Prophecies, Libels & Dreams

by Ysabeau S. Wilce

  “We will do better. We will show you. Come!”

  Constable Etreyo hesitates. Perhaps she ought to arrest them both, take them back to the station, where she can call on backup. But they are here, and the station house is full of eager ears, and she’d prefer to keep whatever the doctors tell her private, until she’s had a chance to check out their claims. Dr. Ehle says, “We are not murderers. The exact opposite, as you will see. You may release your death grip on your billyclub, Constable. You are in no danger from us.”

  Well, they may claim so, but many police officers have ended up dead because they believed they were in no danger, so Constable Etreyo prefers to remain on the skeptical side. “You go and I shall follow.”

  “As you wish.”

  Dr. Elsinore has already darted ahead, toward the coil transformer and the stretcher beneath it. They step over a ring of charred wood flooring, still smoking slightly. Constable Etreyo hates to get too close to the coil transformer, but she swallows her trepidation and peers over Dr. Elsinore’s shoulder. A narrow figure lies on the stretcher, covered to the neck with a pink sheet. Dr. Elsinore holds a white globe in her hand, and in the dim soft light, Constable Etreyo sees the pale profile of the pretty chorus boy, who has been dead for three weeks. But Constable Etreyo has seen corpses that have been dead for three weeks, and they do not look this dewy and fresh. Their lips are not so full and red, and their cheeks are not so firm and round. Their hair does not curl so romantically over their marble-smooth foreheads.

  Nor do their chests rise and fall as they breathe.

  “This man is not dead,” Constable Etreyo says.

  “He was dead. But he is alive now,” Dr. Ehle says proudly. “He has been revivified.”

  “How is this possible? Are you magicians?”

  Dr. Ehle snorts. Dr. Elsinore shakes her head, “No, not magicians. scientists. Theo, you should explain. You are the genius behind this.”

  Dr. Ehle says: “I shall try to put it in layman’s terms, Officer. The spark of life, as they call it, is really just a galvanic current that runs through our body, powers our brains, our muscles, our limbs. Upon death, this spark ceases. We can no longer move, no longer think. Our flesh, without the galvanic current to keep it warm, begins to decay, to die. I have simply restored the galvanic spark. And thus he lives again.”

  Constable Etreyo gingerly touches the chorus boy’s cheek. It feels cool, but it also feels alive. “He is the Califa Squeeze,” she says.

  “No, he is not.” Dr. Elsinore lifts the edge of the white sheet, revealing a white muscular arm—that ends in a neat stump.

  She says: “His hand is.”

  IV. The Evidence

  Constable Etreyo believes in science, but if she hadn’t seen the proof of Dr. Elsinore’s story before her own eyes, she would not have believed it, for the story seems more like a fairy tale than science. And yet there the proof lies, breathing faintly.

  The body on the cot is not the dead chorus boy. Oh, the head is, and so is the right hand, and the left leg. The torso belongs to a blacksmith from Yucaipa who had an unfortunate accident with an anvil; the left leg came from an Atacasdero cowboy who fell under his horse during a stampede. Apparently, the doctors have been traveling around Califa, collecting body parts.

  Dr. Elsinore says, “We would have preferred to use an entire body, of course, and not have to mix and match like this, but it’s very hard to find an entire body in suitable condition. Most young fit people die in accidents, in a manner that renders parts of them unusable. Or they die whole, but their bodies are ravaged by disease. So I had to piece our perfect specimen together. The chorus boy provided the last bits.”

  “Adelaide is a genius with the needle,” Dr. Ehle said. “She performed the surgery that allowed me to speak. She did a marvelous job on our boy.”

  “Isn’t he lovely?” Dr. Elsinore makes a move to withdraw the sheet farther, and Constable Etreyo hastily stops her. Seeing a body cut up is bad enough, but seeing it stitched together, like a monstrous crazy quilt, somehow that seems much worse. She is content to use her imagination. As it is, she can now see the small black stitches around the base of the neck where the head has been attached to the trunk, and that’s more than enough, thank you.

  “The problem remains the blood,” Dr. Ehle says musingly. “In a living being, the heart pumps the blood, and the blood circulates through the body, carrying with it oxygen and other vital nutrients. By the time I get my hands on blood, it’s always sluggish and thick and will not circulate. So eventually the flesh will begin to decay, anyway, and the galvanic charge weakens down, and he will die again.”

  “The brain is a problem, too,” Dr. Elsinore says. “The galvanic spark revivifies the body but does nothing for the brain. He is alive, but vegetative—”

  “I tell you, a fresher brain will be the answer—” Dr. Ehle says.

  “I don’t think so, Theo. That doesn’t solve—”

  They sound as though they have had this argument before, and that it is a lengthy one. Etreyo interrupts, “But what about the hand, Doctor? How can it act alone?”

  Dr. Ehle says, “A mistake. I always prime the body part with some galvanic current before I attach it, to ensure that the part is still fresh and works. I used too much current and gave the hand such a jolt that it became completely animated. It jumped off the table and skittered away, and though Dr. Elsinore and I tried to catch it, we failed. I thought it didn’t matter; the galvanic current would wear off, and the hand would die again. I had no idea that it would prove so indomitable.”

  “And look what has happened,” Dr. Elsinore says sorrowfully.

  “Ayah, look what has happened,” Constable Etreyo says grimly. “Four people dead, and an innocent man about to be hanged. And more important, the hand still out there. We have to catch it before it kills someone else. And in time to exonerate Nutter Norm.”

  As far as Etreyo can recall, Bertillo’s System has no suggestions for catching murderous revivified hands. However, before Etreyo became a police officer, she worked two summers as a rat-catcher, and it seems to her that the same principles should apply. She needs a trap and bait. The trap will be easy enough; it’s the bait that proves perplexing. What would lure in a hand? Etreyo thinks back to the crimes and feels like an idiot not to have seen the connection between the jewelry before: the Squeeze only stole items it could wear. It has a taste for gimcracks. She needs bait that a vain, luxury-loving hand will find irresistible. Dr. Elsinore, eager to help, provides the solution. What would prove more alluring to a hand than a lovely embroidered glove? She has just the thing tucked away in her portmanteau.

  Constable Etreyo extracts from the doctors the promise that they will not leave the Octagon House until the case is closed and the hand is caught. Dr. Ehle agrees, but to her surprise, Dr. Elsinore insists on accompanying her. The cabbie still waits outside, asleep in his great coat; the fog is beginning to lift. Dawn is not far away. They ride back into the City and stop at the first hardware store they see, where Etreyo buys a rat-trap with a voucher.

  Nutter Norm had claimed he had found the bag of jewelry hidden in a duck’s nest near Strawberry Pond in Abenfaráx Park. The cabbie drops them off near the pond; Etreyo pays him with another voucher. In the early morning light, the grass is wet with dew, and the ducks are still in their nests. The pond is not far from the end of the Q horsecar line. Another connection between the murders snaps into place, belatedly; they all occurred within a block of the Q line. The Squeeze had been commuting to its crimes.

  “What if it’s gone?” Dr. Elsinore asks worriedly as Etreyo tramps around the bushes, looking for a good place to put the trap. In a duck’s nest, she finds a small horde of nail polish and emery boards. The Squeeze is also a shoplifter.

  “It’s still around,” she says. “I just hope it’s out getting more lacquer and not looking for more jewelry.” She drops the glove into the trap and props the door open, then pushes the trap into the bushes.


  “Perhaps the galvanic current has worn off,” Dr. Elsinore says as they settle onto a park bench to wait.

  “For Nutter Norm’s sake, I hope not. The captain is not going to believe my report if I cannot present the hand as proof.”

  “But at least then we shall not have to worry about anyone else getting hurt. I will swear an affidavit,” Dr. Elsinore says. “Surely the captain will not doubt me?”

  Surely not. Etreyo says, “Let’s wait and see.”

  They wait and see. Foggy dawn fades into a warm blue day. The ducks leave their nests and take to the pond, swimming and diving. A group of small school children parade by, two-by-two, hand-in-hand, and are swarmed by the ducks, looking for stale bread. The chaperones look sideways at Dr. Elsinore and Constable Etreyo sitting so aimlessly on the bench. Eventually, the school-children leave and the ducks go back to the water. The trap, hidden in the bushes, remains unsprung. A red dog arrives, chases a ball into the water, and then swims frantically around, barking at the ducks, until he’s whistled away. The sun is getting warm. The trap springs and they rush to it, only to find an angry squirrel catapulting around inside. They release the squirrel and reset the trap. Dr. Elsinore goes to the pond chalet snack shop and comes back with two boxes of pink popcorn and two coffees. Etreyo is sweating and not because of the sun. It’s almost noon: Norm’s execution is scheduled for two p.m. She checks the trap again: nothing.

  A horse cop clops by and asks them why are they are loitering. A flash of Etreyo’s badge sends him on his way. Dr. Elsinore goes off to find a bathroom. It’s almost one. The trap is still empty. Etreyo’s imagination keeps sliding back to poor Nutter Norm. He’s probably eating his last meal right about now; then he’ll be dressed in the coarse sacking of his shroud. He never hurt anyone; his only crime was to be crazy and old. She could have saved him if she’d been smarter—

  “Well, what a fine day to sit in the park.”

  Detective Wilkins sits down next to her. He holds two ice cream cones. He offers her one. He smells of bay rum and roasted almonds, and the slight breeze is blowing his hair into romantic curls, gusting the edges of his cape dramatically.

  “What do you want?” she demands, refusing the cone with a shake of her head.

  “Just taking the air.”

  “I thought you’d be at the prison. That you’d want to see the fruits of your labor fulfilled.”

  “My job is done. I never linger when my job is done. The ice cream is dripping on my hand. I’ll toss it.”

  She takes it. It’s a pity to waste good ice cream, and besides, she’s starving. She’s had nothing to eat since that long ago cheese waffle. The pink popcorn had stuck in her throat when she’d tried to eat it.

  “You are not very nice to me, Constable. I only did my job.”

  “Tell that to Nutter Norm,” Etreyo says, licking at her cone: salted caramel with orca bacon. Her favorite. She knows she should not be enjoying the ice cream while a man waits to die, but she is very hungry and the ice cream tastes very good.

  “He had a miserable life. He is better off dead.”

  She tosses the cone away, the taste of the ice cream suddenly slick and sickening in her mouth. “That’s not for you to judge—”

  “Constable!” Dr. Elsinore says excitedly. She has returned and yanks on Etreyo’s sleeve. “The trap has sprung.”

  “Trap? What trap?” Detective Wilkins asks.

  She ignores him and hurriedly follows Dr. Elsinore into the bushes. It’s probably just another squirrel, and in twenty minutes Nutter Norm will be dead.

  But the thing in the trap is definitely not a squirrel.

  The murderous hand has had a hard life since it escaped the doctors. Its nails are broken, rimmed with dirt. Its knuckles are bruised and its fingertips calloused. The wrist ends in a ragged, oozy wound. It looks more pathetic than horrifying. The hand throws itself upon the glove, clutches at it, tosses it up in the air, but, of course, one hand alone cannot put on a glove. Its anger and frustration are palpable.

  “Poor thing.” Dr. Elsinore says. “I think it needs medical attention.”

  “It killed four people,” Etreyo says, gingerly hoisting the cage up. “Come on—we may still have time to save Nutter Norm.”

  “What the fike is that?” Once again Detective Wilkins blocks her way. But this time he’s not looking at her; his attention is focused on the trap.

  “The real murderer!” Etreyo says. “And I can prove it, too! Get out of my way!”

  Now, though you may find it hard to believe, the physical perfection that is Detective Wilkins is not without flaw. It’s a flaw that he takes pains to hide, and one that he has learned to work around. His eyesight is not very good. He can see distance fine, but up close, things tend to blur, and to bring them into focus, he must get very near indeed. He sees the cage perfectly, but the hand, now clutching at the bars of its prison, is not so distinct. He leans forward to get a better look. Etreyo pivots away from this lean, tries to go around him. Wilkins reaches for the cage; she sidesteps his grip and puts her foot down squarely on a duck that she didn’t know was underfoot. The duck quacks angrily, and surprised by the sudden flutter of wings at her feet, Etreyo drops the cage.

  The cage pops open, and galvanic-quick the Squeeze leaps from its prison, scuttles on fingertips, crab-like, across the ground, and grabs a hold of Detective Wilkins’s perfectly creased trouser leg. Detective Wilkins looks down and sees something crawling rapidly up his leg; he squints, and thinks it’s a squirrel, a rabid squirrel probably, for whoever heard otherwise of a squirrel attacking someone? Detective Wilkins stamps his feet, and bats at the hand, trying to dislodge it. The Squeeze knows what it wants: the splendid diamond pinky ring that Detective Wilkins wears on his left hand, and it is not going to be so easily dislodged.

  “Hold still!” Etreyo shouts, tearing off her coat.

  Detective Wilkins is doing the tarantella now, his feet stepping mighty high, slapping ineffectually. The Squeeze is skittering up Detective Wilkins’s splendidly embroidered weskit, heading for his snow-white cravat.

  “Get it off!” Wilkins hollers. His straw skimmer falls off and he steps on it, putting his foot through the crown. Now he looks as though he’s invented a new dance: the Murdering Hand Fandango. Choking back laughter, Etreyo throws all her weight against the dancing detective. He goes down like a ninepin.

  “Use my cloak, it’s bigger!” Dr. Elsinore cries.

  Etreyo snatches Dr. Elsinore’s cloak and throws it over the thrashing detective, hoping to trap the Squeeze in its folds. Detective Wilkins’s screams, muffled in the heavy cloak, have become wheezes, and his thrashing is lessening. His head is tangled in the cloth; when Etreyo gets it free, she sees that the Squeeze has Detective Wilkins by the throat.

  She grabs at the Squeeze, tries to pry it off, but the Squeeze has a death grip on the detective. His face has turned plum-purple, and his eyes are bulging out. She dares not let go of what grip she has to reach for her pocketknife. Dimly, she hears Dr. Elsinore shouting. Dimly, she hears herself shouting. Wilkins’s tongue is protruding; his face is almost blue. Desperately, she leans down and sinks her teeth into the Squeeze. She bites down as hard as she can, until her teeth grate on bone. The hand spasms and slackens its grip, and Detective Wilkins gurgles. A horrible rancid iron taste floods Etreyo’s mouth, and she almost gags, but grimly she holds on. Her jaws ache, and the taste is making her want to upchuck. But she holds on. The Squeeze’s grip is growing weaker. With one last spasm, it lets go of Wilkins’s throat. Etreyo raises up her head, tears the now limp hand out of her mouth, and throws it back into the cage. Dr. Elsinore slams the cage door shut. Someone helps Etreyo crawl off of Detective Wilkins’s now limp form; dimly, she hears someone yell that he is still alive. Etreyo staggers over to the bushes, and spits and spits and spits, and rubs her lips against her sleeve until they are raw.

  V. The Trial

  Like moths to a flame, they cluster around him, the great Detecti
ve Wilkins, his muscular throat wrapped in a silken bandage, silver sunshades hiding his bruised eyes. Just back from Saeta House, where he has received a commendation for bravery in subduing and capturing the Hand of Gory (as the press have re-dubbed the murderer). Not every detective is willing to revisit his own case, to admit that he might have the wrong man. Not every detective is willing lay his life on the line to capture a murderer and save an innocent man. The stationhouse throngs with well-wishers, and people are lined up outside to shake his hand.

  What a trump!

  The Hand of Gory has been booked and now resides, still in its cage, in a cell in the Califa City Jail. How a revivified hand can participate in its own defense, understand the charges against, and make a plea, well, that’s not the police’s problem. The lawyers will have to figure that out. The police (who love lawyers not a whit) are sure that the lawyers will find a way. Nutter Norm has been released and now resides in the Palace Hotel’s best suite, courtesy of the Warlady. Doctors Elsinore and Ehle have had an audience with the Warlady, the end result being that they have been appointed to her medical staff. The Warlady is canny; she sees great potential in galvanic energy, if it is harnessed to Califa’s advantage. The not-quite-so dead chorus boy has returned to the Odeon Theater, a chorus boy no longer, but now, with much ballyhoo, recast in the lead role of the Dainty Pirate. The run is already sold out.

  But where is the true hero of the hour, Constable Etreyo? She’s in the stationhouse bathroom, brushing her teeth for the hundredth time. No matter how hard she scrubs, she can’t get the rancid taste of the Hand of Gory out of her mouth. As she brushes, she listens to the sounds of congratulation coming from the other room and tries not to feel bitter. Nutter Norm, standing on the scaffold with a rope around his neck, was reprieved. That’s all that matters. Let Detective Wilkins have the glory. He’s already been somewhat overshadowed by Doctors Ehle and Elsinore and their fantastic medical experiments, anyway. Once the revivified chorus boy makes his debut, Detective Wilkins will be forgotten.