He’s thinking ahead now. Another article on body snatching would keep the Stowe story in the public’s mind, and if it helps recover the Runkels’ daughter’s body, then even better. However, a search would not be an easy one—the body could be anywhere by now. Sheriff Harris’s body was easily recognizable because of who he was; Maggie’s is not.
For just a moment, he wonders if the Runkels’ story is another diversion from his mandate to keep the college going, but he just as quickly realizes that keeping the college open long-term still depends, in large part, on exonerating Lena.
So Walt turns around and makes eye contact with Henry. “Exactly right.” He takes out his green notebook. “A brilliant idea. Yes, an article on your missing daughter, the implications of body snatching from another perspective. Now, what can you tell me about your daughter?”
Ned starts. Maggie, the eldest of their two daughters, started vomiting at night, just after dinner, the cause of which they had hoped was bad food. But during the night, she didn’t get better, and around four A.M., her vomiting turned to diarrhea. Ned and Harriet Runkel had tried to make their daughter comfortable, but by morning, Maggie had died of cholera.
“Bad drinking water,” says Ned.
Henry stops him. “The new water system—hasn’t it helped stop cholera?”
Harriet looks him straight in the eye. “Not everyone in New York gets that water.”
“We know about the resurrection men,” Ned says. “People die around us all the time and folks stumble over each other to get to the body. That’s why we paid the priest to bury Maggie in the graveyard far away from our neighborhood.” Mr. Runkel drops his head. “All that did was raise the price of her body.”
“We haven’t always lived in Five Points,” Harriet says. “Things happen. Circumstances beyond your control.” She pauses. “You could end up living there, and then you’d see how everything changes.”
“I can’t imagine,” says Whitman.
“You should come see for yourself,” Ned says, “how bad it is.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Saunders says. “This isn’t the only story we have to write.”
Walt turns to Henry. “Whatever do you mean?” He sees Henry’s eyes get bigger, but he can’t stop himself. “Of course we’ll visit. How about tomorrow?” Then he remembers the meeting with Miss Blackwell and the cadaver supplier. “I’m sorry. How about the day after tomorrow? I have a prior commitment.”
Ned and Harriet both smile. “Thank you, Mr. Whitman. You have no idea how much this means to us.”
They make arrangements to stop by the Runkels’ flat, and Ned tells them that there are more body-snatching victims living in the same area. You can interview them too for the article, Ned says. It’s important for the reader to understand how many folks are affected by this problem. Whitman agrees, and after he thanks the Runkels again for stopping by, they say their good-byes.
When the door closes behind the Runkels, Henry pounces. “What are you doing? You made a promise to people we have no business trying to help. We’re journalists. We don’t have time for this.”
“If we don’t help the Runkels, who will?”
Henry sits at his desk, twirls a pencil in his hand. “Am I missing something?”
Walt scratches his head. “There might be something I haven’t told you.”
“Besides the fact you ran this morning’s edition without me?”
“Well, that and—”
“Bennett’s eviscerating response that could put the Aurora out of business?”
“What I was going to say is—”
“You realize that Mr. Ropes will want me to fire you for what you did this morning, and I’ll have to beg him for your job.” Henry takes a breath. “You don’t know this, but he wanted me to fire you as my first order of business as editor.”
Walt had no idea it had gone this far. “He did?”
Henry nods. “He said you are the laziest fellow who ever undertook to edit a city paper. I refused because you’re a great writer.”
Whitman clears his throat. “Oh. Thank you.”
The two men stand in silence for several moments.
“Was there something else?” Henry says.
Walt knows what he has to say next will not go over well, so he takes his time. He goes to his desk, slides out the chair, and sits. He picks up a pencil, rolls it on the table, and finally he looks up at Henry and speaks. “I went to see James Warren today—”
At nine o’clock, Walt Whitman turns down the composition room’s oil lamps and watches the flames sputter and disappear, the only light now coming from the office. Henry had responded to his solo visit with Warren much as Walt thought he would. Irritation first. Then curiosity. Now Henry is looking forward to their visit to see Clement’s sister as much as Walt is. The day after tomorrow, they’ll visit the Runkels first and then Frankie.
“Henry?” he calls.
No response.
In the office, he finds Henry, his head on the desk.
Walt says, “Are you ready to go?”
But Henry is asleep.
He puts his hand on Henry’s shoulder, which is warm, and touches his forehead, which is even warmer. At this, Henry looks up, and his pallid face startles Walt.
“I’ll get a cab,” Whitman says. “You can’t walk home like this.”
Across the street from the Aurora, omnibuses and cabs have lined up outside the string of restaurants and bars already packed with people—most of them men who stopped on their way home from their Wall Street offices.
Walt crosses the street and speaks with the first cabbie he sees—a youngish man with molasses skin and greasy black hair. He asks him to pull up in front of the Aurora. “Too much to drink,” he tells the cabbie, not wanting to say the word fever.
With Henry’s arm around his neck, Walt helps him into the cab, and after the ten-minute journey to the Centre Street boardinghouse where Henry lives, Walt escorts him up the stairs. The tiny room holds a bed, a desk, a wood-burning stove, and a series of small shelves. The window is open, and the temperature is frigid.
He helps Henry into bed and covers him with a blanket.
He shuts the window. He starts a fire. Should he stay here and keep a watch on Henry or should he return to his room at the college? It is after ten now, and he still isn’t feeling well himself.
He stokes the fire, then looks around Henry’s room. On the desk, he sees a stack of letters from August and Edie Saunders. He sees a letter Henry started writing earlier that day, in which he mentions his excitement for his new job. He searches the prose for any mention of himself and when he reads, I’ve met an old friend, a remarkable man, Walt Whitman, his spirits soar.
He searches the room for another blanket, which he finds folded up underneath the bed. He situates himself near the stove and folds up his coat as a pillow. The blanket and the warmth from the fire soon warm him through, save his toes and fingers, and it doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep.
The next morning, Walt wakes with a start. He’s not sure where he is, but as Henry’s room comes into view, he remembers everything. He shivers. Not from illness, but because the fire has gone out.
Henry is still sleeping, a good thing, no doubt. It is eight o’clock, and Walt is supposed to meet Miss Blackwell at nine for their visit to the coroner. He nearly forgot.
Whitman uses the embers to restart the fire and adds enough wood to ensure that it will burn for at least a few hours. He searches the room for food. There is not much. A bread end, some coffee, a few spoiled eggs. He prepares coffee and leaves it on the desk with the bread and a note: Will look in on you later. Yours, Walt.
Henry does not stir despite Walt’s moving about. His forehead is still warm, and he looks worse than the day before. Perhaps Walt can talk Elizabeth into examining him. “You rest u
p,” he says to the sleeping Henry, and then lets himself out.
Chapter 16
During the cab ride to the coroner’s, Elizabeth tells Walt about yesterday’s impromptu student meeting during which Karina Emsbury, Olive Perschon, and Patricia Onderdonk expressed a desire to return home with their families. “All but Miss Zacky,” she says. “They remain shaken by the mob, and who can blame them? I pleaded with them to stay, and they responded with this question: Can you promise a future for us at the women’s college? Of course the only thing I could guarantee was my diligence and devotion, and this isn’t enough.”
“What did you do?” Walt says.
“We have exhausted our resources. The students have studied the books. They have heard all the lectures. The only real way forward is anatomical dissection, and I have no bodies.”
“But why the coroner?” Whitman says. “Why ask that man for anything?”
At this her face turns red, an odd reaction for Miss Blackwell, given her usual composure.
And then Walt knows. “You and the coroner?” he says.
“Only for a short time,” she says, “but yes.”
At this he smiles, and she turns defensive. “What is it, Mr. Whitman? Do you think me the sort of woman who is not allowed to have such feelings?”
The cab drops Walt and Elizabeth in front of the house at 104 Washington Street, and they step onto the stone walkway next to the lamp, which glows in the frosty haze.
Walt bangs on the door with his fist.
Kenneth Barclay takes his time answering, and when he sees Whitman standing on his porch, he smirks. “My, what a surprise. Have you come to inflict more pain?” Then he sees Miss Blackwell. “Lizzy? Why are you with this brute? Come in.” He says this to Elizabeth, but then motions toward Walt. “If he’s with you, I suppose he’ll have to come in too.”
“Your hospitality overwhelms me,” Whitman says.
Barclay steps onto the porch. He shivers. “Why, it’s perfectly frigid out.”
“I’m surprised you noticed,” Miss Blackwell says. “You always did like it cold.”
“Makes my work easier, my dear.”
Elizabeth steps in first, then Walt. Barclay closes the door, sets the latch in place.
“Not much warmer in here,” she says.
Barclay shrugs. “Shall we go into the other room?” He leads them down the hall, to the right, and into the morgue, the site of Whitman’s confrontation with Barclay. This time the examination tables are all occupied, each of the four corpses covered by sheets.
Without hesitation, Barclay approaches the table nearest them, flips back the sheet, and examines the corpse. It takes Whitman a moment to recognize Sheriff Harris. His body has been cleaned, and the gunshots, one in the chest, one in the forehead, are small dark holes in the skin.
“Can you hide the wounds?” Walt says.
Barclay nods. “A little makeup goes a long way for something like that. The family won’t notice.”
“They found him nearby, didn’t they?” Walt says.
“That’s right. Dr. Liston of NYU purchased this body, and when he read about Harris’s murder in the newspaper, he sent a telegram to all his medical colleagues. That’s how they found the body so quickly.”
Yes, I know, Whitman wants to say. That was my article.
“The wake is tomorrow, so I have a little work to do yet. I told Mrs. Harris I’d do it for free so she doesn’t have to pay the mortician.”
In spite of his loathing for the coroner, Walt admires his gesture. Harris’s widow should not have to worry about the body after her husband’s murder. But then it occurs to him: With the free access Barclay has to bodies as they pass through his morgue on the way to the cemetery, he controls the narrative of their deaths.
Walt looks at Harris’s body again. There’s a strangeness to it he can’t articulate. He was with this man as he passed from life to death—a quick pull of the trigger and the bullet entered his forehead, exploding out the back.
He reaches for Harris’s cheek. The skin is cold to the touch, his silver hair coarse and matted. He tilts the head to the side, so he can see the back of Harris’s head—
The bullet blew out a grapefruit-size chunk of the sheriff’s head, leaving behind a clumpy mix of flesh and hair and viscous fluid.
“That,” Barclay says, “is more difficult to fix, which is why the mourners will not be allowed to move the head as you have.”
Miss Blackwell says, “And how do you prevent that from occurring?”
“We fasten the head to the coffin,” Barclay says. “No one will be able to move the head by the time I’m finished with it.”
“How nice,” Walt says.
Barclay says, “So, Miss Blackwell. Mr. Whitman. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“It’s difficult for me to say this,” Elizabeth says, “but I need your help.”
“My help? How flattering.”
“Can we sit down?” she says.
“Sure. Why not? I’ve nothing better to do.”
“Kenneth, don’t.”
“Did Mr. Whitman tell you about his last visit? How he attacked me?”
Miss Blackwell looks at Whitman.
He shrugs. “Mr. Barclay deserved it.”
“Mr. Whitman was upset with the way I characterized Abraham’s idiosyncratic marital habits,” Barclay says. “Weren’t you?”
Walt holds his tongue for Elizabeth. She needs to do this, and so he will support her. “If I offended you in any way, then I apologize,” he says. “It was not my best day, to be sure.”
“But you think I’m wrong about Abraham, don’t you?”
“What I think is irrelevant to this visit,” Walt says. “I’m here as a support to Miss Blackwell.”
“I saw Abraham with many women,” Barclay says. “I think Lizzy knows I speak the truth.”
Whitman doesn’t take the bait. “Perhaps we can discuss this another time? We’re here about another matter altogether.”
Kenneth Barclay turns to Elizabeth Blackwell. “And you—this matter for which you seek help must be important to bring you here. If I remember correctly, your last words to me in this very room were to the opposite effect, no? I’ll never come back, I seem to remember you saying. Is that right?”
“This was a mistake,” Elizabeth says. “You were right, Mr. Whitman. We should not have come.”
“No, no,” Barclay says. “What is it that you need? What? Please sit.” Barclay leads them to a small sitting area in front of the corner fireplace. The furnishings themselves are of the highest quality, but the presence of ample dust indicates that Barclay is an infrequent host. Barclay and Miss Blackwell sit on the sofa, and Whitman sits in the chair.
“I need bodies,” she says. “I need to know where to buy bodies.”
“Lizzy.” Barclay sits back. “I’m not in the body trade.”
“Of course not.” She gathers herself. “But you can put us in touch with those who are.”
“In my line of work,” Barclay starts, “I encounter medical men every day, and they universally remark that women should not be doctors.”
“They’ve always been against us,” Miss Blackwell says. “You know that.”
“That may be, but helping you that way is not a smart professional move for me.”
“Why not?” Elizabeth counters. “If we can acquire cadavers, it shows the students that the school will survive.” She stops. “You want the school to fail, don’t you?”
“Why on earth would I want that?”
She is thinking now. “Of course. You’ve been trying to get back at Abraham since—”
“Elizabeth.” Barclay rubs his chin. “Let me get you a drink.” He stands, opens the cabinet door. He lifts one bottle, checks the label, and sets it down. He does the same with a second bottle. F
rom the third bottle, he pours three small glasses of whiskey.
She raises her hand. “You know I don’t drink liquor—”
“Lizzy.” He hands her the glass anyway, another to Walt, raises his own, and takes a sip. “I’m worried for you. You shouldn’t have to agonize over running a medical school with no funds, not at your age.”
She sets the glass on the cabinet ledge, sits down. “But Abraham and Lena—”
“You can’t resurrect the dead, dear.”
“What has happened to you, Kenneth?” she says. “You were close friends with the Stowes. We were close. What has changed?”
Barclay turns away.
“What is it?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
“Don’t make this about us,” she says.
Barclay doesn’t say anything.
Miss Blackwell stands up. “I should have known better than to come here.”
Barclay sounds desperate now. “You have no idea what this is all about.”
“And you do?” Whitman rises to join Miss Blackwell.
“Sell the building,” Barclay says, ignoring Walt, “and go home to your family.”
“I’m surprised by you,” she says. “Without Abraham, you’d be nothing.”
“Nothing? I am what I am despite him!”
Elizabeth storms out of the room, finds her coat, and waits in the entryway while Whitman lingers.
“Abraham was careless,” Barclay says.
“What do you know about it?” Walt says.
“That you should encourage her to sell the building as I suggested.”
“Lena was innocent, wasn’t she?”
Barclay answers in a riddle. “You already know what I know.”
“This isn’t over between us,” Whitman says. “I will find out what you know, and then all of New York will know too.”
Speakers of the Dead Page 10