by E. J. Dawson
“That will be two dollars, please,” Mr. Chen said, wrapping them in paper.
“I believe it’s five with the cherry oil,” Letitia said, “it says so on the label.”
“You are correct,” he said, and Letitia counted out the notes and then took her package.
“Thank you.”
“Take care, Ms. Hawking,” he said, the words enunciated and slow, “and should you need anything that might be more difficult to acquire, please just ask.”
It was an odd thing to say, but then there had been more than one comment that morning that had made her believe he might be affected by his age.
“Good day, Mr. Chen.”
Giving it no further thought, Letitia went to a few other stores, guided into picking cloth and ribbons in green and bronze as she remembered the hat Mr. Driscoll gave her. She would have to call him and make her excuses, but goaded by Mr. Chen’s comment, she decided perhaps she could meet him for lunch tomorrow instead.
It wasn’t a bad thought, and it encouraged her as she made her way home.
The back door was open wide, and voices spilled out onto the street.
Mrs. Finch spoke to someone, voice high and stressed. Whoever it was, it was clear they weren’t welcome. Letitia used the oil as an excuse to walk in, perhaps to help Mrs. Finch.
There was a man there she didn’t recognize.
Mrs. Finch’s arms were folded, and when she saw Letitia her face fell, eye darting between Letitia and the stranger who regarded her with open curiosity.
“Ms. Hawking, I presume?” He was clean-shaven, dressed in a decent but inexpensive suit, and holding a hat in his hands. Blue eyes the color of forget-me-nots scrutinized her despite the veil on her face.
“Can I help you with something?”
“Yes, you can,” he said. “I’m here because of Mr. Edwards.”
Letitia’s heart plummeted through the floor.
“I can do nothing further to help him, for which I am very sorry,” Letitia said, but the man held up his hand.
“I think perhaps you misunderstand why I am here, Ms. Hawking.” He stood inches from her, and for a moment she let herself feel the icy gust of his personality. She stepped back at the chill, flakes of ice almost striking her.
“What’s your name?” she said, taking another step back.
“Andrews,” he said. “That would be Detective Andrews.”
The policeman looking after the cases involving the missing girls. Letitia felt the blood drain from her face and the world sway as she stared at him, regretting her terrible error in not chasing down Mr. Edwards.
“Mr. Edwards thinks you may be able to help us with our inquiries,” Detective Andrews said. “I thought you and I could take a trip downtown to discuss how he believes you are involved in the kidnapping.”
Letitia heard Mrs. Finch gasp but could do nothing, standing there in shock.
“But I can’t help him,” she blurted out. “I don’t know anything.”
“It would be best to come with me,” Andrews went on, “before he outright accuses you of doing the deed yourself. After all, such a crime is punishable by death.”
Chapter 15
“How does American law work regarding an accusation of kidnapping?” Letitia asked as Andrews sat opposite her at the police station. “My understanding is that I do not have to speak to you without legal assistance.”
“You aren’t under arrest,” Detective Andrews said, the litany becoming tiresome, “and we’ve already tried to get in touch with Mr. Driscoll. He isn’t in his office or at home. It would be best just to tell us what you told Mr. Edwards.”
“He came by to ask me to help find his daughter, and I couldn’t help him,” Letitia repeated.
“That’s strange,” Andrews said, lifting up a file over an inch thick from the desk, “because he says you knew things only the family would know. That you must have been watching them. You have to admit that from what he told me it sounds very damning.”
The small grin he gave her was belied by the blast of ice of his persona.
Letitia didn’t need to read his personality. Andrews would take any chance to find out what he could on this case, even if it meant badgering her until she broke.
He’d even made her take off the veil.
Letitia shifted on the hard chair in the dingy room, the only light a single bulb that cast shadows in the corners. Another man leaned against the wall behind her, a Detective Smith, and glowered at her. She could feel his stare, but the questions fired off by Detective Andrews caught her off guard. Letitia hadn’t dared talk about her abilities to this man who had eyes like flowers and a warm disposition but who smiled like a cat with a canary.
Andrews had taken her straight here and she’d been made to wait for over an hour before he came back to talk to her. He’d offered her plain black tea or coffee and she’d declined both, asking instead for water. She’d need to use the bathroom soon but felt as though she could not ask. Their intense gazes, their doubts, and the room they’d locked her in were eating at her confidence and raising old memories of being trapped and cast out of the known world.
“Would you like more water?” Andrews asked, and when she nodded Smith brushed her as he collected the glass and walked out.
“You see, Ms. Hawking,” Andrews went on, as though they had been in mid-conversation, “when a woman approaches a man whose daughter is missing and tells him she knows the girl is still alive, it raises many questions. You wouldn’t know that unless you’re somehow involved. Or is this the…occultism Mr. Edwards was talking about?”
Letitia’s hands gripped the edges of her chair, sweat beading down the back of her dress, shoulders so tight they hurt. She was pressing her legs together as the ghostly sensation of blood came trickling back. She wanted to cover her ears. She didn’t want to hear this again.
A policeman questioning her, while she lay on a bed, drugged out of her mind, bleeding, not dying but watching the shadow behind him.
There was none here, but she couldn’t shake the sensation away.
“That’s very blasphemous,” Andrews said when she didn’t answer, his tone turning to sympathy, “but these days few people are as God-fearing as they used to be. I know. I did my time in the war—I ran supply lines to the front. Not glamorous, but I had a knack of getting into tight spots. Of being able to get behind or around enemy patrols. Did your husband die in the war?”
“Yes, he did,” Letitia said, raising her head, trying to hold on to her composure. Andrews was relentless—this was the second time he’d tried this tactic. Always returning to what it was she did, what she knew of the girl, and the subtle undertone mocking her abilities.
“Did you try to contact him?” Andrews pressed. “Your dead husband?”
Letitia couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but fight the tears that clogged her throat, and when Andrews’ observant eyes scanned her face, there was a glimmer there and a twitch of his lips.
“Mr. Edwards said you made a merry song and dance about that.” The detective leaned back in his chair. “Told a father you knew where his daughter was but wouldn’t help him because you had something bad happen to you. What was it?”
The door opened and Letitia started. It was Smith. He held no water glass in his hands but a bowl. Her scrying bowl. From the locked box in her rooms.
Letitia stood, outrage pouring through her like molten lead. “How dare you!”
“I thought you might like to do a trick for us,” Andrews said, as Smith placed the bowl in front of her. “Isn’t this how you do it? Look into the water and tell people what they want to hear?”
“You are a vile man,” Letitia snapped, “and you do not understand what you speak of. You have no concept at all.”
He smiled.
Shocked that she was speaking of her services, her m
outh clicked shut, and she covered it with her hand.
“Take a seat, Ms. Hawking, please.” Andrews gestured to the chair, and when Smith lumbered over, she sat down, fuming at their behavior but unable to see a path clear.
“If you could help us return a little girl to her father,” Andrews went on, “you wouldn’t only be saving her life, you’d be helping us to put whoever took her behind bars.”
“Not if you think I had something to do with it,” Letitia said. Rage simmered within, burning the fear, turning it to charcoal ash in her mouth. The bitter taste ate away at her senses.
“We only want the truth, Ms. Hawking,” the detective said, and he leaned forward, staring at Letitia with an intensity about to resolve itself on some great truth. “There is a little girl out there, and she hasn’t been the only one. We want to be sure that whoever is taking them is stopped. Can’t you understand that?”
Letitia’s teeth pressed together so hard her jaw ached, a twinge in her cheek protesting the pressure, but it was better than allowing herself to speak. Andrews waited for a while, and after a glance at Smith, the other detective left.
They were alone.
“My mother was an Irish Catholic you know,” Andrews said. “She hated the English, and I suppose she was right to after all she’d been through. I never cared much for her politics, but there was one thing she always said that stayed with me. No matter how much another person’s opinion differs from your own, some people forget the right thing to do to hold true to their opinions.”
“Do you think that’s true, Detective Andrews?” Letitia held back the mocking laughter at his faux speech. The fury seethed within her—that they’d invaded her home—rising above all else, even her fear.
“I think a lot of us imagine that we’re right in our own way, no matter if it hurts another,” he said.
Letitia stared at him and decided that if Smith wasn’t here, what happened between them would be Andrews’ fault. He wasn’t panicked like Mr. Edwards had been, and she would gain far more from it than he would.
“Give me your hand, Detective Andrews.” Letitia was about to give the detective a dose of his own medicine. She’d prove her tricks went far beyond her parlor and read from him what she could to get herself out of this situation.
Without knowing how far away Mr. Driscoll was, if he was coming at all, Letitia decided to see how far she could push Detective Andrews.
He was amused as he laid his hand on the table. Andrews wasn’t afraid of her.
That was his mistake.
She had already been searched for weapons by a cautious but thorough policewomen, and while she was not handcuffed, she suspected that there were several officers outside in addition to the glaring Detective Smith.
Letitia pulled off the glove of her right hand and opened herself, preparing for the arctic blast of his personality. There was a gentle drift of snow, and after a moment she saw that the rampart part of him was not focused on the cat-and-mouse chase. He wanted to see the trick, to call her out.
“Are you going to read my palm?” If he meant to offend, despite the neutrality of his tone, he didn’t succeed as she ignored him and placed one finger in the center of his palm.
Scenes rushed by her eyes, paper, and blurred photographs, the snarling faces of the underworld, the sleepless nights as someone found yet another body. Andrews was not in charge of kidnapping cases. He worked in homicide and was good at it. This case, however, had been going on two years, and there was not a tally of four girls but in fact seven.
Letitia gasped, snatching her hand back.
“You found one,” she gasped. “You found a body by the docks.”
He didn’t react as she expected. He left his hand on the table, eyes fixed on her. “As the killer would well know. I believe he wanted someone to find it. A declaration to the world of his power. Do you know, fish ate the little girl’s body and we could still see what he’d done to her before she died?”
It was meant to shock her.
Letitia knew it was not enough, and with a deep breath, she reached out and grabbed his hand. It took a matter of moments to sift through the memories, but each one etched onto her what he’d experienced. Fresh though it was only yesterday. She heard him curse, but he didn’t pull away.
“Oh, my Lord,” Letitia said, weeping, “you saw the body, you knew who it was, you knew the parents. He was a police officer…a sergeant who you’d worked with for a long time…Leavitt. You worked with him for years. You had to tell him it was his daughter. There had already been four other girls, you knew there was something dark and ugly in the city, but when you told the commissioner he told you…”
Letitia stopped, aghast at the exact words. Andrews was gripping her hand now, eyes intense.
“Say it,” he whispered. Soft, but hissed between clenched teeth.
“He told you not to say anything,” she said, hating every word, “and made you cover it up. You thought if there was a public announcement about the killings you could catch the killer, make people more aware. Someone must have seen something but all this while the commissioner has pulled you back. And if you don’t do as he says, he’ll…he’ll…oh, God.” She tried to draw away, seeing what drove Andrews to keep her in his custody when he had no direct proof, why he was breaking the law with his inquisition. She tried to let go, but he held her fast now.
“What, Ms. Hawking?” His hand was so tight on hers it was turning pink, even as his was white with the strain as he clenched her in his viselike grip.
“He’ll take you off the case. He’ll fire you for incompetence. He will make you a scapegoat for the public outcry. This isn’t about saving a little girl. This is about the city’s politics.”
He let her go.
Letitia drew her hand to her chest, massaging life back into it but the vivid welts he’d left would bruise her skin.
“Only the commissioner knows that,” he said, “and I doubt he told you.” He gazed at her, time stretching onward, but he left his hand on the table, perhaps in the hopes she would touch it again, but she’d rather touch a snake.
Letitia knew more about him than he’d ever want her to know.
“I am not a killer, detective,” she said, “but your case is going nowhere, and it’s not aided by the fact that your superiors want you to be quiet about the entire affair. How many more little girls have to go missing before you ask for my advice?”
“Nothing but vague and meaningless clues. And when you wouldn’t offer any to Mr. Edwards?” He chuckled at her. “I think not.”
“I can’t,” Letitia said with helpless exasperation.
“Withholding information is a criminal offense, Ms. Hawking.”
Letitia understood then. It didn’t matter what she saw, because he would use her to take his place as a sacrificial lamb.
This situation was out of hand, and without someone there to protect her, Letitia needed an edge.
“Then why don’t we talk about something else, given neither of us is getting what we want,” she said, “and perhaps you’ll believe that I’m telling the truth. I can find things out, but I can’t find those girls.”
“What truth do you know?” he asked. “You’ve just made good guesses so far. I’m not that impressed.”
Letitia gritted her teeth. “Then let’s talk about you. For example, how did your mother die? Alone in an expensive New York hospital that took the family fortune. It should have allowed a man of your intelligence to go to university, but you did the noble thing and sacrificed it all for her well-being. She took years to die. You have a kind enough soul that you don’t even resent her for it. Much.”
Andrews’ arm swept across the table and sent the scrying bowl spinning, spilling water across Letitia’s dress and face before the bowl smashed against the adjacent wall.
Letitia caught her breath, a tiny part of he
r breaking with it and disappearing as though it were nothing.
Old Mother Borrows had made that bowl for her.
The door was flung open and Mr. Driscoll stood there, greatcoat on, white scarf about his neck, hat, and briefcase in hand. His eyes roved over the scene in a second—the detective’s raised hand, the black glass shattered on the floor, the water staining her clothes, and the bruised hand still held to her chest.
When he looked at the detective, fire burned in Mr. Driscoll’s eyes.
“Detective,” Mr. Driscoll drawled, and only the intensity of his glare denoted his fury, “I require you to leave so I may speak to my client alone, please. We can work out how on earth the commissioner will pay my client for the infractions on her person. Or did you think invading her house without a warrant would be ignored?”
“Mr. Driscoll,” Andrews said, getting to his feet and sending a grin to Letitia that was more a baring of his teeth, “the accused is all yours.”
“Accused?” Mr. Driscoll asked. “What has she done?”
“Withheld information in a critical case. Collaborated with another to kidnap young girls for unknown purposes, one of whom was found dead.” The detective turned and stood between Mr. Driscoll and Letitia. “And she will stay here until she tells me what she knows.”
To Letitia’s surprise, Mr. Driscoll laughed.
“I will make a call, detective,” he said, “and explain to Judge Lindsay how you’ve invaded this young lady’s home, and as far as I can determine, avoided giving her the legal help she asked for. Then there is the matter of assault. Do you think progressing with this case is the wisest course of action?”
Mr. Driscoll was a good head taller than the policeman and he gazed down at Andrews with the lazy arrogance Letitia was familiar with.
“You know she can help us find this girl.” Andrews lost his composure, stomping a foot down as he took a step toward Driscoll. “She’s just a coward for saying no!”
The comment stabbed Letitia like a knife, the guilt compounding until every heartbeat hurt. It burned brands of shame on her cheeks, her tongue a wooden block that couldn’t voice her protests. She couldn’t look at either man, her gaze instead drifting to the broken pieces on the floor. It represented all Old Mother Borrows sent her out to accomplish. To make the world a better place…