by David Hood
Catherine wore a dark hooded cape that flared from her waist to the ground in a perfect cone. She seemed to float down the narrow path by magic, or perhaps on a rip current of grief. She was accompanied by the music of gravel crumbling softly as eggshells. Her face showed the strain of the past few days. Jane was the first to come forward. Catherine took the hand extended to her with genuine gratitude, saying, “I got your card, Jane, very kind.”
“It was a lovely service.”
Catherine nodded. Not letting go, she waved apathetically with her other hand, saying, “A week from now it will all be forgotten, maybe sooner with our men gone off to this latest war.” There was perhaps a hint of bitterness from the corner of one eye that was overcome by a look of acceptance that spread slowly across her face.
Baxter was still in the doghouse. Jane would let none of that show in public. As Catherine finally released her hand, Jane took her husband’s arm and in the process drew him to her side. He had been warned not to say anything upsetting, particularly if Catherine, in morbid curiosity, asked questions she should never hear the answers to. Knowing he had to at least say something and feeling that he was being signalled that this was the time, Baxter now dared to speak. “Your husband will be remembered. We will remember him. And you will see his…justice will be done.”
Jane stared at her shoes. Baxter knew she was holding her breath. He prayed Catherine’s attention would be drawn away by others wanting to show their respects. But her eyes were locked on his. “My oldest son talks of justice and what he would do if he could get his hands on someone. He looks grown up. Says he never believed in Santa Claus. Will you do something for me, Mr. Baxter?”
“If I can.” Jane’s grip tightened.
“Whatever it is you and Carmine are not telling me, I expect you to do everything you can to keep it from my children.”
Baxter was grateful for Catherine’s wisdom, for not putting him in a place where he could only hurt them both, yet leaving him free to tell the truth. “Your husband was a good man,” he said while nodding yes.
“I will hold you to that.” Catherine’s face was pallid and the great cape exaggerated her smallness and frailty. Her voice remained iron strong.
Jane’s voice softened the air as she patted her husband’s arm and began to ease them away. “Catherine, I believe Chief Tolliver and the mayor want to pay their respects. Please excuse us.”
“Yes of course.”
At the last moment Jane went a little further. “Catherine, may I call on you?” It would be difficult with his work between them, Baxter thought, and then admired his wife’s sense of propriety all the more.
The widow Mosher managed a wan smile as she replied, “I’d like that very much.”
While Jane had been extending her goodwill, Baxter had been watching the mayor and the chief approach. From Tolliver’s face it was clear Baxter had best avoid speaking to the mayor or so much as look in his direction. Apparently Tolliver was still expected to remove his chief inspector from the case. If he wanted any more time he had best stay out of range. Baxter shifted his gaze. He noticed a man looking in through the north fence of the cemetery. Something about him seemed familiar and Baxter took a closer look. Now as he and Jane were moving through the gate onto the sidewalk away from his superiors and closer to his intuition, Baxter pulled up. “There is something I have to do. Will you be all right getting home?”
“I thought we might take a walk.” It was an olive branch he desperately wanted to reach for.
He looked again for the man. He was no longer at the fence. He was moving up Spring Garden Road. “This can’t wait.”
Inside the graveyard, closer to the solitude of death, away from the bustle and concerns of life, there seemed to be no sound. As they had come back into the world Baxter was suddenly aware of all sound, a hammer pounding nails not far away, the wheels of a passing cart, his own heartbeat. The urgency in Jane’s voice was clearest of all. Things at home could not wait either. “She still believes, you know…Grace…She still believes in Santa…she still believes in a lot of thing. She has dreams, Cully.”
He did not mean to be glib or flippant. He was simply caught off guard. “Children dream, adults do what’s right.”
“It would hurt her very much to hear you say that. She is trying very hard to do what’s right.” Baxter heard the sorrow mixed with anger in Jane’s voice. He heard the foreboding and insistent ticking of the clock and he heard his footsteps moving round the corner up Spring Garden Road. Jane started to say something else then held her tongue. He would hear her thoughts once he got home.
Baxter fell in beside Clarke walking north along Grafton Street behind the basilica. Clarke glanced over at the chief inspector as if he were expected. “Which gates you s’pose he’s at?”
“If you read your Bible, Mr. Clarke, you would know that for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Clarke smiled and in his best preacher’s voice reminded Baxter he was familiar with the good book. “But the fearful, and unbelievin’, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.”
“So you are planning a deathbed confession.”
“Confessin’s for you Catholics. Us Protestants makes our own peace with God.” They crossed Blowers Street, pausing for a passing hack.
“Then you know there will be no peace until you tell me what happened.”
They had come to a stop. “You ain’t my God and it’s chilly and I’m hungry, best be gettin’ home,” Clarke said, breathing into his hands and looking up Blowers to the corner at Albemarle.
“The Aberdeen is closer, my treat,” Baxter replied looking through the buildings toward the corner of Sackville and Argyle.
“Have the roast beef. Victor always liked it.”
“Have it with me and I’ll tell you about my meeting with Sarah Riley.”
Clarke had begun to pull away. Now he stopped. “You found her?”
“This morning.”
“How is she?”
Baxter began walking, quickly, not wanting to betray doubt or give either of them room to change their mind. “You’ll join me then, good.” Clarke pushed at him. Baxter held mute, refusing to say a word until they were inside and at a table. He was hoping Clarke truly was cold and hungry and that the atmosphere of the Aberdeen would hold him still.
A waiter came with menus and Baxter spoke as he studied, suddenly aware that he might be hungry too. “Now that we are past pretending, Mr. Clarke, best you start from the beginning.”
Clarke ignored his menu. “If you talked to Sarah, don’t know what more I can tell you. And you still ain’t said how she is.”
Baxter continued reading as he answered, though he had already decided what to have. “With child, Victor’s child, which you knew all along. But Victor didn’t know until last Friday night, did he?”
“No need of it, ’specially with Victor and the like.”
Baxter preened a little like a schoolteacher hearing correct sums. Both points had been conceded without resistance, welcome progress. Now what to make of the new topic Clarke had raised. He set his menu down. “No need of what?”
“Of gettin’ in the family way.”
“The regular wages of sin.”
Clarke pushed back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Don’t you ever take a break from bein’ an asshole?” There was no playfulness in his voice.
Baxter leaned forward gripping both sides of the small table. “You run a brothel, Mr. Clarke, not a chapel or a rescue mission.”
Clarke smiled that handsome yellow smile and cocked his head to one side. “How many times we gonna have this conversation? If you could close my place an’ every other place like it and the taverns and the gambling jo
ints, what then? We all wake up in the Garden of Eden? They finally make you chief a police?”
He was not ashamed. It was just too much to have his vision and ambition treated crassly…and by the likes of this man. “Immorality must be stamped out.”
Now Clarke moved his head from side to side. The smile became a mocking twist. “Stamp, stamp, stamp, here come the Salvation Army band. And some a them fellas sneakin’ round my place too, by the way. Long with some of yer policemen and Victor Mosher and even Maynard Sinclair Wallace.”
“Hypocrisy is just another sin,” Baxter shot back. Their voices had become louder than they realized. It was nearly noon. More people had come in. At the moment most of them were more interested in the back corner of the room than on deciding what to eat. Their waiter approached slowly, ready to flee if necessary. Baxter called for steaks well done and coffee, which the young man poured with a shaky hand.
As Clarke spooned sugar he went on, in a voice that let others mind their business. “You taken a good look round this town lately? Enlisted men still can’t marry. You see any women on our fishin’ boats or merchan’ marines? You see men strikin’ it rich every other day? No. What ya see is men with plenty of frustration and wives gettin’ sick a their husbands…”
“That’s all just…”
“I ain’t finished,” Clarke interrupted, now pointing with his spoon. “You ’spect men to die for some queen they ain’t never seen and a country don’t know them from Adam. Or, work like dogs ten hours a day. But if you catch ’em spending a little of their hard-earned wages on a bottle or some female comp’ny you cast ’em out, curse the women even worse. And who are they? Doe-mestic help knocked up and sent packing ’fore the lady a the house gets wind. Young girls looking for another soldier to take up with fer a time. How many ‘re-spectable’ women in this town once had a room in a bawdyhouse? More’n a few and you know it.”
Baxter took a sip of his black coffee, then looked over his cup with wide eyes. “Oh, well then, I’ll expect to see Ellen Reardon in the society pages any day now.”
Clarke continued stirring. “She ain’t the sort I’m talkin’ about and you know that too. Ellen’s the worst sort a hedge whore, do anything for a drink. She just can’t help it. Lotsa folks tried ta fix her. She nearly burnt my place to the ground one time, upset a oil lamp.” Clarke finally lifted his cup, and then set it down carefully. He stared into his brew as if it had conjured up the past before his eyes. “It was middle a the night. She was blind drunk. Still had enough good sense ta douse the flames with her chamber pot. I still had to put her out, mind you, room stank a burnt piss for a week.”
“You mourn the tragedy of young women while you depend upon it,” Baxter replied, seething with indignation. Still he managed to keep his volume in check.
“It’s a scant livin’ hounded by the likes a you. Meanwhile, the men who own this town are doin’ worse things for money ’an I ever done. Who you think yer talkin’ to? You gone coloured blind?” He had a point. And debating the morality of Charlie’s “profession” was counterproductive. Better to try this new opening before it closed.
“If I suffered from that sort of blindness, Mr. Clarke, you would already be in jail. I don’t think you killed Victor Mosher. You want me to see you differently, tell me who did.”
“What Sarah say?”
Baxter took another sip of his unsweetened coffee. There was no concealing this truth any longer. “Nothing, she’s in the morgue.”
“You lyin’ bastard.” Clarke slapped the table. Dots of coffee stained the linen on both sides of the table. Behind them a few menus lowered then raised again. “Why ain’t I surprised. Jesus Christ…What happened? And no more a yer bullshit.” Baxter looked straight across the table. The sorrow Clarke was wearing was real and familiar. He’d seen it earlier this morning on the face of Catherine Mosher.
He was never much good at being gentle. He fiddled with his cutlery. “She was found in the harbour early this morning. Medical examiner says she may have been in the water a day and a half.” He thought of Victor’s face and the closed casket. Her family at least would see their daughter one last time.
“And?”
“Most likely she drowned, but so far that’s as much as I know.”
Clarke reached for his coffee then put it down. Around the small dining room china clinked and more casual conversation murmured. Finally Clarke asked, “Her people?”
“Officer Squire is on his way. Would she…”
“Do ’way with herself an’ her child?” Clarke shook his head, emphatically, then looked unsure. “No…I don’t think so…maybe…Jesus. She was a lot tougher’n you might think.” He looked down once more, the past again playing out on the shimmering surface of his coffee. “I didn’t want anythin’ to do with her at first. I told her I got no room for any more girls and I got no use for some hayseed thinks she can do somethin’ she can’t.”
Baxter needed the conversation to continue. He desperately wanted to ask just the right questions. The only one he could think of came as a surprise and made him a little afraid. “Whatever possessed her to come to you in the first place?”
Clarke looked up at the ceiling for a moment then straight across the table. Baxter couldn’t tell if the process of recall was reducing Clarke’s pain or making it worse. “Martha found her. Usual story, country girl run outta work and money, embarrassed and not much ta go home to or nothin’ there she wanted.” He cleared his throat, took a moment to find his place. “Three of us was standin’ in the front parlour just starin’ at one another. All the sudden Preacher decides to show off his voice. Laced mutton, ca-caw, three-penny upright, ca-caw, he says…crazy fuckin’ bird. Listen to him, I said, he’s tellin’ your fortune. You’re pretty enough, go back to wherever you come from and find some dirt farmer. You can watch him work himself to death buyin’ you whatever you want and you’ll never have to wash yer quim three times a night or see the unholy side a Christian husbands.”
The image knocked any sympathy from Baxter’s thoughts. “That’s disgusting.”
Clarke shrugged, unapologetic. “It was the truth. Thought it might scare her off. I ’spected she’d blush and slap my face. She just smiled. My name is Miss Sarah Riley, she says. And rather than worryin’ about my delicate sensibilities, Mr. Clarke, you should be worryin’ ’bout whether or not I can keep the customers buyin’ me watered-down drinks and whether or not I can get ’em to pay top dollar for taking me upstairs.”
“How very industrial and all the more disgusting.”
“Tougher than she looked.” The waiter arrived and mutely set the plates and refilled the coffee, more interested in getting away than plying for a tip.
Baxter got as far as picking up a fork. He did nothing with it. He just needed to do something physical to trigger his next question. His appetite had vanished as suddenly as it appeared. “So how did she get involved with Victor?”
Perhaps Clarke had a genuine appetite. Maybe he had decided to eat for spite or to try and feel better. So long as he kept talking, he could eat his meal and Baxter’s too. “Accident. Sarah knew how to keep men buyin’ drinks all right. By the time they got her upstairs they was never much good. Whatever happened she’d send ’em away with a big kiss and a smile and of course she collected up front.”
“Clearly things went differently with Victor.”
Clarke took a second cut of meat, chewed, then went on. “Victor was a politician. He come in once in a while to socialize, have a drink or two. Mostly he come ta play poker. Sometimes when his cards went cold, he’d sit out for a bit. Guess that’s how it started. Lotsa men can’t talk to their wives. Others like to talk themselves up. Sometimes a woman’s ear can do more for a man’s pride than her touch.” Baxter thought of Jane and the olive branch he had so wanted to accept. The thought stuck him like a pin. That a brothel keeper could have any sense of what decent pe
ople felt was a double stick.
Clarke had pulled himself closer to the table as if the waiter might reach for his plate. For a moment Baxter admired the gusto, then he thought of Catherine. “Let’s not bother with the false sentiment. We’re not here to protect Victor’s reputation.”
Clarke spoke through a mouthful and pointed with his steak knife. “We ain’t here protectin’ yer simple sense of right and wrong neither. Sarah wasn’t taking any a Victor’s money. He trusted her.”
“With what?”
“Who knows…gossip…true stories no one would believe…his weaknesses? If I made it my business to ask, I wouldn’t have no business.”
“You’re hiding something.”
“You just crazy.”
Baxter pointed back with his clean fork. “I’m doing my job.”
“No, you doin’ more than that, you punishin’ yourself.” Clarke took no notice of the fork. He was staring at Baxter’s hands, the bandaged thumb, the freshly healed index finger. Perhaps he had seen the knife point in the palm. Certainly there were older scars to see. “Them could be the hands of a butcher or a wood carver. They don’t look like no policeman’s hands. And don’t say paper cuts.” Clarke looked up and caught Baxter’s eyes before he could look away. “You think if you pass harsh judgment on yourself, God won’t? Christ, you got stranger ideas than the people I have to throw outta my place.”
Baxter hid his hands in his lap under the table. No one had ever said anything of the kind to his face. Was there talk behind his back? Was he just another story of the city told to newcomers? No, Clarke was scrambling, trying to find a way to put him off. “I’ll thank you, Mr. Clarke, not to confuse me with anyone you might know. Move on to what happened Friday night.”
Clarke chewed another mouthful and stared for a few moments before continuing. Under the table Baxter pulled at the bandage on his thumb.
“It wasn’t a regular night, invitation only, just a few gentlemen for cards. Victor’d been losing lately, more’n he could afford, I think. That night his luck turned. I don’t know if Sarah asked him to sit out or maybe he was just tryin’ to protect his winnings. Don’t matter. They sat in the back parlour for a while, then all the sudden they was gone, upstairs, I figured.”
