Mercy Me

by Tracy L. Ward

  Jeremiah gave a precursory glance around the corner of the carriage house. “She hasn’t been moved?”

  “No, sir.” The constable kept his eyes forward and did not dare follow Jeremiah’s movements. “I’ve kept everyone at bay. No one has come through since I arrived, except Dr. Bishop.” His eyes darted sideways as if to meet Jeremiah’s gaze and then snapped forward. “Sir.”

  Jeremiah smiled at the young man’s fervour. He was reminded of himself ten years prior.

  “MacNeal, can you ask the members of the house to return to the building? I will be in shortly to take their statements.”

  MacNeal nodded and left to address those on the porch.

  “What shall I do, sir?” the constable asked.

  “You?” Jeremiah let out a tiny chuckle. “You’re doing a good job. Keep it up.”

  The constable straightened his stance even as Jeremiah walked away.

  The young woman lay stomach down, both arms resting at her sides, her head turned to the side, her eyes open and staring blankly at the expanse of lawn. She wore a light grey maid’s uniform, with thin white stripes running vertical. Her apron was still tied at her waist. The only thing out of place was a single shoe, which lay in the grass not two feet away.

  “Cause of death?” Jeremiah asked, kneeling down beside the body opposite Dr. Bishop.

  Bishop lifted his gaze as if just realizing he were there. He removed the cigarette from his mouth. “Detective. So nice of you to stop by finally,” he said, returning his gaze to the victim. “It feels like I’ve been here for half an hour and you just showed up.”

  “I came as quick as I could,” Jeremiah said.

  “And yet not as quick as me.” He popped the cigarette between his lips and let it hang loosely. “Grab hold of that side of her,” Bishop said, indicating which side with a bob of his head, “and heave her toward me, yeah?”

  Jeremiah did as instructed. The girl barely weighed a feather. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to dark spots around the girl’s neck. “Is it like the one from Elm Street? They seem similar.”

  Bishop eyed him and pulled the cigarette from his mouth. “It’s too early to tell.”

  “Any scratches? On her neck like the other?”

  “I’m doing my best, detective,” Bishop said. “I could do a whole lot better without you hovering over me. I am a doctor, you know? I know what I am doing.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Jeremiah replied. He had no intention of leaving at Bishop’s behest. The man’s aptitude was certainly in question.

  MacNeal returned, having dispersed the onlookers back to the house. “What do you make of it, then?” he asked.

  Jeremiah stood. “I suspect asphyxiation,” he said.

  “I haven’t submitted my report,” Bishop said.

  “I don’t have time to wait for your damn report,” Jeremiah snapped. “I’m still waiting for the other one you owe me.”

  “She’s dead, Detective. She ain’t getting any deader.”

  Jeremiah rounded the body and pulled Bishop up by his lapel. “Do you realize this is two so far? Two in my ward. I understand this may mean nothing to you but that doesn’t mean it’s nothing to me.” Jeremiah released him and watched as the doctor fell back slightly in the grass. “Get back to work and I better have reports for both Cynthia Bolton and Clemmie Howden by morning.”

  Chapter 21

  Within the hour Clemmie was bundled up and ready for transport to the city morgue on Lombard Road. With the aid of lantern light, Jeremiah performed a survey of the area where she was found before directing the constable to complete a search of the rest of the yard.

  “Take your time, Constable,” he said, handing over the lantern. “You’ll have a time of it at this hour,” he said, looking to the darkened sky. “Do your best. Look for anything that isn’t a blade of grass or a flower petal. It could be a piece of fabric or a tiny jewel. Whatever it is, I want to hear about it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Once Jeremiah and MacNeal were alone again, MacNeal turned to the detective. “You think Mrs. Bolton and Clemmie could be related?”

  “That girl was strangled. Mrs. Bolton as well.”

  “Her body wasn’t moved.”

  “I suspect this is where her murderer found her. It’s possible the murderer found Mrs. Bolton in that alleyway.”

  “But they seem to be two very different women,” MacNeal said.

  “What is so different about them?” Jeremiah asked. “Look beyond the landscapes of their deaths, MacNeal. Just because Clemmie was in a freshly pressed uniform and Mrs. Bolton in threadbare rags doesn’t mean they weren’t both subjected to the very same circumstances.”

  The mood of the house was sombre as Jeremiah and MacNeal entered. It seemed all activity had come to a halt as members of the staff gathered around to exchange theories as to what brought about Clemmie’s untimely end. The murmur in the kitchen ended suddenly once the two detectives walked past the threshold.

  “May we speak with the woman who found her, please?” Jeremiah asked, before turning to MacNeal. “A Mrs.—”

  “Jennings.”

  The maid closest to them, a matronly type who appeared to be the head housekeeper, nodded and gestured for them to follow her from the room. They found Mrs. Jennings seated at a small settee at one of the windows that overlooked the front garden of the house. She held a soft handkerchief to her nose as a young maid rubbed her back.

  “Mrs. Jennings?”

  The plump and greying cook turned her head at the sound of Jeremiah’s voice. She had been crying heavily for some time, it seemed, judging by the ruddiness around her eyes.

  “My name is Jeremiah Walker, this is Sergeant Scott MacNeal. We are with the Toronto police. We’d like to ask you a few questions about Clemmie,” he said, taking a seat in a chair opposite of her.

  “I’m Mrs. Noreen Jennings, the head cook for Mrs. Renee Gladstone,” she said between sniffles. “This is Amy, she works as my underservant.”

  “A kitchen maid,” the woman behind Jeremiah said.

  “Could I get your last name, Amy?” MacNeal asked, flashing the notebook where he wrote furiously. “For our records.”

  The girl was young, no more than fifteen, Jeremiah imagined, with red hair and wide green eyes. She seemed incredibly unsure and awkward and when she spoke her voice was barely above a whisper. “Malloy.”

  MacNeal wrote it down and nodded to Jeremiah when he was ready.

  “Mrs. Jennings, I’m told you were the unfortunate person to find Clemmie, is that correct?”

  Mrs. Jennings nodded and then let out a great sniffle. “I’ve never seen anything so horrible in all my life,” she said, lowering the handkerchief for a moment to speak, then snapping it back up again.

  “I agree. It is quite awful.” Jeremiah adjusted in his seat. He was glad the woman had experienced so few horrid experiences. He was sure many members of the general public would not be able to cope were they to see all that his profession had demanded him to see. “Ma’am, can you walk me through what happened?”

  The cook opened her mouth to speak.

  “We don’t know what happened, that’s why we called you,” the head housekeeper said sharply from behind MacNeal.

  Without Jeremiah needing to say anything, MacNeal turned to the woman and escorted her from the room. “We will interview each one of you in turn,” he said, before closing the door to the sitting room.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jennings, you were going to say something.” Jeremiah was careful to regard her warmly, without accusation. She seemed to be in such a frazzled state that any frustration on his part would jeopardize the answers he would receive.

  “I had just pulled a roast from the oven. Mrs. Gladstone is away, you see, visiting her sister. We were to have just a simple dinner for us left at the house.”

  Jeremiah nodded. “Of course.”

  “I went out to empty the bucket of cuttings into the garden. That’s normal
ly Amy’s duty”—she flashed a glance to the young girl who was still rubbing her back—“but she had disappeared somewhere.”

  The girl’s eyes went even wider. “Only the lavatory,” she said. “I wasn’t feeling all that well.”

  Jeremiah raised a hand. “It’s all right.” The young girl was scarcely able to lift a bowl of potatoes, let alone apply enough pressure to asphyxiate a girl forty pounds larger than her. “Continue, Mrs. Jenkins.”

  “Well…” She glanced to MacNeal. “I saw Clemmie’s shoe lying in the grass. So I went down the steps to pick it up—Mrs. Gladstone doesn’t like anything out of place—and that’s when I saw her lying there.” She burst into another round of tears.

  “Did you know she was dead?” Jeremiah asked.

  “I had a feeling but I had to send Mr. Danvers out to check.”

  Jeremiah looked to MacNeal. “Mr. Danvers is?”

  “The driver, sir,” MacNeal answered quickly. “He’s the one who sent for us.”

  “We kept asking him, ‘Are you sure? Are you truly sure?’” Mrs. Jennings waved the handkerchief. “None of us could believe such a thing possible. Clemmie was so nice, so thoughtful. She’d give you her last scrap at supper if she thought you needed it more than she did.”

  “Maybe it were just a mistake,” Amy chimed in.

  “There’s no mistake, I’m afraid,” Jeremiah said.

  Jeremiah could see the young maid was trying to hold back tears. Under his scrutiny, she turned her face into Mrs. Jennings’ shoulder.

  “She and Clemmie shared a room in the attic,” the cook explained, while rubbing the girl’s shoulder. “They have been close ever since Clemmie started working here.”

  “When was that?” Jeremiah asked.

  “Just after Christmas.”

  “Had she been in service prior?”

  “Yes, she worked for Mrs. Gladstone’s son, Mr. Nigel Gladstone. I’m not surprised he let her go. She was so sickly at first. I’d never seen the like of it.”

  “Sickly how?”

  Mrs. Jennings shrugged. “I don’t know. Just sickly.”

  “Does Clemmie have any family?” MacNeal asked, readying to write it down in his notebook.

  “Her mother lives back east in Ireland. Cork, I believe,” Mrs. Jennings said. “She’s quite ill as well. Perhaps it’s something that runs in the family.”

  “Anyone local? A fella, perhaps?”

  Mrs. Jennings was quick to shake her head, but Amy looked to the rug at their feet.

  “Did she, Amy?” Jeremiah asked. “Anything you could tell us would help find who did this to her, you know that, right?”

  The young girl gave a glance to the older cook before speaking. “I saw her with one fella shortly after she came here. He was standing near the carriage house. She met him while working for Mr. Nigel, I think.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “She weren’t afraid of him. She walked right up to him and starting chatting. She’d never do that with someone she didn’t know. I wasn’t supposed to see, though. I was in the room looking out the window when I saw it.”

  “What time of day was this?” MacNeal asked.

  “Early morning. No one was up yet. It was Clemmie’s job to stoke the fires before Mrs. Jennings wakes.”

  “Did you see this man at any other time?” Jeremiah asked.

  Amy pinched her lips together and shook her head. “Just the once.”

  “Was there anything in his clothes or demeanour that could indicate where he worked or perhaps lived?”

  “He were a proper gentleman. He dressed like Mr. Gladstone, only his suit fit at the waist better.”

  “Can you describe him? Was he tall? What colour was his hair?”

  Amy shrugged. “It was too dark to tell. I only know it were a man and I know it were Clemmie who went out to him.”

  Jeremiah nodded and tried not to let his frustration show. “Thank you. You both have been very helpful. When does Mrs. Gladstone return?”

  “The day after next. I don’t see how she could be much help, though. I’d hate to see her bothered.”

  “There’s no way around it, I’m afraid. Have Mrs. Gladstone send us word when she has returned. We need to speak to her right away,” Jeremiah said, coming to a stand. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  Mrs. Jennings gave a weak nod before both detectives turned and exited the room.

  Interviews extended well after sundown. Nothing new was learned from the other members of the household staff except that Mr. Danvers, the driver, liked to wear a freshly pressed shirt every few hours and that Clemmie had a sweet tooth. Jeremiah and MacNeal had nearly covered all their standard questions when the front door opened and the sound of heavy footfalls filled the house.

  “What is the meaning of this?” a man asked, bursting into the kitchen.

  “Forgive us, sir, we are conducting an investigation,” Jeremiah said. “You’re going to have to leave.”

  “You cannot ask a man to leave his own house!”

  Jeremiah and MacNeal exchanged glances. “I believe this house belongs to the Gladstones. Mrs. Gladstone is out of town.” Jeremiah looked to Mr. Danvers opposite them.

  “This here is Nigel Gladstone,” the driver answered. “Mrs. Renee Gladstone’s only son.”

  “I order you to end this investigation right this minute,” Nigel said.

  “You cannot give such an order, sir,” Jeremiah said. “A young woman has been murdered here.”

  “Which young woman?”

  “Clemmie Howden,” Jeremiah said. “I am told you knew the deceased.”

  Nigel huffed and shook his head. “Hardly.”

  “Didn’t she work for you for a time?”

  “Yes, that was months ago. If the girl is dead now, what concern is it of mine? You gentlemen are going to have to leave. I shudder to think what the neighbours think of all this.”

  Jeremiah gave a half-hearted chuckle. He walked toward Nigel with his head low, only raising his gaze when he stood directly in front of him. They were matched in height but Jeremiah had him beat with bulk. “I will conclude my investigation when I am good and ready,” he said. “I will not be dictated to by you or anyone else. I am not your servant. I am a servant of the law. You and your staff will aid me and my sergeant to the best of your ability. If you don’t, you will find yourself charged with obstruction of justice and assaulting a police officer.”

  “I didn’t assault you.”

  “Did you see that, MacNeal, did you see him punch me?”

  “I saw the whole thing, sir,” MacNeal said evenly from behind him.

  “He saw it.” Jeremiah may have been honourable, but he wasn’t above carefully offered threats if it meant helping his inquiries, especially not when his threats were against a man like Nigel Gladstone. “Now, I’m obliged to let this one go, yeah? And you’re going to let me see this investigation completed, all right?”

  Nigel Gladstone went from overly self-assured to simpering over the span of a few sentences. He kept his gaze trained on Jeremiah for a few seconds more before finally nodding and taking a step back. “I’ll send a telegram informing my mother about what has happened,” he said.

  “Good. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Jeremiah didn’t expect a reply. He looked over his shoulder at MacNeal. “We are nearly complete for this evening but we shall be back tomorrow to search the yard. If we have any additional questions we shall ask then.”

  Jeremiah turned to the servants who had gathered behind them. “No one is to go into the yard at anytime. I have an officer on duty who will remain there the rest of the night,” he said. “Anyone who refuses to follow these orders will find themselves in a basement cell at Station No. 2. Have I made myself clear?” Jeremiah surveyed the faces of those gathered and found everyone compliant. He turned his attention back to Nigel. “Have yourself a good evening, sir.”

  They left through the front door and circled the house to let the constable
know no one was to step foot off that back porch. “I’ll send another officer to relieve you in four hours. Think you can hold them off until then?”

  The constable nodded eagerly.

  “Good man.”

  They left him and headed for the police carriage at the curb.

  “I’d like to have Ms. Eaton give us her perspective,” Jeremiah said when they were finally heading back to the city centre. “She can”—he hesitated—“do whatever it is she does.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise, given what happened earlier today?” MacNeal asked.

  “I’ll be more upfront with her. I won’t force her to do it if she doesn’t want to. Perhaps she can give us some more details than she could this morning. At this point anything will be of help.” Jeremiah ran a hand over his face. “It seems ridiculous that we should be giving so much credence to such things, but she was right about a few details. Perhaps she can point us in the right direction for more.”

  “Will you be telling Chief Johnson?”

  Jeremiah scoffed. “Absolutely not. Ms. Eaton is our secret weapon. If the rest of the force finds out about her, we’ll either be the laughing stock of the division or they’ll all be wanting her to work their cases as well.”

  “How will we explain any clues from her in our official report?” MacNeal asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jeremiah answered honestly. “I haven’t quite figured that out yet.”

  Chapter 22

  By the morning Mercy could feel herself on the verge of another one of her episodes. As she readied for her day her heart was aflutter and it was difficult to achieve a full breath. All her skin felt jumpy, as if energy surged throughout her, propelling her to do something, anything, to expel her jittery nerves.

  She called them episodes, periods of time when her body and brain seemed at odds with her normal composure, because that is what her mother had dubbed them years before.

  Mercy did her best to hide her unease from Edith, who sat at the kitchen table with a book in one hand and a spoonful of oatmeal in the other. Edith was not fooled. Mercy could feel her daughter’s eyes upon her as soon as she entered the kitchen.