The Unclaimed Victim

by D. M. Pulley

  “Enough,” a deep voice spoke from under a hood. “Ask her about the revolution. Ask her before she fades. Where are they hiding their arsenal?”

  The doctor pressed his wet blade to her throat. “Where are they stockpiling their weapons?”

  “What?” Ethel croaked and stared up into the hood. The doctor’s blue eyes glinted at her through the holes.

  “We know their plan. They use human refuse like you as foot soldiers. You are the devil’s hands. Where are your guns?”

  Ethel just shook her head. It was madness.

  “When will they attack?” the doctor pressed. His blade bit through her skin. Her flesh screamed.

  “Maybe she doesn’t know,” a small voice whispered.

  Mary Alice? Ethel craned her neck.

  An upside-down figure held out a hand in appeal. “Perhaps she is only a whore.”

  The doctor straightened himself and strode back to his table of knives. He set down the bloody implement in his hand and considered another. “We are running out of time,” he boomed. “The head of the Legion will be here in ten days, and we need answers.”

  “No need to despair.” A woman’s voice came from a far corner of the room. She was dressed in an expensive suit with a shroud of black lace draped over her face. A necklace with an elaborate eight-pointed star pendant hung from her neck. “Brother, let the blood tell us.”

  Wenger nodded his agreement and picked up the meat cleaver and Mary Alice’s bucket. He dipped his hand in the pail, then dumped the blood-tinged water onto the floor.

  With wet fingers, he drew a cross onto Ethel’s forehead. “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  “Amen,” agreed the others.

  The light of the candles danced on the blade of the knife in his other hand as he said, “May your immortal soul find its way home.”

  With that, he placed the bucket under her head and stood back up. He gripped the cleaver with both hands.

  The woman in lace began to chant, “Three holy drops of blood are placed before the pail.”

  Drops of Ethel’s blood streaming up her face hit the bottom of the bucket. Tap. Tap. Tap. Her screams came out as a broken siren, echoing up from the catacombs, echoing through the drain lines, “Help! God, somebody help me!”

  The woman’s voice droned on. “As surely as the Virgin was pure from all men, as surely shall no fire or truth pass out of this barrel . . .”

  The doctor swung the knife with both hands to his shoulder.

  “. . . the Lord goeth before me.”

  “Help!” Ethel croaked, unable to muster a scream. She squeezed her eyes shut and made a silent wish for Johnnie. Catch out on a train, sweet girl. Don’t look back.

  “Hello?” a voice boomed from another room. “Hello? Who’s down here? This is private property!”

  The lights snuffed out in a plume of smoke. Ethel was certain that she’d imagined it, that her head had already been lopped off. The scuffle of feet and voices whispered above her as she felt her soul drop from her body on its way straight to hell, where it belonged. Her arms and legs collapsed to the floor with it.

  A faraway angel called, “She’s over here.”

  Ethel felt her body lift from the floor and cool air rush past her wet skin. The devil has me in his arms.

  “Brother, I have found a lost soul.”

  A warm hand pressed to her cheek. “Sweet Lord in heaven. Sister Hattie? Is that you?” A shadow hovered over her in a wreath of glowing white.

  Then the light blew out.

  CHAPTER 47

  Ethel woke to find herself lying in a bright white room. I’m dead, she thought, and the thought was a relief. It was all over.

  But then she saw the bandages. Bandages were taped to her neck, her stomach, her leg. The moments before everything had gone black came rushing back in a jumble. Mary Alice’s bruised face. The lady wrapped in lace. Blood running up her chest. The knife. The doctor. Oh, God. The doctor.

  Ethel sat up and scanned the hard floor and wall of white curtains. Where is he?

  They’d taken her to a hospital. The last time she’d been in an antiseptic bed like the one under her now, she’d just been cut open and roughly stitched back together by the same doctor with the black apron and smiling knife. He’d cut her baby out and told her it was dead.

  Stifling a sob, she clutched her stomach only to find the fresh bandage. Was it the same hospital? she wondered, eyes darting from the floor to the ceiling. She had no idea. The memory of it smeared together in a cloud of morphine and tears she’d drunk so hard to forget.

  The doctor might have been right down the hall, waiting to finish what he started.

  The sound of approaching voices forced her head back down to the pillow. Let them think you’re asleep, she told herself. It’ll buy time. Ethel closed her eyes and took a silent inventory of herself. The cuts on her thigh and abdomen hurt but didn’t ache deep down inside the way her stomach had after the baby. If she could sit up on her own, she could run.

  “. . . do you think she’ll be alright?” one of the voices asked. “The poor thing looked to be knocking on the good Lord’s door when we found her.”

  “The doctor believes she’ll pull through just fine.” The curtain pulled back and Ethel could feel two sets of eyes on her still face. “I understand you knew her?”

  “Yes. She joined our mission several days ago. She’s a cousin of Sister Mary Alice.”

  “That’s not what we have here.” The sound of a page turning rustled the air. “According to her fingerprints, this here is Ethel Ann Harding, a known prostitute. She served a few years at the Mansfield workhouse for manslaughter. Says here she got into a scuffle with her pimp and shot him.”

  “Good heavens! I had no idea.” Brother Milton’s voice fell to a whisper. “There was a killer in our midst.”

  “Don’t feel bad, Reverend. She’s fooled plenty of folks before. Girls like this are always changing their names and worming their way back into the fringes of society. After they patch her up, she’s heading back to the workhouse.”

  Ethel kept her face slack and her breathing even.

  The reverend seemed distressed at this. “Why? What is her crime?”

  “She’s a derelict and a prostitute. No home. No family. We can’t have her roaming our streets. Department’s cracking down on these vagrants for public safety. With that mad killer on the loose, it’ll probably save her life.”

  “You can’t possibly agree with Eliot Ness’s raids last night?”

  “Something had to be done,” the man argued. Ethel strained but didn’t recognize his voice. “Those poor folks were sitting ducks, Reverend. How many more of them have to die?”

  “Do you mind if I?”

  “By all means.”

  A warm hand brushed her forehead. “Dear Lord, watch over Your daughter in her time of need. Speed her healing and mend her spirit. I pray You help this poor young woman find her way back into Your house. In Christ’s name, amen.”

  “Amen, Reverend. Now I’m going to need to review your official statement before I finalize my report. Will you join me in the lobby?”

  “Of course. I’m happy to help any way I can, Officer Kessler.”

  The curtain closed, and their footsteps carried the voices away. Ethel sat up again and strained to hear more. The doctor believes she’ll pull through just fine. The thought of that madman sitting at her bedside while she slept sent a shudder through her. Then there was Officer Kessler’s promise to help her back into the workhouse. She thought of Rose Wallace and her daughter. A cop by the name of Kessler had sent her into the house where they had killed her.

  Lifting the bandages on her stomach and leg, Ethel studied the black catgut stitches lacing her skin together. The bleeding had stopped. She’d had enough brushes with a knife to know that the doctors had already done all they could do. They were just waiting for her to wake up, and she wasn’t about to just lie there
until they came for her.

  She sat up. Her ankles were red and raw from the ropes. Her feet ached from being hung from the cross, but she forced them to bear her weight as she stood. She clutched the thin gown they’d given her to her chest and peeked out from behind the curtain at the foot of her bed. The ward was quiet except for two voices talking softly behind another curtain at the end of the row.

  Two sets of doors led out of the ward at either end—one led to the brightly lit nurse’s station and the other was dark. Ethel tiptoed in her bare feet toward the unlit doors, holding her breath the entire way. They had no faces. They could be anywhere. Mary Alice had warned her. They’re everywhere, listening.

  Her feet stopped moving as a wave of terror crashed over her. Or maybe it was the blood loss. She grabbed the nearest curtain to steady herself. Mary Alice. The girl had been there cleaning. Cleaning blood. With bruises on her face. Ethel reached up and felt the large lump on the back of her head where something hard had struck her. Mary Alice’s tiny prayers echoed behind her. Ethel jerked around to stare at the empty hallway lined with white curtains. Mary Alice.

  A small sob escaped from her lips as she pictured her friend with a rock in her hand. Had it all been planned from the start? The free food, the warm bed, her wide and helpless eyes, the prayers? Ethel’s legs gave out and she crumpled to her knees.

  A thin voice came from behind the curtain. “Are you alright, honey?”

  Ethel didn’t answer. She pulled herself back to her feet and forced them forward. The doctor would be coming for her any moment. The police would be coming. The killers could be anywhere. It’s the Legion.

  She pushed herself through the door and recounted everything she knew about them to keep her brain focused. The Legion included a policeman named Kessler, a doctor, a fancy woman in lace, Brother Wenger, Mary Alice, and God knew who else.

  The dark doors led into a pale green stairwell. The hand-painted sign on one read, Level 2. All Ethel could read was the number, but she knew what it meant. She took the stairs down to the main floor and listened at the door before cracking it open.

  A plain, beige service hallway stood empty behind it. It must lead out somewhere, she thought and stepped inside, scanning the walls for an exit. The door to the stairwell closed behind her. A pair of voices chatted merrily on the other side of the wall.

  “Do you really think he’ll ask me?” one chirped.

  “Of course he will. You’re a catch!” the other answered just on the other side of the door marked with more letters and the number 1. “Listen, I have to stop by my locker. I’ll meet you there.”

  Ethel backed away from the approaching voices, grabbing the nearest doorknob and slipping inside a dark room. The door eased shut as another one swung open. The chipper nurse whistled to herself, and a door farther down the hall opened and closed.

  Ethel released a breath only to inhale a rancid mix of urine and rotted food. She felt along the wall next to the doorjamb until she found a light switch. Flipping it on, she saw that she had landed in the room where they collected dirty laundry and cast-off clothes. Two large bins were filled with stained sheets. Another was filled with the flea-bitten street clothes of the patients. Ethel pulled a man’s jacket off the top. It was stiff with dried blood.

  The hospital gown they’d wrapped her in wouldn’t get her out of the building unnoticed, she realized. Ethel stripped off the faded blue shroud and picked through the tattered clothing of the dispossessed and deceased until she found a dress with only a small gash in the side. She straightened her hair the best she could and picked a suitable hat and worn-down shoes out of metal bins.

  Ethel stepped back out into the hall, debating which way to go.

  A nurse emerged from another door and startled at the sight of Ethel standing there. “Excuse me, ma’am? Can I help you?”

  “Oh, goodness . . . forgive me.” Ethel forced a helpless smile as her mind raced for more words. “I must’ve . . . gotten lost. I was here visiting my niece.” She folded her hands contritely at her throat to hide the bandages.

  “It happens all the time. Are you looking for the lobby?”

  Ethel nodded, avoiding the young woman’s eye.

  “You’re almost there. Follow me.” The nurse turned and headed down the long beige hall until they’d reached the door marked with a jumble of letters. She strained to remember if she’d heard the nurse’s voice from behind one of the white hoods. The woman smiled warmly at her. Is it a trap?

  The door opened into a brightly lit waiting room flanked by a long counter. Ethel could see the street outside the windows. She breathed in a small sigh and managed a thank-you.

  As the door swung shut behind her, she saw Reverend Milton sitting in one of the chairs. He was talking to a man in a fedora. Ethel could spot a cop from across a room. The two men didn’t notice her step into the lobby. A scattering of men and women held various ill-at-ease stances, waiting for a doctor to come and tell them the fate of a friend or family member.

  Ethel kept her head down and slowly made her way to a spot near where the two men sat in deep conversation. The chair five feet away from them was empty, but Ethel forced herself to the window instead and gazed out at the street for a full minute before finding her way to the seat within earshot.

  “. . . exactly how that happened again?” The detective flipped open his notebook. Ethel stole a glance at his face, but she didn’t recognize it.

  “It happened just the way I told that other officer.”

  “That’s fine. I’d just like to hear it again in your own words, Reverend.” The policeman pulled out a worn pencil.

  “Yes, of course, Officer. This evening I was working in the front office, going over the books, when this twig of a child rushed through the door. I let her know that the soup kitchen is open on Sundays.”

  “Did you get her name?”

  “No. I did not.”

  “Can you describe her?”

  “She was a Negro child about yea tall. Maybe seven years old, although it’s really hard to tell with street children . . .”

  Ethel picked up a pamphlet someone had left on the side table and pretended to read it.

  “That sort of hardscrabble life stunts their growth, you know. No fathers or mothers looking after them, their numbers grow every day.” The reverend let out a heavy sigh. “I pray for them all.”

  “Had you ever seen this particular girl before?”

  “I can’t say that I had.”

  “What happened next?”

  “She wanted me to go down into the basement. I tried to explain that there are many basements at the Harmony Mission, but she was quite hysterical. She kept crying, ‘They’re killing her! They’re killing her!’”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Naturally I went to telephone the police, but this made her even more hysterical. She grabbed my arm and tried to pull me away from my desk, which wouldn’t do at all. She was practically speaking in tongues, the poor child. I set down the phone and urged her to calm herself. I suggested we take a moment to pray, and just like a spark, she lit straight out of the room.”

  “So she left?”

  “No. She went tearing through the lobby and onto the press floor!”

  “What did you do?”

  “I followed her. We can’t have a child running through the machinery. It’s far too dangerous.”

  “Did you find her?”

  “It wasn’t easy. Our building is set on a very old site as you may well know. The factory was built in phases whenever the good Lord saw fit to provide the funding. It takes some getting used to. Our sisters say it takes at least a week to not get lost inside those walls. You can’t blame the architects for the confusion; they did the best they could with what they had. We could only afford the ones just starting out. Several of them had emigrated from Russia, you know, after that Godless revolt overthrew them all.”

  Ethel thought of the men in the bar talking about the Russian Revo
lution. They were worried it would happen again.

  The detective was losing patience. “So how did you find her then?”

  “She kept calling for help. She’d pop up like a jackrabbit, then disappear again, always heading down deeper underground until we were in a part of the building I myself had never even seen. I had heard grumblings during some phases of the building project. Complaints of old cisterns and other buried anomalies under the ground. We never had the extra funds to remove them, so we simply instructed the masons to build around or on top of them. A hundred years ago, the city had seen fit to bury enormous pipes and water reservoirs, but I never imagined what else they might’ve buried. I was shocked by what we found.”

  “And what was that?” the detective asked.

  “A tomb. Catacombs I guess you might call them. I would call it a mass grave.”

  The detective stopped writing.

  The reverend held up a hand in his own defense. “Not anything recent, mind you. I’m no expert, but the bones looked very old to me. You know the oldest parts of the Harmony Mission were used as a hospital of sorts during the Civil War.”

  “And this is where the girl led you?”

  “I believe so. It is easy to get turned around in the lower levels, but that is my guess.”

  “And you’re saying this girl had never been inside the building before?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, that is correct.”

  “So how did she know where to look?”

  “I can only imagine. You know these children are like scattering mice, finding every nook and cranny. She must have found another way in. Through a sewer line perhaps?”

  “So you followed her down into a mass grave. And what did you find there?”

  “Our dear Brother Wenger was carrying Sister Hattie out of the tomb. He said he’d heard screams through the pipes.”

  “Was she responsive?”

  “No.”

  “Was there anyone else present?”

  “No. Brother Wenger said he’d dropped his lantern in shock. He didn’t get a look at whoever attacked the poor lamb.”

  “It says here that the victim was found with lacerations on her neck, legs, and abdomen. Did you or Brother Wenger find a knife or other weapon on the scene?”