The Hanging Women

by John Mead

  Martha and Jack waited until the priest arrived, shortly followed by the son and daughter. Inspector O’Leary had left to make the necessary arrangements and though he did not tell them he had to visit O’Shea and inform him that his wife still lived and ask what he knew of this already. When they parted, Martha implored Jack not to stay out late as they still needed to talk and resolve much but, even more than this, she could not bear the thought of another night alone. Jack gave his word, though neither felt it stood for much as they both knew it was a bottle he would be meeting.

  Jack waited at the corner of the short dead end turning in which O’Shea’s hotel stood until Inspector O’Leary emerged, having guessed the inspector would be there.

  “Cage!” Jack called as O’Leary was about to drive off in the small police carriage. “Was Hank with Brandon?”

  “Yes and the sister,” Cage told him, obviously impatient and none to happy that Jack was there. “They all seemed surprised at the news Mrs O’Shea was alive, Tipwell looked ready to tear my head off whilst O’Shea seemed completely stunned.”

  “Nina could be cold-hearted and ruthless but it is difficult to believe even she would act a part in this pretence of her own death,” Jack pointed out, holding onto the carriage’s window frame so O’Leary could not have the driver move off. “It seems too complicated a way to get revenge on O’Shea and the facts would have come out eventually.”

  “Perhaps, but they admitted to nothing, no knowledge of a ransom nor any idea of a reason as to who might or why she may have been abducted. Finding Minsky holds the key, and we now also search for Mrs O’Shea, they will have accomplices and eventually a lead will come to light that will take us to them,” O’Leary informed him. No longer in a humour to wait he called the driver to, “Move on,” and Jack had to release his hold. Stevens waited for a moment or two then decided this was not the time to speak with the family and left to find a drink.

  The River Bar was packed, as always, but the noise inside dropped as Jack entered and from the look the barkeeper gave him he knew he was not welcome their either. Remembering his promise and unable to think of an alternative he bought a bottle and took it with him, not that he was short of a drop at home but the cool, smooth, roundness of the bottle offered him a comfort of sorts on the cab ride home.

  Day Eleven – Friday April 25th 1886

  “Is there anything in the papers about either Beatrice or Mrs O’Shea?” Martha asked Jack over breakfast. They had spent the previous evening quietly: they ate dinner together, Jack drank, Martha knitted. They went to bed relatively early and at sometime in the early hours had made love, though somewhat lacking in passion it helped reinforce the bond that was their marriage.

  “Nothing much, certainly no retraction of Nina’s death,” Jack said, putting the paper down to finish his Arbuckle, the coffee was just as he liked it and he did not want it too cool to much. “The main news is of the number of beatings and attacks on individuals around the city. The area to the northeast of the stockyards, where the Black Hawks are seeking to take control, seem to be an area of particular violence at the moment.”

  “We have not spoken of the future,” Martha pointed out, she had determined to wait until Jack brought up the topic but, against her own better judgement, she wanted the matter resolved between them.

  “What is to discuss?” Jack almost shrugged, it wasn’t that he did not care but things were as they were.

  “Perhaps we should move from the city,” she suggested, having given it much thought during the night, “to a small place out in the country, with its own grounds and stable so you can ride again. We could live a quieter life, the children can visit, if we find somewhere not far from the railroad, to the south, we can always come up for the theatre and such.”

  Jack gave her a long hard look. She sat, as she always did, straight-backed and poised, she had all the bearing of a lady and the morals of an alley cat but he had known this throughout his married life and thought little of it. Jack knew himself no model husband either. Though the war had hurried him along his path even if it had not occurred he would still be the man he was: ill-tempered, morose, a drinker, restless and unable to find peace within himself. Perhaps he would have taken fewer lives but his readiness to kill would have remained within him, dormant and waiting for the opportunity to emerge and take possession of his soul. There was no undoing the past, the war had kindled the fire within him, his years as a bounty hunter then sheriff had simply been excuses for his continuing to kill. His retirement to the city had brought no peace and his black soul continued to reach out and take lives, always with the excuse that they were in someway deserving of their fate. He had long ago become judge, jury and executioner but he knew it was not justice that he metered out.

  “Jack?” Martha spoke to him for the third time, almost scared by his unresponsiveness as he was so still, he seemed hardly to breath, if she had not known him so well and seen him thus so often she would have thought he had died where he sat. “I do not suggest we decide this now nor today, but we should give it thought. I know you need to help find the killers of those two poor women you found and help get to the bottom of what has happened to Nina. I have suggested the idea only as something for us to consider for our future.”

  “To put the past behind us once again, do you think that possible? Are you willing to give up everything you have here and try again?” Jack asked though not doubting it.

  “Yes,” there was only certainty in her mind, “I know we have tried before, each time with limited success but I am for trying again. There is nothing to hold me here,” she assumed Jack understood the reference was to Minsky, even if he ever returned alive, and not her children. “You will always be my husband and I will do all I can to remain at your side. No matter how it may seem, I do not give up on our marriage.”

  “Nor I,” it was the only reassurance he could give her, he could not imagine to what dark and foul ends he would have travelled had not Martha been at his side, his marriage to her a small guiding light that kept him from racing further down the road to hell.

  Jack knew he needed to speak with Hank and Brandon to ensure that his story about Martha’s involvement was clear but he was in no rush and wondered if he should call on Boat first or whether it best to leave them to their grief. However, as he slowly got ready a message came from Hank, he was now the proud father of a baby boy. His sister and godfather were with him at his mother-in-law’s house attending on his wife and newborn son. Martha smiled at the news and talked of presents to be bought and flowers for Beatrice’s funeral, she advised Jack to stay at home as he could hardly go to the Partkis family and keep the news of the baby secret and they would not thank him, in their grief, for learning of the happy event.

  It was a little after lunch when O’Leary and his sergeant knocked on their door. They were polite and sat in the parlour, drinking coffee and eating cakes like any other guests but with just, “A few questions to clarify matters,” as Cage put it.

  “You had already spoken to Mr Henry Tipwell before coming to us?” O’Leary asked Martha, smiling as he took another piece of the angel cake.

  “Yes, that is correct, Inspector,” Martha said a little too formally to sound at her ease. “That is before Jack had completed his enquires and discovered the truth of the matter.”

  “You knew Minsky for many years, a man whom Mr Tipwell described to us a ‘complete scoundrel and a low life of no account’,” O’Leary looked at his notebook to get the wording correct.

  “I knew him, many years ago as a business associate of Mr Brandon O’Shea’s,” despite her even tone Martha almost squirmed in her seat, angered by the description but also at the implication of the question that she knew Minsky better than she had claimed; which of course she did. “This was before Jack and I had moved back to the city and I knew Brandon as a friend of Mr Jacob DeWert, who was my daughter’s father-in-law to be.”
>
  “I am not clear how you became involved with him on this current occasion, how exactly did you meet him again?” the inspector asked as if clearing up a small misunderstanding.

  “By accident,” Martha smiled, glad Jack had questioned and tested her on their revised version of events. “We spoke of old times, he invited me to tea, he mentioned a woman, a charity case in need of help, it all seemed so casual, so natural. When we parted I offered to look the woman up and help if I could.”

  “You were not at all suspicious?” the inspector did not accuse but his tone of incredulity hinted at disbelief.

  “What exactly is it you want, Cage?” Jack cut into the conversation, making no attempt to sound polite or any less angry than he was. “We have told you all we know, I looked into this Minsky’s story and discovered it false, then asked around about him and realised he was in all likelihood your robber. You should be thanking us not here questioning what more we know.”

  “What I am trying to clarify,” Cage raised his voice sufficiently to remind Jack he would not be spoken to in such a manner, “is why Mrs Stevens did not inform us of Mr Minsky’s identity and her longstanding acquaintance with him when first questioned.”

  “And we have already told you, my wife was in shock at the news of Mrs O’Shea’s death,” Jack was far from calm and not in the least concerned about Cage or his official position as a police inspector, “and, as she thought Minsky had left the building immediately after delivering his message, she did not consider his actions of any consequence.”

  “It was an error on my part, I accept that it was a silly mistake,” Martha tried to be conciliatory. “I honestly thought I saw him descend the stairs, but he must have slipped back up without my seeing.”

  “About that…” the sergeant began.

  “No!” Jack was on his feet. “Enough of your insinuations. If the pair of you had done your jobs correctly in the first place… ”

  “Calm yourself,” the inspector jumped up, shouting almost as loudly as Jack, “I have a perfect right to…”

  “If you would take your seat…” the sergeant was also on his feet, arm out towards Jack and motioning him back down.

  “Or you’ll do what?” Jack boomed, his voice loud enough to travel the length of a parade ground, his right hand instinctively going to his colt, his eyes staring, his entire demeanour that of a man about to draw and shoot.

  “Jack!” Martha was on her feet and grasping his arm, pushing between them. Both the inspector and sergeant where to freely admit sometime later that they thought their time was up, that the old time gunslinger was about to put a bullet into their heads and there was not a thing either could do about it. “Please, I will answer any question Inspector O’Leary puts to me. I have made a silly mistake, I was shocked and embarrassed to have been the means by which that man gained entry to the house. I am sure our friends here understand that. No one suggests it was deliberate, they simply want to ensure they now have all the facts and that Minsky is the man they need to find. Isn’t that so, Inspector?”

  “Exactly so, Mrs Stevens,” O’Leary agreed, even he was not so thick skinned as to have poured more oil on the flames by suggesting he had his doubts. “I fully understand your embarrassment. It was simply that, as you had known him previously, it is possible that you might have further ideas on how he might be found, possibly the names of old associates?”

  “Mr Stevens, please,” the sergeant motioned Jack to resume his seat and allow the interview, now virtually concluded, to continue, “this is simply a matter of formalities, I am sure you understand. We are all friends here.”

  “I have no idea why you should think that,” Jack stated grimly, letting the colt slip back into his shoulder holster, and striding out of the room and house.

  9

  More Sorrow

  It was a cold, wet night and Martha could not rid herself of the anxiety and dread she felt because, no matter how much she did not want to believe it, she thought Minsky must either be dead or have deserted her; she would prefer the latter to the former whatever it said of the man. To add to her woes, Jack had not returned. The inspector and sergeant had left shortly after Jack had stormed out, both declaring they understood his anger, though both were shaken at the thought he was close to shooting them, and O’Leary apologising if she thought he believed her involved in the theft but they had to, “clear up all the loose ends,” he had explained.

  The cab driver would not take her to the River Bar, “Not the place for a lady,” he had insisted, adding under his breath, “and too dangerous for the likes of an honest cabriolet driver.” Unable to think where else Jack might be she gave him the address of Jack’s bachelor apartment. She stood outside the door marked ‘Stevens’ for some while listening to the subdued noises from within, the occupants moving around the small apartment and speaking in low indistinct voices. She could not make out what they said, nor even if they were male or female, but she knew neither was Jack. In the end she knocked, after all her name was on the door and whoever was in might know where Jack would be.

  “Good evening,” she began, as the door opened, trying for an imperious tone, “I am looking for Mr Jackson Stevens.”

  “He’s not here,” a gruff voice told her. Martha recognised what little of the brown checked suit she could see and tried, from the small portion of the face that glanced round the edge of the door at her, to work out who it was. The face was familiar but for a moment she could not place it.

  “Do you know where I might find him?” Martha asked, moving her head to see slightly more of the face.

  “No… ” the response came but got no further as light dawned on Martha to whom she spoke.

  “Katherine McGuire!” Martha was tall and, despite her age and matronly ways, she was strong and now angry. The force with which she shoved the door caused it to hit Kitty in the face and sent her reeling back. “What are you doing wearing such clothing?”

  Martha was in the room and standing over Kitty, who had instinctively slunk back and onto a chair, as an odd looking woman burst into the room from one of the rear bedrooms.

  “What’s going on, what are you doing?” the woman demanded, looking both confused and angry, then without further thought stepped towards Martha. Barty, in an ill fitting dress that did not quite do up, had only intended to push the intruder back out of the room and slam the door on their face but Martha delivered a right-hander to his face that put him on his arse and left him sitting dazed, with a bloody nose.

  “It’s you!” Kitty exclaimed, though she felt for Barty’s predicament it was Martha’s dress that arrested her and stopped her flying to his aid. “I recognise you now, in that dress.”

  “What!” Martha shouted back, a satisfying if unpleasant pain, resulting from the punch, shooting from her knuckles to her shoulder.

  “You, and the little Russian man who lives above me, you are his woman,” Kitty stated, now certain, though she had not seen more than a glimpse of Minsky’s visitor’s face but the dress she would know anywhere as she would have loved a similar one herself: the dark blue patterned cloth, a bird motif, a small bow at the rear, the bodice and puffed sleeves having a lighter blue trim and lace at the wrists and neck, the whole was so elegantly modest.

  “What?” Martha suddenly felt like Jack, responding monosyllabically to a series of questions, but the bizarre situation had befuddled her completely.

  “You! I see it now,” Kitty stated, reaching over to Barty so as to hand him a handkerchief to staunch the blood from his nose. “I would not have connected you to him even if I had clearly seen your face but your dress is a different matter; it is the same one you wore when I last saw you visit him, your hair is the same but the hat and jewels are different.”

  “You are so observant,” Martha said calmly enough, she had renounced shame and made no effort to hide her liaison with Minsky, especially to the troll
op sitting before her whose own reputation was now much in question. “However, that is of no matter, it is Jack I look for; do you know where he is?”

  “I do not,” Kitty answered honestly enough, slipping from the chair to kneel and help Barty.

  “I do not care what depravities are practiced in this place but if you want to help Jack then tell me what you know of where I might find him, it is urgent that I speak with him.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph that’s a hell’ve punch you have there,” Barty, nasally intoned, getting unsteadily to his feet with Kitty’s help.

  “Perhaps, you should leave the fighting to your gentlemen friend,” Martha mocked, at least Kitty looked the part of a youngish male but Barty was a travesty in the dress, his shoulder length blond hair could not hide the evening shadow on his jaw nor his bulging arms and shoulders that burst from the upper portion of the dress.

  “There is no depravity here,” Kitty assured her, taking command of the situation, closing the door and offering Martha a chair, hoping her actions were masculine enough for Martha to accept, “nor any need to mock. Bartholomew was trying on my dress for fun, to see how it looked, not from desire. If I wear male attire it is from a need for independence not lust of my own kind.”

  “You look comely enough to turn a few heads,” Martha conceded, hoping that by playing to the other’s vanity she might gain her trust and knowledge of where to find Jack, “but I do not come here for the pleasure of it, I must find Jack.”

  “I really do not know where he is,” Kitty again explained. “Please, Barty, go change before you get more blood on my dress. We have been waiting for Jack, so I might tell him of my plans.”

  “He knows you dress like this? As a man?” Martha tried not to sound judgemental, but found it hard to accept that her husband might find excitement in such things.