by Rhys Bowen
“You were threatening that young girl. And you know she’s underage.”
“What young girl? Oh—that’s my little sister. I have to keep her in line.”
“And I’m a sergeant in the marines,” she said, making him chuckle. “Look, Harry. I want to talk to you about the girl who was murdered. Jewel—was that her name?”
“Yeah, Jewel. Pity about that. Nice kid.”
“So what can you tell me about her murder?”
“Nothing. It happens sometimes. The guys get carried away. Some of them like it rough. The girls, too. Hazard of the job.”
“You don’t know who she went with then?”
“If I did, I’d break his face in. He lost me one of my best workers.”
“So there’s nothing you can tell us to help us catch this man?” she asked. “You must know that several more prostitutes have been killed since then.”
“The girls in the city? Same guy, is it?”
“We think so. It might be only a matter of time before he comes out here again,” she said. “So is there nothing you can tell us?”
“She was jumpy that night,” he said. “She told another girl that she didn’t want to go through with it. ‘I can put up with a lot if they pay well,’ she said to the girl, ‘but that’s a bit much.’”
“So you think she suspected there would be violence?”
“I don’t know. That’s all I can tell you. She didn’t show up when she was supposed to and next morning they found her body.”
“Thanks, Harry,” she said. “Let’s hope we catch him.”
“Me, too.” His eyes fastened on me. “Don’t tell me you’re a lady cop as well?”
“I’m her little sister, the same as she’s yours.” I indicated the young girl, who had stopped shivering and was looking on with interest.
“I could put you to work if you’re ever out of a job.” His eyes flirted with me. “Good-looking healthy girl like you.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather gut fish at the Fulton market,” I said.
He laughed and we parted amicably.
“I suppose we should get back and see how the fight’s progressing,” Mrs. Goodwin said. “And I must confess I could do with a sit down. My side is killing me.”
“All right.”
We made our way back to the Bowery.
“Look,” I said as we walked back at a more leisurely pace. “There is the Streets of Cairo Pavilion. That’s where the Rosetti girls went and right after that Rosa discovered the note. I suppose it’s too much to expect that our man always operates in the same area?”
“And at the same time?” Mrs. Goodwin shook her head.
“If it’s someone from the city, he probably only comes out here occasionally.”
And if it’s that innocuous divinity student, I thought, he’s now supposedly at a camp in the wilderness. We’d have to have the police check on that.
The Inman Casino loomed ahead of us.
“I truly need to rest,” Mrs. Goodwin said, “but I understand that we only have limited time. I’ll claim I’m feeling faint and have them bring out a chair into the fresh air for me. That way I can keep an eye on you as you explore.”
“Good idea,” I said. “Don’t worry. I won’t go out of sight. I just need to see for myself what attractions lie along this part of the street.”
I left her installed outside the casino and crossed to the Cairo Pavilion.
“Closing in ten minutes,” the turbaned man outside was shouting. “Only ten minutes to see the glories of the harem.”
Some of the food booths were also in the process of shutting down for the night. Only the dance palaces, the beer halls, and dubious-looking clubs were still going strong. I looked into them but didn’t risk going inside. The boy could have been a day-tripper and have spotted Rosa anywhere. Finding a needle in a haystack was an easy quest compared to the one I had set myself. And yet I was sure that the other girls had met their killer in the same way. He had dumped the subsequent bodies on the same two streets. Did that mean he was a creature of habit? Did he always frequent the same part of the Bowery? I looked around me for young men standing alone.
Then a midget jumped out in front of me, making me jump out of my skin. “Last chance for the freak show, lady!” he shouted, in a funny high voice. “Ten cents to see the most amazing, most disgusting spectacles you’ll ever set eyes on.”
I looked up at the frontage of the pavilion. This then was the freak show that the Rosetti sisters had been to before they had entered the Cairo Pavilion. On the wall were painted the various freaks exhibited inside. The snake woman, the world’s smallest horse, the bearded lady, the mule-faced boy, the human tree.
I stopped, finding it hard to breathe. Wasn’t that what Rosa Rosetti had murmured before dying? Tree. Tree. And at this very spot she had found the note in her pocket. I turned to go back and fetch Mrs. Goodwin, and instead I found myself staring into Detective Quigley’s face.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Good evening, Detective,” I managed to say calmly. “Did you tire of the fight?”
“I must confess that I did,” he said. “I only came along because Captain Paxton suggested it, and it’s good to keep on the right side of the top brass. Frankly I find it a barbaric practice, so I made an excuse to come outside, and then I ran into Mrs. Goodwin. I must say I was surprised to see her. I thought she was still in the hospital. She told me she was keeping an eye on you, that you suspected this area had something to do with the Ripper. If it truly does, aren’t you taking an incredible risk?”
“I’m staying within sight of Mrs. Goodwin,” I said, “and the casino is crawling with police right now.”
“Even so,” he looked at me in that supercilious way of his, “this case should be left to professionals. What exactly did you have in mind?”
I pointed at the freak show. “I’d like to go in here and take a look for myself.”
“You’ve got a taste for freaks?” He laughed.
“No, but there’s something I’d like to check on. It could be important. Could I ask you to follow at a safe distance behind me, in case I need you?”
“I suppose so,” he said. “Will you not tell me what could be so important in a freak show?”
“I’d rather not, until I’ve checked it out for myself,” I said. “I may be quite wrong. And anyway, Mrs. Goodwin will be presenting all our findings to Captain Paxton. I think you’ll be surprised at what we’ve discovered.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “Trying to beat us at our own game?”
“Only trying to help,” I said.
Quigley sighed and looked around impatiently. “Okay. Hurry up, if you’re going in here then. I can’t take too long. Paxton will wonder where I’ve got to. I don’t want him to think I can’t stomach prizefights.”
“All right, then.” I nodded to him and went up to the ticket booth.
“Just closing, missy. You’ll have to hurry,” the ticket taker said. I paid my ten cents and stepped into a dark hallway. After a few paces it opened into a dimly lit room. A jungle scene had been created and suddenly I spotted the snake woman. She was entwined around the branch of a tree. When she saw me, she eased herself over a rock and slithered toward me. And—she really did have a human torso and the tail of a snake. I stared at her, repulsed, fascinated, as her long tail twitched with a life of its own. Then I remembered the reason I was here and moved on, down the next hall and into a room, this time decorated like a stable yard. Standing in front of one of the stables was a little horse, no bigger than a large dog. Where the snake woman had been somehow frightening, the horse was delightful. And there was no trick about it, either. It was definitely real.
One more hall and the bearded lady. She was fat and repulsive and only invoked my pity. I averted my eyes so that she shouldn’t catch me staring at her and hurried down the next passage. And there he was—the human tree. He was a giant of a man, brawny, muscled, but there was something wrong with
him. Even in the dim light I could see his disfigured face with great gnarled lumps and bumps protruding from it. A great lump came out of one cheek, half closing one eye. The same scaly lumps grew out of his skin, which was flaking off in other places. His hands had fake twigs and leaves extending from them and there were fake leaves on his head. His feet were apparently hidden in the earth.
As I stared at him in horrified fascination, I noticed that he was staring right back at me, appraising me.
“Last call. Closing in five minutes.” I heard the distant shout. “All customers head for the exit.”
I glanced back, hoping to catch a reassuring glimpse of Detective Quigley. Had this hideous tree man taken a fancy to certain girls who came to stare at him, managed to slip notes into their pockets, and then lured them back to kill them? I heard a rustling sound and spun around to see the tree man lifting his feet out of the fake earth.
“Show’s over for the day,” he said, in a deep, rumbling voice. “I can go now. You want to come for a drink with me, little lady?”
“Uh—no thanks,” I said.
“Why not?”
“I’ve got a friend waiting for me.” I could hardly make the words come out without my voice trembling.
“Then why are you here alone? Where’s your friend? Bring her along, too. Come on. Come for a drink.”
He was moving across the painted scenery toward me. I stepped back, shaking my head.
“You don’t want to come because I’m so ugly. That’s it, isn’t it?” he said.
“No, of course not. It’s just—my boyfriend—” I was already backing away, hoping that Quigley would emerge from the darkness.
He was still coming toward me. “Go on, admit it. I disgust you. You don’t want to be near me. Just like all the others. I see them looking at me. How do you think that feels, huh? Seeing beautiful girls and knowing that I can never touch them because I look like this. Well, I’m a man, and I’ve got a man’s body and a man’s desires.”
Suddenly he reached out and grabbed me. His strength was enormous. His hand felt as if it was crushing my arm.
“Mr. Quigley!” I shouted. “Help! In here. He’s got me.”
I heard feet along the passageway and to my relief Detective Quigley came into the room.
“Let go of her at once,” he commanded. “I’m a police officer.”
The big man looked up in surprise and dropped my arm.
“Are you all right?” Quigley asked me. “He didn’t hurt you?”
“Just scared me,” I said.
“No harm done then,” he said. “Some of these freaks are mentally as well as physically unsound. Let me get you out of here.” He took my arm. “And you,” he said, wagging a warning finger at the tree man, “you’ve been warned before, haven’t you?”
As soon as we had left the room, I grabbed Officer Quigley’s arm. “Wait, Detective. That tree man,” I whispered urgently, “don’t let him escape. You have to arrest him.”
“That man?” Quigley looked back. “Because he made a grab at you?”
“No, because he’s the East Side Ripper.”
Quigley looked at me in amazement. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sure of it. It all fits,” I said. “Two of the dead girls went to meet a mysterious man on Coney Island.”
“Yes, but—do you think any girl would go to Coney Island to meet him?” Quigley looked back in revulsion.
“They received notes from a secret admirer. The notes were slipped into their pockets—easy enough to do in this kind of crowd. So they didn’t know who they were going to meet. And listen to this. The one girl who was still alive when they found her—her last words were ‘Tree. Tree.’” I shook his arm desperately. “Hurry, please, or he’ll get away. You must believe me.”
“Oh, I believe you,” he said. “I’d better get you out of here before there’s any trouble. This way then.”
He whisked me along the narrow passage, opened a door, and held it for me to pass through ahead of him. I stepped through it and stopped. I wasn’t outside at all. I was in a small room.
“This isn’t the way out,” I said.
“No, I’m afraid it isn’t.” Quigley was blocking the doorway and the tree man was right behind him.
“Who have we got here, Carter?” the tree man asked, following Quigley into the room and closing the door behind them.
“She knows about you, Jimmy. She’s figured it out,” Quigley said. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to arrest you.”
“You can’t do that. You promised. And if you do, I’ll talk. I’ll tell them…”
Something had just struck me. “Carter?” I interrupted. “Who is Carter?”
“I am,” Quigley answered. “That’s my name. Carter Quigley.”
I stood there, my heart still racing, digesting this fact. “Then you are Letitia’s fiancé?” I blurted out.
“How the devil did you know about Letitia?” he exclaimed.
“Arabella Norton asked me to find her. I’m a detective, remember.”
“Well done,” he said. “Your detective skills are not bad for a woman. Better than that stupid Goodwin female. If you hadn’t come along, she’d never have got this far.”
“But don’t you understand,” I exclaimed, looking from one man to the other, “this man killed your fiancée. Those dead girls weren’t prostitutes at all. Your fiancée was one of them. That day she came to Coney Island and…” My voice drifted into silence. I was watching his face. He was not shocked, not angry. He was, if anything, amused.
“You do know,” I said, “you know he killed the woman you were going to marry, and you didn’t do anything about it? What sort of man are you? If you knew who the East Side Ripper was, why in God’s name didn’t you arrest him?”
“I had my reasons,” Quigley said.
“He made me do it,” the tree man countered.
“Oh, come on, Jimmy. Don’t play the martyr. I made you do it?”
“You did. I didn’t want to kill her. She was nice. She didn’t look at me like the others.”
I stared at Quigley. “You had him kill Letitia?”
“What else could I do?” Quigley said calmly. “I asked her to let me out of our engagement, but she refused. There was no other way out.”
“You had her killed because she wouldn’t release you from your engagement?” I couldn’t disguise my disgust.
“You don’t know what she was like,” Quigley sounded angry now. “She was a hysterical female. She was smothering me. I couldn’t see my life trapped with her. And a court case with her whimpering on the witness stand would have wrecked my career.”
I looked back at the tree man. “You said he made you kill her. How could he make you do something like that? What kind of hold does he have over you?”
Jimmy looked away. “He found out about something I did wrong,” he muttered.
“I found out about the others, didn’t I, Jimmy?” Carter Quigley said calmly. “That first girl you strangled under the pier?”
“That was an accident!” Jimmy shouted. “I told you it was an accident. She tried to scream. I had to stop her.”
“And the second one? She was an accident, too?”
“No, but she laughed at me. She said, ‘What a freak. Can you imagine making love to that?’”
“So you lured her back here alone and killed her,” I said. It was hard to take in what I was hearing.
“I found you making a pathetic attempt to hide the body, didn’t I, Jimmy?”
“I see.” I digested this. “And you let him go free on condition he killed your fiancée? You brought Letitia here to be killed?” I couldn’t hide my revulsion as I stared at him. An image of that delicate little face floated into my mind. I imagined her coming here, her arm slipped trustingly through his, and then being left to face that unimaginable horror.
“I told you. He made me do it,” Jimmy said angrily.
“But then you got the taste for it,
didn’t you, Jimmy?” Carter said. “Those other girls? It is time you were stopped.”
“Dressing them as prostitutes,” I said. “Whose idea was that?”
“Mine, of course,” Carter said. “Nobody ever cares about dead prostitutes. If this silly fool hadn’t started killing so many of them, nobody would ever have found out. Of course, nobody has found out yet. Paxton is a simpleton who will never get to the truth, and McIver—well, he’s a lazy son of a bitch. They rely on me to do the work.”
In a blinding flash I saw. “Daniel Sullivan.” I could hardly make the words come out. “You were the one.”
“He was put in charge of the case. He was too good. I saw him out here at Coney Island, and I knew he must be onto something.”
He was looking into a doped racehorse, I thought. All this was for nothing. I realized something else, too. “Nobody has found out,” he said. He didn’t plan for me to leave this room alive.
“Mrs. Goodwin is just down the street,” I said. “If I don’t get back to her soon, she’ll come looking for me. She’ll fetch Captain Paxton.”
Quigley smiled. “And I’ll run back in distress, telling them that you slipped down an alleyway, and I lost you. I’ve been hunting everywhere.”
“They’ll find me.”
“Too late, of course. Your body won’t show up on a city street, like the others. I rather think we’ll take you out to sea.”
“I get her first, Carter,” Tree man said. “You’ve brought her here for me.”
“Of course, Jimmy. She’s all yours. And I’ll go back to impart the distressing news to my colleagues.”
I looked around the room. It was a dingy little place, lit by one kerosene lamp. There were no windows, but a ladder went up through a hole in the ceiling. Jimmy’s hidey hole, where I was about to be taken and where nobody would find me. It was now or never, it seemed. As the tree man came toward me with a monstrous leer on his face, I reached out and yanked at the tablecloth. The lamp went flying and smashed onto the floor. A sheet of flame rushed across the room. The tree man let out a yell of pain and jumped back. I didn’t wait to see what damage I had done. I grabbed that doorknob and fled into the dark passage behind.
