by Joanne Dahme
I wanted to say something hurtful back. Everything he said to me fanned my burgeoning bitterness, which seemed to be the only emotion I still felt toward him. Sorrow, disappointment, despair—he had succeeded in killing those sentiments completely during my night in the mausoleum. I didn’t fear Patrick either. He knew he was being watched. A police officer was on our front steps, courtesy of Detective Buchanan.
“Do I have to go to this party with you, Patrick? You don’t really need me there,” I said bluntly. “I’m sure that Elizabeth will be there.”The name still stung me.
He looked hurt. “How many times do I have to tell you this, Rose, that there is no Elizabeth in my life? The poor girl has wasted her life on Brophy. Perhaps now she will move on.”
His face became animated again. He waved at the morning room door, indicating for me to go through. “Of course I need you there, Rose,” he murmured intimately.“There were rumors that I was interested in a political position, a Select Councilman, perhaps a congressional title. I have assured the mayor that I wish to remain a private citizen, and that I will support him in the next election with all the resources available to me.” His voice suddenly acquired an ominous tone. “And I need my innocent, beautiful wife, smiling at my side, so that all of Philadelphia can see that I am not the monster that my competitor has portrayed.”
I didn’t look at him as I swept past.
“Get your coat,” he ordered. “The carriage is waiting.”
He stood in the foyer. He beckoned to me with his walking stick. His coat was folded across his arm. He opened the door and nodded for me to proceed.
“I expect you to act appropriately tonight.You are my wife.You will do as I ask you to,” he warned. I looked into his face as I brushed his elbow. His dark eyes revealed nothing to me.
I stood on the landing of the front steps and smiled at the police officer who was leaning against the iron railing. He was an older man with a large red nose and gray walrus mustache. It had been drizzling, and beads of water still clung to his worsted coat. He tipped his hat to me. One hand rested on his billy club. “Good evening, Mrs. Dugan, Mr. Dugan. Where are we heading tonight?”
I felt Patrick’s arm on my back. His hand stiffened on my shoulder. “For how long can I expect the honor of this escort, Officer?” Patrick asked sarcastically. I wanted to pull away from him but instead directed my attention to the haloed gas lamps on the street. A fine mist gauzed the darkness. The air felt heavy under the weight of the fog. Sleek, black carriages, like our own, were heading toward Broad Street. I heard a woman’s insouciant laughter emanate from a carriage as it passed our house. The mayor’s fundraising ball would be well attended.
“We’ll be with you until Detective Buchanan tells us to stop coming. That’s all I know, Mr. Dugan,” he replied politely. “May I assist the lady into the carriage?”
“I’m sure she’d be delighted,” Patrick responded. I didn’t look at his face. I could imagine the disdain he would allow in the shadowed light.
“Thank you,” I acknowledged, as I offered the policeman my gloved hand. He smiled at me sympathetically, and I appreciated the kindness in his eyes. Then I saw them widen in alarm.
I didn’t have a chance to react when the policeman lunged at me, knocking me to the sidewalk. He was on top of me when I heard the two shots. The air was exploding. I barely was aware of the pain that jolted my body as I hit the slated stone pavement. I fought a mounting panic as the officer’s suffocating weight pressed me against the cold ground.
I heard the policeman shout as he rolled off of me. I looked up but never had a chance to scream when I saw a figure wearing blue denim pants and a coat suddenly halt at the corner. He was tall and gangly and was wearing an engineer’s cap, like a construction worker. He was holding something in his right hand.
He jerked around to take a quick look at us. I almost did scream then, when I saw Peter Brophy’s oddly clean-shaven face react with a fierce smile to the scene before him. He then turned the corner onto 19th Street and was gone.
“Are you hurt, Mrs. Dugan?” the officer asked shakily. He was kneeling beside me now. My heart was pounding, and I had trouble breathing steadily. But I struggled to regain my composure. I realized then that Patrick was absolutely quiet.
“Yes, I’m fine, Officer, but where is my husband? Patrick?” I called out.The policeman’s bulk blocked my view.
“Don’t look, miss. Please. Let me get you back into the house.”
Of course, I had to look. I knew by Patrick’s silence that something was wrong. I screamed then, as the officer gently took hold of my arms and pulled me to my feet. Patrick’s walking stick was on the sidewalk, not far from my hat. The serpent’s jeweled eyes were invisible in the dark. Patrick lay sprawled across the pavement, his head resting against the pole of the tying post. One leg was bent at the knee. The other leg stretched out straight, the heel of his shoe cocked on the bottom step of the stairs. Patrick stared up into the night, his dark eyes dull and lifeless. They seemed oblivious to the rivulet of blood that was forming a pool beneath his head. A dark, wet stain was welling up at his chest, given vent by the ragged hole in his Chesterfield.
“Please, Mrs. Dugan. Turn your face away,” the officer implored one last time.
But I couldn’t stop staring. Perhaps it was the look of surprise on Patrick’s face—a rare sight.
I was dressed in black. I was wearing the same garments I wore after Nellie died.They felt familiar to me. I knew how to hook the skirt and lift the veil of my mourning hat with grace. It hadn’t been that long ago, perhaps eight weeks since I stood by Nellie’s graveside. Now Patrick would be laid to rest in his mausoleum. I felt nothing.
Was that why I was standing here now, in the hall of the Infirmary for Nervous Diseases? Martha was here, still under evaluation. Detective Buchanan did not want to send her directly to jail. He had accompanied me and was waiting in the Infirmary’s sitting room. The detective felt Martha was damaged somehow. That was the word he used I recalled. Despite that, I wanted something from Martha. I wanted an explanation. I wanted to understand how Patrick could be so cavalier with my life and the lives of countless others.
I knocked softly on the door. Someone grunted from the other side, and I opened the door slowly.The odor of lye permeated the air.The walls and floor looked well scrubbed. Martha was sitting on a cot in the corner of the windowless room. She was wearing a nightdress and a large, worn combing sacque. Both were light blue. Martha was sitting listlessly but raised her face to me as I slipped into the room. I noted the fading yellow-purple bruise that radiated above her cheekbone where I had slammed the canteen. I winced at the reminder of that night. Martha’s graying hair was uncombed and pulled carelessly into a bun. She looked clean though. Her bulbous blue eyes stared at me.
“What do you want?” Martha muttered.
I hadn’t expected a fond reunion, but I thought Martha would at least feign remorse in my presence. “I just wanted to see how you are,” I answered calmly.
“Why hasn’t the Master come by?” she asked bluntly, wringing her vein-covered hands. I could detect the hurt in her voice.
I wasn’t going to tell Martha that Patrick was dead. Detective Buchanan and I had agreed on that. “No need to send her over the edge,” he had noted on our carriage ride to the Infirmary. “Although, she’ll have to be told sometime soon. It’s the only decent thing to do.” His thick brows slumped in consternation.
“I’m here on my own,” I demurred. The explanation was enough to perk Martha’s interest. She stared at the wall and then confronted me with her eyes.
“So he sent you to see me?” Martha squealed like a child.The sound was unnerving.
“He’ll never be rid of you, will he? You’ve got the luck of the Irish, you do,” she laughed, pointing her chin at me.
Now it was my turn to laugh bitterly. “I’d hardly say that.”
“It’s true,” Martha insisted. “Who would have believed that you wo
uld give your cloak to Nellie Murphy?”
I held my breath. I tried to look at a loss for Martha’s meaning. “When did I give my cloak to Nellie?”
“When?” Martha chuckled. “That day that Mrs. Murphy was killed. Those letters gave me an idea—like it was wrapped in a bow. I hired that foolish Italian boy from the market to throw you over the side of the arch. But you gave her your cloak!”
My heart was beating, fast and loud. “Martha, Frank Mahoney’s boys were responsible for Nellie’s murder. That is what the police told me.”
“Mahoney!” Martha shrieked, throwing her chapped hands over her bosom. “The Master would never have trusted Mahoney. Are you daft? He trusted me.”
“You?” I repeated, astonished. But it all made sense—the unfiltered water pitcher left for me to drink, the attack in my bed. Martha hated me with a singular intensity. The ferocity of her fervor was dizzying.Yet it was Nellie who had paid the price. I felt my own demons flare. I wanted to strike Martha.
My hand was shaking as I reached for the doorknob. “I have to leave, Martha.” I could barely hear myself over the pounding in my temples.
It was then that Martha became agitated. She jumped up from the cot and began shaking her head vehemently. “He always trusted me,” she asserted, a spark of anger in her eyes now. “He loved me more than he loved his own mother and father—ever since I nursed him back to health after that deathly bout with the mumps. He almost died!” she cried.
I tamped my fury for a moment. “Mumps? When did Patrick have the mumps?”
Martha smiled nostalgically. “He was a young man by then. I don’t know quite how old, but the doctor said he was lucky to be alive, thanks to my care.”
I felt as if someone had kicked me in the stomach. Patrick had told me long ago that he had been spared from the diseases that could cause infertility. I remembered the doctor smiling sympathetically when he had asked about our childhood diseases. I replied no to each of his questions. I looked at Martha and shook my head when no words would come as I opened the door and stepped through. I quietly shut the door, resting my back against it, staring at the light pink wall in front of me.
I was trembling and wanted to gather my strength.Why did any further revelation of Patrick’s cruelties still strike a blow? Why couldn’t I just accept the fact that he was thoroughly abominable?
Over our full year together, he had led me to believe that it was my fault that I was still without child. He had used that excuse to carry on his numerous affairs, and to finally encourage Martha to be rid of me. He had never told me that he had had the mumps. I had thought that Patrick’s obsession with disease was due to his own impeccable health. But it couldn’t have been his manhood that he was protecting. He was already sterile. A deathly case of the mumps would have ensured that.
I took a few deep breaths. I should feel some joy, I argued with myself. Perhaps I wasn’t barren. I wiped away a tear. I had to tell the detective that Chief Trout and Frank Mahoney were innocent of Nellie’s murder. But what I really wanted to yell as I ran down the hall was that maybe, someday, I could have a child of my own.
I was pale but composed when I met the detective in the waiting room. He stood quickly and crossed the floor to meet me. When he smiled, as he did now, his rounded cheeks pressed his eyes into benevolent slants. One hand clutched the lapel of his morning coat as he asked, “Did you learn anything that was helpful to you?” His eyes suddenly reminded me of my father’s.
I could only return his smile as I placed my hand lightly on his shoulder to kiss him affectionately on the cheek.The detective reddened and cleared his throat.
“I’ll take that as a positive response?” he prodded warmly.
“Yes, Detective Buchanan, I did. It was Martha ... Martha killed Nellie.”
SEAN
I sat on the bench in the vestibule of the Central Station of the Bureau of Police and marveled at how the world had been turned upside down since I last sat in this very spot. I had no interest in the Rogues Gallery today.This morning, I was waiting to take Chief Trout home.
I tried to quell my impatience by tracking time. I studied the progress of the shaft of sunlight that fell through the storefront-like window of the station, staining the green tiled floor with its tepid light. Over the past few weeks, I felt as if I had bathed in and quenched my thirst with impatience like it was water. Impatience had penetrated the very pores of my skin. Things were different now, I reminded myself.
Rose had told Buchanan yesterday that Martha had confessed to arranging Mrs. Murphy’s murder, which had been a botched attempt on Rose’s life. Buchanan had dispatched an officer with a note to the Water Works last night that explained his visit with Rose to the Infirmary for Nervous Diseases. I had felt a shiver of guilt that my first reaction had been one of rancor—I would have liked to have accompanied Rose. I had not seen her since Patrick Dugan’s murder two days ago, although I would see her this afternoon. Dugan’s wake began at four o’clock. I recalled the final sentences of Buchanan’s note. “Trout is innocent of everything but bad judgment. We’d all be jailed if that fault were considered an offense.”
I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. I wasn’t feeling quite so innocent. I had felt a selfish joy when I received Buchanan’s note. Rose was safe. Dugan was dead. Perhaps Rose and I could—what? Court? I ran my hand through my hair. It had grown unruly and was touching my collar now. I was fooling myself. Rose lived in a society beyond my ken. She would have far more appropriate suitors standing in a respectful queue, awaiting the end of Rose’s full year of mourning. I bristled at the absurdity of this expectation for a widow who had been traumatized by her own dead husband.Yet I couldn’t dampen the thrill in my gut at the fact of Dugan’s murder. I shuddered at my own callousness. I knew I should feel shame.
I heard a cough behind me and looked over my shoulder to see Trout peering down at me. A police officer stood at each elbow, as if bracing Trout. I swallowed my gasp.
Trout was thinner. His dirty, black coat hung loosely from his shoulders. His chest and eyes were sunken as if the air in the station itself was an overwhelming pressure to bear. His eyes shone with an unnatural intensity. A shock of white streaked his black hair, falling over his left ear. I tried to count the weeks.Trout had been imprisoned for almost three.
“Chief Trout, let me assist you.” I nodded at the two officers as I stepped up to take Trout’s arm. They slid away, disappearing into the yawing darkness of the hallway. I watched their retreating forms for a moment and then whispered, “My God. What have they done to you?”
“It’s over, Sean,” Trout muttered, ignoring my remark. The effort spurred a sudden coughing fit.
“You’re ill,” I accused.
Trout looked at me ironically. “In spirit, perhaps, but I’ll live.”
“Let’s wait indoors until our hansom arrives. It’s too cold for either of us to stand outside,” I suggested. Trout looked as delicate as a pressed flower. “You never know when these hired hansoms will arrive.” Trout drew his coat around him at the mention of the cold.
“Let’s sit down on the bench. I’ve warmed it.” I attempted an encouraging smile, supporting Trout as he lowered his weight to sit.
“I’m all right,” he said harshly and then softened. “How are things at the Water Works, Sean? Where do we stand?”
I rubbed my chin before replying. “The news of the sewer sabotage has won us a reprieve,” I tried. I knew my voice wasn’t convincing. I was no longer a believer myself in the ability of the Water Works to supply safe water, certainly not with the present city government. “Brophy’s deed created a backlash in the City Councils. Filtration has become the villain for now.”
“Brophy’s deed?”Trout barked. “Are you telling me that the mayor believed Dugan’s story?”Trout’s eyes blazed to life.
“It would appear so, although Brophy has not been seen since he shot Dugan.”
Trout smiled bitterly. “Of course. He’ll nev
er be seen again. He’s done his duty.” I stared at Trout’s face, examining the deep creases that life had carved carelessly about his mouth and eyes.
“I thought the same,” I replied. “Typhoid is not the only disease that poisons everything it touches.”
A burst of cold air raked our bodies as the door opened again.
“Good God,” I swore. “Would you like to move before we’re blasted away?” Trout didn’t answer. Instead, his eyes followed the disheveled prisoner who was being dragged past us by both arms. His hair was long and matted. Even in the cold air, his clothes gave off the sweet, stale smell of whiskey.
“You, sir! My old cellmate!” the man yelled, pointing excitedly at Trout. The two officers paused to give Trout a dispassionate glance.
Trout nodded solemnly at the man. “You were supposed to stay sober,” he admonished. The man simply grinned and nodded agreeably at Trout as he was pulled away. I fought a welcoming desire to smile.
“So you made some friends at least,” I said seriously, looking at the door.
Trout scowled. “I am still your superior, Mr. Parker.”Yet I saw a smile breach his face before he turned away.
“Chief,” I began earnestly. “I’m going to support filtration.” The confession made my empty stomach feel nauseous. “Over five hundred people have died,” I whispered, too painful to speak aloud. “If you could have seen the look of horror on that woman’s face at the hearing as Dugan’s jar of water splashed across the floor, or the feet of the children in the morgue ...” I closed my eyes against the image. “I feel like I’ve been battling typhoid ever since I lost Eileen to it. I’ve given my soul to fighting this disease. But the bodies left in its wake this time have convinced me that there is no real protection that we can afford in light of our government.” I knew I was speaking fast now, but I couldn’t stop the torrent of words. “I couldn’t bear another epidemic, and the City Councils can’t be trusted to decide on matters of public health.”
