These Shallow Graves

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “He could have been,” Jo insisted. “They say he could’ve been killed and then thrown into the water.”

  “Who, may I ask, is they?”

  “The papers, Mama,” Jo fibbed.

  Her mother looked scandalized. “Are you reading the newspapers? You know I forbid it,” she said sternly.

  “I heard the newsies crying the story,” Jo answered quickly, covering her tracks.

  That much, at least, was true. Newsboys for the World and the Herald had not stopped shouting about the double tragedy that had befallen Van Houten. First Charles Montfort, then Richard Scully. Gossips wondered how two such terrible accidents could have befallen the partners of one firm in such rapid succession. The more lurid papers had suggested that Van Houten was cursed.

  “They are such nuisances!” Madeleine said.

  “Maybe Mr. Scully was hit over the head,” Jo pressed. “What if he was? And what if this awful man is still skulking around the waterfront just waiting to attack someone else? Uncle Phillip could be in danger. Any of the partners could.”

  “Josephine, that is enough,” Anna warned. “That you are overwrought is understandable, but still, you must contain yourself. Murder is not a suitable topic of conversation for a young lady.”

  Jo looked directly at her uncle. “You must be careful coming and going from Van Houten’s, Uncle Phillip. And everywhere else. You must avoid anyone who looks strange and dangerous. You must. Promise me you will,” she demanded, her voice rising.

  Jo’s mother and aunt traded worried glances; she saw them. Phillip leaned forward and patted her hand. “I shall take extra care. You have my word, Josephine. Now please stop worrying.”

  He smiled at her, but she could see that his mind was elsewhere. On Richard Scully, no doubt, Jo thought. He’d just seen him—one of his oldest friends—buried. He hadn’t dismissed her worries, but he hadn’t given them his full attention, either, and Jo was not satisfied. She decided to tell him the whole story. There was no other way.

  The group drove on in silence until the carriage stopped outside of the Scullys’ town house. Phillip and Rob stepped out, then helped the women alight. As her uncle started for the steps, Jo heard a tinkling sound. She looked down and saw coins on the sidewalk.

  “My goodness,” Madeleine said, “Phillip, you’re dropping money all over the place.”

  Phillip sighed. “There’s a hole in my coat pocket,” he said wearily, not bothering to pick up the coins. “I keep forgetting to tell the valet.”

  Jo’s heart ached for him. He was fastidious about his appearance, so much so that the whole family teased him about it. The fact that he’d forgotten to have his coat fixed was a small but telling sign of how heavily the burden of grief was weighing on him.

  “The beggars will have a field day, Papa,” said Rob as he took his mother’s arm and led her up the Scullys’ steps to their front door.

  Phillip followed, escorting Jo’s mother. Jo and Caroline brought up the rear. Though Caroline was busy prattling about what sort of punch the Scullys were likely to serve, and that plump little Araminta Scully oughtn’t to have too much of it, Jo could still hear her mother and uncle talking.

  “I’ve told you repeatedly, Anna, she’s a very sensitive girl. These sorts of shocks prey heavily upon such types and lead to morbid imaginings. You must either send her back to school, or perhaps for a long visit to your sister in Winnetka …”

  Jo caught her breath. That was exactly what she didn’t want.

  “… or at least allow her more freedom to visit with friends, walk in the park, take trips to the shops, and do all the things girls her age do.”

  Her mother nodded at his last suggestion and Jo exhaled, relieved not to have been banished to her aunt’s. Still, Phillip’s words only reinforced her desire to speak with him. He hadn’t taken her worries seriously; he believed she was only imagining the threat to his safety. But how would she get him alone? And what, exactly, would she say?

  For the next hour, Jo bided her time. She moved through the Scullys’ home, offering her condolences to Mrs. Scully, making small talk with her friends, observing Bram carry a drink to Elizabeth Adams, avoiding Grandmama, and all the while keeping an eye on her uncle’s whereabouts.

  When she saw him leave the drawing room—presumably to use the lavatory—she made her move. She coughed a few times, then excused herself from a conversation on the pretext of finding a servant to get her a glass of water. Out in the Scullys’ long hallway, she spotted her uncle. He was headed back to the drawing room.

  “Uncle Phillip?” she said. “Do you have a moment?”

  Phillip smiled. “For you, Jo, I have hours.”

  A streak of unseasonably mild weather had continued, and the Scullys had opened a pair of doors that led from the back of the first floor to an enclosed porch, and from that down into their garden. Jo had seen the open doors earlier, and she led him through them now. She’d figured out a way to tell him what she knew without telling him how she knew it.

  “This is all very mysterious,” Phillip said bemusedly as she led him under an archway of bare branches into a gazebo near the garden’s back wall. “Have you news to tell me? Shouldn’t Bram be asking my permission first?” he teased.

  “Oh, Uncle Phillip,” Jo said brokenly. He was hoping for a bit of happy news, and she was about to give him a very terrible truth.

  Phillip’s smile faded. “What’s wrong, Jo?” he asked, worry in his voice.

  Jo took a deep breath.

  And told him.

  Phillip turned as gray as a corpse.

  Jo had told him everything that had happened since they’d last spoken about her father’s death, with one important omission—her own role in uncovering the information. She didn’t want him to know she’d been sneaking out of her house at all hours. He’d certainly put a stop to it.

  When she finished, her uncle was silent. He didn’t lecture or scold or threaten to send her away. Instead, he sat down heavily in a garden chair and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked wearier than she’d ever seen him. Heartbroken. Hollow.

  Jo understood his reaction; he was in shock. She’d felt the same way when she’d first learned the real cause of her father’s death.

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Phillip. It’s a very hard thing to have to accept. I know it is. I was devastated when I found out.”

  Phillip looked at her searchingly. “Josephine, what you’re saying … It’s … well—”

  “I know it must sound crazy, Uncle Phillip—”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “—but I swear it’s all true.”

  “How in God’s name did you learn of these things?” he asked, almost fearfully.

  Jo was ready for that question. She hoped the answer she’d come up with would keep her out of trouble. “I hired a private investigator.”

  “An investigator?” Phillip said skeptically. “What’s his name?”

  “His name is … is Oscar. Oscar Edwards,” she replied, having made it up on the spot by combining Oscar’s and Eddie’s names.

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  “It’s not possible at the moment. He’s out of town,” Jo fibbed.

  “I see. How are you funding his efforts?”

  Jo hesitated; she hadn’t anticipated that question. “With some money that I … that I have tucked away,” she replied.

  “And you believe the things this Mr. Edwards told you?”

  “As if I’d witnessed them myself,” Jo replied, sitting down across from him. “Can you understand now why I’m so worried about you?”

  Phillip nodded. Emboldened by this, Jo decided to press her luck. Maybe he himself could provide the information she and Eddie still needed.

  “I know I’ve blindsided you, Uncle Phillip, and I’m sorry, but I need to ask you a few
things. Your answer might help Mr. Edwards. The ship Kinch mentioned … the Bonaventure … does Van Houten own it?”

  “No. I’ve never even heard of it.”

  “What about one called Nausett?”

  “Yes, we owned her,” Phillip said.

  Jo was on the edge of her chair. She thought of Jackie Shaw’s words: Follow the Nausett and you’ll find the Bonaventure. God help you if you do.

  “She was ours all too briefly,” Phillip continued. “We bought her back in 1871. After the war ended. Planned to run her out of Zanzibar, but never got the chance. Winds pushed her onto the rocks as she was coming around the Cape of Good Hope. She broke up. Lost most of her crew, but a few made it to shore.”

  Jo’s heart fell. Shaw’s wrong: the Nausett doesn’t lead to the Bonaventure, she thought. She tried her best to conceal her disappointment and tried a different line of inquiry. “Is there any substance to Kinch’s claims? Was the firm ever implicated in any wrongdoing?” she asked.

  “Of course not, Josephine!” Phillip said, offended.

  “Is it possible that Kinch could be Stephen Smith?”

  “How? As you know, he took one of our ships, the Gull, to explore in the Seychelles. He never returned. None of the crew did. The Gull was never seen again. Our business is a risky one. Ships are lost all too frequently.”

  “But could he have survived? Kinch spoke of pirates. Could a pirate ship have rescued him?”

  “Pirates?” Phillip echoed in disbelief. “Men with earrings and eye patches and parrots on their shoulders? Jo, surely you see that all these theories of yours are … well, preposterous,” he added gently. “If Smith had survived a shipwreck and had somehow been rescued, he would have returned to Zanzibar.”

  Jo felt her conviction that Kinch was Stephen Smith weakening once again. Maybe her theory was preposterous. Her uncle certainly made her feel that it was.

  “Smith had rooms in Zanzibar, and possessions,” Phillip continued. “And, as you just informed me, he had a fiancée in New York, Eleanor Owens, who was expecting their child. I can’t imagine that he would have willingly abandoned her.”

  “Did he have any family?” Jo asked.

  “He’d been divorced and had no children. His mother was still living—she was in Boston. I had his things sent to her. And that was the end of it,” Phillip said. He regarded Jo levelly. “The greatest proof, to me, at least, that Stephen perished is that there has been no word of him all these years. In Zanzibar, New York, or anywhere else. He was an upstanding man, one who would never turn his back on his obligations—whether they were to his partners or his intended.”

  They both went silent; then Phillip said, “I must be frank with you, Josephine. I’m having a great deal of trouble accepting what you’ve told me—that my brother was murdered. Richard, too. That a mysterious tattooed man is behind it all—”

  Jo cut him off. “You must believe it, Uncle Phillip. Your life and the lives of the other partners may depend on it,” she insisted.

  She thought she’d convinced him that Kinch—whoever he was—posed a real threat and was dismayed to find she had not.

  Phillip held up his hands. “Please don’t get upset. I promise I’ll be on my guard and that I’ll warn the other partners about this man Kinch. But you must make me a promise, too—that we’ll keep this between ourselves for now. I’ll tell the others that I learned of these things. I don’t want them to know you did. They might talk, and I—”

  “—don’t want my sterling character tarnished,” Jo said, exasperated. Even at a time like this, her uncle worried about her marriage prospects. It infuriated her, but touched her, too.

  “Yes. Exactly. If something untoward is going on, I’ll get to the bottom of it—believe me. But you must keep an eye on the future, Josephine. What may or may not have happened cannot be allowed to destroy your prospects. Or Caroline’s and Robert’s. Do you understand?”

  Jo knew he was referring to Bram Aldrich. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she’d probably already destroyed those plans. Instead, she assured him she would say nothing to the remaining partners.

  She was glad her uncle hadn’t asked more questions about Oscar Edwards. She’d been worried that he would try to cut off her investigation, but he hadn’t done that, either. Things had gone well. Better than she’d expected, in fact, and she was deeply relieved. Yet as she looked at her uncle’s face, still so pale and worn-looking, her heart clenched.

  “It’ll be all right, Uncle Phillip,” she said, taking his hand. “You’re prepared for Kinch now, should he choose to visit you. And Mr. Edwards is busy tracking down Kinch’s whereabouts and trying to gather proof of his doings. And when we have all of those things, we can pursue justice. For Papa and Mr. Scully.”

  “I’m so sorry for all of this,” her uncle said. “For your father. And Richard. I’m sorry that such slight shoulders as yours have had to carry such a heavy burden of grief. It’s too much for one so young and delicate.”

  His eyes met hers. She saw concern for her in them, and something else that was harder to define. Was it sorrow? Pity?

  “I’m fine, Uncle Phillip, I promise,” Jo said.

  They stood then, and Jo took her uncle’s arm. He covered her hand with his own, and together they walked out of the gazebo and under the bare branches to rejoin the mourners.

  Jo hurried up the steps to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, excited to see Eddie.

  She’d written him Saturday afternoon, after she’d returned home from the Scullys’, asking him to meet her by the Etruscan pots at ten a.m. today, Monday, so she could tell him how things had gone with her uncle and see if he’d turned up any new information.

  Her mother had let her go to the museum without any discussion this morning. Her uncle’s advice—to allow her more freedom—had obviously sunk in.

  “Miss? Please, miss … ,” a voice said as she reached the top of the steps.

  It was a beggar boy. He was standing by the museum’s door. Jo was about to give him a few coins when a guard advanced on him. “Get lost, street rat,” he growled.

  The boy darted away and Jo reached for the door.

  “Miss Jo, wait!” the boy shouted.

  Jo stopped and turned around. How does he know my name? she wondered.

  “It’s me, Tumbler!” the boy cried, dodging the lumbering guard. His face was flushed. He looked upset.

  As soon as he said his name, Jo recognized him. She hurried to him, put an arm around his shoulders, and walked back down the steps, away from the guard. “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Fay sent me. We was at the morgue this morning, her and me. Muttbait was with us. …”

  Tumbler was talking so fast, Jo could hardly keep up. “Slow down!” she said.

  The boy took a big gulp of air. “Some fool got hit by a carriage,” he said. “Me and Fay and Muttbait was pretending to be his family. Oscar usually chucks us out, but he was busy and he didn’t see us, so we got the stiff’s tiepin and pocket watch. We couldn’t get his wallet, though. That’s why we need you.”

  Jo was appalled. “You need me to help you rob a body?”

  “No! Listen, will you? On our way home, we walked past an alley that runs alongside the morgue,” Tumbler said. “Fay heard strange noises coming from it. She went down to see what was making them and found Eddie Gallagher crumpled up in a heap.”

  Jo’s heart lurched. She grabbed the boy’s shoulders. “What happened?” she asked.

  “He was on his way to see Oscar about a story, but he never made it. Someone came out of the alley after him. He’s beat up real bad. We got him to his room. He’s scared the same man who came after him might come after you.”

  “Who was it?” Jo asked.

  “Dunno, miss. Fay told me to say that he needs a doctor and she can’t pay for one cuz her and me
and Muttbait didn’t get the stiff’s wallet and she don’t have any cash. You got any, miss?”

  But Tumbler got no cash and no answer, because before he even finished speaking, Jo was down the museum steps and on the sidewalk, running for a cab.

  Jo was more afraid than she’d ever been in her life. She’d been so worried Kinch might attack her uncle, she’d never even thought he might go after Eddie.

  When she got to Reade Street, she saw that there was blood on the sidewalk outside Eddie’s building. It was on the front door of the building, too, which was slightly ajar. She rushed inside the vestibule and up the stairs and pounded on Eddie’s door.

  “About damn time!” Fay said as she opened it. “Here, take this.” She tossed Jo a bloody rag. “I’m going for a doctor. He’s coughing up blood. I sent Muttbait back to the morgue to get Oscar, but he hasn’t showed.” She grabbed her jacket and hat and ran out of his room, slamming the door on her way.

  There was a bowl of red-tinged water on the floor by Eddie’s bed. Jo nearly stepped in it as she hurried to him. She sat down on the bed and gently took one of his bloodied hands in hers.

  Eddie’s left eye was swollen shut. His lip was cut. His nose was bruised and bleeding. More blood stained his once-white shirt. Jo couldn’t tell if it had dripped from his face or if it was coming from an injury on his chest.

  Eddie opened his good eye. “Jo?” he said. “Thank God you’re all right. I was worried about you.”

  “I’m fine,” Jo said. She wasn’t concerned about herself, only him. “Are you bleeding anywhere besides your face? Does anything feel like it’s broken?” She dropped the rag Fay had tossed to her into the bowl of water, took off her jacket, and rolled up her sleeves. She’d been required to take a first-aid course at school. Her lessons came back to her now.

  “Ribs, maybe. He got me on the ground and landed a few good kicks.”

  Jo unknotted his tie and pulled it off. She unbuttoned his shirt and opened it.

  “Nice poker face,” Eddie wheezed.

  Jo shook her head, too upset to speak. His chest was a patchwork of scrapes and bruises. She could see from the way his ribs flared that it hurt him just to breathe. This was all her fault. Kinch had beaten Eddie because Eddie was pursuing him—at her request. Blinking back tears, she picked up the bowl on the floor, walked to the sink, and dumped out the bloodied water. She refilled the bowl with clean water and rinsed out the rag Fay had tossed at her, then got to work cleaning Eddie’s wounds.