Except the Dying

by Maureen Jennings

  THE MURDOCH MYSTERIES

  Except the Dying

  Under the Dragon’s Tail

  Poor Tom Is Cold

  Let Loose the Dogs

  Night’s Child

  Vices of My Blood

  A Journeyman to Grief

  For Iden, without whose love and support I would

  never have got to this point

  The last night that she lived

  It was a common night,

  Except the dying; this to us

  Made nature different

  —Emily Dickinson

  Prologue

  They started with the boots, which looked new. They tried to hurry but their fingers were already stiff and clumsy with cold and the buttons were troublesome. The second boot was particularly difficult. She was curled up on her side against the fence and the leather had fastened to the earth in an icy bond. It took both of them to get it off, one holding on to the frozen leg, by now stiff as stone, the other tugging until the boot came away. Next was the waist, a decent black sateen, but in their haste they pulled on her arm too sharply and they heard the bone snap as the elbow dislocated. “Be more respectful,” said the younger one.

  THE SMELL OF THE extinguished candle lingers sharp and sour in the cold air. At the high, small window the night is a paler square but in the room Therese can see only the massy shapes of the wardrobe and the dresser by the door. Since Mrs. Foy left she has been lying like this under the bedcovers, praying for guidance.

  It is not the housekeeper Therese fears, it is the other, who, full of solicitude and wine, has already come to her twice this week. The memory makes her tremble and she sits up suddenly, thinking the stairs have creaked. Not so, just the stable door opening in the yard below. Faintly from the dining room, she can hear the booming voice of the guest, the faint interspersing of her mistress’s replies.

  She pushes back the quilt and gets off the bed. Except for her outer garments she is fully dressed, but she shivers. Moving fast so there is no room to regret, she packs her meagre belongings into the valise: her second chemise, a pair of drawers, her other grey silk waist for church that she made herself and her plaid wool skirt. Everything else she possesses she is wearing. On the bedside table is the Bible that Claudette gave her when she left the farm. It is a gift that gives her great comfort even though she cannot read a word. Next to it is her rosary, which she picks up, touching the crucifix to her lips. Then she falls to her knees by the bed and begins to tell her beads.

  Hail Mary, full of grace,

  blessed art thou among women,

  Hail Mary, full of grace,

  blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

  They removed the felt hat next. The pink velvet flowers around the brim were crushed by the weight of the head and dusted with snow light as sugar. The skirt came off easily, as did the woollen stockings. There were no gloves and, disappointingly, there was no jewellery to speak of – small silver earrings, which they left, and a pretty bead necklace of green glass that had broken and was wrapped around the rigid fingers. One of them started to pull out the wooden combs that pinned up the girl’s hair. “No, don’t,” said the other. “She won’t need them now,” her companion replied. In the darkness their breath came from their mouths like smoke.

  She takes a serge jacket from the hook on the door. She can see her own breath in the cold room, and she wraps her muffler tight around her face. All evening the ice-laden wind has been building, sweeping across the city from the dark lake, worrying at the house. There is a portable oil heater in the corner but she hasn’t used it tonight, not wanting to be held accountable for the additional expense. She does not want to leave with any blot on her name.

  Father Alphonse said to her, “If you have difficulties, go to talk to the priest, Father Corbiere. He is my friend, he will assist you.” But she found that this priest has departed and the new one is an English. He appears hurried and has impatience with her language. She cannot tell him her troubles even in the confessional box. But last Sunday she found a French-Canadian church and she wept with the joy of the familiar tongue. Perhaps there she can find succour.

  At the last moment she returns to the narrow bed, plumps up the pillow and slips it beneath the blue counterpane. From the door in the dark, it looks like a sleeping figure.

  The corpse was clad now only in white flannel drawers and chemise, the blue-grey skin of legs and arms blending with the snow where she lay. They considered leaving her, considered stopping at the final indignity, but the cloth of the undergarments was good and they had gone this far. Awkwardly they manoeuvred the body, unyielding as a large doll. The one was shamed by the triangle of hair in the fork of the legs and she tried to bend the knee up to give the girl modesty, but it was impossible. They bundled up the pile of clothes and slipped away into the darkness.

  She crosses the bare floor to the door, opens it and peers out, clutching the Bible against her chest as if it could be a shield. She makes her way to the narrow back stairs the servants use and runs down, her feet made light and fast by fear.

  Chapter One

  SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1895

  THE WIND CUT TO THE BONE and Alice Black pulled her shawl tight about her head and throat. The hot gin was a fire in her stomach but no defence against the cold of the winter night. She grumbled to herself, trying to expose as little of her face as she could. She’d expected to do some business at the John O’Neil but none of the piss-makers wanted to pay for a bit of dock tonight. She wiped the back of her hand across her dripping nose. She hoped Ettie had fared better, else it was potato-peel soup for the next few days.

  It was getting late. Although the hotel officially closed at the legal Saturday time of seven o’clock, there was a backroom where the regulars could go to top off, and for a cut of the dash, the proprietor, James McCay, usually allowed her and Ettie to stay on.

  Alice edged closer to the houses. She was afeard to go past the churchyard where the bodies of the Irish immigrants were laid out in their eternity boxes. Even though the epidemic had happened almost fifty years earlier, for sure ghosts lingered in the area. Not so the cholera. She always held her nose as she scurried by. On this stretch of Queen Street the shops were interspersed with vacant buildings and the boarded-up windows were blinded eyes. The gas lights were few and far between and what with that and huddling into her shawl, she didn’t see the young woman walking in front of her until they almost collided.

  “Mind where you’re goin’,” snapped Alice. She heard a muttered “Pardon” as the other one moved out of the way. She had a thick muffler wrapped around her face, but Alice had an impression of youth, and she wondered where the girl was going by herself at this time of night. A country piece, by the look of that hat and valise.

  Alice glanced over her shoulder. The girl was hovering on the sidewalk. She looked lost, and for a moment Alice considered stopping to offer help. But sod it, it was too cold. A gust of wind blew her skirts up about her knees and she struggled to hold them down. At that moment she heard the jingle of harness as a carriage came around the corner heading east onto Queen Street, going a good clip considering the state of the road. The iron-hard ruts had a light covering of snow and they were slippery and dangerous to the horses.

  “Get out of the way, you bloody bint,” yelled the driver. Alice jumped back onto the sidewalk just in time. She lost her balance on the snowbank and fell backwards, landing on her tailbone. For a moment she remained sprawled on the hard ground, groaning, then angrily snatched up a handful of snow and threw it in the direction of the carriage. The wind tossed it back in her face. Sodding toady. She shook her fist and suddenly the driver pulled his horse up sharp, wheeled around and headed back in her direction. She shrank bac
k, prepared for recriminations, but the carriage went right past her and halted beside the girl. The door opened and a gloved hand reached out. After a moment’s hesitation, the young woman accepted the help and climbed in. In the flickering yellow light of the gas lamp, Alice saw that the carriage was a smart burgundy colour with brass fittings, the high-stepping horse light-coloured, but the blinds at the windows were pulled down tight and she couldn’t see the occupant.

  The driver cracked his whip, wheeled the horse around, and they set off again at a brisk canter back along Queen Street.

  Alice got to her feet, rubbing at her rump. She brushed the snow off her skirt, rewrapped her shawl and started to walk. Her stomach was cramping badly and she needed to get home soon. She should’ve known better than to trust those snaggy sausages of McCay’s. If there was a morsel of real pork in there at all she’d be surprised. More like rotten horsemeat, by what it was doing to her stomach.

  She was going by the Dominion Brewery now, the pleasurable part of her route. In spite of the increasing urgency of her indigestion, she paused in front of the entrance. The smell of hops hung heavy and sweet on the night air. She sniffed hungrily but the cold made her cough. Sod it. She headed up Sumach Street. Her toes had gone numb. Even though she’d stuffed newspaper into her boots, they were so split they were useless.

  “Lucky for that little tit, whoever she is. Gettin’ a ride to some warm place. Why’d it never happen to Alice?”

  Constable Second-Class Oliver Wicken was looking forward to the end of his shift, when he could warm his feet at the station woodstove. His thick serge uniform and cape kept his body warm enough but his feet were frozen and a chilblain itched painfully on his right heel. He stopped for a moment and stamped to restore his circulation. Since the early hours of the morning a steady snow, soft and pure, had been covering the grey detritus of the week. Now with dawn approaching the wind had got up again, burning his face, and tiny icicles had formed along the edge of his fine blond moustache.

  At this hour the streets were empty. He hadn’t encountered another living soul during his entire beat except for a bread man in his dray rumbling down River Street. Privately, young Wicken always hoped for a little excitement he could relate to his sweetheart. She was a romantic girl and was always after him to tell her his adventures. Like he’d told her, the graveyard shift in the winter wasn’t going to be lively. The citizens were sealed up tight in their snug houses. Summer was different. Larceny, pickpockets on the increase, violations of Sunday bylaws. And, of course, the flood of drunk and disorderly. Over three thousand cases of D-and-D charged in 1894. Made you want to take the Pledge. Almost.

  This month his main task was to check the vacant houses to make sure no vagrants had broken in to get shelter for the night. Toronto was just climbing out of bad times and there were over a thousand properties standing empty throughout the city. The police were placed in charge of protecting them.

  He turned north on Sumach Street. He badly needed to relieve himself and he wasn’t sure he could hold it until he got to the station. Just up a ways was a dark laneway, and he walked in for a few feet, intending to use one of the outside privies that served the row of houses along St. Luke Street. However, the pressure in his bladder became too urgent and he stopped by the tumbledown fence.

  In a hurry to unbutton his trousers, he didn’t notice the body immediately, as the whiteness of it was blended into the snow. But two large rats were sniffing at the girl’s head, and at Wicken’s approach they scurried away like shadows and attracted his attention. He had placed his lantern beside him on the ground and it was only when he raised it aloft that he fully comprehended what he was seeing.

  He went close enough to confirm the girl was dead and then spun around and ran as fast as he could to the telephone signal box that stood on the corner of Wilton and Sumach. Panting, he tugged free his key, opened the box and grabbed the receiver off the hook. He turned the crank and waited for what seemed endless moments until the police operator at central headquarters answered. Wicken could hardly hear him above the usual static and hiss of the telephone. He yelled, “Connect me with number-four station. It’s an emergency.”

  Chapter Two

  SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10

  ACTING DETECTIVE WILLIAM MURDOCH crouched beside the dead girl and lifted the dark hair away from her face. Despite the pallor of death, there was still a sweetness in the curve of her cheek, the skin unmarked by life’s experience. He felt a pang of pity at the sight. Behind him Constable Crabtree shifted nervously and the ambulance driver leaned over from his seat to gape. Fortunately, the gathering crowd at the entrance to the laneway were being kept in check by young Wicken, but even at this early hour on the Lord’s Day a ragtag mob had formed, roused by the clanging alarm. One man had even brought out a stool to stand on so he could see better.

  “Fetch a blanket, will you, Crabtree?” Murdoch called over his shoulder to his constable.

  He sat back on his heels, shielding the body as best he could. The girl was lying on her back close to a rickety wooden fence. On the left side of her body were the purple marks of lividity. Rigor mortis was advanced, the head unmovable, the arms and legs frozen. Her eyes were closed, and he lifted one eyelid. The pupil was a mere pinprick in the light blue iris. The right eye was the same. He bent and sniffed at her mouth but there was no detectable smell of liquor. At first sight the cause of death was not apparent, no blood or obvious wounds. He leaned closer. There were three small bruises at the left wrist. He placed his own fingers on the spots. They fit. There was also a largish contusion on the inside of the forearm and another at the elbow. Gingerly, he examined her hands. The nails were cut short and there was nothing caught there that he could see. He ran his finger over the cold flesh of her palm, feeling the slight roughening. He brushed aside the snow and checked her feet. The toenails were likewise clean and there were no scratches or marks on the soles.

  “Here you go, sir.” Crabtree handed him a grey hospital blanket. “She looks to be about the same age as my sister. Fourteen, if that,” he said.

  “I’d put her older, myself.”

  The face was youthful, especially with the thick dark hair loose about her shoulders, but her body was voluptuous, the breasts full and the hips and buttocks rounded. Murdoch covered her over and straightened up, frowning.

  “Bloody peculiar, Crabtree, her eyes …”

  He stopped as the police horse whinnied. There was an answering neigh from the street. Wicken was pushing the onlookers back as a two-wheeler turned into the laneway. The constable went over to hold the horse, and the elderly driver got down stiffly. He was wearing an old-fashioned houndstooth cloak and stovepipe hat and his lower face was wrapped in a white silk scarf. When he reached Murdoch he muttered, “Abscess tooth,” and indicated the scarf. He looked down at the body.

  “… happened here?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” answered Murdoch. “One of our constables found her about forty minutes ago.”

  He pulled away the blanket so the coroner could see.

  “Whoze she?”

  “We haven’t determined that yet.”

  “A doxy?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. She’s quite clean and the constable on this beat says he hasn’t seen her before.”

  The coroner indicated the purple stains on the side of the body. “… you move her?”

  “No, sir, somebody else did.”

  “Clothes?”

  “Nowhere around. Probably stripped.”

  “Heathens.” He tried to bend closer but the movement caused pain in his jaw and he straightened quickly. “She’s dead … right enough, but I …” He frowned at Murdoch. “Where’ve … seen you before?”

  “Last December, sir. The Merishaw case.”

  “Course, remember now. Shocking … heathen!”

  The Merishaws’ servant girl had given birth to a stillborn child and tried to bury the body in the neighbour’s front yard, where some children had
found it. Arthur Johnson had been the attending coroner in that instance and without the excuse of an abscessed tooth he had been just as perfunctory.

  “Bring the body … morgue postmortem examination … too cold here … Get a report …”

  Murdoch didn’t make out what he said. “Beg pardon, sir.”

  Johnson pulled the muffler away from his mouth, then winced as the cold air hit his tooth. There was a waft of oil of cloves in the air. “I’ll get an examination done at once and send you the report.”

  He quickly wrapped himself up again and started back towards his carriage, muttering something else undecipherable. Crabtree gave him a lift up into the seat, and he slapped the reins at the docile bay mare, which trotted off briskly.

  Murdoch replaced the blanket. He’d never encountered a situation like this before, and although he’d felt pity for the dead girl he was also keenly aware that it might prove to be a noteworthy case. The notion was agitating. Promotion was difficult to come by in the city’s police force. The last few years had been hard economically for the city and the council had refused Chief Grasett’s request for a bigger budget. The police force could not expand. Murdoch had been acting detective for three years and unless somebody above him in rank died or retired he was stuck there. Lately he had fretted beneath that yoke, hating the need to kow-tow to men he despised. There was a chance the dead girl could bring him some glory if he handled himself well.

  The constable in charge of the ambulance called out. “D’you think you’ll be much longer, Mr. Murdoch? It’s perishing cold for the horses.”

  “Put their blankets on, then.”

  Richmond was a chronic complainer and lazy to boot. Murdoch had no time for him.

  Grumbling, the constable got down from his seat, took two blankets from the back of the wagon and threw them over the horses. Their breath smoked in the cold air. The snow continued to drift down and bits of ice were crusting on Murdoch’s moustache from the moisture of his breath. He was grateful for the warmth of his long sealskin coat and forage hat, which he’d acquired in exchange for three plugs of Jolly Tar from a dying prisoner. The nap was gone under the arms of the coat, but it wasn’t obvious and his landlady had managed to remove most of the stains.