My eyes opened, and I returned to the present with a start. With a herculean effort, I forced myself to sit up. I had to do something to stop the shivering. I looked at the sputtering gas lamp, wishing I hadn’t broken the crate, for I could have stood on it to warm my hands at least. Suddenly, I remembered the box of matches that had been lying on top of it. Dropping forward onto my hands and knees, I crawled down the damp, rank aisle until I found it under one of the hanging carcasses at the far end. I slid the box open with a stiff thumb. It was more than a quarter full. Digging out one of the little wooden sticks, I struck it clumsily against the flint strip and watched it burst into life.
I’d never seen anything so beautiful. Now all I needed was something to burn. Dropping the spent match, I broke apart the smashed crate with the heel of my boot and piled half the pieces on a damp section of the wood-grid floor. I tried to pull up one of the drier wood slats as well, but it wouldn’t budge. The crate would have to do. I dug some pages of research notes from my bag and wadded them up, arranging them under the wood. Now all I had to do was light it.
This proved easier said than done. My fingers were so numb I couldn’t manage to pluck another matchstick from the box and had to shake one into my hand. When I tried to light it, it dropped out of my senseless fingers in midstrike. I paused, trying to remember how I’d managed it the last time. I shook out another match and tried locking it in the crook of my thumb and forefinger, but it too fell lifeless to the ground. I stopped to rest, worn out by my exertions, as tears of frustration welled in my eyes. Did I need to preserve body moisture? I couldn’t remember. Trying to hold back the tears just in case, I shook out yet another match and pulled it listlessly across the strip.
This time, it flared into flame, surprising me so much that I almost dropped it. I lowered it carefully to the wadded paper and watched it take, holding my breath as the boards’ splintered edges caught along with it. I was so thrilled that I didn’t realize the match flame had reached my thumb until I smelled burning flesh. Dropping the matchstick, I leaned toward the fire and let the heat caress my face. The little pile of wood generated a surprisingly generous amount of warmth. Although smoke gradually filled the room, the ceiling vent kept it from becoming suffocating, and by adding the remaining pieces of crate one at a time, I was able to keep the fire alive and the smoke at a tolerable level for more than an hour. By the time it went out, sensation had returned to my hands and face, although I was feeling utterly exhausted. I slumped back against the door, too tired to think, and allowed my eyes to close for just a minute…
• • •
“What in the world?”
I opened my eyes and looked up into Mrs. Braun’s astonished face. Turning my head, I discovered I was lying on my back, half in and half out of the meat locker. I must have fallen out when she opened the door. I tried to push up on my elbows but couldn’t find them beneath me.
“Wait a minute,” Mrs. Braun instructed, kneeling behind me. Her arms slid under my shoulders. “All right. Try now.”
With me pushing and her pulling, I got onto my feet and shuffled over to the back room table. I dropped heavily onto a chair, feeling as though I’d just climbed Mount Everest. My head throbbed, and I was shivering so badly that I could hardly stay on the seat.
She peered into my face with a frown. “What in the world…” she started again, but broke off as a violent shudder nearly bucked me off my chair. “The kettle’s on upstairs. I’ll bring you some tea.”
She went out the side door into the hall and up the stairs to her flat, while I made a determined effort to control my shaking. By the time she returned a few minutes later with a heavy wool blanket and a steaming mug, I’d managed to reduce it to a sporadic shudder. She handed me the tea and draped the blanket over my shoulders. My hands were trembling too badly, however, to tip the mug’s contents into my mouth. After watching me spill some down my coat front, she put her own hands on the mug and raised it to my lips. The tea was strong and sweet and blissfully hot. I drank it eagerly, not stopping until I’d finished the last drop.
“Thank you,” I said, handing her the cup, meaning for more than the tea. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t found me in time.”
“What were you doing in there in the first place?” she finally managed to ask me.
“I received a letter with Eliza’s name on it, asking me to come to the shop. I went into the back looking for her when I arrived, and someone pushed me into the locker.”
“Good Lord!” She sank onto the chair beside me, clasping her hand to her chest. “Why would anyone do such a thing? And how did they get into the shop?”
I shook my head, loosing a fireball of pain behind my eyes. My back was sore, my knees were stiff, and my tongue felt as though there were cotton balls sticking to it. “I’m not really sure.”
“You don’t think…” Her gaze flicked toward the ceiling.
“No,” I said. “I don’t. Eliza has no reason to harm me.” Although she didn’t refute this, I could see the doubt in her eyes. “You didn’t hear anything last night from your flat?” I asked. “Anything to suggest a break-in?”
“No, nothing,” she answered, shaking her head. “I didn’t hear anything from the stairwell either, when I went down to the furnace to shake the ashes. You could ask the policeman outside our flat, though. He might have heard something.”
“I think we ought to keep the police out of this,” I said reluctantly, although I would have sorely liked to ask for some protection. “They’re going to assume Eliza did it, even if they can’t prove it. You might take a look around, though, to see if anything’s been disturbed. If it has, you could at least report a break-in.”
She quickly scanned the room. “Everything looks all right in here. I’ll go check out front.”
As she went out to investigate, I huddled under the blanket, feeling the sting of blood returning to my fingers and toes, trying to reconcile myself to what had happened. Hard though it was to accept, someone had targeted me—not once, but twice—and would presumably do so again. As much as I wished it were otherwise, nothing stood between me and a third attempt but my own ability to identify and outsmart my attacker. This bald truth pumped a fresh cascade of adrenaline through my exhausted body. I dropped the blanket from my shoulders and got cautiously to my feet. My legs were shaky, but they did what I asked. If I couldn’t yet say for sure who the attacker was, I could at least try to confirm who it wasn’t. Retrieving my bag from the locker, I made my way stiffly through the side door and up the stairs to Eliza’s flat.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The policeman was sitting in a rickety chair in the narrow hallway, directly across from the Brauns’ door. His eyes were bleary, and there was rust-colored stubble on his chin and cheeks. I’d been concerned he might be able to guess from my appearance that I’d been through some sort of ordeal, but he barely looked at me when I told him I was Mrs. Miner’s doctor, waving me toward the door without a word.
“Did she have a restful night?” I asked.
“How should I know?” he answered. “I ain’t a nurse.”
Eight hours of sitting alone in an uncomfortable chair apparently hadn’t left him in a very jolly mood. I felt like telling him it could have been worse. “So you haven’t seen her?”
“Nah, I haven’t seen her.”
“Then how do you know she’s in there, if you don’t mind my asking?”
His eyes narrowed. “Because she was in there when I came on shift, and she hasn’t come out,” he said with more than a touch of belligerence.
Deciding that further questioning would be unproductive, I opened the unlocked door and, leaving it slightly ajar behind me, walked through the kitchen and down the hall to Eliza’s bedroom. She was sleeping peacefully under the patchwork coverlet, one arm draped loosely over her head. I crossed to the foot of the bed and stood watching h
er for several minutes, noting the occasional twitch of her delicate fingers, and the movement of her eyes beneath their translucent lids. She looked as innocent and unguarded as a child. I moved closer and nudged her arm.
She stirred, opening her eyes. “Dr. Summerford…” She pushed herself up on her elbows, glancing at the bedside clock. “What is it? Has something happened?”
“I need to talk with you. I’m sorry to wake you, but it’s important.”
She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “No, it’s all right. I’m glad you’ve come. I’ve been wanting to talk to you too. That detective came here to the shop to ask me about Miss Hauptfuhrer. Did you hear what happened to her?”
I nodded, sitting on the foot of the bed.
“He was just dreadful, acting as if I had something to do with it. I don’t know why he hates me so.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I told him I didn’t know anything about it, of course. He kept asking me how I got out of the building without being seen. I told him I never left. I was here, in the flat, all that night and morning, until I went down to fill the register.”
“Could your mother confirm that you were here?”
“She told him she saw me go in to bed, and then saw me again in the morning when I came down to the shop.”
“You didn’t have breakfast together?”
“Why, no, she went down to cut the meat before I woke up. Normally, I would have gotten up sooner, to take the deposit to the bank after filling the register, but now that I can’t go out, Mother has to make a night deposit.”
Her alibi wasn’t airtight, then. I pinched the bridge of my nose. My headache had been growing steadily worse and now felt like an iron band around my skull.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I dropped my hand to my lap. “Eliza, I need to ask you about the sketch.”
She frowned at me. “What sketch?”
Her drawing tablet was still lying on the bedside table. I pointed at it. “May I?”
She nodded, without any visible hesitation.
I opened it on my lap and flipped through the loose pages. Between colorful drawings of flapping laundry and roosting pigeons and brightly decorated Christmas trees, I found the sketch I was looking for. It had grown no less alarming with time.
“This one,” I said, handing it to her.
She held it gingerly between her hands. “Where on earth did this come from?”
“What do you mean, where did it come from? You just saw me take it out of your book.”
She handed it back to me. “Well, it’s not mine. I’ve never seen it before.”
“Eliza,” I said sharply, “I need you to be honest with me.”
She shrank back against the headboard, looking stung. “I swear to you, I’ve never seen it before!”
“Then how did it get into your sketchbook?”
“I don’t know.”
“These other pictures are all yours, aren’t they?” I asked, fanning them across my lap.
“Yes.”
“Then how do you explain it?”
“You’re upset,” she said anxiously.
“I need to understand. Where could this picture have come from if you didn’t draw it?”
She shook her head. “Maybe someone put it in my book by mistake.”
I rubbed my aching temples. “Do you take the sketchbook out very often?”
“Why, yes. After church on Sunday, if it’s a nice day, I usually go to the park or the pier to draw. I don’t go out as much in the cold weather, of course, although I did sketch some children skating around Christmas time.”
Sketchbooks were a common enough sight in the parks and other public areas of the city. I supposed it was possible that someone had confused Eliza’s book with their own, or that some idle prankster had inserted the picture deliberately. But the subject matter was just too coincidental…
“You think I killed Miss Hauptfuhrer and drew that picture, don’t you?” she said in a small voice.
I didn’t know what to say. Despite the improbability of someone inserting the picture into her book, my intuition told me she wasn’t lying. And yet, something was off. I’d sensed it before on various occasions—something I could never quite put my finger on, like a bead of mercury slipping constantly out of reach.
“What about this?” I asked, digging the letter I’d received the previous afternoon from my bag. I handed it to her, moving slowly so as not to aggravate the throbbing under my skull.
“I didn’t write this,” she said, scanning it with a furrowed brow.
“It has your signature on it.”
“I know, but that’s not my writing. My writing’s nothing like that.” She glanced around the room as if looking for something. “Wait, I’ll show you.” Jumping out from under the coverlet, she crossed to the closet and reached behind a stack of petticoats to retrieve a small key. Coming back to the bed, she dropped to her hands and knees and pulled out a shallow, battered chest from beneath the frame. She unlocked it and propped it open, disappearing behind the lid.
“What’s in there?” I asked, craning to see over the top.
Her face popped back into view. “Things I’m saving for Joy.” She held up a shapeless pink garment with knitting needles stuck through it. “I’m making her a sweater. It’ll be finished soon, and then I’ll start on the hat. Do you think she’ll like it?”
I tried to imagine Olivia Fiske wearing such a crude thing. Then I thought of all the hours Eliza must have spent on it, dreaming of their happy reunion, and it almost broke my heart. Suddenly, my doubts about her seemed absurd. This was no calculating, coldhearted murderer kneeling before me. This woman could no more hack off someone’s head or toss someone into a meat locker to die than I could.
She bent to rummage in the chest again and reemerged holding a small, fabric-covered book. She opened it and held it out to me. “This is what my writing looks like.”
I leafed through a few of the pages. They were covered with large, round letters that slanted slightly backward, very different from the small, tight, right-leaning writing on the letter. I looked up.
“What is this?”
“It’s the journal I’m keeping for Joy. Do you see the difference?”
“Yes, I do.” I closed the book and handed it back to her.
“You believe me, then?”
“I do believe you, Eliza.”
She smiled, a grateful smile that contained both relief and forgiveness. She put away the book and key and came back to sit beside me. “But if I didn’t send it, who did? Why would somebody send you a letter pretending to be me?”
“I suppose because they knew I’d come if you asked,” I said, returning the letter to my purse.
“Come here? But why?” she persisted with no trace of guile.
“Someone was waiting here for me, or came in behind me, after I arrived. They pushed me into the meat cooler and locked me in.”
“Good Lord!” she said, looking genuinely shocked. “How did you get out?”
“I didn’t, not right away. I’m afraid your mother got a nasty surprise when she opened up this morning. Fortunately, she found me before any real harm was done.”
“But I don’t understand; why would anyone want to harm you?”
“My best guess is because the killer is worried I’m on to him.”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean? Have you found something?”
“I may have,” I said, unsure how much to tell her. “I came across a list in Dr. Hauptfuhrer’s files that suggests he arranged a number of adoptions besides your daughter’s. I think the real murderer might be on it.”
“You’ve found a list!” She grabbed my hands. “Is Joy on it? Do you know where she is?”
The yearning in her vo
ice was so affecting that I found myself longing to tell her the truth just to savor her reaction. Once again, however, prudence cautioned me to wait. “The list doesn’t actually contain names,” I told her. “It’s in a kind of code. I’ve been working on matching the letters on the list to names in local birth announcements.”
“Maybe I could help,” she said, squeezing my hands in excitement.
“I don’t think so. Not from here. But don’t worry, I’ve already got some leads. And judging by what happened last night, I’d say I’m on the right track.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said, fairly bouncing on the bed with glee. “I was beginning to think I’d never find her!” Her face suddenly fell. “But I didn’t mean to put you in any danger.” She looked me up and down with concern. “Shouldn’t we call a doctor to make sure you’re all right?”
“I am a doctor,” I reminded her. “And I’ll be fine. I just need a little sleep.”
“What about the police? Have you told them what happened?”
“I’m not sure that would be a good idea. They might assume that you did it.”
“Me! But I was up here in the flat! How could they accuse me?”
I sighed. “I know, it makes no sense, but I’m afraid that’s what they’d do all the same.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said bitterly. “Just like they’ve accused me of everything else. Still, I feel awful that you had to suffer on my account.”
“Fortunately, I’m no worse for wear,” I said with more bravado than I felt. “I’ll just have to be a bit more careful in the future.”
“I wish there was something I could do to make it up to you.” Her face brightened. “Are you hungry? I could make you some breakfast, at least.”
I was touched by her concern, hard-pressed now to see how I ever could have doubted her. But as all I really wanted was to go home and sleep for a week, I declined her offer and took my leave, reminding her I’d be back with Dr. Huntington the following morning.
A Deadly Affection Page 34