by Bill LeFurgy
She could count on the dolls to be good listeners and give her their complete attention while she divided eye contact equally between their painted porcelain faces, which were blessedly free of emotional messages. It was also comforting to know that neither doll would ever doubt her mental health.
Chapter 12
Jack—Wednesday, October 13, 1909, 7:00 a.m.
Just the ticket—the long walk from his boardinghouse to Sarah’s place on the other side of town. His nerves needed settling, big style.
West on Aliceanna took him past the St. Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church, with its nearby school and convent. This was the heart of the Polish tenement district, and the air was full of strange-sounding words. If he focused on the tone of individual voices, though, he could distinguish among arguments, basic transactions, friendly exchanges, and the various shades in between that were common to the language of every population on the planet.
Several blocks farther on he came to the point where multiple spurs of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad freight yards connected to the main track. To his right were three rows of long wooden warehouses, which were already alive with work gangs moving freight to and from railcars.
Jack turned right and went by the President Street station. A chatty barfly had once told him the first deaths of the Civil War happened near here. A unit of Massachusetts troops pulled into the station in April 1861 and were attacked by a proslavery mob. Both sides had multiple killed and wounded. The story didn’t surprise him—Baltimore was a southern city at heart.
The neighborhood past the station was Jewish, filled mostly with recent arrivals from Russia and nearby lands. Tenements lined both sides of the street, and laundry flapped in every courtyard, defying the gritty soot flying everywhere. Children stared at him with dark, blank eyes from stoops and open windows. Like the Polish district, the three-story tenements were crammed with three, four, or five families, each of them packed into two or three rooms. The housing was cheap, but landlords tended not to bother with things such as ventilation, sanitation, or fire safety.
One quiet night in a saloon Jack overheard a building inspector blabbing about a recent survey of tenements in Baltimore. Out of six hundred buildings checked, only nine had indoor toilets. There were only twenty-seven bathtubs, and two were used as kitchen sinks, one for storing clothes, and one as a bed. Most places had no indoor running water, and outdoor privies—most of them overflowing—were the rule. “That’s how them immigrant-types want to live,” the inspector said. “Breeding brats, vice, and germs around the clock.” To Jack the situation seemed more about necessity—no one would live that way if they had a choice.
Moving west on Pratt Street across the Jones Falls bridge was slow going, as two brewery wagons, each harnessed to a six-horse team, stood still in the center of the span opposite each other. The drivers argued about who had the right of way, not caring about the backed-up traffic and chorus of angry shouts. Jack stepped around the jam, careful to avoid the growing piles of manure and rivulets of urine. At least the beasts were enjoying a break.
Once over the bridge a fruity-bright smell smacked him in the nose—pineapples stacked outside the fruit seller storefronts on the edge of the harbor. A right on Market Place and a left on Baltimore Street had him once more surrounded by arcades, moving-picture parlors, and other cheap thrills. There was, however, no fun to be had this early in the morning—the joints around here didn’t begin to stir until noon at the earliest.
On Holliday Street he cruised by the fancy city hall, with its marble columns and cast-iron dome, before turning left on Pleasant Street and passing the massive Terminal Warehouse. It was a hulking, six-story brick pile with rail spurs running into cavernous arched entrances. He went inside on a job once and found that it had water-powered elevators, which for some reason didn’t scare the devil out of him.
Places like it were, to Jack’s mind, a riddle. Sure, there was big cash in the Baltimore warehouse business. But why? How could you earn money without producing raw materials, making something useful, or selling goods to regular people? All you did was unload stuff, pile it under a roof, let it bake in the summer and freeze in the winter, and then hump it back onto a wagon or railcar to go somewhere else. There must be some slick trick behind it, just as there was for so much modern business in the big city.
He turned north on Calvert and passed the Home for Worthy Boys and, a block later, the sprawling yards of the Northern Central Railway. Then it was west on Monument Street and up the hill to Mount Vernon Place, where a statue of George Washington perched on a towering column.
Washington was holding out a rolled shape in his right hand. Jack once imagined the shape was an invoice for services rendered, listing charges for the battles he had won during the Revolutionary War. Heck, the guy could even charge for lost battles. He got the job done. It turned out the statue depicted Washington handing back his military commission without asking for a nickel. Guess George was already a rich guy by that point and didn’t need the dough.
Jack continued west on Monument Street past the procession of grand mansions known as Millionaires Row. He closed his eyes and savored the smell of good coffee, the faint sound of a violin, and the feel of a soft breeze blowing over freshly manicured shrubbery.
He was getting closer to Sarah’s neighborhood, which he knew little about apart from its location near Druid Hill Park. He went past the Johns Hopkins University campus, turned right on Eutaw, and followed the dogleg to the northwest. The street became Eutaw Place and split in two, with a big grassy median in between. The structures grew progressively bigger and ritzier, as if each block were trying to outdo the previous one.
At the intersection with Lanvale, the Oheb Shalom Synagogue reared three gold domes on top of imposing stone walls. Grand mansions began popping up, some bigger and fancier than those on Mount Vernon Square. This was a world away from the bustle and grime of downtown. The streets were neatly paved, with just the occasional carriage or delivery wagon quietly passing.
Once past North Avenue, open lots were common. There was new construction here and there, but the place still had a country feel. The forests of nearby Druid Hill Park put a nice autumn tang in the air.
Outside Sarah’s address near the end of the street, he stood agape. The house had four floors—maybe five if there was a basement—with a massive bow front topped by dormer windows under a slate roof. It was big enough for at least ten people to live in total luxury.
Most houses in Baltimore—even fancy ones—were joined by common sidewalls. This place was freestanding on both sides, with a carriageway to the right that led to a covered entrance with a courtyard and a stable that could manage a dozen horses. The house seemed to keep extending back forever from the street, with different styles of windows, jutting protrusions, and towering chimneys. An ornate wrought-iron fence bounded perfectly kept grounds.
Jack’s sore knee wobbled, forcing him to clutch a piece of curlicue iron on the waist-high fence. Maybe he should go around back to the tradesmen’s entrance. It felt right and would protect Sarah’s reputation from prying eyes. No; forget it. She invited him here.
He pushed open the front gate and slowly mounted the huge marble steps to the pair of eight-foot-high front doors. He imagined a snooty butler opening, then slamming, the door in his face. The big brass knocker felt as smooth as butter.
The door flew open, and there was Sarah in a tightly wrapped dressing gown, hair down over one shoulder. “Jack. Come in.” She turned, went through an interior set of doors and into the foyer. He closed the outside door and stood for a second in the carved granite vestibule that reminded him of a fancy bank. The front hall was church-like, with soaring arches of dark wood decorated with carved gingerbread patterns, and the walnut wainscoting and fine dark furniture glowed with a fresh polish. His beat-up shoes sank deep into the plush Turkish carpet. This was by far the most high-class place he had ever set foot in.
He quickly
snatched off his hat. An enormous gilt frame mirror hung on the wall next to a row of fancy oil paintings. He looked at his reflection, which was a mistake. He was way past due for a visit to the barber, and his suit was so worn and tattered he looked like a bum.
“We can talk in the library.” With her usual determination, Sarah walked down the hallway and into a large, orderly room filled with bookcases. She sat at a table with a row of books standing in a precise line off to her right. Jack sat, eyes fixed on a gleaming silver coffeepot on a silver tray in front of him.
“I have studied fingerprint science and plan to compare the prints of suspects with the marks documented in the police photograph.” Sarah sat bolt upright like a freshly planted fence post.
“Good morning, Sarah. I would love some coffee.” Like her, he averted his eyes. He’d never seen a proper lady with her hair down, much less in her nightclothes. Even though she was covered from the top of her neck to the bottoms of her feet, her appearance was unsettling. With any other woman, Jack would take her attire as an invitation for sex.
“I should have offered to serve you.” She poured coffee into an impossibly fragile cup set on an equally fragile saucer. “I can ring for milk and sugar, if you need it. I drink coffee black. It tastes much better that way. I like tea, too, as long as it is black and fully oxidized.”
His head throbbed as Sarah talked. Eventually she stopped, and they sat in silence for a moment.
“Jack. You have a laceration on your cheek.” She was up in a flash and quickly back with a washbasin and a medical bag. “Turn your head so I may inspect and clean the wound.”
He flinched as she pressed a washcloth against his cheek. “No big matter,” he said. “Just nicked myself with the straight-edge this morning.”
“Nonsense. This is a severe puncture wound. It is as yet uninfected, fortunately.” She put a few drops from a small bottle of liquid onto a cotton swab and dabbed the skin around the cut.
“Hey, I can’t feel my cheek. What’d you put on it?”
“A weak solution of cocaine. It is a local anesthesia. Hold still while I stitch the cut.” She pierced his cheek with the needle.
“What the—”
“You will remain still.” She deftly worked the needle to place three stitches and sat back down.
“Nice bedside manner, Doc.”
“I am pleased to hear that. I had difficulty reassuring patients while in medical training.”
“No kidding.” Jack touched his cheek gingerly.
“Keep the wound clean. Make an effort to wash it.”
“Knock it off.” He dropped his hand to the table harder than he meant to. “I wash myself every morning. I’ve even been known to take a bath or two every year.”
“I did not mean to offend you. I am concerned about your well-being.”
“Yeah, sure.” Jack reached for his coffee, his hand hovering over the delicate-looking china cup. His thick fingers could never manage that tiny thread of a handle. He wrapped his hand around the cup as carefully as he could and took a big gulp. “Nice little place you have here,” he said, waving his hand around the room. “Where are all the servants?”
“My late father was a successful businessman. I am his only heir. I live here because it is available and familiar. The only help I require is a housekeeper, who spends most of her time arranging for physical maintenance.”
Maintenance of the house only, thought Jack. Any other woman of Sarah’s class would at least also have a maid to brush her hair, look after her clothing, and insist that her mistress get dressed before receiving any kind of visitor, most especially a man. That same maid should be hovering nervously in the background, worried to the extreme about the propriety of a guy like himself meeting alone with the lady of the mansion.
Sarah took a careful sip from her cup. “We should dispense with idle talk. I must leave shortly to be fitted for a dress so that I may attend the Daughters of the Confederacy Oyster Banquet tomorrow. After that, I need to assist the acting medical examiner in performing any necessary autopsies.”
“Oyster Banquet?” Jack whistled softly. “So hoity-toity. Bet you’ll be happy to mingle with your own class.” He gulped down the rest of his coffee, picturing her standing around with sweet-smelling folks chitchatting about lofty things. People whose smart, cultured personalities were as different from his as a dollar is to three cents.
“I loathe society events. They cause me great anxiety. I am attending this one strictly to acquire the fingerprints of suspects who will be present.”
“I couldn’t get within a block of a shindig like that before being told to get lost.”
“That speculation is of no consequence at this time. We need to discuss the status of the investigation.” She opened a notebook and began writing with a pencil.
“Sure.” Jack set his cup noisily down on the saucer. “You need to tell me more about this new autopsy job. I thought we were working together.”
“I am only on call for official autopsies this afternoon at Johns Hopkins Hospital. I plan to spend my free time conducting research and studying evidence.”
“Did you get to the city Bertillon Bureau? You were going to check on fingerprints, as I recall.”
“Yes. I met with the bureau head,” said Sarah. “I learned the police are not pursuing any fingerprint evidence. I have educated myself about the science and plan to gather and analyze finger marks from suspects, as I have previously indicated.”
Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out the burned half of the Honus Wagner baseball card. “Can you get fingerprints off this?”
“You mean apart from yours. Do not handle potential evidence with your bare hands. It is faulty procedure.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jack shrugged, tossing the burned card on the table. “The other guy who touched this was Snake Eyes O’Toole, the city detective who hauled in Nick and collared Shaw. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if O’Toole were involved in what happened to Lizzie.”
“I see you used your coffee without the handle. I can isolate your fingerprints from the cup.”
“Great. I managed to do something half right.”
Silence ticked by. “Jack, have I offended you again?”
“Look, Sarah, I’m just a low-rent guy doing his best to grub for some info. I know you’re way better than me in every way. Smarter, classier, richer—you name it. You don’t have to keep rubbing it in.”
More silence passed. “My intent is not to look down upon you.” She wrung her hands in her lap. “On the contrary. I worry that you devalue me because of my sex. And because of my eccentricity.”
Jack slumped in his chair, feeling like a chump. “Sorry. You’re a pip. A peacherino. I like working with you a whole bunch.” He had the urge to reach over and touch her arm, maybe her shoulder, but knew she’d jump. “Listen, I’ve got lots of news,” he said. “Horace Shaw’s in the clink, for starters. Got him to spill beforehand, though. Says Lizzie died during . . . you know.”
“Sexual intercourse. That is consistent with the position of Lizzie’s body in the police crime scene photograph.”
“I got a hunch Shaw might be innocent, just like he claims.”
“We must base our work on empirical observation and analysis. Mere guesses are not scientific.”
“The gut plays a big role in detective work.” Jack drummed his fingers on the thick white tablecloth. “Anyway, Shaw said Nick squeezed money out of him early Monday morning. Nick threatened to rat on him about Lizzie dying while they were—you know. Nick also said he had written evidence that someone else whacked Lizzie in the head a couple of days before she died. Shaw gave me a lead on where to find Nick. I’m going to go pay him a visit as soon as we’re done.”
“What is this alleged written evidence?”
“No idea. It might not even exist. I got some other interesting tidbits. Heard that Nick was trying to cash in on some kind of proof that a Baltimore big shot has secret Negro blood. Blackmail. Patterso
n might be involved.”
“What kind of proof pointing to which person? We need hard facts, not vague assertions.”
Jack drew in a sharp breath. “All I got is bits and pieces. That’s how this game works. It isn’t like some big library where you can just pull a book off the shelf and read everything you need to know.”
“I did not allude to a library. I am merely pointing out that incomplete information hinders our ability to—”
“Okay, I hear you.” Jack held up his hand. “There’s another lead for you to consider. The manager of the Gayety told me that Nick linked up Lizzie with some guy who claimed to be a doctor who wanted to ‘examine her.’ What do you call it when someone uses nice words to mean something not so nice?”
“A euphemism. I am not fond of such usage.”
“Yeah. Well, the guy who wanted to do the examining was short with big glasses and a pointy bit of hair sticking up from the top of his bald head. You know any doctors who look like that?”
Sarah jerked her hand across the table, sending her teacup onto its side with a soft plop. “Are you quite sure of that description?” She made no effort to mop up the brown liquid spreading across the snowy tablecloth.
“Manager had no reason to lie. You okay?” She had jumped up and was pacing rapidly from one side of the room to the other, her hands a blur. “Sarah?”
“I believe I know the man you describe. I will see him this afternoon.”
“Maybe you can worm something out of him. Look, I’ve got more to tell you. Sit down.” She sat prim. “I spoke to the Bob in Lizzie’s letter. He liked Lizzie a lot, probably even fell for her. Says he told her to drop Nick. Bob’s a fierce guy, and it’s easy to imagine him hurting her feelings. He says he didn’t hit her, and my gut wants to believe him. And he has a solid alibi for the day you think Lizzie got whacked in the head.”
Sarah leaped from her chair again and pulled a brown paper bag from a shelf. She reached in, pulled out a scrap of newsprint, and dropped it in front of him. “I retrieved this from Lizzie’s mouth. It was between her upper lip and gum. Please note the reference to the name ‘Bob’ as well as references to violence and romantic attachment.”