A Fatal Four-Pack

by P. B. Ryan

  Nell clutched the Bible to her chest as she foraged in her mind for the wording she’d given when she’d signed in.

  “The Relief of Convicts and Indigents,” said the guard as he consulted the sign-in log.

  “Quite some time,” she hedged.

  “You’re to be commended for your benevolence, though why you’d want to waste it on a murdering cur like William Touchette is beyond me.”

  “You’re that convinced of his guilt?”

  “We know the murder weapon belonged to him. Granted, that’s circumstantial, but he was there in the alleyway with the body, reeling on opium, and he didn’t even try to deny his guilt. We know he done the deed, he’s just not talking.”

  “Not that you didn’t do your best to force a confession out of him last night.”

  Cook held his hands up. “Wasn’t my doing, Miss...Chapel, is it?”

  Did he look amused, or was that her imagination? “Yes.”

  “I never touched the man. Not that I wasn’t tempted, but I tend to slam a body out cold on the first punch, which makes them less than talkative. It was the fellas that arrested him who worked him over, plus one or two boyos from the night shift who had nothing better to do. But can you blame them? A confession would have saved everybody involved a world of trouble.”

  “‘Everybody’ meaning you?”

  “My captain did assign me the job of establishing a motive for the murder.”

  “I thought opium intoxication was the motive.”

  “You ask me, that’s the long and the short of it. Who knows why an opium fiend does what he does? It don’t have to make sense to sober types like you and me. But orders are orders, so I’ve got to try and scare up a witness or two who saw the murder or what led up to it. Thing is, everybody at Flynn’s scattered like rats last night before I even got there. I know most of them fellas, the sailors that rent beds there and the ones that just come for the sport—they get pinched for public intoxication on a regular basis. They’re none of them exactly partial to chattin’ with the cops. Better if I show up when they aren’t expecting me.”

  “If they don’t want to talk to you, they won’t.” Nell knew that type.

  “Probably not, but you got to remember, we caught Touchette in the act, or all but. Motive or no, witnesses or no, he’s bound to hang. Only, my captain doesn’t want to take any chances with this one, so he’s making me go through the motions. Speaking of which—time to pull up my socks and get to work. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Chapel.” Donning the bowler, he told the guard to sign him out. “I’ll be at one seventy-five Purchase Street.”

  Purchase Street? “Flynn’s Boardinghouse?” Nell asked. “You’re going there now?”

  “That’s right. How do you know about Flynn’s?”

  “I...I think Mr. Touchette must have mentioned it. Would you mind if I tag along?”

  Cook looked at her as if she were demented. “Miss Chapel, I’m not sure you understand what kind of a place this is. It’s not just a boardinghouse. It’s more what we call a free-and-easy.”

  “I know they smoke opium there.”

  “And gamble and consort with women of the worst description.”

  “I’m not easily shocked,” she said, thinking how very much like Viola Hewitt she sounded.

  “Well, I am. And the idea of a lady like you in a place like that is just about enough to stop my heart. So I’m sorry, but...” Raising an apologetic hand, he turned away.

  “You haven’t asked me about my visit with Mr. Touchette, Detective.”

  Cook paused for a moment, the great wall of his back very still, before turning to face her again. He regarded her in expectant silence, as if to say, “Go on.”

  “We did chat a bit.”

  “What about?”

  “All sorts of things. He’s actually a rather engaging conversationalist.”

  “Funny, he didn’t strike me that way when I questioned him this morning—or tried to. Perhaps if I’d been a little green-eyed lass with a Bible in my hands and a blush upon my cheek, he’d have paid me some mind.”

  The guard sniggered.

  “Did he tell you anything of import as regards the case?” Cook asked.

  “He told me so many things,” she said. “Some fresh air might revive my memory. Perhaps if I were to walk with you over to the boardinghouse...”

  He emitted a heavy, exasperated sigh. “Why?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “Curiosity, perhaps? This may be the only chance I ever get to see a place like that.” The truth, of course, was that she would sooner step through the gates of Hell than through the doors of a place like that; after her long, grueling climb out of such squalor, she had little desire to revisit it. Unfortunately, this might be her only chance to glean the information Viola had begged her for, but which her son refused to impart. I must find out what really happened last night. I won’t rest until I do.

  “Curiosity,” Cook scoffed. “What, like one of those gaslight tours, where the nabobs get a taste of the lowlife? You want me to lift up the rock and let you watch the bugs and worms crawl about so you can go back and tell your friends you were in an honest to goodness hop joint?”

  “Hop joint?”

  “It’s only newspapermen that call them opium dens, Miss Chapel. Those that are on the hip...” He paused, noting her puzzlement. “Hop-heads. Opium drunkards. ‘Cause you lie sideways, on this—” he patted his hip “—to smoke the stuff. Those that are on the hip call them hop joints.”

  “Are there many of them?”

  “Four in Boston that I know of, and that’s four too many. There’s one in the South Cove that’s a proper lay-down joint with all the fixings, like what they’ve got in San Francisco. Then there’s the one in Flynn’s, another on Ann Street and one on Mount Whore— on the slope behind Beacon Hill. They’re nothing but seedy little back rooms with a couple of couches or beds for laying down on. There’s not much to see, Miss Chapel. You’d be wasting your time.”

  “But not yours, if the walk there were to freshen my memory about my conversation with Mr. Touchette.”

  He glowered as he buttoned up his coat. “Just mind you keep up with me. I’m a fast walker.”

  “So am I.”

  She was, but she still had to practically sprint so as not to fall behind as he crunched determinedly along sidewalks packed with trampled snow, breath puffing like a locomotive. It still snowed, but lightly, airy flakes drifting out of a darkening sky. Vehicles were few and far between on this early Sunday evening—an omnibus, a rickety old hack, the occasional private carriage or sleigh. Spectral figures beneath black umbrellas passed by on the sidewalk, their numbers thinning as she and the detective worked their way eastward. Soon they were well into the grimy Fort Hill district, where Nell rarely ventured. Beneath a gas lamp stood a woman whose vermilion cheeks and risqué attire left little doubt as to her calling. The watery fetor of nearby Boston Harbor mingled with whiffs of grease, cooked meat and sewage to produce a miasma common to impoverished quarters everywhere.

  It dawned on Nell that Colin Cook might have been promoted to detective as much on the weight of his Irishness—Fort Hill being dominated by his countrymen, who tended to gravitate to waterfronts—than in spite of it. Not that he wasn’t well qualified. Despite his ambivalence toward this case, Nell sensed a capable brain tucked deep inside that bulldog skull.

  “May I ask you a question, Detective?” she said as they crossed Belmont Street, dodging a pung hauling snow to the harbor.

  “Long as you don’t slow down.”

  “Are you absolutely convinced of William Touchette’s guilt? Do you have no doubts at all?”

  Cook glanced at her as he walked. “We’re alone now. You can call him by his real name.”

  Ah.

  “Yes, I am convinced of William Hewitt’s guilt,” he said, “and no, I don’t have any doubts. Now, since we’ve progressed on to real names, mind telling me yours?”

  Her h
eart raced, and not just from struggling to match his pace.

  He said, “You couldn’t remember the name of the charity that sent you, which as far as I know doesn’t even exist. And Chapel? You might have picked something a bit more believable. O’Malley, perhaps. Or Cassidy. Or Quinn.”

  They always knew, those from the old country.

  “At least tell me who sent you,” Cook demanded. “Thorpe? Or was it the great and mighty August Hewitt himself?”

  Nell cast him a sharp, dismayed look. Captain Baxter was supposed to have shared Mr. Hewitt’s bribe money with the men who knew their suspect’s true identity—Detective Cook and that Johnston fellow, presumably—but without disclosing where that money had come from.

  “I’m a detective,” Cook said. “I detect things. Wasn’t much of a challenge. Baxter’s thick as clotted cream. Ask a leading question, keep your mouth shut, and he can’t help but fill the silence with noise.”

  It was the same technique he’d used on her back at the station house, Nell realized with a pinch of shame. This was bad, very bad. She’d be sacked for sure if Mr. Hewitt were to find out about her visit to his son, never mind that she’d done it at his wife’s behest. He wouldn’t find out directly from Detective Cook, of course; they moved in different worlds. But if Detective Cook were to tell Captain Baxter, and Captain Baxter were to tell Alderman Thorpe...

  She said, “I...I’ve let Mr. Hewitt down, I’m afraid.”

  “So it is him that sent you. Trying to make sure his son’s actually guilty, is he, before hurling him under the wheels of justice?”

  “Something like that. But he expects me to conceal my true purpose, and you’ve figured it out. If you could find it in your heart not to tell your Captain Baxter...”

  “Why the secrecy?”

  “I don’t think Mr. Hewitt wants the captain—or especially Alderman Thorpe, because they’re friends—to feel that he’s second-guessing the police. He just wants to be absolutely sure he’s doing the right thing.”

  “Only God can judge that—I mean, it’s his own son, and murderer or no, you’ve got to wonder why he’s so eager to see him hang. Least with me, it’s my job, and I’ve got the comfort of having the good book on my side—an eye for an eye, you know.”

  “Not to mention those forty pieces of silver.” She winced; too late to take it back. Dr. Greaves would have asked her what she was thinking.

  Cook stopped walking; so did Nell. He faced her with a hard-set jaw, hands thrust deep in his pockets, breath smoking in the frosty twilight. “Judas was a friend to Jesus. William Hewitt is no friend of mine. And I’m hardly betraying him, Miss... What the devil is your name, anyway?”

  “Sweeney. Nell Sweeney.”

  “I’m bringing him to justice, Miss Sweeney.”

  “Because it’s your job?” She’d already stepped into it; may as well wade through.

  “That’s right.”

  “A job for which you’re being paid twice—once by the Boston Police Department and again by August Hewitt—with a bonus if his son hangs. Don’t get me wrong,” she quickly added, mindful that she was alleging to be Mr. Hewitt’s agent. “You’d be a fool to refuse the money. It’s just that I find it hard to listen with a straight face when you profess to be doing this for noble motives.”

  “That’s it.” He seized her arm and strode toward a narrow path between two buildings, hauling her roughly along with him.

  “What...what are you—”

  “You’re a difficult woman, Miss Sweeney.” He propelled her ahead of him into the murky passage, walled on one side by an old brick commercial building, and on the other by a dilapidated house. From somewhere came the incessant yelping and whining of dogs. “A fella can’t help but want to take you down a peg.”

  “Let me go.” She strained against his grip, against the raw, meaty bulk of him, cursing the thread of panic in her voice.

  “Not till you take a look at this.” He pointed to a darkened patch of snow, barely visible in the gloom. “See that?”

  Nell stilled. What had looked at first like a shadow on the snow was, in fact, a sprawling, rust-tinged stain.

  “That’s blood seeping up from the pavement,” he said.

  Chapter 4

  Nell looked around. “Is this...?”

  “Flynn’s Boardinghouse.” Cook nodded over his shoulder at the adjacent two-story house, sided with peeling clapboards. What looked to be years’ worth of refuse lay in snow-frosted drifts against the side wall, amid old wooden crates and jumbles of firewood; the aging garbage added a stale note to the cold evening air. Lamplight shone through greasy windows. A barrage of shouts and laughter momentarily drowned out the yapping of the dogs. Somebody yelled, “Lucky bastard!”

  “At a little past midnight last night,” Cook said, “Patrolman Danny Hooper was walking his beat along the wharves, one block that way—” he pointed behind the house “—when he heard a woman scream. He cut through the back alleys, so it took him less than a minute to get here. When he did, he found Ernest Tulley laying there in a pool of blood, and William Hewitt crouching over him, finishing the job.”

  “Finishing...you mean...with the bistoury...?”

  “I’ll spare you the sickening details,” Cook said. “Suffice it to say he was being quite thorough. There was blood all over his hands, even some on his face. Tulley was dead, but only just.”

  Nell crouched down to study the blotchy stain, which extended the width of the alley in both directions. It was the only indication that anything untoward had occurred here last night, today’s snowfall having done away with any footprints or signs of struggle. No, not the only indication, she saw, glancing around: the deteriorating clapboards on the side of the house were streaked where someone had tried to scrub away blood that must have spurted several feet.

  “Arterial bleeding,” she murmured.

  “You hack a man’s throat open, better do it outdoors or plan on buying new wallpaper.”

  “Hack?” Nell had been picturing it as a single slice, something akin to a surgical incision.

  “Took a bit of effort to get the job done.”

  “Did he say anything at all—Dr. Hewitt?” She stood, smoothing her skirts.

  “He asked if he might smoke a cigarette,” Cook said. “Other than that, he pretty much kept mum. As for why he done it, I know he’d been smoking opium, according to the fella that owns this place—fella name of Flynn, Seamus Flynn. If there was any other reason for what he done, he ain’t sharin’ it—not that it’ll make any difference in the long run.”

  “And every last witness fled?”

  “All except for Flynn and his daughter. She’s the one that let out that scream last night. Steps out for a bit of fresh air and finds a dead man laying in a pool of blood and the murderer still hunched over him. That’ll perk you up. Her old man had spent most of the night down in the rat pit, supervising the...” He paused when he noticed Nell’s look of bafflement. “You hear them dogs? Come with me.”

  Cook gestured her to follow him around back and through a rusty gate to a treeless, trash-strewn stable yard. The stable itself was a tumbledown affair with a sagging roof; she smelled horseflesh, rancid hay and manure, heard a low equine whinny. The barking emanated from a rambling structure fashioned of waste wood and broken furniture; dogs snarled and paced in the attached chicken-wire run, its floor littered with snow-covered droppings.

  “Flynn keeps about a dozen terriers in that there kennel,” Cook said. “Bloodthirsty little demons. On Saturday nights he takes ‘em down to the basement—” he pointed to the rear of the house, which had two doors, one open to reveal a crumbling cellar stairway “—and he drops ‘em one by one into an eight-sided wooden pen filled with rats. No cards or dice on Saturday nights, just the rats. Every fella in this town that fancies himself a sporting type, be he Brahmin or beggar, he heads on down to Seamus Flynn’s basement on Saturday night to bet on how many rats each dog will dispatch. Little mustard-colored bitch
named Flossie set the record last year—twenty rats in twelve seconds.”

  “My word.”

  “He boards horses, too,” Cook said, cocking his head toward the stable. “Between that and the opium and his cut of the wagering, plus three dollars a week for every bed he fills and payments from the, uh...the women who solicit in his establishment, he don’t do half bad for himself.”

  “If you know about the prostitution and the gambling, why don’t you arrest him for it?” The answer was so evident that she answered before he could. “He’s paying you off.”

  “Not me personally—they don’t trust my kind to play bag man. Let’s just say I’ve been told to look the other way. It’s not too hard. Flynn don’t want no trouble, and he’s careful not to attract any. Tell you one thing, he’s none too pleased over the little drama that unfolded in his alleyway last night. Bad for business, having us coppers sniffin’ around, ‘specially given the clientele he attracts.”

  “Did he see anything last night?”

  “Not much. Like I said, he was down in the pit most of the night, but he did come upstairs once or twice to sell gong to—”

  “Gong?”

  “Opium. There was a handful of pipe fiends came and went, but William Hewitt was there all night. Must have gotten good and boiled on the stuff, to have done what he done.”

  “Are you absolutely sure he’ll be convicted?”

  “I’d stake my badge on it—and you can go back and tell that to Mr. August Hewitt. What’s more, I’ll be there cheering them on when they string him up, ‘cause it’s no worse than what he deserves. As for the money, I certainly would have been a fool to refuse it, and not just because they don’t pay me enough to begin with. Would have gotten Captain Baxter nervous as a cat if I’d turned it down. He would have wondered why, maybe worried that I was fixing to finger him for accepting payoffs. He never has liked having me around, uppity mick that I am. I’m sure a high-reaching little lace curtain colleen like yourself knows how that feels.”

  Nell didn’t bother responding to that, “lace curtain” being something of an epithet among Boston’s Irish. “Why does he have you around, then?”