The Impossible Girl

by Lydia Kang

  “He came from a good family,” Cora whispered to Leah. “He’ll be buried tomorrow, and I don’t know which cemetery it will be.”

  “But that’s tomorrow,” Leah complained. “We paid good money for these tickets. We ought to watch the rest of the performance.”

  “Not with that woman in there,” Cora said bitterly.

  “Dr. Blackwell? Agreed!”

  “I don’t mean Dr. Blackwell. I mean Suzette Cutter. My cousin. Who seems to know who you and I both are.”

  Leah’s face went from red, to white, to pasty green before her eyes rolled up in her head and she fainted dead away.

  Well. It looked like they’d be missing the second half of the performance after all.

  WILLIAM TIMOTHY

  I ought not to be dead.

  When you’re garroted, you’re not supposed to die. I’ve seen the victims myself many times, and there’s the right way to do it, you see. I believe for me, it was done entirely wrong.

  I had been accepting bags of rags brought in by street children, who’d likely stolen them from the rotting piers near Fulton Ferry. The rags, you see, make good paper, and our paper business has been doing so well that we were on the verge of purchasing our own home near Stuyvesant Square.

  Usually, Robby or Irvin comes with the largest bags, but they were drunk or recovering or some such, and instead, the little kinchin had come straight to me to sell their wares. What a state they were in. The bedraggled Irish, only weeks off the boat, now sending their children by the hundreds and thousands into the street to pickpocket, beg, skim sugar, or gather rags. At least the rag children are doing somewhat honest work.

  So, a half morning of bargaining had done me in, and I called to Sarah, my wife, to lock the door. I would meet some fellows who promised to secure a good sale to the Tribune if I’d entertain them with a hearty meal.

  My establishment is swept free of the filth that piles against the doorways nearby, but walking Pike Street is a trial. A small dead pig lay in a shallow, mud-filled indentation in the road, and the crows were plucking its eyes out, while the kinchin were throwing stones at the crows.

  I made a wide berth around the spectacle, close to the alleyway between a grogshop and pawnbroker. An arm shot out from the shadows, encircling my throat and pressing hard upon my windpipe, until I couldn’t attempt a cough, or yell. The fellow kicked my right knee from behind, and my body sagged as I lost my footing.

  Several passersby saw my predicament. I am used to the world staring at the birthmark splashed like currant jam across my face, but this time, no one pointed or laughed; they all averted their eyes.

  I knew about garroting. It was common enough, and I understood that in the next moment, a ragtag child would rifle through my pockets—quickly, effortlessly, stealing any moneys I possessed.

  But none of the ambushing party went through my pockets.

  A smaller man, with the top hat and gaudy plaid of a b’hoy, laughed loudly. “Aw, Roy, you nimenog, too much lap again, eh? We’ll deliver yeh, tangle-foot as yeh are.”

  I wasn’t drunk, though. And I wasn’t Roy. He took out a small bottle of liquor and splashed it all over my person, so I’d smell as drunk as the criminals painted me.

  I knew this game; we’ve all heard about the games these men play, the counterfeiters, the pickpockets. Now that they’d had their fun, made me look like a drunken fool amongst friends, they’d take my porte-monnaie and free me. I’d go back home, penniless, and endure my wife’s worry over what could have been. It could be worse.

  And then it was.

  “Hemp the flat!” whispered the b’hoy. I knew not what he meant, until the large oaf encircling my neck began to squeeze. The other lifted my ankles, and together they drew me deeper into the darkness of the alleyway. Now I could see my assailant. His ears were terrible knobs of flesh, as if they’d swollen into fists of bread dough. Ears I would never forget, if I’d been given the time in life to remember.

  “Apologies to this swell. May God receive yeh,” he said, before choking me in earnest. My face felt like it would burst, and my heart thumped hard in my chest, and I struggled and struck out, but they had me firmly. I couldn’t draw breath to scream, and the cry died behind my lips as everything went black within a minute.

  They took my lifeless body and carried me through the alley to Rutgers Street, then westward, the destination of which confounded me. But they were interrupted by a police officer.

  “What are you doing with this man?” he demanded, his clothes plain but a copper star shining dully from his breast.

  “This Sam’s a nazy cove, sir. Too much of the sky-blue. Delivering him home.”

  “He’s not drunk. Look at him. He’s purple as a flag,” the policeman said, touching my cheek, still warm but not for much longer. “Bring him to the hospital. Or better yet, there’s a dispensary right here, across the street.”

  The two men stared at each other. Clearly, I was destined for another place, but they had no choice but to deposit me in the dispensary, from where my wife was called for and where she found me, dead as can be.

  And all I had wanted was lunch.

  CHAPTER 10

  Cora had sent out several notes to the physicians who knew the dead man, as well as her boys, asking if they knew anything of William Timothy’s burial site. Her little messenger boy had been fairly flying all over town with her notes in tow. Leah made herself busy with sponging and pressing Cora’s dress, which had gotten dusty on the walk near the Battery.

  The rest of the evening, Cora’s thoughts were consumed with Suzette Cutter. “How could she know about me? I thought they’d been told I was a boy.”

  “I don’t know,” Leah said. She shuffled from her left to right foot as she sponged the dress. Her nervous dance again.

  “Why would she care about my health? Does she know about my . . . condition?”

  “Perhaps Charlotte spoke to her and didn’t tell us,” Leah said.

  “I suppose I could ask Miss Cutter myself,” Cora said, thinking out loud.

  “Oh, fie, dear! That’s a mistake, it is!” Leah set down her iron. “Don’t encourage her. We’re not to speak to them!”

  Cora didn’t say anything further, but she turned the problem over and over in her mind. There was one way to find out why Suzette Cutter had such animosity toward her, and how she even knew Cora existed. That worried her more than the woman’s anger. But neither today nor tomorrow was the day to do so.

  The next morning, she readied herself in her mourning clothes. But she was anxious; anxious about the unexpected nature of his death, and that she hadn’t received a single response about where William Timothy was to be buried. There were too many cemeteries on the island for her to visit each one. She needed more details.

  Finally, when the clock on the mantel chimed nine, there was a knock on the door. Leah rushed to open it. Cora was pinning on her hat as she descended the stairs.

  Alexander stood in the doorway. He held a parcel that smelled of sugar and bread.

  “Good morning! I’ve brought breakfast, and a message for you,” he said.

  “Oh! From my boys?” Cora asked, snatching her reticule as Leah went outside to search for a hackney cab.

  “What? No. I mean Duncan. He wonders if you received his note the other day. Says he wished to meet with you for tea tomorrow but didn’t receive a response. Oh. It appears as if you’re leaving.”

  Just then, a scrap of a child, dirty from head to toe, ran to the door.

  “Oy, for Miss Lee! Two pence!”

  Alexander took out the pennies, and the little scamp was off, but not before Alexander took the bit of paper and gave it to Cora.

  The words were barely legible. She recognized Otto the Cat’s scribble.

  11 st cimitary, downt now wich

  Eleventh Street. There were three cemeteries there, the two belonging to Saint Mark’s and the Eleventh Street Catholic Cemetery. But the Catholic cemetery had stopped doing interme
nts two years ago.

  “Thank you, Alexander. I won’t be able to stay for your lovely breakfast. I’m off to do my scouting. Perhaps we can meet at the museum tomorrow, then?”

  Alexander looked disappointed. “Of course. Until then.”

  Cora nodded, but she felt wretched anyway. She hadn’t seen Alexander very often lately. There was a time when he came to dinner three times a week, and breakfast every Sunday. She had been so busy, she’d neglected her uncle. She knew that he missed Charlotte’s friendship. They often talked of her—her sayings, her love of books, her love of Cora.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Cora said. “You may bring me to the tea, and we’ll talk more then.” She had an idea of setting him upon Suzette to find out what she knew. That might throw him in the direction of other ladies who might appreciate his artistic talent.

  “Very well,” he said.

  She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be there.”

  Alexander went inside to deposit his package of sweet buns. Leah had flagged down a hack, one of the nicer ones, and Cora stepped in, but before the driver shut the door, she remembered.

  “Leah, I’m short on money. Can you—”

  Leah’s eyes widened. “The crock is empty, miss. We need this one. We need it very badly. I thought you still had five dollars from our last job?”

  “I spent it the other night, with Flint.”

  “No money? No ride. Don’t care how fine you look,” the driver growled, and instead of shutting the door, he opened it wider. He cursed as she got out, then jumped into his carriage and whipped the horses away.

  Not good. She liked to show up at the cemetery in a nice hack, with her nice clothes. The uppertens didn’t walk to the cemetery, even if it was rather close to Irving Place.

  “Well then. I’d better be off now, empty purse and all.”

  “Yes. Go and do your work and get us a good thirty dollars! And be careful!”

  Cora hurried, without trying to look too hurried, down Second Avenue to Saint Mark’s Church, its spire lofty and ever graceful. There were underground vaults on the east and west sides of the yard. Across the street was a larger plot where the slightly less well-to-do were interred. Here was where Cora found a small gathering of family, already leaving the graveside where a coffin lay waiting to be settled beneath the earth. She unobtrusively joined the back of the small crowd of bowed heads, dabbing her eyes and hearing the words of the Episcopalian priest.

  “. . . So cruelly taken from us, into the bosom of God . . . By the grace of the Timothy family . . .”

  She stared at the casket. She wondered if William missed his family already. It was cruel; he was too young to die. Normally, the bodies she scouted had succumbed to nature’s own timetable, as everyone had. But for William—this was bitterly unfair. Her eyes smarted, and she dabbed them with her handkerchief. She never cried at funerals. Never. Her sentiment was irritatingly in the way. Enough, Cora, she thought. Do your work.

  A young gentleman stood near to her. When the lady on his other side turned to a different mourner, she spoke low.

  “Poor souls of our Father. I hope William rests in peace and isn’t disturbed by those . . . those . . .” She raised a handkerchief to her dripping nose, the words seemingly too horrifying to be uttered.

  “No doubt he will.” The gentleman lifted his eyebrows. “Bloody thieves. Luckily, the coffin is locked.”

  Cora put a hand over her heart and exhaled in dramatic gratefulness. The crowd soon dispersed, several following a carriage festooned in mourning drapery that took the principal family away. Cora peeled off from the group, removed her black shawl, and walked briskly west as soon as she’d turned the corner. She wiped her face one last time. Enough sadness. William Timothy no longer suffered, and neither should she.

  So, there would be a locked coffin. They would need different tools, but locks had not kept Jacob away from his prizes. Tonight, they would retrieve poor William, and Cora could worry a mite less about the kitchen crock empty of coins.

  She went home to eat, then sent a message to her crew to pick up Jacob with the wagon and tools at eleven o’clock. But as she dressed that evening, she realized she’d forgotten to alert Flint. Now, there wasn’t time. It was a relief, though. The memory of waking in his bed, his hand across her ribs, was still too fresh.

  Otto the Cat, the Duke, and Friar Tom showed up at the appointed hour. Now that it was dark, Cora was in her element, ready to dig a ten-foot trench if need be. Right when the wheels of the wagon began to turn, Puck ran up to the wagon, panting.

  “Late, sorry, here,” he said between breaths. He vaulted into the seat next to Otto. “Where’s the goosecap?”

  He meant Flint. Yes, Flint was very silly. Though, less of a goosecap now in Cora’s mind.

  “Not here tonight,” she said.

  “He’s made inquiries, you know,” the Duke said. “To other resurrectionists, about doing some digging farther north on the island, or in Green-Wood. He’s got a fire in his belly.”

  “He’ll burn quickly, then,” Cora said, lying in the back of the cart next to two shovels and using her entwined hands as a pillow. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  “He was asking the right questions, from what I heard,” said Tom. “I like him. And he ate almost as much as me.” Which for Tom was apparently a sign of good character.

  “Stow your wid,” Cora said, and they accordingly went silent. She wasn’t in the mood to hear good things about Flint. “Anyway, I’ve made a deal with him. Next three bodies, he gets a cut as long as we deliver to either his school or to the Grand Anatomical Museum.” The men all began to protest, but Cora held up a hand. “Your pay will be the same; only my share is cut. Got it?”

  Her team murmured assent. She regretted the deal, now that it had been made. But it kept her in the game, in case Flint found a body before her—and after all, she’d made the deal so Flint would tell her about the dissection of Hitchcock. That bizarre green tongue . . . She needed to find out why he’d died the way he did. Had he been poisoned as Flint said? She also needed to find out where Ruby Benningfield had gotten to. For that matter, it was strange that William Timothy had been garroted. Murders for money happened often enough, and yet—now there were three people from her watch list, dead or disappeared when they shouldn’t have been.

  Their party continued down the street, which was quieting rapidly as midnight approached. The inhabitants of this part of town appreciated their sleep. When they arrived at the cemetery, the gate was unlocked, and there was no guard. No doubt the family rested well, assured that the locked coffin would suffice to repel night visitors.

  They’d just begun to quietly pick up their shovels and crowbars when Puck jumped out of the wagon and whistled.

  “Oh. This one. I’m a goosecap myself. Forgot I have to be elsewhere. G’night.”

  Cora started. None of her men ever abandoned a job after they’d already shown up. They either came, or they didn’t, and on the rare occasions they didn’t, it was from a near-death case of cholera.

  “Puck,” she growled, “you leave, and you don’t work for me anymore.”

  “Aye, and that’s the way I’ll have it. I’ve no time for secondhand jobs.”

  Cora cursed. Puck whirled around and punched the end of the wagon so hard, it jerked forward and the horse neighed with alarm.

  “You’re late! Too late! I already got my pay, and better than what you give, with your crumbs and sour brandy.” For a second, he looked like he might come and tackle Jacob directly; Cora had already reached around her back to curl her fist around her dagger. But Puck backed away and smiled a rotten-toothed smile. The last they heard was his crooked whistle as he walked away.

  “I made a mistake bringing him that first night,” the Duke said quietly. “Better that he’s gone.”

  “Aye, better,” Cora agreed, but Puck’s words unsettled her. What had he meant, he already got his pay?

  “Come,” Otto said, h
is arms full of shovel and burlap. “Moon’s risen!”

  It was two hours of hard labor before they discovered what Puck had meant.

  “This box has been picked. It’s unlocked.” Even in the light of a quarter moon, Cora could see that the Duke, their expert lock picker, was frowning. He lay down flush against the ground and pulled at the coffin’s lid. It opened wide, letting the thin moonlight illuminate what Cora dreaded to know.

  The coffin was empty except for a pair of shoes and a fine suit of brown wool.

  “We’ve been beat,” Cora said, pushing back to sit on her knees.

  Otto took off his hat and threw it on the ground.

  “Well now. That would explain why Puck was off in a hurry when he saw the job,” the Duke said, scratching his head.

  “Puck stole this body earlier this evening. That’s why,” Cora said flatly. “He’s working a second gang. And they beat us.” The others cursed aloud.

  “All that work, and no money to be had!” wailed Otto.

  Puck and his men must have come only just after dusk, a dangerous time, but they’d been fast, neat, and efficient, and hadn’t left a trace.

  The robbers had just been robbed.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Are you quite sure?” Alexander asked.

  “Yes,” Cora said. “Not only was William Timothy murdered, but Puck and another gang took his body before we could. We’ve never been outmaneuvered. Everyone knows who we are, and how we work.” She shook her head. “Alexander, I think Puck may have killed this man, just to steal his body.”

  “From what you’ve said, he doesn’t seem to have the intelligence for such a plan.”

  “I don’t know, Alexander.”

  The round cobblestones beneath her feet weren’t the only reasons she felt unsteady. What if Puck had also killed Ruby, who was still missing? And Hitchcock? What if he heard rumors about the two-hearted girl, and came after her too? She tried not to think of it. True, Puck didn’t seem keen enough for such machinations. And how was he finding out about these people? She’d never told her boys of her special list.