Contagion

by Joanne Dahme

  “Yes?” she asked meekly, looking at her feet. Her face was pale and was framed by soft brown curls.

  Buchanan thrust his police badge toward the girl. “I am Detective Buchanan, and this is Mr. Parker from the Bureau of Water. May we speak with Mr. Dugan?”

  The girl glanced nervously over her shoulder and hesitated a moment before stepping back to allow us to enter. “Please. Wait here in the foyer, and I will let Mr. Dugan know that you are here.” She nodded her head, and turned quickly, walking past the stairway toward the end of the hall.

  Our eyes met, and our jaws were set in a hard expression. I had to suppress the urge to fly up the stairway, shouting for Rose. I strained to hear some movement on the second floor but detected no sounds.

  The young woman was walking toward us now, wringing her hands on her apron. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “Mr. Dugan—he was in the dining room when I came to the door . . .” She looked up the stairs as if he might have spirited himself past us. “May I tell him you called when he returns?”

  “He must be in one of the backrooms,” I argued, ignoring the girl. Buchanan gently pushed past her. “You must excuse us,” he said hastily, “but this is an emergency.”

  We dashed down the hall and pushed open the glass doors to the dining room. A folded newspaper and a cup of tea, still steaming, were set at the head of the polished mahogany table.The chair was pushed back at an angle tangent to the kitchen.

  “Damn,” Buchanan muttered, as we dashed around the perimeter of the table through the entrance to the kitchen. A pot of water was hissing on the stove. Three brown eggs lay expectantly on a plate by a simmering pan. The kitchen door, which led to the yard, was slightly ajar.

  “He has gotten away!” I yelled. My body was quivering with cheated rage. I turned on Buchanan. “We cannot allow this. He must be stopped.”

  “He has not gotten far, I can assure you,” Buchanan shot back, his voice struggling to maintain his agitation. “The patrol wagon should be here. Come, I’ll have our officers scour the neighborhood, his office, every last structure in this city until I have Dugan in cuffs.”

  The girl was still standing by the front door as Buchanan ran down the steps of the house, hollering for his officers. I took the girl by the arm, too harshly I realized, as she winced and pulled back from me.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized, ashamed. “Where is Mrs. Dugan?” I asked, my voice softer. “It is very important that you tell me whatever you know.”

  The girl began to cry softly. She covered her mouth with her hands. “I don’t know where Mrs. Dugan is, I swear to you.” I noticed for the first time the Irish lilt in her voice. “No one was at home when I arrived this morning, except for Mr. Dugan.”

  “People’s lives may be at stake here,” I said earnestly. I couldn’t dare to be more specific. “Did Dugan say anything to you this morning that might help us find him or Mrs. Dugan?”

  She pulled a lace handkerchief from her apron pocket and was dabbing tentatively at her eyes. She colored before replying. “While I was serving Mr. Dugan tea in the dining room, there was a knock on the kitchen door.” She paused to catch her breath. “He told me to wait in the dining room, but I couldn’t help but hear him speaking ...”

  “Who was he speaking to?” I encouraged.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. But he sounded angry. He called the person a drunkard and told him they had some work to finish today on the river. That is all I heard; I swear to you.”

  Buchanan joined us again, out of breath from racing up and down the stairs. “My officers are searching the neighborhood.” He wiped his brow with his hand. “I did want to avoid creating an uproar, but so be it. Thank God we have this warrant.”

  “We need to search upstairs,” I interrupted. “The girl said that no one was here but Dugan. And from what she overheard, he’s going to the Water Works.”

  Buchanan bowed his head to her, grateful for the information. “Let’s go up and search for Mrs. Dugan.”

  My body no longer felt tired as I took the stairs two by two. I tried not to feel as if I were violating the private spaces of Rose’s life, as Buchanan and I opened each door adjoining the tight, paneled hallway.What we assumed to be the master bedroom was in good order.The room harbored the faint smell of Macassar oil. We found Rose’s sitting room, and the maid’s room, also empty and neat. Lastly we pushed open the door that I knew must be Rose’s bedroom. My hand trembled as I gripped the doorknob.

  The bed was made, a spread tucked neatly under the pillow. Brushes and bottles were arranged on the vanity. A framed portrait of a middle-aged couple was tilted to face the bed.The white lace curtains were closed. I grew hot. My hands were trembling as I stifled my desire to touch something of hers. My face flushed. I had to look away.

  Buchanan grabbed me by the elbow. “Do you smell it?” he asked, the urgency in his voice snapping my attention from the intimacies of the room. I took a breath. I did detect something but only because Buchanan called my attention to it. I focused on the barely perceptible odor, which reminded me of the gentleman chemist from the Bureau of Health.

  “Is it a laboratory smell?” I asked, wracking my mind for the proper name.

  “Chloroform,” Buchanan answered gravely. He walked to the bed, laying his hands on the cover and leaning his face close to the cloth. I looked on, eyes wide. Buchanan took a few deep breaths and then straightened. “The scent is unmistakable.”

  “What do you mean?” I demanded, wanting to pull the detective away from the bed.

  “It’s a concoction used to incapacitate victims. Nowadays, every thief seems to carry a bottle of it.”

  “My God,” I whispered, my heart suddenly beating with a deafening force. “What has he done to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Buchanan replied carefully. “But I know where we must look.”

  I closed my eyes. I guessed what Buchanan felt repugnance about naming.

  ROSE

  I was praying as I paced the stone floor, the bone still in my hands. The movement kept me from trembling. I felt reduced by the cold. It sliced at my muscles and skin. It was difficult to walk. My body was like a blunt knife struggling to cut the thick, frigid air. I was afraid that if I stopped moving, everything would seize—my heart, my breathing. All I could do was lurch back and forth across the fifteen feet expanse of the room, a stack of vaults on both sides defining my widow’s walk. But it’s quite the reverse, I thought bitterly. Peter claimed that Patrick had plans to be the widower.

  Was Brophy telling the truth? It seemed impossible. Patrick was my family, as I was his. We were promised to one another, and I had grown to love the enigmatic man I had idolized as a child.Yet Peter had taunted me about Elizabeth, the woman Patrick had sworn was Peter’s sweetheart.

  It didn’t make sense, until I thought of Patrick’s father and brother, whose fractured or drowned bones rested forever silent in their vaults. Was I also an ornament of his life that had served its time?

  “Please, God, give me the strength,” I shivered, my jaw trembling as I forced the words from my mouth. How long had it been since Peter had locked me in again? It felt like hours, but I knew that the cold made one’s senses weary. My heart had returned to the sluggish pace it had settled into after Peter had left, followed by a brief surge of life when I had heard the voices of men outside the walls of the mausoleum. At first, I had strained to hear what they were saying, fearing that it might be Peter. I could hear laughter and a good-natured curse against the weather. Then one of the men asked something about a new grave to be dug.

  My body tensed into action. I banged the bone against the door, screamed louder than I thought possible, and slammed the canteen against the tiny stained-glass window. But in moments, the voices receded into silence. I slumped against the vaults, exhausted, allowing my back to slide against the metal until I was sitting on the marble ledge, my head resting on the side of the vault. I closed my eyes. I felt like weeping but soon felt a t
empting drowsiness lulling me into an easy darkness. I thought of Sean, and a heavy sense of loss filled me. I remembered how I had crushed the urge to reach out and touch his face as we had stood in the shadow of City Hall. He had looked so beaten.Yet I had maintained my decorum. Now I would give anything to have the chance to toss propriety aside. Disappointment—in myself and my life, gnawed with the hunger in my empty belly. I wanted to find myself in Sean’s sensitive, caring embrace. It was then that I stood. I will not make this easy, I promised myself.

  The white glow from the angel’s wings caught my gaze again. Surely, if I hit the window straight on, it would crack, and I could push the shards of stained glass out with my hand.Then someone could hear me when I yelled.The canteen was in my hand, its nozzle pointing at the window, when I heard the magnified sound of a key. Someone was trying the lock again.

  I held my breath. I bent to grab the bone while holding the canteen by its strap. I pressed my body against the wall, only inches from the door. I leveled one arm to waist height. I dangled the canteen by its strap. I could feel it touch my nightdress as it swayed in my hand.

  The ornamental iron door rattled impatiently. I heard a muffled cry of exasperation and then a resounding clank as the door suddenly released its grip on the frame. The tempered glass door seemed less moody. I watched wide-eyed as it opened into the sunlight. I braced myself to swing the canteen with all my strength into my visitor’s face.

  Someone stepped through, carelessly, as I swung. I heard the canteen connect hard against a skull as I felt its strap go slack upon the impact. I kicked with my leg as I raised the bone high in the air with my other hand, immediately bringing it down onto the head or neck or face of whoever it was that had come to kill me.

  A scream echoed in the mausoleum as I stepped back to see the body of Martha sprawled on the stone slab. I realized that the scream was hers. Martha’s face was bloodied. A thin trail of red coursed from her nose down her chin and onto her coat. Her hat lay next to her. Her eyes were closed as she moaned. I gagged against an urge to be sick. I dropped the bone and stepped over Martha to flee through the open mausoleum door.

  The sunlight was blinding, and I stopped to shield my eyes with my hand. Which way should I run? I tried but couldn’t remember exactly which path would lead me to the Gate House. Surely there would be people in the offices. But I heard Martha moan again, and all sense of direction abandoned me.

  I let gravity pull me as I began running down the hill toward the river, my feet slipping over the frost-covered grass. I fell to the ground and picked myself up again, oblivious now to the cold, only mindful of the tombstones that thwarted my efforts to make a straight run. I could hear the wind now, filling my ears, excluding all other sound. The sunlight was still dazzling, but I could see the river, see the sparkling gems of light roll across the river’s surface. All I knew now was that I wanted to reach the river.

  I hadn’t remembered the fence, its black, spiked iron bars guarding the land of the dead. I slowed as I approached it, let my foot trip against the other as I reached my hands toward the bars. I would climb this fence, I told myself.

  I clasped one cold bar in my hand when I heard the raspy voice. “Miss?” someone coughed out, the voice old and tubercular. I felt my body spasm as if a hand was poised to grab me.

  “No!” I screamed, as my own hand convulsed into a fist. I closed my eyes and swung as hard as I could. My hand hit nothing but air. I gasped and stepped back, to see a startled old man, dressed in worn overalls and a flannel shirt, gaping at me.

  His gray eyes were sunken. His chin was dark with stubble. His white mustache twitched nervously as his mouth worked to speak. He said nothing. Instead, he removed the worn bowler from his head.

  “Don’t come near me,” I warned in a low growl. I stepped back again, my hands feeling for the fence while watching the old man. I didn’t recognize him.Was he one of Patrick’s men?

  “It’s okay, miss,” he said softly, as if he were addressing a wild animal. “The police are looking for you. You’re safe now.” He extended his hand toward me, encouragingly. I noticed it was callused, its knuckles swollen with age.

  I glanced around. I didn’t see the police. The old man didn’t move. His arm was trembling as he held it toward me.

  “Who are you?” I asked, my eyes narrowing. “You’re not the police.” I could feel the iron bars pressing against my back.

  He nodded in agreement, the bowler held at his waist. “No, I’m not,” he admitted. “Of course I’m not.” Now it was he who turned to look up the hill. Seeing no one, he turned back to me. “I’m John Sully. I’m the groundskeeper for the cemetery. The police arrived just a quarter of an hour ago to look for you.”

  I stared at him. He looked to be telling the truth. I felt the wind suddenly stir the folds of my nightdress. I felt myself flush as I folded my arms over my breasts.

  “Will you take me to them?” I asked, the fire now out of my voice. “Please.”

  Mr. Sully straightened and squinted at me. He was relieved as he placed his bowler back on his head.

  “Of course I’ll take you, miss.We need to climb back up the hill, to the Gate House.” He motioned for me to begin following him. “We’ll warm you up. Can you manage?” he asked, almost shyly. I noticed he didn’t look at me.

  “I ran down this hill,” I replied. “I’m sure I can climb up it.”

  He turned to lead the way and began to slowly wind a path between the tombstones to avoid rocks and the grasping branches of the withered trees.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have a blanket.” He was looking at my feet when he turned to address me. He shook his head. “I didn’t expect that I’d be the one to find you.”

  “It’s all right,” I answered, out of breath. I suddenly felt light-headed. “Are we close?”

  “Not far,” he said, with obvious relief. “Just beyond that ridge, behind that last row of mausoleums.” I nodded wordlessly. I kept my focus on his scuffed boots as we continued up the hill. Each step he took I measured as a marker toward my salvation. If I just concentrate on his boots, I know that I could make it.

  Suddenly, Mr. Sully drew up. I heard another voice, its hue unintelligible. I looked up to see someone running toward us, someone pulling off a coat as he ducked beneath a tree branch. It was Sean. His face looked stricken. He called out my name as he continued to dash down the hill. I felt a sudden relief and gratitude that blurred my eyes with tears as I stood waiting for him.

  “Rose, thank God you are safe,” he cried, quickly wrapping his coat around me. I felt his hands against my back, now hugging my shoulders, as he pulled his coat snug against me. “Let me carry you.You have no shoes, and your feet are cut.” His voice was strangled with emotion. He leaned toward me as if he meant to pick me up in his arms.

  “No, Sean,” I whispered, my own voice nearly overcome. I couldn’t believe that he was here. I took his arm gratefully. “We’re almost at the Gate House, Mr. Sully tells me. Just give me your arm.”

  Instead, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to him. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t feel a need or an ability to speak. I just allowed myself to lean against him, to feel his strength bearing me up the path. I breathed deep and found comfort in the smell of his coat, of the smell of Sean all around me.

  “We are almost there, Rose,” Sean whispered, his face leaning into my tangled hair. I raised my head a bit. I could see the Gate House now, stark and white, just beyond the bend.With its massive columns and its ornate stone cornices, it loomed over the cemetery like its largest mausoleum. Four horses were tethered to a post by the stable, and two police wagons stood abandoned in the driveway.

  “How did you know, Sean?” I asked breathlessly. “How did you know to look for me here?” I closed my eyes. I still felt cold to my bones. I couldn’t imagine ever feeling warm again.

  “Buchanan and I went to your home early this morning ... looking for . . . your husband. We missed him, and whe
n we realized that you weren’t at home, Buchanan thought of the mausoleum.” He mumbled something under his breath. “We’ll be inside in a few moments.”

  I tried to imagine the scene. There was so much I wanted to ask. I settled on the most pressing question. “Where is Patrick?” My voice went low, just mentioning his name deadened my tongue. I felt Sean’s body tense. He held me more tightly.

  “We’re not sure, Rose.” He looked straight ahead. “We think he went to the Water Works.” Sean shifted me gently in his arms. “Officer!” He suddenly yelled. “Please arrange a place by the fire for Mrs. Dugan!”

  There was a flurry of voices swirling around me suddenly. I felt the caress of warm air as Sean guided me through the door. Mrs. Sully, an older woman with soft, braided white hair and pinched cheeks, was holding a blanket. A young police officer was pulling a love seat by the fireplace. In a moment, I felt the stiff cushion of the sofa supporting me. Sean held the blanket now and tucked it around me.

  “Bless us all,” Mrs. Sully exclaimed, as she shook her head in disbelief. “Let me get the young woman some hot tea and biscuits.” She scuttled into an adjoining hall before Sean could reply.

  “What have you done with the maid?” Sean asked the policeman. The officer held his police hat in his hand as he banged it against his open palm. He looked at me and then back to Sean with brown eyes older than his years. He rubbed his chin with his chapped hands before answering.

  “Officers O’Brien and Michaels are bringing her up the hill. They’ll put her in the wagon and take her directly to the station house.” He turned to shyly look at me. I thought I saw a twitch of a smile beneath his thick, dark mustache. “You certainly gave her a surprise, Mrs. Dugan,” he said, addressing me for the first time. I felt a small thrill of triumph.

  “Thank you,” I replied softly. I was surprised to see the color drain from Sean’s face.

  Sean cleared his throat. “Could you wait for me till I find a carriage to take Mrs. Dugan home? I want to accompany you to the Water Works.”