What the Dead Leave Behind

by Rosemary Simpson

She held out for as long as she could, until her sister’s voice in her head told her that nothing was worth the punishment Frances was taking. The men always won, and the young miss she was protecting had had a decent head start, would be safe among friends. What was the point of refusing to speak now? So Mrs. Barstow mumbled Mrs. Dailey’s name, nodded when Jackson asked one final time if that was where Prudence MacKenzie had gone, and confirmed that she hadn’t left the house on foot. Kincaid had been driving her. Jackson let her sink to the floor, where she lay in such pain as she had never imagined possible. Until finally the red heat of agony ebbed and a cool, welcoming darkness enveloped her.

  He dragged the housekeeper’s lifeless body to the stables, placed it in an empty stall, and covered it with hay. It would be hours before Kincaid returned from Brooklyn, if he did come back tonight. Even if Victoria MacKenzie didn’t fire him as soon as he got the grays safely back in their boxes, James Kincaid wouldn’t stay, not with Miss Prudence dead.

  As she soon would be.

  Before he set out after the Judge’s daughter, Jackson cleaned the blood from the kitchen floor and turned off the gas under the kettle.

  CHAPTER 27

  “She’s safe, Mr. Hunter. You have my word on that,” Danny Dennis said. “James Kincaid is driving Miss Prudence out to Brooklyn. He won’t leave her and he won’t let anything happen to her.”

  He’d found Geoffrey Hunter coming out of Warneke and Sons and told him everything he knew. “Mrs. MacKenzie and Mr. Morley are still inside the house.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Your man out front sent word by a runner,” Dennis said. “He won’t leave unless one of them does, but he wanted you to know what was going on. The boy says the men looking for Miss Prudence know what they’re doing. He thinks they’re both ex-fighters. Bare knuckle boxers.”

  “We have to make sure the hunt is called off,” Hunter said. “If Yarborough’s orderlies scour the neighborhood and come up with nothing, they’ll suspect Mrs. Barstow deliberately misled them. Do you know where this doctor’s offices are?”

  “About ten minutes from here.”

  “Let’s go. And if Mr. Washington makes it in less time you can give him an extra nosebag of oats tonight. On me.”

  * * *

  “Miss MacKenzie is a patient of mine. You have no right to interfere with her treatment.” Dr. Stanley Yarborough almost never had to deal with angry relatives, though he wasn’t certain to which branch of the MacKenzie family his uninvited visitor belonged.

  “I’m Prudence MacKenzie’s attorney, Doctor.”

  “You’ll find the paperwork in order.”

  “Need I remind you that you’re talking about the daughter of one of this city’s most respected jurists? Judge MacKenzie is deceased, but the members of the legal profession who knew and respected him are legion. My client does not feel the need to be treated at one of your clincs. I’m sure you understand that mistakes are sometimes made. It’s best to undo them before the damage becomes permanent.”

  “That’s not the way we do things in medicine, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Which is why you lose more patients than I do clients.”

  “I don’t have to put up with insults. I must ask you to leave.” Yarborough reached for the bell that would summon his nurse.

  “When malfeasance and moral turpitude are proved against my client’s stepmother, you’ll fall with her, Doctor. You and the highly profitable empire of laudanum addicts you’ve created. I hope for your sake that every single file on every single patient can stand up to the kind of scrutiny the Judge’s friends will consider it their duty to impose. I don’t think you’ll make it out of the courts unscathed. Or with your fortune anywhere near intact, especially after you make restitution and pay your legal fees. Did you know that lawyers are more expensive than physicians?”

  “What are you asking me to do?”

  “Three things. Dispatch someone to cancel the search and bring back your orderlies right away. Then send a special delivery telegram to Mrs. Victoria MacKenzie informing her that her stepdaughter has been found and is now under your care. She should have it within the next thirty minutes.”

  “And the third condition?”

  “Petition the judge to void the order of commitment. Then turn the MacKenzie file over to me. Every signed form, every note you made. The originals.”

  “In return for which?”

  “I leave your office and you’ll never see me again.”

  This time, when Yarborough reached for the bell to summon his nurse, Geoffrey Hunter did not stop him.

  * * *

  “They’ve found her,” Victoria said, waving a telegram in her hand. “This just came from Dr. Yarborough. Prudence is on her way to his clinic upstate. The commitment papers have been sealed by the court, so no one will ever find her. All we have left are the loose ends to tie up.”

  “Conkling’s nurse won’t say anything,” Donald said. The money Victoria had given him to bribe the woman was burning a hole in his pocket. He decided he’d go to the Haymarket again tonight. He’d found entertainment there that was nearly as satisfying as what Billy McGlory offered.

  “What did you do, Donald?” Victoria knew that look and it worried her. It meant he’d stepped outside the limits she’d drawn for him. Just when things were beginning to fall into place. Such a fool. If he weren’t her brother, she would have gotten rid of him long ago.

  “She can’t be identified,” he said smugly, “even if somebody goes to the morgue looking for her. I made sure of that.”

  “It wasn’t necessary.”

  “She knew too much. She heard the whole miserable Charles Linwood story the way Conkling told it to Prudence.”

  “And Geoffrey Hunter. And Josiah Gregory.”

  “Gregory is next.” Donald jingled the coins in his pockets, ran his fingers along the edges of the bills folded neatly together. “He lives alone in an apartment a child could break into. I’ll take care of him tonight.” On my way to the Haymarket.

  “Then we leave New York for at least six months. Europe, I think. By the time we get back, no one will remember Judge Thomas MacKenzie or his daughter. Society rolls over anyone who can’t keep up with it.”

  “What about Hunter?”

  “Nothing. The rumor I heard about him being an ex-Pinkerton is true, which means he could be dangerous. It’s best to leave him alone. Conkling or the Linwood firm will find him another case to work on. As long as there are no new threats to counter or deaths to investigate, he’ll soon lose interest in the MacKenzie mystery.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I know men, Donald. Just be certain that when you deal with Josiah Gregory, the police will conclude he was the victim of an interrupted burglary. No clues that could lead to inconvenient questions.”

  “And Conkling?”

  “You leave him to me. Roscoe has a weakness for a certain type of woman, and he’s more interested in his legal cases than acting as unpaid trustee for Prudence MacKenzie, no matter how much he professes to care for her. He won’t protest when I tell him I’ve chosen someone else to hold the estate’s paperwork. I’m her guardian, remember? Conkling likes the spotlight and those enormous fees he demands. Just taking care of Jay Gould’s affairs should keep him busy enough to forget all about our little laudanum addict.”

  “How many of his patients does Dr. Yarborough cure?”

  “None. Once a patient crosses his threshold, she’s a resident for however long it profits her family to keep her there. I think Prudence can look forward to a good many peaceful years rocking away her afternoons on Dr. Yarborough’s veranda. Mornings in the warm baths of hydrotherapy, afternoons in the embrace of morpheus. Such an enviable and uneventful existence, don’t you think?”

  “When are the servants due back?”

  “Not until later this evening. I’m making an early night of it.”

  “No celebrating?”

  “Have you forgotten I’m a widow?�
�

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “Just be careful. We’re very close to the finish line now. When I pay off Jackson there won’t be any more loose ends that need tying up.”

  “Is it safe to let him go?”

  “Jackson isn’t the kind of man who’s destined to lead a long life. He’ll always be in trouble. Someone else will eventually kill him for us.” Victoria waved down Donald’s objection. She looked pointedly at the belly straining against his waistcoat. “He’s not a Josiah Gregory. He’d be a hard man to take down. Jackson would fight back, and he might win. It’s not worth the risk.”

  “The housekeeper?”

  “I have a bad feeling about her. As if I’ve seen her or known her in other circumstances, but I can’t remember what they were. I’ll give her a good reference and a bonus when we close up the house. She’ll find herself another position, and that will be that. Is there anything else you need reassurance about?”

  “Nothing more, Victoria. You’ve thought of everything.”

  But she only imagined she had.

  * * *

  Mrs. Dailey’s boardinghouse sat silent and nearly empty. She had served an elaborate full tea an hour later than usual this afternoon, then shooed her lodgers out to walk it off and watch the sunset from the shore. What she really wanted was to spend some time alone with Miss Prudence and Ian Cameron, just the three of them together again, reminiscing perhaps about the Judge and the life they enjoyed before the witch ruined it.

  James Kincaid refused to leave until Geoffrey Hunter arrived, so the grays had been taken down the street to a stable where they would be fed, watered, and curried before the return trip to Brooklyn. Whenever that was. He sat with Colleen until she dozed off, then joined the others briefly in the parlor before excusing himself to stroll down to join the boarders. He’d seldom seen faces as alight with joy as Kathleen Dailey’s and Ian Cameron’s. He’d keep an eye on the house from the shoreline, but everything looked luminous and peaceful in the red-gold glow of the setting sun.

  It would be dark in an hour or so; Kincaid hoped Hunter would have arrived by then. The grays and the caleche had to be back in the MacKenzie stable tonight or Mrs. MacKenzie would report them stolen. He needed to work on the story he would have to tell. Nothing too elaborate, nothing that would trip him up. Fortunately, New York City had so many traffic mishaps in a single day that he could take his pick. Maybe he’d get the stable owner to replace a few of the spokes on one of the caleche’s wheels. That should do it.

  Mrs. Dailey allowed the young miss half an hour in the parlor, no more. She looked wan and unsteady in her chair, the events of the day finally catching up to her. Kathleen put her into her own bed in the room next to Colleen, a cold compress on her head, the boardinghouse cat curled up and purring at her side. She shouldn’t be allowed to fall asleep for a few more hours yet, in case of a concussion, so Ian Cameron sat beside her, reading aloud from the evening newspaper.

  Kathleen Dailey listened to the drone of Cameron’s voice as she carried what was left of the crustless ham and cucumber sandwiches, current scones, whipped cream, tiny frosted cakes, chocolate bonbons, and marrons glacés into the kitchen, wrapping them carefully and placing the neatly labeled packages into the ice box. She hated leaving Miss Prudence for even a moment, but there was always someone who wanted a nibble before going up to bed and if she didn’t get the leftovers on ice, they’d spoil.

  She’d need to send someone to the corner for another bottle of cream for the boarders who liked a cup of hot chocolate in the evening. The last of what the milkman delivered this morning had gone into a blancmange for Colleen, whose appetite was still not what it should be. She’d mention that to the doctor the next time he came.

  She didn’t hear the kitchen door open behind her, bent over the bread safe as she was, tut-tutting to herself over what remained of the perfect loaves she’d baked early this morning. A shame to waste the lovely brown crust, but you couldn’t serve proper tea sandwiches unless you cut it off. Mrs. Dailey decided she’d put the crusts aside for an eggy bread pudding with raisins and a nice whiskey hard sauce. Humming busily to herself, she never felt the blow that knocked her to the floor, never heard the footsteps making their way toward the bedroom where Colleen lay weak and defenseless.

  But Ian Cameron did. He heard the sound of a body collapsing, then the hard rap of a man’s boots against the wooden floor of the hallway. He motioned to a wide-eyed Prudence to stay silent, not to make a sound, then he crossed into Colleen’s room and picked up the baseball bat he’d kept close at hand ever since she’d been brought to the boardinghouse. Now he took up his position behind the bedroom door; he’d allow the intruder to enter the room, but he wouldn’t get far. And when Ian swung his bat, he’d do it with all of his aging force.

  Jackson had hailed a hansom cab on Fifth Avenue, but he had given the driver a false address two blocks away from Mrs. Dailey’s. Not until the man drove off did he take the first steps of the short walk toward the hiding place of the young woman he’d come to kill. He planned to survive his revenge; he wanted no one to be able to link him to the body in the MacKenzie stables or what was left of Prudence MacKenzie when he finished with her.

  Jackson had falsified his letters of reference, lied about his past employment, and gotten taken on as underbutler in the MacKenzie household because he’d been recognized as a person who could be paid to remove obstacles. Only a year before, hotheaded and crazed by jealousy, he’d killed his wife and her lover, the child who might or might not be his nestling in the Jezebel’s womb. And then he’d left, dragging coals from the fireplace to smolder through the wood floor of his house and burn it to the ground. Presumed dead, since no one suspected that the body of the man lying alongside his wife was not him. He’d bought false identity papers in Chicago and settled in to enjoy the rest of his life. Until he read in the Tribune that the man suspected of killing him, held, then released for lack of evidence, had been arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in Sing Sing. He’d come back, but it was too late. Artie of the laughing eyes and dancing boxer’s feet was dead.

  “Don’t worry,” he’d told his big brother a few months before. “The fix is in. Get the hell out of town before somebody finds out you’re not the dead guy.” He’d punched Jackson a light one on his upper arm, held him tightly the way brothers do, then sent him on his way.

  And Jackson, told not to worry, didn’t. Fixes were the way of the world. You paid a guy, he did you a favor. You were in each other’s pockets.

  There was a man on Hester Street everybody was afraid of because he said he always paid his debts. And collected what was owed him. Jackson admired that. He decided he’d be another one who got what he’d been promised. The judge who welshed on his part of the bargain had to go, but so did the woman who convinced her new husband not to take any more bribes. Too dangerous for someone busily climbing the social ladder. That’s what the word on the street was. The street was right more often than not.

  It could get complicated if you tried to sort it all out and decide who deserved what. So Jackson didn’t. He thought about what needed to be done until he felt good about it, and then he got to work. He’d finish it this evening, as the sun was going down on Artie’s birthday. He should have been twenty today, but nineteen years was all his brother got. So the Judge’s daughter wouldn’t have more than that, either. Jackson thought of it as collecting on a debt.

  The blow that landed across the back of his head did credit to Mr. Cameron’s Scots ancestors who roared into battle wielding heavy two-handed claymores capable of unhorsing a man in full armor. Jackson’s skull cracked along a thin line, while the brain inside the protective cage of bone banged from side to side, bruising itself, beginning to bleed from vessels damaged by the bony surface that was supposed to protect them.

  Jackson swung around on feet that seemed rooted to the floor, raised his hands to the clamor in his head that was deafening him, saw the tall, dignifie
d, silver-haired man with upraised bat ready to strike again, and lunged at him, scrabbling to wrench the bat out of Mr. Cameron’s hands.

  A woman screamed and then began shouting for help. She sounded young. Jackson let loose the bat and fumbled at his belt for the knife he’d sharpened in the MacKenzie kitchen. Blood was streaming into his eyes, blinding him. He staggered in the direction of the voice, but when his knees hit the bed frame and he reached down for her, she was gone. And it wasn’t Miss Prudence, his injured brain realized. It was the maid, Colleen, the dead maid who’d rolled and tumbled down the servants’ staircase and into a coma.

  “Run,” he heard Cameron shout. “Run. Get Kincaid. Get help.”

  He ought to have figured on the coachman being here, but there’d been no grays, no carriage parked outside to warn him.

  “This way, Colleen,” he heard someone cry. “Get behind me.”

  Even through the fog of pain and the veil of blood, he knew who it was. He’d come all this way to find her, and now she stood within arm’s reach, swaying on her feet but glaring at him, daring him to come any closer. He wondered what made her so brave, and then he saw the pistol in her hand, a ladylike Remington derringer with fancy scrolled grip and deadly barrel pointed straight at him.

  “I should have realized it was you,” she said. “Donald Morley wasn’t clever enough to think of all the elaborate statagems that had us fooled.”

  She knew. She understood it all. It was his hand that had pushed her toward the hansom cab, his fingers that had rigged the gas lamps in her bedroom. Victoria had had nothing to do with her stepdaughter’s close brushes with death. Laudanum had been her weapon, addiction her overriding goal.

  Jackson’s pale yellowish brown eyes fixed themselves on Prudence, glazed over with the icy determination of his hatred. It was time.

  He had to kill her. Artie was counting on him.

  The bullet pierced his shoulder. The knife fell from his useless hand and clattered on the floor.

  “It’s over, Jackson,” Prudence MacKenzie said. “It’s over now.”