Witch in the White City: A Dark Historical Fantasy/Mystery (Neva Freeman Book 1)

by Nick Wisseman

  “Sergeant,” Rice said to Wiley as he and Neva entered. “Close the door, if you please.”

  He did so briskly and then stood next to her, opposite the table the three older men sat behind.

  “What do you have to report about the tattoos?”

  Wiley nodded at Neva, who hesitated before removing her gloves. “She has them, sir. They were brought on by the bites of insects.”

  The three other men stood to get a better look. Rice swore, and Bonfield bellowed, but the plainclothesman asked the first question: “What type of insect?”

  Wiley motioned for Neva to answer.

  “All kinds,” she murmured, slipping her glove back on. “A swarm of them. Marked with these sickle shapes on their backs.”

  “You saw this?” Bonfield asked Wiley.

  “Not the ones that assaulted her, sir. But I witnessed a later incident. And the evidence is on her skin.”

  “Clearly,” Rice said, peering at the bite marks peppering Neva’s face and neck. “What other incident?”

  “Her brother was attacked as well, a few minutes later.”

  “Augie Freeman,” Neva added quickly. “Now he’s missing.”

  Bonfield nodded absently and gestured at the pouch Wiley still held, away from his body and clutched only by thumb and forefinger. “Did you catch some of the bugs?”

  “No. But this was in the Algerian Theatre, above the stage.” He slid the pouch across the table.

  Rice looked inside, swore, and passed the pouch to Bonfield, who swore louder and handed it to the plainclothesman. Frowning, he pulled the drawstring tight. “Perhaps they’re inducing the insects somehow,” he said after a moment, leaning back in his chair. “Using some sort of strange chemistry that frenzies the vermin and reacts with their venom to form the rash.”

  Wiley furrowed his brow. “They?”

  The plainclothesman didn’t reply, but Bonfield did: “This is Miles Copeland, Pinkerton detective and our liaison with the Chicago Police Department.”

  Was it Neva’s imagination, or had Wiley grown tenser? True, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency had devolved into something of a mercenary outfit. But wouldn’t its experience with providing security only help in this situation?

  Oblivious, Bonfield continued: “I know Miles well. Good man. He’s been helping me oversee the Secret Service. We suspect the White Chapel Club of—”

  “John,” Rice interrupted, glancing significantly at Neva.

  Bonfield grunted. “Pardon.” He turned to her and frowned, as if she were a servant and he’d only now remembered her presence. “Miss—I’m sorry, Sergeant, what was her name?”

  “Neva Freeman, sir.”

  “Miss Freeman, I hope we can count on your discretion as we investigate this matter. With Chicago Day so near, we can’t have unfounded rumors causing a panic.”

  Rice nodded. “Extremely important for the financial wellbeing of the Fair.”

  “Right. Now: can we rely on your cooperation?” Bonfield gave Neva the look white men of his age always seemed to give her, the gaze that presupposed a certain response: a simple “Yes, sir, as you wish.”

  Unless she was dancing—they looked at her differently then. And she was tempted to break into a shimmy now. If nothing else, drawing the inspector’s attention to her hips might wrongfoot his superior attitude. But she settled for a question: “The White Chapel Club?”

  Bonfield stiffened.

  Copeland just rolled his eyes. “You’ve already stepped in it—might as well explain the mess ... The White Chapel Club is fascinated with all manner of ghoulishness: they’ve filled their meeting space with coffins, skulls, and murder weapons from actual killings.”

  “In short,” Rice said, “they’re fools. Can you guess why they’re named as they are?”

  Neva shrugged.

  “Because of Leather Apron,” Wiley put in.

  Copeland tapped the table. “That’s right: he did his work in London’s White Chapel district. And we have reason to believe our Chicago boys have stopped playing costume and started reenacting the real thing.” He glanced at Neva, perhaps to gauge her reaction.

  “Unless,” Bonfield said, almost gleefully, “it’s the Apron himself, crossed the pond to visit the Fair. They never caught him, you know.”

  Rice glared at Bonfield before turning to Neva. “Either way, those marks make you a target.”

  Copeland tapped the table again. “She’ll need to be watched.”

  “Sir,” Wiley said, stepping forward. “I’d be happy to volunteer.”

  Bonfield looked set to protest, but Rice murmured something about “The publicity if things go further awry.” Eventually, the older man agreed to the “expense of a protective detail for a colored girl.”

  “Excuse me,” Neva cut in, now that everyone had finished deciding her fate as if she were no older than little Dob. “What about my brother?”

  Bonfield blinked at her. “Ah, right. We’ll put his name about. Augie Freeman, was it?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” It was probably the best she could hope for from a white policeman. “Who’s Leather Apron?”

  Now Bonfield scowled. “How could you not ... But then, I suppose you don’t read the papers.”

  Neva swallowed her retort—she read them enough to know Governor Altgeld had recently blamed Bonfield for the chaos at Haymarket, the ensuing farce of a trial, and the resulting hanging of several anarchists. But he plainly wouldn’t believe a Negro capable of such literacy.

  “Leather Apron,” Wiley began before clearing his throat.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  He paused another moment before the words came out: “Well, he’s better known as Jack the Ripper.”

  Chapter Four

  “YOU REALIZE I’LL HAVE to dock your pay?” asked Sol Bloom, the proprietor of the Algerian and Tunisian Village and chief developer of the Midway as a whole. Wiley had escorted her to Sol’s office after the inspectors dismissed them from the Administration Building.

  Neva shrugged. “I expected as much.” She’d already explained that Commandant Rice thought she should keep a low profile. Sol had agreed, adding that he couldn’t put on her onstage with a belly rash anyway.

  She turned to leave, then glanced back at Sol. He looked especially young next to Wahib, no more than a year or two older than her. “Can you get word to Mr. DeBell?” she asked.

  “Certainly. What would you like that word to be?”

  “Just ... tell him I could use his help.”

  “I’ll make sure Edward knows. Be safe.”

  “Thank you, Sol.”

  Neva and Wiley left the office while Sol asked Wahib about the search for anything else “untoward” in the theatre.

  “Who’s Edward?” asked Wiley with perfect politeness as she led him out of the theatre.

  “A friend—a benefactor, really. Mr. DeBell’s a cattleman. He has lots of connections. Can you wait here a moment?”

  Wiley cocked his head.

  “Meriem—one of the other dancers—has some balm I’d like to apply to the marks. In private. It won’t take long.”

  He glanced at her stomach, still concealed beneath the jacket she’d donned before going to Administration. I’ve seen your belly before, his eyes seemed to say.

  “There are other marks.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts—gingerly, as if they hurt to the touch.

  Wiley flushed. “Right. I’ll wait here for you.”

  “Thank you.” Neva smiled at him, reentered the theatre, reclaimed Augie’s prop bag from Wahib, and hurried out the rear.

  She almost turned around twice. Ever since Wiley had jumped onstage to come to her aid, he’d been a perfect gentleman, considerate and helpful—and dashing, if you came right down to it. Should she really be evading him? Before that, though, he’d gazed at her for weeks. And she’d learned the hard way that men who stared at her weren’t to be trusted. Best to play it safe.

  After slipping behind the Str
eet in Cairo complex, Neva left the Midway at its Woodlawn Avenue entrance and headed north and then east until she reached the 57th Street gate into the main Fair. There she flashed her exhibitor’s pass to get through the turnstiles and boarded the Elevated Railroad. But she didn’t breathe easy until the train rumbled into motion.

  Finally, she was alone.

  For several minutes, Neva just looked out the window, observing as the train circled the north end of the Fair and provided overhead views of various foreign and state structures. As usual, the Illinois Building, with its massive dome, and the California Building, styled to look like a Spanish mission with Moorish detail, appealed to her above the rest. But when the train completed its circuit at the North Inlet and reversed direction, Neva shook her head and started going through Augie’s bag.

  Most of its contents were ordinary—ordinary for Augie, at least. Wigs, hats, jewelry, fake beards: anything that would help his act by lending his impressions additional credibility. Near the bottom was a layer of ticket stubs, assorted pamphlets (including the copy she’d lent him last week of Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass’s masterful The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition), and—

  A live cockroach.

  Neva whipped her hand out of the bag, causing one of the other passengers to give her a queer look. Suddenly mindful that she shouldn’t be drawing attention to herself—that if everything she’d heard was true, she was the target of a cult dedicated to Jack the Ripper, or worse, the Ripper himself—she smiled at the passenger and looked back out the window. Once the man’s gaze was elsewhere, she peered into the bag again.

  The cockroach had the telltale sickle shapes, but it moved feebly: it must have been trapped amongst Augie’s debris since that morning. There was nothing about the insect that suggested the frenzied swarms she’d encountered earlier. No chittering, no compulsion to scramble madly toward her. This was just a bug. Insignificant and near death—a fate she hastened by goring the roach with one of Augie’s pencils.

  When she was sure the pest was dead, she used a pamphlet to scoop up the little body and flick it out the window, watching as the disgusting creature fell into the canal that connected the North Inlet to the Central Lagoon. Good riddance.

  But killing the cockroach brought her no closer to finding Augie, and she knew her twin was in trouble. She couldn’t quite feel it—they only pretended to have that type of connection—yet why else would he have disappeared like that? And the blood by his bag ... No, he needed her help, and she needed him.

  After the train reversed directions again and traveled back around the foreign and domestic buildings, she got off at the 59th Street stop and checked on Dob in the Children’s Building daycare. He was fine, but his mother had yet to claim him.

  “She’s bigger than you,” he said when Neva asked for a description. “A lot bigger. With yellow hair.” More specific details would have been nice, but hopefully the likeness to her son would be clear. Neva gave Dob a final hug and began her search of Augie’s favorite haunts.

  It was tense work.

  In Horticulture, on the other side of one of the inner court’s extensive floral displays, she noticed a bespectacled man studying her with what seemed like unseemly interest. Was he a member of the White Chapel Club? The thought caused her to leave the Fair through the 62nd Street gate. Outside, she surveyed Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, set up just beyond the official borders because of the planning committee’s foolish denial of Bill’s application for a site on Exposition grounds. But as Annie Oakley took centerstage in the arena, Neva spied a man in drab colors snooping between the jampacked stands. Was he a plainclothesman tasked by Wiley to find her?

  She crossed back into the Fair and hurried through the Fishery Building’s aquarium, barely registering its one hundred forty thousand gallons of Atlantic saltwater filled with every sea creature imaginable. Her trip through the Palace of Fine Arts’ galleries of precious paintings, etchings, and sculptures proved no calmer. Everywhere she went, she saw a man seemingly on the hunt for something, in uniform and out. She even encountered a tourist whose tall hat and long coat evoked sketchings of Jack the Ripper.

  The rest of the afternoon played out in similar fashion: brisk walking, frequent glances over her shoulder, and no sign of Augie (or Dob’s mother). Her rashes ached, and when they didn’t ache, they itched.

  Exhausted and famished, Neva boarded the Elevated Railroad again and took it to the other end of the Fair. There she ate a hurried dinner in a café affording a view of the South Pond and its full-scale replicas of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. Then she headed to Anthropology, scanning its outdoor exhibits—the Indian Villages, the Yucatan Ruins, and the Cliff Dwellers, with its artificial mountain—in vain. Finally, she entered the Anthropology Building itself.

  At the Fair’s Congress on Africa, one of many such conferences held at the Palace of Fine Arts and the downtown Art Institute, Frederick Douglass and other colored speakers had pointed out that the Anthropology Building’s exhibits appeared to be arranged in perceived order of sophistication, with the works of darker races on the outskirts and the output of the palest peoples at the center. Neva shared these misgivings, but she still enjoyed wandering the building’s halls. So did Augie. With any luck, he was sheltering here somewhere, gazing at an Oriental trinket or studying an Egyptian headdress.

  But it wasn’t to be. Her systematic circuit through Anthropology did nothing but remind her how distasteful she found the prison display’s visual “history of punishment and torture.”

  Neva bypassed the guillotine demonstration—which was executing pumpkins today—by cutting back through the Polynesian exhibit. As on previous trips, a necklace in the rearmost case caught her eye. The piece was of simple construction: a leather cord threaded through a few lightly worked cowry shells, golden in color but completely unassuming when laid beside the jewelry of long-dead kings. There was something about the cowry necklace, though, a quietness that drew Neva in. Before she realized what she was doing, her hands pressed against the case’s glass panel.

  She wasn’t the only person so bewitched. Next to her sat a similarly rapt Civil War veteran, dressed in the faded uniform of a Northern colonel and perched on the edge of a wheeled chair, one foot braced against the floor while the opposite pantleg hung empty. His hair was red and bushy, his mustache flecked with white, and his hands ...

  His hands were each marred by two purple, adjoined sickle shapes.

  Chapter Five

  NEVA’S RASHES STARTED to throb again, as if they were excited to find their like on another person. At least her gloves and clothing concealed them. But there was no hiding the bites on her face.

  Maybe that was for the best.

  “Beautiful piece,” she murmured, pointing at the necklace.

  He glanced at her, grunted, and returned to the cowry shells, which he’d drawn with remarkable accuracy—the open page in his sketchbook featured a visual transcription of the necklace’s every detail.

  “Clever work,” Neva said, with genuine amazement. “That’s clearer than a photograph. You should ask them to display it.”

  He grunted again.

  But she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his perfect rendering of the shells. “‘A ritualistic charm,’” Neva read from the display label the veteran had also sketched. “I wonder what it was used for?”

  The veteran snapped his sketchbook shut and signaled to his porter—one of many colored university students who’d traveled to the Fair to earn 75 cents an hour pushing wheeled chairs—to move him to the next exhibit. The porter nodded, his low-set hat and voluminous beard wobbling in tandem.

  “Sir,” Neva said as the veteran turned back to take a last look at the cowry necklace. “Please.” When he glanced at her again, she peeled off one of her gloves and showed him the sickle shapes beneath. “Mine appeared this morning after I was bitten by insects.”

  The veteran stared at her rash for a m
oment before tucking his sketchbook away and clasping his hands together in a failed attempt to conceal his own marks. “Take me to the dock,” he said to the porter. “I want to catch the next ferry.” His voice sounded strained—was he quivering?

  “You were bitten too.” Neva removed her other glove. “And it hurts.”

  With a visible effort, the veteran pulled his hands apart. “It’s nothing.”

  “Then why does it frighten you so?”

  Now he glared at her. “I fought at Bull Run, girl—both times. Never afeard once. Even when I lost this to gangrene.” The veteran tapped his empty pant leg, then used his remaining foot to push off a display case and swivel his wheeled chair around. “And it weren’t to free your darkie mammy and pappy, I’ll tell you that much. Country needed saving, and I done it, and now I’m going home.” He motioned at the porter again. “The dock, boy.”

  The porter’s eyes flashed, but he nodded and rolled the chair toward the nearest exit.

  Neva caught up in two strides. “My ‘pappy’ fought same as you did. But that’s beside the point. Those marks mean you’re in danger.”

  The veteran snorted. “From nagging Negresses, maybe.”

  She bit off a retort. “Try to understand: five other people have had those rashes. They’re all dead.”

  “Scut.” He shook his head. “Let me alone, girl. I’m not your concern.”

  Neva slowed her pace. “I’m just trying to warn you.”

  “I’m not listening,” the veteran crowed, but his hands were clasped tight again as the porter wheeled him outside.

  Neva counted to twenty before following.

  She didn’t have a plan when she emerged from the Anthropology Building. But she didn’t have much to show for her hours of searching the Fair, either. Aside from that cockroach in Augie’s bag, the veteran’s marks were the only thing she’d turned up that related to the morning’s events. She wasn’t going to let him out of her sight. Not yet.