by Carrie Patel
“That’s how you were found, Miss Lin. Your laundry cart was overturned and the clothes scattered over some two hundred feet. A resident followed this trail to the wide-open door of Fitzhugh’s domicile.”
Jane gazed at the edge of the bed sheet, digging deeper for some forgotten detail. Coming up dry, she finally looked up and shrugged at Malone, who continued.
“Do you know of anyone who has reason to harm you?”
“Of course not.”
“Everyone has enemies, Miss Lin.”
“Everyone important, maybe.” Still, Jane considered the question. “No one I know of.”
Malone pressed her lips together and nodded. She started to rise, and Jane understood that she meant to leave as suddenly as she’d come.
“Wait,” Jane said, looking at both inspectors. “Isn’t there something you could tell me? Now that you’re done with me I’ve got to return to a normal life.”
Malone paused, and her partner again gave her a prompting look. “I believe you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lanning Fitzhugh was the victim of a murder, and you stumbled upon it while the attacker was still present. You became a liability. I don’t think you’re in any further danger, but I’ll send an officer to keep an eye on your residence.”
Jane frowned. “How can you be sure? That I’m not in danger, I mean.”
This time, Sundar spoke, pushing away from the door. “We’re not. But whoever it was took care to knock you out.”
“Took care? There’s something the size of an egg on the back of my head.”
Sundar held up his hands. “Yes, and there’s a mosquito bite on the side of your neck. A drug of some kind, and probably too much, but the knot on your head came from your fall, not a blunt instrument.”
He picked a piece of lint from his coat. “Besides, you said yourself that the domicile was dark – so dark you didn’t see your attacker coming. He knows that. And he knows something else. By noon today, Fitzhugh’s death will be all over the city, and I get the feeling that’s just fine with him. So, why would the killer risk his cover by coming after you? He may not even know your name. Assuming, that is, your friend here is as discreet as you are,” he added with a nod at Fredrick. Fredrick, looking up from his notepad, fooled no one with his innocuous shrug.
Jane felt the first small swell of relief, but something else occurred to her. “Am I a suspect?”
Malone finally smiled. “No. Your hands are too small to have made the marks around Fitzhugh’s neck.”
Jane nodded, but there was a still more pressing question on her mind. “Inspector, do you think he – or she – meant to kill me?”
“I think he meant to keep you from interfering with his escape. And I think he’s capable of killing when he means to.”
Jane felt a chill. She also felt a strange urge to laugh. Whatever her problems were now, a missing pearl button was not among them. “Thank you, Inspector.”
Malone gave her another rare smile and handed her a clipboard and paper. “The names, please.”
Jane complied, passing the list of her Vineyard clientele to Malone, who gave it to her partner. Then, the lady inspector rose from the chair, and she and Sundar walked to the door.
“I appreciate your cooperation, Miss Lin. Please visit Callum Station if you remember anything else,” she said, pausing. “One more question. You said that you heard Alfred Hollens and Roman Arnault talking. Did you hear what they said?”
“A little,” Jane said, blushing again. She wondered about the professional consequences if word of her indiscretion got out. But not for long.
Malone smiled, looking actually pleased for the first time. “Go on.”
“They were speaking very quietly, so I couldn’t catch all of it,” she said, and she repeated the fragments that she had heard.
“Prometheus?” Malone said. “Do you know anyone – or anything – by that name?”
“No, Inspector. That was the first time I’d heard it.”
Malone nodded and turned to leave. “Thank you again, Miss Lin.”
Jane spoke up once more. “Inspector? Do you think this murder is related to the one found yesterday morning?”
A flicker of hesitation crossed Malone’s face. Her partner looked at her with raised eyebrows before she spoke again. “Yes. However, I would ask you to exercise your famous discretion. Good day.” With that, the two inspectors donned their coats and disappeared. As soon as they were out of sight, Fredrick approached the bedside again with a conspiratorial grin and a wink.
“Wonderful, Jane,” he said. “Did I ever tell you that you’re a first-rate interview? A true-to-life breathless, wide-eyed heroine!”
“You’re really going to write it? After the bit about discretion?”
“Technically, she said that to you, not to me.” He looked away as Jane continued to fix him with a dubious stare. “Come on. People are going to figure that one out whether I write it or not. Or do you mean to tell me anyone’s actually going to believe that two back-to-back Vineyard murders are unrelated?”
Jane sighed. “Consider us even after the ball invitation. But I don’t want my name anywhere in your story,” she added.
He gave a thoughtful shrug. “Fair enough. Anyway, the main focus will be what you saw, not who you are. No celebrity for Jane.”
She sighed and stared at the foot of the bed for a few moments. “You know what I do want?”
“I’m dying to hear it.”
“Food. Bowls and platters of it.”
“Well, then, we’ll have to get you out of here. They’re serving bowls and platters of something down the hall, but I wouldn’t call it food.”
Jane laughed, taking his proffered arm and sliding out of bed. “Seems they gave me a private room. Maybe they have something special in the kitchen, as well.”
“Don’t count on it. You only got your private quarters because you were the imperiled and valuable witness, which, by the way, made you a devilishly difficult person to look in on.”
“They didn’t accept your credentials?”
“No,” he said with a sniff. “Clearly no one here reads the news. Anyway, I finally had to dig out my old sponsorship papers to prove our connection.”
“I’m touched that you still have them.”
He waved a hand. “Point being, now that you’ve survived and delivered your testimony, they’ll choke you on the same gruel they feed everyone else. Now, that’s nothing to laugh about. Get changed so we can get out of here.”
Jane slid behind a dressing screen where her clothes from the night before waited. She slipped out of plain cotton gown and into her dress and finally pulled a corduroy coat, rumpled and dirty after her adventure, over her arms. Fastening the buttons around her waist and torso, she stumbled back to Fredrick’s waiting arm.
“Easy. Off we go,” he said. They were out of the door and down the hall, his left arm serving as an anchor while his right steadied her shoulders. “It doesn’t count as walking if you can’t do it in a consistent direction.”
“We’ll see how you do after your brush with death,” Jane said. All the same, she stared at the ground in front of her feet in fierce concentration.
They were almost clear of the hall and its suspicious odors of burnt oats and lard when trouble approached from behind. “Where are you two going?”
Fredrick decided to answer the challenge, turning his charge and himself to face the speaker. A nurse, shaped like a potbelly stove, stood several feet away with her hands on her hips. “So glad you should ask. My young friend here is ready to take some fresh air and a meal. Unless you’re nose-blind to the… revealing odors of this place, I’m sure you’ll agree that both of those objectives are best accomplished outside of your fair hospital.”
The nurse’s eyes narrowed, and her knuckles made an odd cracking sound as she flexed them. “She doesn’t look like she’s ready to go anywhere, sir.”
“Ah, but there w
e disagree. She’s awakened from her candlestick-induced slumber, provided her testimony to the proper authorities, and expressed her wish to depart. So, considering the facts, she’s quite ready.” Jane nodded her agreement in a diagonal fashion. Despite Fredrick’s flip manners, and what often appeared like a more-than-casual detachment from reality, she knew her friend had steel where it counted. Even against a nurse with arms the size of his neck.
“Sir, you’d better put her right back where you found her or I’ll have to prepare a hospital bed for you, too.”
“I’m not sure what to make of that, but you’re clearly more imaginative than I. Let’s see, I’m sure I have something here that we can all agree on.” He fished the aforementioned sponsorship papers out of his pocket and handed them to the nurse. She barely finished the first three lines when her eyes shot back to his.
Fredrick rolled his eyes. “Yes, that’s me, but that’s not my real birthdate.”
“You’re Fredrick Anders? The Fredrick Anders that wrote about the rise of whooping cough in the factory districts?”
“The same.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, I thought you were a creep.”
“Glad to have convinced you otherwise.”
“And to think, not only a champion of the working-class, but you’ve sponsored this poor girl!” The nurse paused, admiring the picture of social conscience and charity before her. She brought her hands together with an audible crack. “You’re a good man, Mr Anders.”
“Can I quote you on that?”
The nurse finally turned her attention back to Jane. “OK, there’s not much else we can do for her now, except keep an eye on her. I normally wouldn’t allow this, but under the circumstances, I’ll let her go with you as long as you promise to check in on her regularly.”
“On my honor.”
“Every few hours,” she said, shaking a blunt finger at him. “At the first sign of any drowsiness, dizziness, or abnormal behavior, bring her back to us. Understood?”
“Completely.”
“Wonderful.” She whipped hear head around in the direction of a contingent of frantic nurses and hollered, “Open bed in 382! Next one in!” With a long-suffering shake of her head, the nurse retreated down the hall. Jane and Fredrick looked at each other.
“Well, Freddie, at least one of us has some celebrity.”
“I’d settle for not looking like a creep.”
Jane patted his arm. “Don’t take that one to heart.”
The corners of Fredrick’s mouth and eyes twitched up in well-meaning mischief. “Speaking of looks, when are we going to find a nice, non-creepy type for you?”
Jane exhaled in something between a laugh and a sigh. “Careful, or you’ll really make my head hurt.”
“Someone like that nice young inspector. He was rather attractive, wasn’t he?”
A little surprise of a grin tripped over Jane’s lips. “Now that you mention it, he was.”
“Yes. Too bad he’s sleeping with the older one.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s false.”
“And just because it’s juicy doesn’t mean it’s true.”
#
“All due respect, Malone, but is that your idea of a bedside manner?” Sundar said. Malone looked over at him with the closest thing she had to a casual glance. “You make the killer look friendly by comparison.”
“She’s fine. We needed answers, and we didn’t have time to waste.”
The inspectors were on the surface street above the hospital. Sundar leaned against the smooth marble of a veranda. “We did get answers, anyway. She definitely isn’t hiding anything.”
“No.”
“What do you think about the door, though?”
Malone folded her arms and scanned the streets around them. “Witnesses make mistakes like that all the time.”
“What if the murderer left through that door?”
“He fled to the surface last time. It would have been safest this time, too.”
“Lin said the underground streets were empty.”
“No moon out last night. The Vineyard underground is better lit. Anyway, I think she didn’t shut the door, or at least she didn’t shut it properly.”
“Maybe the killer broke it on the way in.”
Malone shook her head. “Every door, every lock was intact.”
Sundar bit his lip, frowning. “Getting a key to Fitzhugh’s would be even harder than getting a key to Cahill’s.”
“I know.”
The young inspector sucked his teeth. “So, we really are assuming this was the same person. That it wasn’t a coincidence that two prosperous citizens were murdered in their homes in or around the Vineyard without any apparent break-in.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence.”
Sundar nodded. “For someone with a key, he has a conspicuous way of making an exit. Think about the overturned laundry cart.”
“It’s interesting.” Malone spent a few moments in silent thought before shrugging. “A stray dog could have done that.”
“Maybe, but the clothes weren’t torn or dirtied or anything. Just scattered. And quite meticulously, at that.”
“Drunk partygoers, then.”
“You think someone would have seen the open door and walked right past it? Besides, this was in the Vineyard. I don’t get the idea that there are too many hooligans running amok.”
“You’d be surprised at what goes on there.”
Sundar considered it. “Is it possible,” he said, “that whoever attacked Lin left a trail of clothes to the open door on purpose? So that she’d be discovered, I mean.”
Malone began to walk. “You think the killer was looking out for her.”
“He did knock her out,” he said, following.
“The murderer has preyed on two defenseless old men. I don’t see him going out of his way for anyone.”
They walked in silence for several paces, watching the Saturday morning traffic before Malone continued. “Miss Lin’s account doesn’t tell us much about the killer, so we’ll have to look for those answers elsewhere.” She turned to Sundar. “Next steps, Inspector?”
“We can check on the coroner’s report if we return to the station now,” he said. “I don’t know if he’ll have anything definitive, but it’s worth a try.”
“The Chief will also want to know what we found this morning.”
A brisk walk from the hospital and its immaculate, white veranda brought them to the station’s familiar pavilion of impassive grey. A drop down the stairs, a turn from the rotunda into one of the smaller hallways, and a short march to its conclusion brought them to the coroner’s office. Malone knocked and the elderly man let them in, wearing crisp whites and a multicolored smock that had originally been white, too. The coroner’s eyes lighted with recognition on Malone, and he pumped her hand with surprising vigor, the corners of his mouth forming a crinkly smile.
Malone’s own mouth melted into grin. “Good to see you. Dr Brin, this is my new colleague, Inspector Sundar.”
Sundar extended his own hand in greeting. “Nice to meet you.” Stepping forward, he caught a whiff of something pungent. “Wow! I didn’t know that you embalmed specimens in your office, Doctor.”
Brin’s smile dropped. “I don’t.”
Sundar frowned. Malone could tell that he was entering dangerous territory, but the young inspector was oblivious. “Oh. Where’s that formaldehyde coming from, then?”
“Young man, that is not formaldehyde.” Brin turned his back on the pair and marched toward his desk. Before Sundar could press the issue further, Malone elbowed him. Aftershave, she mouthed. Now it was his turn to blush.
“Please, Inspectors, have a seat.” Dr. Brin put on his spectacles, two thick wedges of glass connected by a flimsy-looking wire, and lifted a sheet of paper. “I doubt I’m telling you anythi
ng new,” he began, “but here’s what I found: Cahill suffered a blow to the head, just below the base of his skull, after which he fell, breaking his neck. Death was instantaneous.”
“With the blow or with the break?” Sundar asked.
Dr Brin did his best to ignore Sundar while answering the question. “With the break. Any surprises here, Inspector Malone?”
“Helpful as always,” she said. “Any way this could have been an accident?”
“Oh no, Inspector Malone,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “This was intentional. The attacker struck with great force and precision.”
“And the attacker? Did you discover anything about him?”
“Nothing conclusive, I’m afraid. Simply that he or she was strong and agile enough to overpower a seventy-year-old man. And right-handed. There were no hair fibers, snatches of clothing, or foreign materials on the corpse or at the scene which could help us identify the attacker.”
“So it was a naked bald guy,” Sundar said.
“That’s all we need, Doctor,” said Malone. “Can you estimate when you’ll complete your examination of the second body?”
Dr Brin’s brow furrowed. “The second body?”
“Lanning Fitzhugh. The victim discovered this morning.”
“Oh, him,” he said, removing his spectacles and polishing them on his oddly-stained smock. “I’m afraid we don’t have it.”
“What do you mean? The City Guard had already removed it from the domicile when we showed up.”
Brin puffed on the lenses. “It was my understanding that they were keeping it for their own examination.”
“And then?”
Dr Brin shrugged. “Cremation. The courier didn’t give me details.”
Sundar blinked. “There must be some mistake, Doctor.”
Brin scowled as he replaced his glasses. “Young man, I may be funny-smelling, but I’m not hard of hearing. The courier said we would not receive the body.”
