“This isn’t usual for her?” Muldoon asked.
“No. In fact, this was her first time out of the city alone. Well, not alone. She was with her companion.”
“And the companion didn’t return, either?”
“No, of course not! She certainly couldn’t return without Margaret. After all, that’s what I pay her for.” He spun about, angrily, to glare at Muldoon.
“Aye, sir.”
“So, what is it you want from me?” the Colonel demanded.
“I wish to offer my services,” Muldoon said. “As an officer of the Metropolitans. I’d like to set your mind at ease. You’re a busy man. I propose to go and make certain your daughter is well.”
“I’ve sent a letter by post. This very morning.”
“Aye, but this is quicker. I suppose you could send a telegram, but then it might look like you’re worried. And you don’t want to give that impression, I’m sure.”
“No… no, you’re right. I’d like to know that she’s all right.” The Colonel reflected for a moment. “Yes, I’ll take you up on your offer. Margaret is at my sister’s and her husband’s home in Dayton. Let me give you an address and a letter of introduction.” He penned the two items on crisp white paper, folded the letter, and slipped it into a matching envelope, tucking in the flap. Muldoon accepted them and slid them into an inner pocket of his uniform jacket.
“I suppose they don’t pay you much, do they?” the Colonel asked suddenly.
“Enough,” Muldoon said.
“That is to say… ” the Colonel began, and cleared his throat. “I expect you won’t be paid for this trip? You’ll need some money?” He reached into his desk and pulled out several bank notes.
“For expenses only.” Muldoon accepted them, rather discomfited. One day, he promised himself, he’d have the money and the house. He picked up a small picture from among a grouping of frames on the Colonel’s desk. She was younger than the dead girl. He couldn’t be sure it was the same girl. He tried to picture her without hair. “Is this Margaret?”
“Yes.”
“Can I borrow it?”
“Whatever for? She’ll be at her uncle’s home.” Colonel Hamm turned his back on Muldoon in an obvious, and curt, dismissal. His hands, gripped tightly behind him belied his poise. The man was worried.
Once outside the front door, Muldoon donned his hat and turned up his collar against the rain. As he began down the steps, a small, shy voice stopped him.
“Excuse me, sir.”
He paused and then turned back. The little maid stood in the door, looking uncertain.
“Aye?”
“Are you… are you gonna bring back the little miss?” Her Irish accent threatened to appear. “We’re all oh-so frightened! It’s just not the same here.”
Muldoon took a step back toward her, his head tipping a bit to the side. “Who’s in the house?” he asked.
She glanced behind her, as if afraid. “Well, the Colonel, of course. And his wife… and her daughter, Miss Melanie. And then there’s the baby, of course.”
Muldoon nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll do my best to bring her home.”
He cocked his head. Why did she seem so concerned when the Colonel wasn’t? He’d been surprised to see Muldoon, and even more so in connection with his daughter. But this maid had made that same connection herself. “Is there something I need to know?” he asked. “Are you afraid of somebody?”
“No… nothing.” A shadow dropped over her features as she smoothed them, and her apron, into blank uniformity.
Loath to share his own fears, he turned away and descended the stairs, then headed back toward the streetcar line over on 4th. It would take him close to home, where he could pack enough things for a short trip. But it would be civilian clothes, not his blues. He’d be out of his area of authority, and his uniform would look out of place so far out of the city. Before leaving, he needed to scribble out a short note to Benson, to explain where he was going… and another note addressed to Harry Hill to put his next match on hold. Hill wouldn’t appreciate that. The saloonkeeper and Dick Fox, editor of the Police Gazette, had made arrangements with a grappler who was traveling from Buffalo. He hated missing the bout. Each contest brought him closer to a match with the renowned national champion Clarence Whistler, not to mention the larger amount of cash he earned each time.
He said he’d try to bring Margaret home. But he was afraid it wouldn’t be the way they wanted.
CHAPTER 26
The
connecting door creaked slowly open and then stood quiet. Muldoon set down his bag and pushed it further open. The room beyond was shadowed and silent, the curtains tightly drawn. Orange glowed from the charred embers on the grate.
“Come in,” Meg said from the darkness. “Sit a moment before you go.”
He sat. He didn’t remember this table. It wasn’t here when he’d occupied the room. He sat across from her, tête-à-tête. She reached across the table and took his hands into hers. As she pulled them toward her, she turned them palm-upward as if to read his fortune.
“William,” she began. “I was the daughter of a rich man. You know that, of course. But my mother was a Traveler. Do you know what that is?”
Muldoon shook his head.
“Gypsy is what they’re called here. Grandda didn’t approve of the match, so Da took us away. We lived far from the family, off in Kildare. But when I was six, my mother died and we returned to my father’s home. Da shouldn’t have taken me there. See, when I was just a tiny leanbh, just a babe, my family already knew I had the gift. I always knew when things were out of place.”
A chill slid down his spine. Her flesh was icy where his hands touched hers.
“That first night, I had terrible nightmares. I slept little and Da had to stay with me. Each time I closed my eyes, a man came to me. He was a gnarled, crooked man and he shook his cane at me. I screamed, and he ran after me. He was swifter than he looked. Just as he reached me with the crook of that evil cane, I would wake. And Da would be there.”
The embers shifted in the grate, popped and hissed, and sparks rose up the chimney. But they did little to warm the room.
“I had that nightmare every night, until finally Da asked Grandda where the cane was. He knew it was my gift speaking through the dream. The cane was old, and had been passed down through the generations. It was kept in a chest in the empty room next to mine. When I laid eyes on it, I knew it was an evil thing, more a shillelagh than a cane. She came to me for the first time then… the bringer of my gift. I don’t know her name, she just ‘is.’ She told me that cane would bring pain and tragedy. Grandda destroyed it, or so he said. But I know he didn’t. Because everybody is gone, and now I’m far from my beloved Erin, and my only son is soon to die for a sin he didn’t commit.”
“I won’t let him die,” Muldoon said, tightening his hands around hers. He looked down so she wouldn’t see the doubt in his eyes. He loved her, but he couldn’t believe in her gypsy magic.
“Look at me.” Something in her voice brought his gaze back up to her eyes. “You must watch for the man with the cane.”
He thought of the broken stakes he’d found with the letters A.R. carved onto them. They could be part of a broken cane. Two pieces of a whole.
CHAPTER 27
The
loud, smoke-belching engine blasted steam as Muldoon grabbed the rail and climbed aboard the train. With a lurch, it left the station, threatening to toss him off balance as he looked for an empty seat. He had bought second-class. The round-trip ticket ate up more than half the Colonel’s bankroll. The carefully folded bills in his wallet hid safely inside his inner breast pocket. He’d had an extra flap stitched over the pocket and secured with a button to deter thieves. He’d been a B’hoy and a cop long enough to appreciate their abilities.
The ride was long and dirty. Smoke from the stack blew back against the cars as they moved swiftly along behind the steam engine. He slid into a seat across from a
black-garbed elderly woman. She looked him over, then promptly closed her eyes and went to sleep. He opened the Police Gazette he’d brought along for the ride. He enjoyed reading its exaggerated crime stories and sports coverage. Not as reliable as The Times, so far as news stories go, but it had one thing the better paper didn’t. Cards. He scanned the advertisements to see who challenged whom, and for what event and venue.
The train stopped at Salamanca. The old woman debarked to walk to and fro along the platform. Other passengers purchased food from local vendors. Muldoon finished the meal Mrs. Dunn had packed for him, a piece of salt pork between two thick slices of bread and wrapped in old newspaper tied with a string. He got up to take a turn himself and stretch his legs.
“Good evening, sir,” the conductor said as he stepped off the train. “It’s nice weather for a stroll.”
“That it is.”
“Are you going on to Dayton?”
“Aye, I am.” Muldoon paused, then on impulse, pulled a picture out of his pocket and showed it to the conductor. “Have you ever seen this woman?”
The conductor angled it toward the weak light that filtered down from the pole lamp behind him on the platform. “I can’t really say… maybe. But then, so many folk pass through on the train.”
“She would have been traveling not much more than a week ago. And she might have been up there… in first class. Going back to the city.”
The conductor looked again. “There’s another train on this route. You might check with the conductor on that one.”
Muldoon nodded thoughtfully and then held out the photo of Kavanagh. “How about him? You ever seen him?”
He shook his head, and then looked down at his watch. He called out, “All aboard!”
The train started with a jolt as Muldoon settled into his seat. The old woman was gone. She had changed seats, perhaps for companionship. A young couple sat across from him now. They jabbered on and on about their marriage and their new life together, until finally he closed his eyes, feigning sleep as the old woman had.
✶ ✶ ✶
The
train slid up to a long rectangular building with a wide roof that covered the platform. Stacks of barrels and crates stood under the lamp post at the far end. Wagons, and buggies, and their drivers cheerfully welcomed home long-absent relatives as people exited the train. Other passengers walked to and fro on the platform as they had at the previous stop. Muldoon pushed through the throng and entered the building to find the Dayton station master.
The man stood just inside the door watching the travelers debark. He held a large watch, its chain hanging loose from his fingers. He’d marked the train ‘on time’ on a large chalkboard on the wall beside the door. Muldoon stopped in front of him.
The station master slid the watch into a pocket. “Can I help you?”
“I’m up from the city,” Muldoon said. “Got business in town, and I’ll be needing a place for the night. Where can a man like me find a decent place to stay?” Where can a Mick get a hotel room, he thought.
“There’s a good hotel just on the edge of town, name of Beasley’s. They’ve got clean rooms and a fair price.”
Muldoon nodded his thanks, and stopped on the platform to retrieve his bag. He headed the direction the station master had indicated. There weren’t any streetlamps this side of town, but the evening was bright and the moon lit the road as he walked. It was a short walk, by city standards. The town was still small, though obviously growing rapidly because of its railway connection. Freshly painted new buildings glowed in the moonlight. Beasley’s stood back from the road with a large front lawn, and flowers in wide beds. Beyond it, he could see little, the night broken only by the occasional light from a window. The place was on the edge of farmland. He turned, strode up the path, and mounted the steps to the broad porch. He raised his hand to knock, but noticed a small sign pasted discreetly by the knob. “Enter and ring the bell,” it read.
He turned the knob and stepped into the hushed interior of the rambling country-style farmhouse-cum-hotel. The building was long, two stories high. The path had brought him to a door at the left of the structure, what had once been an attached carriage house, and at some point, turned into living quarters for the proprietor. Inside, a lamp burned low. He crossed to the counter, which ran the full length of the room from the door to the back wall. At the center, a book lay open, and a pen and glass ink bottle sat to its right. A bell stood on the other side. Muldoon lifted it and rang, and its clear metallic tinkle broke the quiet.
Within moments, a man came out from the back room, spectacles on his nose with a loose chain drooping from them to the clip connecting them to his vest. He was in his shirtsleeves, his vest unbuttoned. His gaze traveled over Muldoon, taking in his large frame, and noting the distinct Irish caste of his features.
“How many nights?” he asked. He was gruff, but soft-spoken.
“Just tonight,” Muldoon said. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow, if my business goes well.”
The man pushed the book toward him. Muldoon dipped the pen into ink and scribbled his name: William Muldoon.
“Luggage?”
“Only what I carry.”
“Room eight, top of the stairs.”
He nodded his thanks, and turned to find his room.
“Oh,” added the proprietor with a sudden smile. “Breakfast’s at seven in the dining room, if you care to join us. Most do. My wife bakes the best sweet bread in town.”
Hiding a yawn, Muldoon muttered his thanks and took his leave. He was tired, and had a hard day tomorrow. Maybe not physically, but certainly mentally. He wasn’t sure what he’d find… a living girl, safe with her aunt and uncle… or a dead one back on a slab in the morgue.
CHAPTER 28
April 23
Half
past seven. His forehead ached. Visions of a crooked man with a living walking stick running around Pensacola had haunted his dreams.
There isn’t a crooked man. He didn’t believe in Meg’s visions, he believed in science. Newton had proved gravity with his apple. Galileo had proved the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the solar system. Myth and superstition died, and science took their place. The greatest evil was man himself, and Muldoon was certain a man was at the center of this crime. First, he had to go to the home of Mrs. Hannah Wannamaker. He hoped he’d find Margaret Hamm there, alive and well. But he had the cold feeling he got when he expected the worst. He dressed with care and went downstairs. The matron was cleaning up the dining room.
“Good morning,” she said as Muldoon stepped into the room. “You’ve missed breakfast, but there’s a little bread left if you wish.”
She took the covers off a plate of sweet raisin bread and a dish of butter and poured him a glass of fresh milk. Between mouthfuls, he asked her where the Wannamaker home was.
“Oh, just head on up the road,” she said as she wiped crumbs off the far end of the table with a damp rag. “Take the first left, about half a mile on. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you kindly, Ma’am.” He shut the door behind him and headed out. The air was chill and scattered patches of icy snow still lined the road. Few clouds marred the blue expanse of sky, but back toward New York City lay a bank of ominous black clouds.
Muldoon approached the house slowly. The long, tree-shaded drive led to a large house, a modern Queen Anne-style building three stories tall, with gingerbread and towers. It was painted muted shades of plum, pale green and forest. He wasn’t sure he liked the style, it was almost garish, yet something about it was attractive. A large, wrap-around porch with an inviting swing beckoned. A dog barked. He saw it tear around the building, leaping from the steps and scattering gravel as it ran toward him. It stopped short and instead of baring its teeth aggressively, it wagged its tail, tongue lolling from its mouth. He offered the back of his hand, and then rubbed the fluffy yellow animal on the head.
As he reached the house, the front door opened and a maid holding
a feather duster in her hand stepped onto the porch and began to shake out its dust.
“Oh! I didn’t know… I mean… can I help you, sir?” she stammered as she hid the duster behind her back.
“I’m here to see Mrs. Wannamaker.”
“Is she expecting you?”
“No, but I’ve come from New York. From her brother, Colonel Hamm.”
She stood still a moment, face turned slightly, and studied him. “Well, if the Colonel sent you, then it must be all right. Come in, come in.” She opened the door wide and stepped aside so he could enter.
“If you’ll wait in the morning room, sir, I’ll let the Missus know you’re here.”
She showed him into an open room, East-facing windows dominated one wall and filled the chamber with sunlight. A gilt-painted cornice bordered the high white walls near the ceiling. A white marble fireplace across from the windows was trimmed in matching gold, and two gilt wall sconces bordered a giant mirror above the hearth. A collection of clocks lined the mantle, their backs reflected in the glass. A white settee and two chairs sat at an angle to the fireplace and a curio cabinet stood in the far corner of the room. Muldoon walked over to it and gazed in at the various statuettes inside. They were all delicate white porcelain women… like the unknown girl in the morgue.
“My brother sent you to me?” A woman’s voice floated across the room. “I hope he’s well.”
Muldoon turned as Mrs. Wannamaker entered the room. She was a gaunt woman, her housedress barely able to conceal her angular bones. “He seems so,” Muldoon replied.
“And Mrs. Hamm? You know, of course, she gave birth several weeks ago. Is she well, and the child also?”
“All seems to be well with them. Mr. Hamm sent me to inquire after his daughter.”
“Oh, she was quite well. But tell me about the child.” She seemed to steer him away from the topic. “He was so robust when last I saw him. He was born here, but then of course, you already know that. Elizabeth… that is to say, Mrs. Hamm, retired to the country to have the child.”
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