Crooked in His Ways

by S. M. Goodwin

  Powell stared at it, his forehead wrinkling. “What’s that? I’ve never—”

  Lightner pulled a black leather glove from his pocket and tossed it onto the table.

  Powell’s eyes bulged.

  “Ah, I c-c-can see you know what that is.”

  Hy glanced from the Englishman to the doctor to the glove, bloody confused.

  Powell slumped in his chair, the very picture of a defeated man. “Where did you find it? Was it in Anita’s luggage? I told her to give it to me—that I could keep it safe. I told her—”

  “It was in her r-r-room.”

  “What?”

  Lightner nodded and then handed Hy the glove before saying, “The glove was hidden along with this—her d-d-diary. Several, actually, but this is the m-most recent. Right up to the night she d-died, it seems.”

  Powell’s eyes threatened to roll out of his head.

  Hy studied the glove, wondering why Lightner had handed it to—

  Great. Bloody. Hell.

  Hy’s head whipped up and he met the Englishman’s gaze.

  Lightner gave a grim nod and then turned back to Powell. He tapped a finger on the diary. “Are you interested to know what Miss F-F-Fowler wrote about you, Doctor Powell?”

  Hy bloody well was.

  Powell squeezed his eyes shut. “No,” he whispered.

  Lightner ignored him and flipped open the book, going to a page he must have marked with a piece of paper. He handed the book to Hy. “Read from the middle of the ri-right hand page down, if you would, Detective.”

  Hy nodded, guessing the Englishman probably wanted to avoid putting his stammer on display.

  June 12th

  I do wish Stephen would act like a man instead of a frightened child. Ever since I found Beauchamp’s miserable corpse—one of the highlights of the last year and a half to my way of thinking—he’s been as jumpy as a cat on hot cobbles.

  I’ve told him and told him that I’d be done with everything once somebody realized Beauchamp was dead, but he’s too stupid to understand this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

  Or twice in a lifetime, I guess, since there were two gloves. But Stephen keeps nagging and nagging me. First he nagged me to know who the gloves belonged to. Fortunately, I was smart enough to point out it was for his own safety that I didn’t tell him.

  Once he finally agreed to that, he started harping on me to give up my plan altogether and leave it be. I can’t leave it be. One more payment like the last should set me up all right and tight for years if I’m careful.

  Provided I can get away from here without Stephen landing us both in jail. He says no good can come from extortion, which is yet another stupid thing to say—after all, just look how rich Beauchamp is! How many people has he extorted to get his piles of money? I’m only doing it to one man, and this man is a murderer who deserves to be extorted. Although, if I am completely honest, Vogel should really get an award from the mayor—no, from the president—for knocking off Beauchamp.

  Still, no matter what I tell Stephen, the truth is, I’m not as easy with all this as I used to be. Every day that I stay is another day closer to being found out. I’ll never forget how Beauchamp looked that night. I know if Vogel learns I’m the one with his glove I’ll end up just as dead as old Albert.

  Hy looked up.

  Lightner reached for the book and flipped the page to the next strip of paper. “Read from the t-t-top of the page.”

  July 2nd

  I can’t believe it’s finally happened! When I heard Beauchamp’s body had been found I cried; I actually wept.

  I can’t believe that Stephen is so stupid as to believe I wouldn’t demand payment for the second glove—especially now that the body has been found. Luckily, Stephen believed me when I told him I wanted to get away too badly to sell the second glove. He really is a gullible fool.

  He won’t shut up about wanting me to stay here, promising me that we could live high on the hog here now that Beauchamp is no longer bleeding us, but I’ve seen the way Stephen drinks. It’s only a matter of time before he kills another patient and the next time it won’t be Beauchamp coming for him, but the police. Besides, I won’t ever feel safe living here—not with Vogel always wondering who knows about him. He’ll always be expecting demands for more money. And I know myself all too well—I’d come back to him again and again.

  I need to get out of here. I need to go home.

  And I need to do it before Stephen sinks us both in a moment of drunken stupidity. He’s already drunk—celebrating, he calls it—and I’m terrified of what might slip out of his mouth.

  I’ve sent Vogel the message, there is no turning back now.

  I shouldn’t have told Stephen that I was pregnant, but he’d begun to scream and become hysterical and lose control, like he did that time when he learned about Philip, when he proved he was no better than any other man.

  So I had to lie—he doesn’t want a child any more than I do—and I’d do it again. Besides, the money he gave me was well earned. I can get at least another two payments out of him before I disappear forever.

  Poor fool! He really believes I’ll be waiting for him once he’s tied up what he calls “loose ends.”

  In less than two days I won’t have to care what he wants, thinks, or believes.

  Between Vogel’s first payment, the money I’ll get for selling all Beauchamp’s things, and what I’ll get for this second glove I’ll have enough to start a new life, somewhere far away from Stephen, the horrid photographs, this wretched house from hell, and all the rest.

  I will never make the same mistakes I did when I walked into Van Horne’s and set this awful series of events into motion. I’m wiser now; a wisdom born of harsh, bitter experience.

  Soon, I will finally be free.

  Hy flipped through the rest of the pages; they were blank.

  Powell’s expression was one of horror—and rage.

  “T-Tell me, Doctor. What did she m-mean about the last time you b-became angry?” Lightner asked, his dark eyes glittering dangerously.

  Powell’s pale, pasty skin flushed. “It was an accident. I’d been drinking—just a little—and I found out about her and Sanger.” His quivering lower lip tightened. “She’d been fucking the pair of us for months, getting money out of us. Of course I was angry. I had every right to be.”

  “So you hit her,” Lightner said.

  Powell’s jaw flexed. “I want a lawyer.”

  Lightner nodded, picked up the book, and stood.

  “Wait,” Powell said as the Englishman strode toward the door.

  Lightner stopped and turned.

  Powell flinched under the Englishman’s cold gaze. “Look, I want to tell you what happened,” he said. “I’m an honest man—otherwise I wouldn’t offer to speak to you, would I?”

  “It’s entirely up to y-you, Doctor.”

  “I want to tell you my side.”

  Lightner nodded, and he and Hy sat down.

  Powell swallowed several times, his red-rimmed eyes shifty. “I was dead asleep the night she found Beauchamp—or whatever the hell his name is. She was terrified, babbling about a body, some man, and blood everywhere. I figured she’d had a nightmare, but I got dressed and went with her anyhow. When we got to his house the kitchen door was locked. She went crazy yanking on the door handle and wanted to break a window to get inside. That’s when I noticed the blood on her hands and started to believe that maybe she hadn’t been dreaming.”

  He swallowed and shifted in his chair. “She was only up in my room for about ten minutes—no longer. That meant the killer might have still been inside the house when we came back. She was hysterical and I had a hell of a time dragging her back up to her room, but I turned off all the lights and closed the drapes. Her bedroom looks right out at Beauchamp’s place, and her other window—in the sitting area—looks out at the street, so we could see anyone coming or going because there were only two doors into Beauchamp’s house. We sat t
here all night until the sun came up, drinking gallons of coffee to stay awake.” Powell shook his head in wonder. “Nobody ever came out of that house—I swear on my soul—and then all his servants showed up for their day of work. We kept expecting somebody to come screaming out of there. But nothing happened.”

  “You’re saying the k-k-killer was in there the whole time—even with the servants inside?”

  “Look, what I’m saying is that I never saw anything—no body—just the blood. You just read her journal and what she wrote: I didn’t know it was somebody named Vogel, and I sure as hell didn’t know that she’d taken off Beauchamp’s rings—that would have explained why she had blood on her, I suppose.”

  “T-Tell me again,” Lightner ordered.

  Powell sighed. “All she told me was that some noise woke her up, she saw a man go scurrying down the drive away from Beauchamp’s kitchen door, threw on her dressing gown, and went down to take a look. That’s when she found the gloves on the ground, and then Beauchamp in the kitchen. When I went back with her, the kitchen door was locked. That’s it.”

  “Why didn’t you n-notify the police?”

  Powell laughed, and it sounded genuine. “You’re kidding, right? We were elated that he was dead. And if he wasn’t? If Anita was mistaken and he’d just cut his hand while sawing off a chunk of ham for a midnight snack and passed out—which is what I began to think as weeks passed with no word of anything other than him taking a trip to Louisiana—then calling the police was just inviting trouble into a situation that Beauchamp wouldn’t have thanked me for.”

  “What situation d-do you mean?”

  He snorted. “You have to know what’s in that carriage house and what went on upstairs.”

  “No, what?”

  “Smuggling.” He gave a weary laugh. “Hell, more goods went in and out of that bloody carriage house than in and out of the average pier. That’s where they came from, the pier, just ask Sanger. He used his connections to bring in workers, rum, cigars, and whatever else he could get his hands on, and they had some customs agents in their pocket. I couldn’t believe Beauchamp could get away with it. I mean, didn’t anyone notice all those coaches pulling into his driveway but no entertaining going on? Or all the crates coming and going? The one time the cops did come to raid him was the one time that bloody carriage house was as clean as a Quaker’s conscience.

  “Knowing Beauchamp, the bastard had dirt on some copper whose job it was to alert him to raids. God only knows how many people in this city he had slaving for him.” Powell shook his head, his expression one of loathing and wonder. “Look, I went down to the Adelphia, but I didn’t hurt her. I begged her to wait, that I’d go with her. But that I couldn’t go now—I told her not to go, that it would look suspicious her running off like that. But she was so stubborn.” He sniffed, a fat tear coursing down his cheek. “And so happy, after all that time being slowly bled to death.” He looked up from his clenched, manacled hands, his eyes streaming. “I wouldn’t have hurt her. I thought she was carrying my child, for God’s sake.”

  “Did Miss Fowler happen to t-t-tell you how she arranged to g-get the money from Vogel?”

  “You’re going to think I’m really stupid—because I am stupid, but I believed her about deciding not to go through with it.”

  Hy agreed with him on that point.

  Lightner picked up the double roll of cloth he’d brought with him to the interrogation room and set it on the table. The bundle was wrapped in one cloth, and the two rolls met up in the middle.

  “After finding M-Miss Fowler’s diaries, I became more interested in you, D-Doctor. I couldn’t enter your home because it was locked. But I found the sh-shop, as you call it, unlocked.”

  “That’s a lie. I always keep the door locked. I have hundreds of dollars worth of tools in there! I’d never—”

  Lightner unrolled the left side, exposing a nasty-looking tool somewhere between a boarding knife and an awl.

  It looked sharp and cruel and made for dark deeds. It was also smeared with blood.

  “Why do you have that?” Powell demanded, leaping to his feet, chains clinking.

  “It’s yours, then?”

  “You know it is. You took it from my shop.”

  Lightner lifted it up and held it closer to the light. “What do you d-do with such a thing?”

  “It’s a taxidermy tool.” His eyes slid from Lightner to Hy and back. “Why? What does it matter what I use it for?”

  “Miss Fowler was k-killed with something that l-looked a lot like this.”

  Powell’s jaw sagged. “I don’t understand. What are you saying? Anita drowned.”

  Lightner shoved the tool toward Powell.

  The doctor flinched away. “You—you—you think I killed Anita with that?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. “I loved her.” He was breathing in shallow, rapid gasps, his eyes as round as marbles; he looked stark raving mad.

  Lightner leaned across the table, his posture taut, like a cat when it closes in for the kill.

  “You loved her, but she was l-leaving you.”

  “Yeah, but just for a while. We were going to meet in Baltimore after.”

  “But the t-ticket she’d purchased wasn’t for Baltimore.”

  “Quit lying.” Powell forced the words through clenched jaws.

  “She was going to Charleston—that was where she was from. She said so in the l-last entry in her diary—the one on the third.”

  Hy was impressed by Lightner’s convincing lie.

  “No.” Powell shook his head violently, tears streaming down his face. “You’re lying to trick me.”

  “I think you f-followed her when she l-l-left and found out the truth. You argued, and when she wouldn’t g-give in, you k-kil—”

  Powell gave a maddened roar and flung himself across the table onto the Englishman, slamming into him hard enough to send his chair flying backward, with Lightner still in it.

  CHAPTER 32

  “Well,” Jasper said, taking his handkerchief from his forehead, examining it, and then refolding it to a clean spot. “That went d-differently than I expected.”

  Law chuckled, leaning back in the chair beside the desk that he’d claimed as his own. “We should have sold tickets. People would pay good money for that sort of theater, sir.”

  Jasper smiled; the other man might be speaking in jest, but the interlude had certainly been … lively.

  It had taken Law, Jasper, and two guards to subdue Powell and get him out of the room.

  “Has it st-st-stopped bleeding?” he asked Law, lifting the ridiculous lock of hair off his forehead.

  Law squinted at the cut. “Yeah, pretty much. How’s the back of your bonce doin’? You took a goodly knock.”

  Jasper’s head was bloody pounding. Thankfully, he’d been quick enough to lift it just as the chair went down, saving himself the brunt of the blow. Still, he really needed to quit knocking his skull about. Or allowing others to knock it about, to be more precise.

  The guard appeared in the open doorway of their office. “I’m sorry, sir, but Powell won’t stop beggin’. He said he’s sorry and wants to cooperate and answer more questions. He promises to be calm.”

  Jasper and Law exchanged looks. “I do have a few other questions.”

  When they entered the interrogation room a few minutes later, Powell was sitting upright with his hands clasped on the table, his expression contrite. He was also looking a bit worse for wear, one eye swelling and his lip split and oozing blood.

  “I apologize,” he said, looking at his hands rather than at Jasper.

  Jasper sat and opened his notebook. “What time did you leave the hotel?”

  Powell swallowed. “Er, I don’t know exactly. Maybe nine thirty or so.”

  That fit with what the hotel employees said.

  “Where d-did you go when you left?”

  Powell gave what sounded like a genuine laugh. “I guess you need an alibi?” When neither of them an
swered, he said, “Well, I have a pretty darn good one—I was in the Ninth Precinct drunk tank. I wandered around for a while and finally stopped at a saloon near Clarkson and Greenwich and had a few too many. I don’t exactly know when the coppers took me in, but I doubt I was at the saloon more than a few hours.” His battered face flushed. “I was knocking them back rather, er, rashly. I got into an argument, I’m ashamed to say. Surely you can check on that?” He shrugged. “Anyhow, they didn’t let me out until the next morning.”

  Jasper could practically feel Law’s disappointment vibrating off the bigger man.

  If what Powell said were true, Jasper had to admit to a certain amount of disappointment, himself.

  He took a photograph from his pocket and slid it across the table. “Do you know this m-man?”

  Powell leaned closer, studied the picture, and then nodded. “Yes—that’s the man who came blustering into the house just as we were going out on the Fourth.”

  Jasper blinked in surprise. “The fourth of what?”

  “July.”

  He exchanged glances with Law; the big policeman shrugged, his expression one of bewilderment.

  “Explain,” he said to Powell.

  “There’s not much to tell. I saw him just before me, Harold, and Mrs. Stampler went out—it was later in the afternoon. That guy came in as if he owned the place, pushed past us, and went right upstairs. Mrs. Stampler had seen him before because she said, ‘Oh, it’s you again.’ Apparently, he’d been there a few months earlier. He’d gotten ugly when Mrs. Stampler asked him what he was doing there. I asked her if she wanted to wait until he left, but she said he had a key to the rooms on the top floor because he’d been involved in something with Beauchamp.” Powell looked from Jasper’s stunned face to Law’s. “Why? Who is he? Is this something important?”

  Jasper ignored the question and took out the same bundle as earlier, this time unrolling the other side.

  “That looks like my saw,” Powell said.

  Jasper—not above a bit of showmanship—flipped back the last of the cloth to expose a second, identical saw. “Which one is y-yours?” he asked.