No Time Like the Present

by Ellison Blackburn

  “Christ! Are you for real?” I turn around and push him away from the door opening. I then grab his lapels and yank him down to my level. Tossing my head toward the other room, I say, “One of you will be the death of me. But thanks. Glad I still smell like myself despite everything. Now stop being hard of hearing and shush.” He winks a moss-green eye at me when I shove myself off and back to my listening spot.

  The doctor’s voice is steady and detached. “She was seen leaving my house clutching a basket,” he says. “Rather, a bassinet. My man, Roger, said it appeared to be constructed of a sturdy weave and decorated with fine white lace. He also saw what might have been a swaddling blanket within, as well, embroidered with yellow ducks and blue cornflowers. So, it was a higher quality piece than a woman of her station would hardly be expected of toting around. He couldn’t make out whether the basket was otherwise empty. He told me this later, of course. I was too aggrieved after the tragedy to look into the matter.”

  You say that, and yet, your calm collectedness is unnerving, Dr. Ennis. If a marriage like his was is the current standard, I’m glad I don’t have to worry about such wedded non-bliss. And where have you mislaid your paternal grief, sir? I want to ask. I suspect a persona has to be somewhat touched in the head to be a psychologist and maybe a little more than that to be an alienist. For my sake, I’m glad of this flaw.

  “When I started to question what really happened, it was too late. Delia and the … our child had already been buried a fortnight. Besides, I had no basis on which to have their bodies exhumed. Still, I couldn’t let it go.”

  “Understandably.”

  “I then pursued answers from Constantine Varga himself.”

  “Ah. You confronted him?”

  “Yes, and he informed me the woman Roger identified was a nurse-midwife.”

  “Hm.”

  “He went on to explain that most local doctors had similar arrangements with nearby hospitals. Since he could not carry all the supplies with him at all times, and as each case was different, it was not unusual for a midwife to come by in the middle of a delivery to see if her assistance was needed. He admitted to being unprepared as he had not been expecting any complications with regard to Delia’s time. He also expressed sincere remorse; I’ll grant him. But despite his admission, although the midwife would have stayed if he’d required it of her, he dismissed her because nothing more could be done for Delia or the child, and another expecting mother was amid her ordeal as well.

  “Regardless of the sense his account made, I was not satisfied. I further interrogated Roger and every other member of my staff, only then gleaning several additional pieces of suspicious information. For instance, none within my household met this nurse, seeming to indicate that she had not been admitted into my house but had sneaked in and just as surreptitiously made her getaway. A medical professional with actual cause to work beside a doctor would not need to do that, I thought. After much prodding, my man recollected this midwife was holding the basket with both hands. Why would that be if all it contained was a baby blanket? It’s not much, I know. And finally, …”

  Dr. Ennis bows his head in quiet again. “I discovered a baby boy was born to a well-to-do couple of our acquaintance around the same time. Delia was aware our friends the Ashmores were trying to conceive, and she’d mentioned it to me. But Mrs. Ashmore exhibited no signs of being with child during what would have been the first four or five months of her term. They spent the duration in the Hamptons.”

  “There’s room for error in your estimates there, Ennis.”

  The doctor nods. “I know she wasn’t with child, inspector. I just do. And of course, I don’t think they were privy to where their newborn came from, but it was acquired on their behalf; of this, I feel certain too.”

  “Well, that’s quite a lot of seeming evidence you’ve compiled. Were you able to ID the midwife?”

  “Henry, please. And no. Dr. Varga did not give her name, and Roger only saw her profile. The description he gave could be any number of women in Boston, except she was wearing a white cap, he recalled, a common enough article of clothing for a nurse-midwife and therefore easily obtainable. Otherwise, her dress was nondescript under an overcoat.”

  “What about the Ashmores, did they shed any light on the situation at any point? The briefest mention of a connection to Varga or an adoption service?”

  “That is just not done, inspector. They would think me unstable if I asked them such questions so soon after Delia’s and our son’s deaths. And ironic though it may seem to you, the longer I deferred the topic, the more reserved they would become about it. They had rationalized their actions already, perhaps saying to themselves that withholding the story of how a baby boy miraculously came into their lives was a kindness they were paying me in my grief. These nuances of behavior become more pronounced and evident to you when the study of the human mind is your livelihood.

  “Anyway, although I abhor the name they’ve chosen for him, Alfred will be well cared for, and therefore, I have resolved to allow the past to carry on as it goes, such that my sanity can be saved to see this through an alternate way. You see, what I cannot do is stand by and let undue grief strike the core of another family. It has become my purpose that does not happen.” The glass beside him is empty. I hadn’t seen him down it.

  “I hate to ask this, Enn— Henry, but did you see your son when he was born? Like actually laid your eyes on him? Was there some obvious physical characteristic that would make you think the dead child was not yours? Or could it have been a doll? That, right there, could be a solid piece of evidence.”

  “There was indeed an infant lying beside my wife when I went to her that night. He was swaddled head to foot in a neat parcel. I but glimpsed a bluish forehead and could not work up the courage to look much closer. I had him christened Simon Henry, however, after myself and my father, and he was laid to rest cradled in Delia’s arms. Was the child’s appearance in any way strange, Father Michael would have said as would those who’d prepared him for burial. …”

  “And so you followed Varga here,” he prompts.

  A short pause preempts Henry Ennis’s reply. “That is correct.”

  “There are two points which still puzzle me.”

  “For one, what Dr. Varga is doing in Chicago, am I right?”

  “Yes.”

  “He must have felt he needed a fresh start elsewhere. My initial questions may have been insufficient to spook him, but my later persistence may well have inspired more decisive action.”

  “That’s a reasonable assumption. But a good deal of what you’re telling me is still based on supposition.”

  “True. However, having worked with the police many times before, I know that even when the crime itself is evident, the investigation must start with a possible route to it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Now, inspector, I make no pretense of being an expert on investigative strategies, but I am adept at following the darker pathways of thought, which often leads to criminal motive.”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Thus, while Dr. Varga may not be legally culpable just now, from my view, he is already liable from a moral standpoint. I have it from the mouths of several women who have been offered money in exchange for their unborn child. Surely you see that I am trying not to allow my personal interest to overshadow my professional judgment here.”

  “I do and realize that’s a hard separation to make under the circumstances.”

  Henry Ennis nods. “I want Dr. Varga’s head in the noose if he is, in fact, a villain, inspector. I’m willing to allow that he’s not. In the least, my goal is to prevent pain to those who may be sold a future full of regret in exchange for ready cash. For example, you’ll recall Earlene Edwards at Lily Grace’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “She, for example, birthed a baby girl several months ago, and that infant was re-homed elsewhere. Miss Edwards will not know that odd feeling of emptiness until it�
�s much too late to reverse the cause—if it’s not already. So, by coming to you today, I wish to express what I believe in my soul, sir, with the hope it will spur your help evidence or no—as a man of morals. For I believe that the love between a couple, in the act that results in the miracle of birth and then between a parent and child is the reason we as humans live and strive to live. I hope to hear you acknowledge that seeking a life with such depth of feeling is a righteous and noble quest and that these families should be given a chance to know it.”

  A tingle runs down my arms when he finishes. Though his words are not meaningful to me, his manner and tone are touching. I’m relieved he’s not so tainted by his loss that he doesn’t have any warm feelings left in him.

  “You have a way with words, doctor. I can see why Kate admires you.” The low timbre of my brother’s voice is more strained than usual. He’s possibly jealous of the attention Dr. Ennis continues to pay Kathryn Leigh Foster, the popular actress and Archer’s girlfriend.

  “Miss Foster advocates on behalf of those less fortunate at the risk of her own reputation. I hold her in high regard as well.”

  “Mm. Why do you think it is that Dr. Varga has shifted his focus from wealthy ladies to working-class women and prostitutes?”

  “Again, with no surety on my part, I believe he is getting his feet wet in a new pond, so to speak. In Boston, if heritage can be proven, the well-to-do will pay for good stock. Here, he is both getting by and establishing himself. I take that back, I have no idea if he intends to stay in Chicago, though it stands to reason as the city is growing rapidly, and therefore, booming with new opportunities.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE CONFINES WITHIN these brick and limestone walls are bone-chilling. It can be downright unbearable some days, particularly in this in-between time of year when the coal rations for my pot stove are all but halved. The many steel surfaces, basins, and instruments seem to sweat vaporous ice. And there’s a godawful draft coming from the many transom windows to make matters worse; though it’s not as bad as the warm-up just after the cold snap.

  A week ago, having spent over four hours cataloging corpses, I lost feeling in my fingers and dropped a scalpel. Jumping out of the way before stabbing my shoed foot, I knocked over a tray of other implements. Numbed both by the cold and my clumsiness, I stood there scrutinizing my hands for a long time. I might have sliced a finger open unawares, the blood too frozen to warn me of the injury.

  Damn! How’s a body supposed to work in these conditions? Having completed my tasks, I fist my hands at my sides and pump them to increase circulation. Three corpses were awaiting me in my dead room when I arrived. Suffice it to say, although repetitive, it has been a busy morning. All three victims were men. All had died in a construction accident. Two were on the roof of a building when it collapsed, and one was crushed underneath when it came down.

  With as many hazards as there are, it is a wonder some people still survive into old age nowadays. For men, the primary danger is an accidental injury, including death by alcohol poisoning; though excessive imbibing could also be considered premeditated depending on how you look at it. For women, death is commonly a result of childbirth. And every man, woman, and child is at risk of some illness snatching them prematurely from this life. Not only are conditions appalling, but the practice of medicine is too.

  Under ordinary circumstances, for example, with a long-term ailment or an illness-based end, physicians will certify the cause of death. As a medical examiner, unusual fatalities are my bread and butter, but because of new protocol, more of the usual type is finding its way into my morgue daily.

  For a society that lacked such diligence before the fire, it is undoubtedly enthusiastic about keeping up with paperwork now. I understand the rationale and try not to hold it against the pencil pushers. It’s been well over a year since the fire, and even so, many who perished haven’t been reported missing, and others found haven’t been identified.

  The population boom doesn’t help the accounting either. Hordes of hopefuls have arrived to carve out their future in Chicago already, and hundreds arrive still every day. The roll call is clocking in at around five hundred thousand now. By 2159, it will be seven times that. The growth will only escalate from here on out.

  Still, I question the accuracy of censuses. I mean, a tesseract displaced eight individuals (eleven if you count Royce Butler, Mrs. Cook, and Everly) from the twenty-second century to the nineteenth. And from my experience, surveys over the years have asked for race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, mental stability, AI augmentation, and physical capability, along with a host of other nosy questions about the citizenry. Yet, there has never been a tick box on any census form to account for time-traveling immigrants. Also, there is no way of informing interested parties, whoever that may be, that only six of those transplants survived.

  But alas, as the only coroner within three districts, the rigamarole of paperwork is a necessary part of my job these days and has little-by-little outweighed most else I do. Now, what I’m about to say may sound macabre—I’m a medical examiner after all. Each night, I fall asleep expectant and hopeful that tomorrow I’ll be presented with a baffling case, one that will keep me engrossed for weeks. It doesn’t have to be a grizzly demise, just intriguing.

  This is not me hurling a gauntlet into the ether so some such Jack the Ripper is provoked to haunt Chicago with repeated slayings. Whitechapel can have him. Nor would I enjoy battling twisted wits with a serial killer thirteen and a half years too early (Herman Webster Mudgett, also known as Dr. H. H. Holmes). I couldn’t stomach that kind of horror, even if I could keep myself from murdering the psychopath the day he steps off the train on Friday, August 6, 1886.

  So there it is. I’ve admitted it. Both certainties in life—death and taxes—are positively dull on paper, but I can’t get enough of the former. I have an idea of what that says about me, so it should come as no surprise that Archer’s meeting with Dr. Ennis yesterday sparked a thrill of anticipation in me that I haven’t felt since the Aubrey Milner case last September.

  Even though I heard my brother beat that no-evidence drum several times last night, and again at breakfast, I tried to cast my vote in favor of some police inquiry into the matter. But Archer remained noncommittal, though the sour turn of his mood after that meeting had carried over into this morning.

  He’d said: “Keeping you entertained is not my purpose in life, River. And I’m not feeling especially charitable toward you since you were too chicken to give your input when you had the chance. Your avoidance of Ennis is getting old.”

  I ignored the second gibe and goaded, “You mean not your sole purpose in life. ’Cause obviously, my entertainment has to be on the list somewhere.”

  Looking at me humorlessly and as though I should shrivel up under his gaze, he’d said, “You need a hobby. I suggest drinking.” Considering how often he tries to ply me with alcohol or pushes me to visit Lucky’s Tavern so Martin can, I should be disheartened by Archer’s lack of concern for my mental wellbeing and that of my liver’s. Only I know better.

  A few months ago, I came up with the brilliant idea of seeming to attach myself to a woman in the matrimonial sense. Such a gesture would lessen the speculations about my sexual orientation if not my manliness, I thought. But when I presented my scheme to my brothers, Allen and his sister Selene, Archer vetoed it as if he could—as if putting his giant foot down would whoosh the little problem of my androgyny right out of my head. Missing the point, he suggested that Martin and I get together instead. Though not a chauvinist like most men of the day, my brother even now fails to see my reality clearly. And that is because he’s entitled to everything, regardless of the era.

  Anyway, my solution did not work either, but it wasn’t for lack of trying it. We—Reid St. Clair and Selene Jaida Bryce, Allen’s sister—were engaged for one whole month. My master plan was almost simple to enact: First, a small announcement in two- or three-penny papers, followed b
y several perambulations in neighborhood parks, a gathering in the pump room of the Water Tower, a musical soiree, a public luncheon here and there, and one very awkward dinner party for which I even donned a borrowed penguin suit. I can’t even recall the name of our host. I suspect it was Selene’s current employer, the man who ruined everything.

  I’d told her some time ago: “Should a gentleman alight from a golden chariot to sweep you off your feet, you would do well to board that equipage posthaste.”

  Her prince charming, Mr. Elmer Chattoway, a clerk at the Chicago Historical Society, entered the scene like so, that’s to say before Selene and I had even set a date for the wedding. Granted, we weren’t actually planning on setting one. (And for the sake of accuracy, the clerk’s carriage is a plain and humble black, pulled by a single unassuming roan mare.) Anyway, Selene had then moved across the river. And as far as I know, she is happy playing governess to Chattoway’s niece, teaching the little girl to play the piano, comport herself, and read. The last is an excusable accomplishment for a clerk’s niece, I guess.

  I find it bizarre that servants just up and go live under their employer’s roof, particularly a single woman taking up service in a single man’s household. There are rules, and it is only that Elvira Granville, the clerk’s widowed sister, and her daughter also reside with Mr. Chattoway that makes Selene’s situation acceptable.

  Selene’s voluntary demotion to governess might then beg the question: Why would she leave the house where her brother lives, where she is among other time-travelers and friends, where she is not a servant? The answer is straightforward. Mr. Chattoway’s home and their arrangement provide more than our prodigious purple dwelling and its unalterable air can—namely, a respite from Archer. No matter how much she wishes that his feelings were changeable, my brother is the decided sort. Before October 8th, the opportunities to pine for what she could not have were few. She didn’t have to live under the same roof and just across the hall from her tormentor, a man possibly incapable of deep affection and commitment. But our transplantation back in time left her mired in anguish.