Muldoon’s shoulders slumped, just a fraction. If he’d been in different company, he might have sighed. He had pinned hope on MacDougal’s ring of urchins.
“Heh, heh, heh,” the greasy man snickered. “Gotcha there, didn’t I?”
Muldoon failed to see the humor, but he waited expectantly.
“Seems I hadn’t checked the hospitals. So, I figured that’s where I should go next. And you know what I found? A fella that looks an awful lot like the one you want. So, I tells myself, my friend Muldoon’ll be interested in this fella.”
Muldoon couldn’t stop the slow spread of a smile as it moved across his face.
“But it mightn’t be what you expect,” MacDougal added, with a small smile of his own.
Sliding his hand out of his pocket Muldoon set several coins on the table and pushed them across to MacDougal. The little man snatched them quickly, thrusting them deep into his own pants pocket. With a smile, he touched his fingertip to his nose, rubbing it lightly, turned on his heel, and walked jauntily away. He did have his pride, Muldoon thought, MacDougal having indicated his position as a “nose,” or spy, rather than a mere informant, or a snitch, with that momentary touch of his nose.
Muldoon left the pub, heading toward the East River and City Hospital. The hospital had been built on Blackwell’s Island some years before. Though beautifully constructed, it was poorly administered, and had fallen into disfavor, treating illnesses like smallpox and paralysis. A patient in City Hospital almost never returned to society. Muldoon wondered in what condition he would find his suspect.
The island was inaccessible except by steamship. He had little trouble catching the first one available. He watched as the beautiful island grew large, reflecting on the irony of it. It was a pastoral scene set in the center of the city, but the island was far from idyllic. Instead, it was home to institutions—a prison, the hospital, and an asylum. There should have been a wagon waiting to take any paying visitors to one establishment or another. It was missing. He glanced up at the sky. The ever-present clouds hung low, but he didn’t know how long it would be before the coach returned, so he chose to walk. He strode quickly toward the hospital, hoping to beat the rain. He wondered what he would find on this island of the forgotten, and the dying.
Muldoon entered the shadowed recess of City Hospital. “May I help you?” a young woman behind the front desk looked up from her paperwork. She wore a modest gray dress under a crisp white apron. Her mousy pale brown hair was pulled into a tight knot at the back of her head, just below a starched white cap. Despite the severity of her appearance, her features weren’t altogether displeasing.
“I’m looking for a man, somebody I think might be a patient here,” Muldoon said.
“A patient?” She glanced at his dark blue uniform.
“Aye,” he answered. “A man name of Martin Shelby.”
The nurse nodded briskly, and turned to her log, glancing rapidly through the list of patient’s names. “There isn’t anyone by that name,” she said at last.
He leaned over the high desk and scanned the list, leaving little to chance. He refused to feel disappointment. MacDougal had found somebody here that matched his description, and Muldoon wouldn’t leave until he had satisfied himself that the man was, indeed, not here.
“I’d like to see these,” he said, pointing to several ‘Unknown’s.
“I… I’ll have to ask the attending physician.” The woman turned slightly pink. “You can’t just go walking around the wards. It would disturb the patients.” Again, she looked at his uniform. He knew she was right. Many of the patients would be afraid they were the object of his search. He waited impatiently as she went to find the doctor.
A few moments later, she reappeared, accompanied by a short round man.
“I am Doctor Dearing,” he said with a pompous, but thin and wheezy, tone of voice. “What can I help you with?”
“I’m here for a Martin Shelby.” Muldoon hoped his impatience wouldn’t show through his thinly pasted veneer of calm. He needed to persuade this man to allow him access to the wards. “He may be a witness to a murder.”
“As you know, we have nobody here by that name… ” began the fat doctor, waving his hand vaguely toward the nurse’s station. He removed his round spectacles, and wiped them furiously with his handkerchief.
“But there are several “unknowns” on your list.”
Doctor Dearing replaced his glasses, setting them carefully on his protruding nose. He looked uncomfortably up at Muldoon, then pushed the glasses into a steadier position.
“Let me just take a look at the list,” he said at last, realizing Muldoon wasn’t going away.
His fat little finger traced each name as the doctor read through the list. Finally, he turned to Muldoon. “I think we can let you take a look at a few patients. But, you must have an escort. I can’t have you traipsing through the place unaccompanied. There’s no telling what damage you could do!”
Muldoon smiled, a slow smirk really, at the low opinion the man had of the City Police. He knew that opinion was probably shared by most of New York’s inhabitants, rich and poor alike. An honest cop was a rare commodity.
“Nurse Duncan.” The doctor turned to the nurse, who hovered nervously behind him. “Go find a girl to escort him.”
“Yes, Doctor.” She nearly ran from the room. She’s afraid of him, Muldoon thought. The small, round man didn’t seem threatening, but he appeared to run the place with an iron fist.
“You wait here, Sergeant,” the doctor ordered. “I have patients to attend to. Nurse Duncan will bring someone to guide you to your little list of unknowns.”
“Thank you.”
The doctor harrumphed loudly, turned on his heel, and strode from the room. Alone in the entrance hall, Muldoon took the time to look over the list again. There were just four ‘unknown’ men on the sheet, compared to nearly five times as many women. Who were they all, he wondered? People who had just disappeared from the world—unwanted, unneeded, and unloved? And if they died, they would be buried in a pauper’s grave, nothing but a number above their head.
He turned to the clicking of heels as Nurse Duncan returned, followed closely by a young black woman. The girl was tall and thin, her gray dress and white apron just an echo of the nurse’s, the fabric faded, the white yellowed. They had obviously been cast-off, remade to fit the girl. The cloth hung limply from her skeletal figure. She looked at Muldoon with huge dark eyes.
“Mazey’s the only one that can be spared at the moment,” said the nurse, with new-found authority. “Now, please be quick about it.”
“Aye, Ma’am,” Muldoon said. He’d be quick. He didn’t want to spend any more time in this hospital than necessary.
“If you please, sir,” said Mazey, in a light, breathy voice. “Come this way.” She turned, and beckoned Muldoon to follow her. They didn’t speak as they walked through the halls. Though it was only ten years old, the building was rapidly deteriorating. Paint was already peeling from the walls. The floors were clean enough, but they were darkened in the corners, the buildup of years of grime that had gone unscrubbed, receiving only a cursory cleaning each day. As they passed through open wards, the gaze of glassy eyes followed him curiously. Some held terror, others just hollow, wracked with pain and illness.
“There’s one there.” Mazey pointed at a still figure near the end of a large open ward. The man lay on his side, blanket pulled up tight under his chin. Muldoon stepped around the cot, where he could see the face of the fitfully resting man. His spirits rose suddenly, could this be him? The man was fair, ash blonde hair spilling over his forehead. Light stubble covered his chin. Muldoon bent down close, but he couldn’t make out the features under the beard.
“Can we wake him?”
“Yes,” Mazey said. “He’s got to be moved every now and again. Get his sheets changed.” She waved at another girl busily scrubbing floors across the room, the strong scent of vinegar came from her pail of
water.
“What you want?” asked the girl as she hurried over. She pushed a stray braid under the scarf tied over her curly black hair.
“Got to get this one up. May as well change his sheets now.”
“Isn’t it a bit early? The doctor might be angry.”
“Maybe,” Mazey faltered. “But Nurse Duncan says it’s important to change them. She says that Miz Dorothea Dix says it makes them get better.”
The other girl nodded, and then hurried from the room to get the sheets. Mazey leaned toward the patient. She placed a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Sir,” she said quietly. “Sir, we got to make your bed.”
The man slowly rolled over and looked at Mazey. Disappointment filled Muldoon. The man’s eyes were blue. He was looking for an almost green hazel. He shook his head as Mazey gazed up at him. She patted the man’s shoulder again, whispered quietly to him. Muldoon could just make out a few words, enough to know she was assuring him that the policeman wasn’t there for him. He wasn’t sure she’d needed to say anything. The man’s expression remained blank as he looked, uncomprehendingly, into her eyes.
The other girl returned with a set of sheets in her arms, a second girl in tow. As they neared, Mazey turned back to Muldoon. “We’ll go look at the next one.”
Again, he was disappointed. They had entered the amputee ward. The ‘unknown’ lay quietly in a cot near the window, both legs removed below the knee.
“He was run over by a wagon,” she explained, noticing Muldoon’s eyes drop to the man’s legs. “He's never waked, yet.”
Muldoon nodded, but he wouldn’t need to see this one’s eyes. His hair was dark.
“Let’s take a look at the third,” he said. But he, too, was dark, as was the fourth.
Frustrated, Muldoon turned away from the last patient. His informant had been wrong. There was nobody here that matched Shelby’s description. Perhaps that first man was the one he had referred to?
“I’m sorry you didn’t find your man, sir,” said Mazey, lightly touching Muldoon’s elbow. Quickly she pulled her hand back, embarrassed by her audacity.
“Aye,” he said. “I’m sorry, too.”
They walked quietly through the halls, back toward the front entrance. “If you don’t mind,” she began, timidly. Muldoon turned to her, slowing his stride.
“Aye?”
“If you would tell me what he looks like, your man?”
“Tall and fair, dark blonde hair. His eyes are a greenish brown… and he has a slight cleft chin.”
Mazey stopped, one hand held out in a little gesture, palm outward, fingers slightly bent. “We did have a patient like that!” she exclaimed. “But he's gone, now.”
Muldoon’s heart leapt, and then dropped to his feet with sudden disappointment.
The girl laughed lightly, a soft, tinkling sound. “Don’t go looking like that,” she said. “He is just over at the asylum.”
Relief washed over him, and excitement again. He was close, so close.
“We never got his name, though. And he gets mad, like. So, the Doctor sent him over there.”
Muldoon could kiss her! “Thank you, Mazey,” he settled for instead, reaching out to take her hand. He squeezed it lightly. “You’ve really helped me.”
As they reached the front door, he placed his flat policeman’s hat back on his head, tipped it first to the nurse, and then to Mazey. The girl smiled shyly, a little giggle bursting from her lips. The nurse frowned at her, disapprovingly.
“You have work to do,” she ordered. “I’m sure there’s a floor to be scrubbed, or a bedpan to empty.”
Spinning quickly, Mazey hurried from the room. The door clicked shut behind Muldoon, and he was back out in the cool spring air. Somewhere a bird called, a long mournful tone. Though it was in the middle of the city, the island almost lulled him into feeling as if he were in the country.
The asylum was beyond the prison. The prisoners, he knew, often helped at the asylum, cleaning, or helping to control aggressive patients. Mazey had said his man could be violent. He wondered what he could learn from him. Could his madness be the cause of the two murders? Somehow, Muldoon didn’t think so. The girl had been carefully posed, her appearance well thought out. A man given to violent tirades was unlikely to have left her that way. Yet, the way both Karl Schneider and Margaret Hamm had been murdered, an arm about the neck, quick crushing pressure… certainly, a madman might do that.
As he approached the asylum he noticed the pleasingly arranged green trees and shrubs. They gave the appearance of a retreat, instead of a home for the hopelessly insane. The blue river flowed by, dotted with boats and an occasional steamship calmly plying the waters. The far bank was lined with stately mansions. He turned to the asylum. He knew it would be like walking into darkness from light.
He felt a sense of déjà vu as he entered, but the nurse behind the desk was heavy-set, a thick-jowled face sitting atop even wider neck and shoulders. She looked up as he entered, her watered-blue pig eyes glancing over his uniform.
“Man, or woman?” she asked flatly.
“Pardon?”
“Man, or woman? Nobody comes here unless they’re looking for someone… or dropping them off.” She looked him up and down a second time. “Since you’re a copper… and you’re obviously not dropping anyone off… then you’re looking for someone. So. Now. Man, or woman?”
“Man,” Muldoon said. She’d be only too happy to release a patient into his charge he thought. Usually it was the other way around. The police picked up the insane, and locked them into the Tombs. Then they were transported to the asylum, where they languished forever, or became well. Most, he knew, would die there. “I’m looking for a man named Martin Shelby.”
The woman scanned her list of names, as had the nurse at City Hospital. “Ah yes,” she said. This time, Muldoon wasn’t disappointed. “The man brought over from the hospital. Came in with no name, but we got it yesterday. Some other man come by asking for him. The doctor, he calls in at him, and the ‘unknown’ turned to his name. It’s him alright. So, we wrote in his name. Funniest thing, though. The other man, he didn’t want to see him. Just wanted to know if he was here.”
MacDougal, making sure I know the value of his information, thought Muldoon. The man had let him go to the hospital first, knowing Shelby was in the asylum. An extra coin more might have bought the right hospital.
The matron rang the bell, and Muldoon waited impatiently for the nurse to arrive. It was a large man, though, who entered the room. “This here is Daniel,” the matron said by way of introduction. “He’s from the prison, but he’s one of our best. Takes care of the violents right well!”
Daniel tugged on his bangs, as though tipping a hat. “Sergeant,” the man drawled, slight disrespect in his tone.
“Take the sergeant to see Mr. Shelby.” The matron’s eyes flashed with irritation at his behavior. The man nodded, quenching his rebellious look. The benefits he’d earned through good behavior could be erased at a moment’s notice. Muldoon regarded her watery eyes with new respect. He knew the man would have to work hard to assure her it had only been a momentary slip.
Daniel beckoned for Muldoon to follow him. The matron glared pointedly at his hat as Muldoon passed her desk, but he only winked at her. He wasn’t her inmate. He would keep it on his head.
There were no iron bars or metal doors in the asylum. The place had been sturdily built, but continued its pretense of health retreat on the inside as well as out. Doors were heavy and solid, and a big man, a guard, unlocked each as Muldoon and his escort approached, allowing them to move between wards. As he crossed through the place, he noticed the windows were barred, even though at first glance it did not appear so. They had been cleverly crafted, the bars disguised as metal frame between small, square glass panes.
“Martin Shelby,” grunted Daniel, gesturing toward a closed door. Muldoon leaned forward and peered through a small viewing panel set in the center of the door. A man sat inside t
he shadowed room. He wore matching blue pants and shirt, nearly identical to the clothing worn by the other patients he had passed.
“He’s violent?” Muldoon asked.
“At times,” Daniel said. “Can’t never tell what’s going to set him off.”
Muldoon nodded. Turning back to the window again, he asked, “can I talk to him?”
“Got to ask the doctor.”
Daniel shuffled over to the desk where a couple of men played cards. They spoke quietly for a few moments, then one man hurried from the room. Daniel walked back slowly. “Got to wait. Doc’s in his office. But Mac went to get him.”
“Sure.” He continued his silent perusal of the man in the room. Shelby sat quietly, making no sound or motion. He leaned back against the wall, legs drawn up under him, feet to one side. His arms were tight against his chest, protectively. His face devoid of expression, he showed no horror, no sadness, no anger… nothing.
Footsteps behind Muldoon signaled the arrival of the doctor. This one was completely opposite Dr. Dearing. He was tall and extraordinarily thin. He too, wore glasses, big things, on a pinched in face. A tired, harried expression occupied his features.
“I’m Doctor Moore. So, you’re here for Shelby?” His voice was tired, too.
“Aye.”
“Did he do something? Or are you here on behalf of his family?” The doctor looked pointedly at Muldoon’s uniform.
“That’s to be determined by this interview.”
The doctor nodded, and then drew a thick set of keys from his pocket. Placing one in the lock, he pulled open the door, then motioned for Daniel to enter first. “We can’t be too sure, with this one,” he mouthed almost inaudibly.
Shelby turned his head just a fraction, the small movement an acknowledgement of their presence, but his eyes were occupied elsewhere. They remained riveted to some far-distant location only he could see.
“Martin,” said the doctor, soothingly, taking a seat beside his patient on the lone bed. In the crowded institution, only the violents had their own room. A necessity, Muldoon surmised, protecting one patient from the hands of another.
Paradise Park (The William Muldoon Mysteries Book 1) Page 21
