Paradise Park

by L Mad Hildebrandt

  As they neared shore, the boat turned aside and made its way to a little-used, dilapidated pier. They ducked in on the far side and skimmed as close to shore as possible. “Be back nigh onto four. That’s when I’ll be leaving. Can’t wait no later, else I get caught.” He hitched his pate toward the near-silent movement of a distant boat. “And them’ll be over to the other side by then.”

  Muldoon nodded, grabbed hold of the ramshackle ladder, and pulled himself onto the wreck of an abandoned pier. He hoped the ruin would bear his weight. Without a look back, he made his way to shore. He knew the man would leave as soon as he was out of sight. Quickly, he turned left and slipped into the shadows. Somewhere up ahead Casper Biggs must have climbed onto another pier, one of a thin stream of men crossing from New York City.

  As Muldoon drew near the men, he paused behind a stack of crates. Just ahead, several men clambered onto the pier. Biggs wasn’t among them. He was sure the man had already come ashore, but these men would lead him along as easily as Casper Biggs. Sticking to the shadows, he followed as the docks were left far behind. And, soon enough, most of town, too.

  A low iron fence lined the street, and beyond it glowing white pillars were just visible, the cemetery’s headstones that reflected what little light gathered in the gloom. This side of the harbor drew in the fog like a living thing, it curled among the stones. Ahead of him, the queue of men turned in at the gate. Muldoon glanced behind him and then stepped over the fence. Moving through the graveyard, he paralleled the men on the path. They continued on to enter the stone church. Light spilled out into the gloom from the open door. Quickly, Muldoon slipped behind the wide arms of an oak tree.

  “Welcome, Brothers,” a hushed voice floated across the graves.

  The light extinguished as the big door shut behind the men. Muldoon waited in the shadows as the trail of men grew thin, the door opened and shut again rhythmically. In the distance, a clock boomed twice. Two o’clock. He waited to be sure there were no more stragglers. After fifteen minutes, he peered at the face of his pocket watch, holding it up to catch what little light filtered out from the dark-shuttered windows. No one else had arrived. Carefully, he eased from behind the tree and moved cautiously toward the building.

  “Friends Meeting House” a placard above the door announced… Quakers. But he knew Biggs was no Quaker. He was Church of England stock, Episcopalian through and through. What was Biggs doing in a Quaker meeting house? Muldoon moved closer toward the brick building. It was federal style, a sturdy, two story rectangle, twin chimneys atop its peaked roof. Though shuttered, the windows stared at him, daring him to invade their sanctity.

  “I wouldn’t go no further if I was you.”

  Muldoon spun about. Peering in the gloom, he searched for the man who’d spoken.

  “You don’t want to be going in there. Them’s real bad news.” A dark figure separated itself from the shadows behind a tree, just opposite Muldoon’s own sanctuary. The man glanced furtively about and then moved closer. “Follow me,” he said, and ducked back amongst the stones.

  Friend or foe? Muldoon didn’t know. He took a deep breath, and then followed the shadow deeper into the blackness. As he came up behind the building, the man stopped and Muldoon moved close. A strong hand grabbed his forearm hard and leveraged him toward the ground.

  “Shhhh,” he whispered as Muldoon pulled his arm free. The man turned toward him. It was George Army, the African wrestler. “We stay low a ways from here.”

  Muldoon felt a momentary relief. But… did he trust this man? He’s big enough, he reminded himself. Army could easily have killed the girl, and he was one of the few who could take on Schneider. But right now, he was after other game. He decided to trust Army. At least for now.

  “What is it?” Muldoon asked as he nodded toward the building.

  “It’s bad news, is what,” Army replied.

  “Quakers?”

  “Nope. They just use the building. It was Quakers… once. But they’re all gone now. Killed during the war, or just moved on. And then this place, it was taken over, like. By them inside. And they’re real bad… real bad news.”

  “Who are they, now?” Muldoon asked.

  “I don’t know. But I been watching them. Past few months anyway.”

  “I’ve got to get inside.” Muldoon edged toward the building and searched its broad expanse with his gaze.

  “Wait,” said Army as he laid a big hand on Muldoon’s arm. “Used to be a station. You know, on the railroad. There's a secret way in. To the attic. We can see everything from there.”

  They wound their way a short distance between the gravestones. A dilapidated shack solidified before them, the mist curling away as they neared. Army glanced furtively about, slipped in, and then pulled the broken door roughly closed behind them. The darkness nearly blinded Muldoon as he adjusted to the deeper gloom inside. The hovel’s interior was empty, save a rusted, battered barrel wood stove near the back wall. Its stove pipe was broken in two, one part rose several feet above the stove, the rest hung crazily from the ceiling. Dead brambles filled the room, waiting to spring to life with the new season. Army grinned conspiratorially, grabbed a rusted bucket by the door, and poured its contents into the pipe. Muldoon watched in confusion, but took the bucket from Army as he held it toward him.

  “Go fill that with dirt and leaves,” Army said. “And put it back by the door.”

  He quickly filled the bucket, then watched as Army slid his fingers under the stove’s belly, lifted it up and tilted it backward. To Muldoon’s surprise, a portion of the floor lifted with it, revealing darkness below. He stepped forward and peered down into the gloom.

  “Come on,” said Army as he lowered himself into the yawning hole. A cold shiver slid down Muldoon’s spine as he climbed down into the same graveyard dirt that held the dead. And he still didn’t quite trust George Army.

  It was dead dark below once Army pulled the secret entrance closed behind them. “This here’s the best part,” whispered Army as he reached blindly in the dark for Muldoon’s hand and guided it to a wood and skin contraption that hung just below the trap door. “Give that a mighty squeeze.”

  Muldoon felt the device, two wooden paddles connected by loose skin… a bellows! He pulled the two sides open wide and felt the air fill the bag. Whooooosh, he forced them together again. Just above, he heard the patter of dirt, twigs, and leaves as they rained down on the floor. The surface would be lightly covered with a new layer of dirt. Of course, he realized. All signs of their recent passing would be hidden. Tracks might remain, but they would look weeks, maybe months old. And the bare floor beneath the stove, where they had lifted it, would be covered again… just where the dirt had slid away when the door was raised. It was ingenious.

  Even if he couldn’t see it, Muldoon knew Army was grinning. “Come on,” said the African. “It’s a bit of a ways in the dark.”

  They walked quietly, Muldoon’s hands brushing along both sides of the dirt tunnel. It smelled of damp soil, the deep, musky scent of crumbled earth. But the tunnel was straight, and led back toward the meeting house.

  “This where we go up,” whispered Army. “Don't make no extra noise. But they get loud, so they might not hear anyways.”

  Silently, Muldoon followed George Army up the ladder. It seemed the very pressure of the air changed, from the closeness of the tunnel to an even more suffocating stillness between walls. He could feel a brick wall on all four sides, as though he were climbing up a chimney. The inner wall was warm, and he realized he was, truthfully, inside a secret tunnel attached to the chimney. To the casual observer, the extra compartment, tacked onto the back of the flue, would be invisible.

  “We’re over the kitchen,” whispered Army as Muldoon climbed up into the attic. “This side has a double floor. Can’t hear nothing down there. So we’re okay to move around. But over there… ” He pointed to the open rafters across the attic. “Gotta stay away from over there.”

  Muldo
on glanced about curiously. A little light filtered up through cracks in the rough ceiling that separated them from the big gathering room below the rafters. He imagined groups of escaped slaves living in this attic, perhaps hiding for days on end and waiting to be ferried across the harbor to the anonymity of New York City. Many had stayed in the city. Others moved on to Canada. Either way, this had been just one more stop on their way to freedom. Had Army hidden in this same attic, a refugee from the South?

  It wasn’t particularly safe in the open attic, he thought. The trap door they had entered was hidden in the warped floorboards. Its back edge, where it backed up against the chimney, was straight. The floorboards jutted out in different lengths to camouflage it. There was no obvious, square door, with a handle. There was no rug thrown over it. It had to be cleverly hidden to fool anyone who came looking for the people who hid in the tunnel. He imagined that the Quakers had crates and old furnishings, and attic bric-a-brac piled on this sturdier side, and people hid among the stacks, darting into the dank tunnel when the authorities came to call. Men with the power over life or death… freedom or slavery. Men like him.

  Muldoon lay on his belly next to George Army. They peered through the cracks between the ceiling boards and into the room below. He pressed his face close and scanned the figures in the room. Chairs filled the open space, bodies crammed into the room. From his hidden perch, he had a view mostly of the backs of heads. Somewhere below him, Casper Biggs sat lost in the sea of men.

  Near the wood stove across the room, three men stood facing the crowd. Each wore a white mask over his eyes and a long cape over his shoulders. Are these the Satanists? A cold-bladed shiver ran down Muldoon’s spine.

  The tall man in the center spoke loudly, shouting over the tumult. At first, Muldoon couldn’t understand the words the men shouted, some angrily, others excited, but all seemed to have something to say. Not all of them wore masks, but many did—the masquerade type, covering just the eyes. He caught site of Biggs, masked, but he recognized the man’s clothing and manner.

  “Quiet… quiet, now!” the man at the front of the room called. “Let’s hear what Brother Angelo has to say.”

  As the crowd settled, Brother Angelo stepped forward. “Thank you, Brother Vincentio,” he began in a singsong preacher’s tone. Not their real names, Muldoon realized. “I understand you, Brothers, we all feel the same.”

  The crowd roared wildly again. As the room quieted, the pale man began again. “This country is not safe for us. The African has been freed, but does he show his gratitude? No! He comes into our cities and takes our jobs. Why didn’t he stay on the plantations where he belonged? Some say it was the Freedman’s Bureau. It put high-and-mighty thoughts into his head, told him he deserves what the white man has.”

  “Boo!” the room filled with howls of anger. Men leaped from their chairs, fists in the air. Muldoon shifted uncomfortably next to George Army. Not Satanists, he thought. Unless they combine devil-worship with racial hatred.

  The man who called himself Brother Angelo held his hands out to calm the crowd. “We don’t wish the African any harm… ” He spoke calmly, placatingly. “But we don’t want him in our homes, either. He was given a new opportunity… send him and his kind back to Africa… to Liberia. But does he go? No! And what about a home in the west? Kansas? Oklahoma? Should we allow him to take prime land away from the white man?”

  Again, the crowd went wild. “No!” they screamed.

  “I say NO!” cried Brother Angelo over the roar. “I say the free African is more of a threat to our world than ever he was when enslaved. He threatens to overwhelm us, take our jobs, move into our homes… ” he paused and continued in a hushed voice, “and next he’ll want our women.”

  Again, the crowd screamed, a wicked sound, filled with hatred.

  What is this? Muldoon might expect to hear this kind of diatribe somewhere in the South, but here? And these men? His gaze moved across the crowd below. He recognized many of them. They were well respected men, some were businessmen, and others were men of the cloth. But they were also Nativists… white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Men of English derivation. Muldoon shook his head. Was this somehow related to his case? Schneider was German, he was an immigrant, and so the target of Nativist animosity. But the girl was probably one of theirs. Perhaps the sister, or daughter, of someone in this crowd. Whoever they were, this group needed to be watched.

  As the crowd settled down, Brother Angelo stepped forward. Eyes flashing, the man began again. “Friends!” he shouted. “My friends, we have yet another threat to the sanctity of our lives. It is a new threat. One that fills our gutters with the waste of human society. I’m talking of the Irish ape, the Papists swilling whiskey in the streets. They flood in by the hundreds… nay, brothers, by the thousands. They cling to our shores, filthy hands out-thrust, begging outside our very doors. They are the vermin-waste of the Old World, filth-encrusted, pestilential beasts taking our jobs… I say, OUR JOBS. Have you seen them working in our stores, taking positions at lower wages, forcing young Native men from their livelihood? We must turn to our friends, like Brother Escalus here.” He patted the shoulder of the stooped, graying man at his side, the third man of the trio. “He comes to us from Tennessee, yes, Tennessee, brothers. Together, we must re-forge the bonds of brotherhood. Reach out to our neighbors in the South, those who seek answers to the encroaching evil, from within and without.”

  Muldoon had heard enough. He began to scoot back from the edge when a familiar figure sitting near the back of the crowd, a big, blocky shape, caught his attention. He recognized him, but he couldn’t believe Sergeant Hugh Collins, a fellow police officer, would be down below.

  He nudged Army. Quietly, the two departed the way they had come.

  Muldoon didn’t fully understand what was happening in the meeting house, but he was sure it wasn’t something the Quakers would have appreciated. Whatever it was, it was dark… of that, he was sure. Northern gentlemen and industrialists (he’d even recognized several prominent abolitionists and temperance men) secretly meeting with Southern extremists? He was sure the men speaking were Confederate officers, gentlemen of the South… men outlawed by Lincoln, but pardoned by his successor, Andrew Johnson, with his Amnesty Proclamation.

  These men were organizing under a single banner… a banner based on racism and ethnic pride. He’d understood that much. And he had also understood the targets of their poisonous diatribe, their “other” of blacks, Irish, Catholics, and immigrants. He wondered if there were a connection between this new organization and the two murders. He knew he’d have to take a closer look at Casper Biggs.

  CHAPTER 18

  Muldoon

  paused on the step before the first house on Sisters’ Row and waited impatiently for a response to his knock. He’d spent the morning combing through various newspapers across from Detective Benson in the crowded little office. Discarded papers were heaped in the corner atop old files. There would be fewer papers tomorrow. Some of the city’s papers were dailies, but most were weekly. It seemed the city had hundreds of separate papers, one for each district, and several overlapping territories. And any of these might carry a small advertisement seeking information about a missing young woman. It was the one part of police work he disliked the most, spending so much time looking for written clues in old papers, files, and documents. Hours of sitting left him aching for physical activity. Still, he knew he couldn’t have arrived at the sisters’ before early afternoon. The girls kept late hours.

  He and Benson had lunch at a little café not far from Headquarters. Then, Muldoon had set off at an ambling pace, timing his arrival for one o’clock. Now, he stood before the seven adjoining houses on West Twenty-Fifth Street that had come to be known as Sisters’ Row. They were tall, thin row-homes, looking as if they’d been squeezed together, with not even an alley between. Each was gaily painted, though not gaudy, giving no hint of their immoral inhabitants. If not for their proximity to saloons and bawdy ho
uses of a baser nature, an unknowing passerby would have no cause to suspect the activities inside.

  He rapped again on the door and waited silently on the small porch. A faint drizzle pattered on the slight overhang above his head. The air was chill with a light spring wind. Within the building, he could hear the sound of steps drawing near. The door opened a crack, revealing a diminutive dark-skinned girl dressed in a maid’s black and white outfit.

  “Yes, Sir?” she asked, eyes large at the sight of a policeman on her stoop.

  “I’d like to see your mistress.”

  “You’ll have to wait here while I ask her.”

  Shortly, the maid returned and pulled the door wide. “Come in,” she said. “Miz’ Ada be right with you.”

  She showed Muldoon to a bright, well decorated sitting room where he again waited. Standing in the center of the room, he surveyed the artwork on the walls. They were portraits of women in compromising positions, yet somehow tasteful. Not like the ones so common in bawdy houses. These had expensive gilt frames, and subdued colors that contrasted with the yellow floral-print paper on the walls. A deep green settee angled in one corner with several plush chairs grouped nearby. A small fire burned in the hearth in an attempt to draw the damp from the room. Muldoon appreciated its warmth.

  Lace curtains hung in the bay window, and a graceful table was centered in front of the opening. Soft light filtered onto it through the rain-streaked glass. A vase stood on a deep green doily, a bouquet of flowers artfully arranged. One lone stem lay across the crochet fabric, its single bud graced the table. Muldoon noted the carefully posed scene cynically. Below his feet, an expensive but subdued Chinese rug decorated the floor. The entire room was purposely arranged to provide a semblance of domesticity and wealth. It contrasted sharply with his thoughts of the murdered girl for whom he’d come.

  Standing before the fireplace to take advantage of its warmth, he picked up an egg-shaped curio from a small grouping of Russian enameled trinket dishes. He rolled it lightly between his fingers then returned it to its place as the tap of shoes came from beyond the door. A petite woman entered the room. She was stunning, in a pale yellow house dress of China crepe trimmed in deep green, which just brushed the floor. The bodice plunged deep, drawing his gaze, green trim emphasizing the curve of her breasts. Though her dress was long-sleeved, they were of the thinnest gauze, and he admired the pale length of her delicate arms visible through the material. Her deep red hair was crimped, in a long chignon that fell to her shoulders. Several jewels were clipped above tight curls that adorned her forehead.