door. He was back a few minutes later looking thoughtful. His jaw seemed to be jerking from side to side, and Jack had the odd and unsettling idea that the man’s false teeth were rearranging themselves.
“Took some time off, they tell me.” His expression was frankly disbelieving.
“Is that unusual?” Oscar asked.
Becker shrugged. “I’d say so. He’s here most of the time, even when he’s off duty. A bootlicker of the first order and always at Dr. Cantwell’s beck and call, but good with a scalpel is what they say.”
Jack said, “So he’s usually here, but suddenly he’s taking time off. They didn’t say why, in the office?”
“Not a word, but then Aggie Malone—the director’s secretary, they call her, but she runs this place and no mistake—Aggie plays things close to the vest. You can see plain when she’s unhappy, though.”
Oscar leaned in a little. “And how’s that?”
Becker gave a little laugh. “Her mouth goes all puckered, like she was sucking on something mighty sour. She’s a stickler for rules, is Aggie, and Graham’s got on her bad side somehow.”
Jack said, “Who knows him best, would you say? Who do you see him with, coming and going? This Dr. Cantwell? Any friends?”
“Let me think.” The porter crossed his arms over his middle and rocked back on his heels, his gaze fixed downward.
Finally he shook his head. “Nobody, I don’t think. I can’t recall ever seeing him walking in or out with anybody, nor even talking to anybody except Dr. Cantwell, but you couldn’t call them friends. Cantwell is his boss. You looking at Graham for something big?”
“Maybe,” Oscar said. “Too early to say.”
* * *
• • •
“AGGIE MALONE OR back to the Carlton?” Jack asked when they had walked away from Joe Becker’s lectern.
“I think the Carlton first, get the manager to let us into Graham’s rooms.” Oscar rubbed a hand over his face. “I got that tingle running up my spine.”
Jack knew what he meant, because he was feeling it too: the first flush of nerves when an investigation was about to break.
* * *
• • •
THE HOTEL MANAGER was a reasonable man, older and dignified and not so foolish as to irritate coppers when they asked for cooperation. Mr. Welsh showed them the way to Graham’s rooms himself, and listened closely while Oscar told him exactly what he thought of Mudge, the desk clerk. Welsh’s posture was solicitous, his demeanor professional, but Jack had the idea that he was not pleased with the report he was getting.
He used his passkey to open the door and stepped back. “I’ll go have a word with Mr. Mudge while you’re busy up here,” he said. “Stop by my office when you’re done, if you like.”
* * *
• • •
NEILL GRAHAM HAD a suite of three rooms: a parlor that seemed to also serve as a study, a bath, and a bedroom. People who lived in elegant residential hotels had no use for kitchens; Graham would eat at the hospital or in the hotel dining room, or go out for his meals.
“Our Neill does like his comforts.” Oscar cast an admiring glance at a carved walnut breakfront bookcase and then stopped to examine a waist-high cellaret of cherry wood, its top open to reveal a grouping of crystal decanters and a number of bottles. Oscar picked out one and then another, and held them out at arm’s length to squint at the labels.
“Madeira wine and Otard Dupuy cognac. He’s got expensive taste.”
Jack was looking at anatomical etchings mounted on board and lined up on the wainscoting, but turned to look at the bottle Oscar held out for inspection. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m wondering how much he’s earning. It would have to be a good amount if he drinks this kind of thing. I’ll go have a look in the bedroom.”
On a desk inlaid with brass and mother-of-pearl were neat piles of medical journals with slips of paper marking pages, well-read books, and notebooks with creased covers. On Surgical Diseases of Women was open to a chapter about hypertrophy of the clitoris, a word Jack only knew because Anna insisted on using technical terms when the subject was her own anatomy. He made a note to himself to ask her about this particular malady.
A tall filing cabinet was filled with medical notes and day-books and folders of notices from hospitals and medical societies. In another drawer Jack found bills and receipts, neatly organized so that it was a small matter to learn that Graham had paid nineteen dollars for one bottle of Madeira wine, a price so high Jack was sure at first he had misread.
Nowhere did he find a single personal letter or note. Just as there were no cabinet cards or photographs or even a mediocre still life anywhere to be seen. If he had family there was no evidence of them here.
He picked up a half-written sheet of paper and read part of a surgical report. Graham’s handwriting was small and so tightly cramped that it might have been typeset. A man who tolerated no mess and no distractions.
“No sign of his Gladstone bag,” Oscar said as he came out of the bedroom. “Nor any sign of a struggle. Look here, he can ring for a servant.”
Oscar had found a panel of buttons built into the wall. “He can get somebody to make his bed or bring him coffee. Otherwise they leave him alone. Just the thing for your secluded killer of women.”
He went on to open a closet door. “A man this neat is unnatural.”
“So he wasn’t dragged off against his will.”
“I don’t know,” Oscar said. “Strikes me as too neat by half.”
* * *
• • •
THEY STOPPED BY the restaurant next to the Carlton, the barbershop on its other side, and the tobacconist just beyond, all of which proved a couple things: no one knew Graham well enough to realize that he hadn’t been around for a couple days, and that made sense once it was clear that nobody liked him.
The tobacconist was the only one who said it straight out. “Don’t mind if he never comes by again. First-class braggart, that one, loves to hear the sound of his own voice.” He sniffed, his mouth pursed, and brushed away imaginary dust from his shoulder. Jack wondered whether Graham was even aware that he had insulted this man and made an enemy of him.
Back at Woman’s Hospital in the director’s office, Mrs. Malone told them that Director Minthorn was out for the rest of the week, and that she was not at liberty to divulge information about anyone on the staff.
Oscar fixed her with a particular expression that she must recognize as resolve, because it was on her face, too.
“We aren’t here on a whim, Mrs. Malone. We are detective sergeants in the New York City Police Department, investigating a series of violent crimes. If you aren’t willing to cooperate—”
She began to protest, but he held up a hand to cut her off.
“We will have to approach the board of directors. Do you want to explain to them why you’re obstructing our investigation?”
The corner of her mouth trembled ever so slightly. “Fine,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
“Where is Dr. Graham, why did he take time off, and when will he be back?”
She hesitated for five seconds, using all her powers of intimidation to glare at Oscar. Defeated by his toothiest grin, she opened a drawer and took a piece of paper from a folder. She handed it to Jack, looking him directly in the eye.
“You must return that to me undamaged.”
He gave her a short bow from the shoulders. “Of course. Thank you for your assistance, Mrs. Malone.”
Outside Oscar said, “If I could bottle that smile of yours I’d make some real money.”
“You’ve got a smile too,” Jack said. “It’s just too scary to do you any good.”
“Very amusing,” Oscar said, and yanked the
letter out of Jack’s hand to hold it where they could both see it. Then they stood right where they were on Lexington Avenue and read it.
NEILL C. GRAHAM, M.D.
THE CARLTON
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
April 12th, 1884
Director Hamilton Minthorn, M.D.
M. Danforth Cantwell, M.D.
Woman’s Hospital
Dear Sirs:
I write in some haste and with great reluctance to inform you that a family emergency takes me away from my responsibilities at Woman’s Hospital for at least two and perhaps as many as ten days.
This emergency is very sudden and unexpected. In truth, I only accepted the position because I believed that I was free of this impediment. I would never compromise my reputation this way if I had any other choice.
When I am free to share the details of this case, I believe you will see the origins of the research proposal I am preparing to submit on female sterility and hysteria.
As soon I am certain of my return date, I will send word.
With utmost respect I remain your most obedient
Neill C. Graham, M.D.
“I was just wondering about his family,” Jack said. “Not a photograph or likeness of any kind to be seen in his rooms. No letters, either.”
“Could be a lie,” Oscar said. “Might not be about family at all. We’ll have to go back to get his file from the office. See if you can fire up that smile again, maybe you can charm Miss Aggie into copying it out for us.”
* * *
