Hudson's Kill--A Justice Flanagan Thriller

by Paddy Hirsch

  Tamsin nodded. “It’s a desecration, what they’re doing.”

  “Aye. Anyway, while we were there, I heard a sound come from one of the alleyways. There was a girl down there.”

  “She was crying, Mammy,” Rosie said.

  Kerry took a breath. “I couldn’t leave Rosie on the street, Tam.”

  “She was on the ground,” Rosie said. “She was hurt.”

  Kerry touched her hair. “Did you see anything else, Rosie?”

  The little girl shook her head. “You said to look away.”

  Tamsin placed her gently on the ground. “Why don’t you find your dolly, Rosie. Let Mammy and Auntie Kerry talk for a little.”

  The girl ran into a back room. Tamsin’s face was tight. “We sent her to you to be safe.”

  “And she was safe, I promise. I went straight to call the Watch. And then straight home.”

  They sat for a moment, as the sound of the street filtered into the tavern. A man calling out the price of his apple pies. Two women fighting over something. Kerry looked at the basket of sweet rolls. She had lost her appetite.

  “I’m sorry, Tam, I had to go down there. That sound the girl made, like an animal with its back broken. What kind of a person would I be if I’d have walked on?”

  It was a moment before Tamsin nodded. “You’re right, I suppose. I just don’t like the thought of Rosie being there. Growing up in this city, she’ll see such things soon enough.”

  Kerry reached forward and took her friend’s hand. Tamsin squeezed. “So what of the girl? Raped, I suppose.”

  “I don’t think so. She was cut, like you gut a rabbit. Here to here.” She drew a line down her stomach.

  Tamsin shuddered. “Dear Lord Jesus, this city. It gets worse every day. Did they get the doctor to her?”

  Kerry shook her head. “She died.”

  “Oh, no.” Tamsin closed her eyes for a moment. “Did you recognize her, at all?”

  Kerry shook her head. “She was young. Thirteen or fourteen, maybe. She had some odd togs on, too. Nothing but a kemesa made of some soft cloth. A nightgown, maybe. She was abram underneath, like she’d just come from her bed.”

  “Did you see her hands?”

  “Soft as gingerbread.”

  “So, not a worker. A curtezan, then?”

  Kerry shrugged. “She didn’t seem so well-used.”

  A floorboard creaked. A short, bearded man stood in the doorway that led to the upstairs rooms. He had wide shoulders and sharp green eyes, and Rosie was balanced on his hip, chewing the end of one of her pigtails.

  “This one woke me up, asking for her dolly,” the man said, and kissed Rosie’s forehead.

  “Sorry, Seamus,” Tamsin said. “Let me take her.”

  “No, she’s grand.” Seamus Tully bounced his daughter a couple of times, and she giggled.

  “How dost, Kerry?” he asked.

  “Well enough, Seamus. What time did they go to last night?”

  “Last night? This morning, you mean.”

  “Well, it’s good business, if nothing else.”

  “That’s true.” He pulled the pigtail gently out of his daughter’s mouth. “Justy Flanagan was by earlier.”

  Kerry shifted on her stool. Tully’s eyes sparkled. “Nice to hear youse are back to talking.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far.” She winced at the sound of the bitterness in her own voice.

  “Oho! So he’s still hunting coney down in the First Ward, then?”

  “Enough, Seamus!” Tamsin squeezed Kerry’s hand. “He’s a fool. They’re both fools.”

  Tully was unfazed. “He told me about that girl you found last night.”

  “Did he?”

  “He thinks she might be a Mohammedan. Something one of the nuns at the Almshouse told him about the duds she was wearing. A kemesa, he said, made of some kind of soft wool, with an embroidered edge. It made me think of that shawl I bought you for your birthday, Tam, remember? The red one.”

  His wife narrowed her eyes. “The one you used to mop up spilled brandy at Christmas, you mean?”

  He grinned. “Aye, well, I bought it from one of the Mussulman families that lives up by Hudson’s Kill. I was told it was the best cloth in the city.”

  “Good thing the bingo washed out, then,” Tamsin said. “I’ll fetch it.”

  “Thanks, a chara.” He kissed her on the cheek as she squeezed past, taking Rosie from him and balancing the child on her right hip in one swift motion. He watched his wife as she swayed up the steps, and then winked at Kerry, who tried to smother her smile.

  “Thanks for looking after Rosie for us, Kerry.”

  “No bother. She’s like my own.”

  “I see that.” He squeezed her hand. “I worry sometimes she makes you think of Daniel.”

  And there it was, the desperate ache in her throat. The sensation of standing on the edge of a chasm, the wind at her back. She had been just seventeen years old when she had given birth to the boy. They had just celebrated his second birthday when he fell ill with colic and was taken to the sanatorium at Turtle Bay. Away from the city, Daniel had escaped the yellow fever that ravaged New York that summer, but he could not escape the fire that tore through the hospital and burned it to the ground. Kerry had to content herself with burying a box of ash.

  Tully walked to the counter, refilled her cup, and handed it to her. The hot coffee eased her throat and warmed her hands. She smiled at him. “She’s a lovely wee girl, Seamus. I’m happy to have her, anytime.”

  “Well, we’re grateful.” Tully poured himself a cup. “So what about this girl, then? You think she might have been Mohammedan?”

  Kerry shrugged. “She looked like a hundred others. Darker than me. Not as dark as Tam.”

  Tamsin returned, carrying a red shawl. “Is it the same cloth?”

  Kerry weighed the material in her hands. “It’s close.” She examined the embroidery on its hem. “I’d say the girl’s shirt was finer, but the edges are the same.”

  Tully put an arm around his wife. She rested her head on his shoulder and turned into him. Her hands crossed over her belly, cradling the slight bulge.

  “Kerry?” Tully was staring, a worried look on his face. She could feel every hair on her body standing on end. An image flashed in her mind, the girl’s hands dark and sticky with blood, crossed over her belly, holding herself. Her own stomach felt suddenly hollowed out.

  “Tell me about these Mussulmen, Seamus.”

  He shook his head. “Not much to tell, for they keep to themselves. You know the kill?”

  “Well, I’ve never been there, for I’m not mad. But I know where it is.”

  Hudson’s Kill was a small tidal stream that decanted into the river of the same name. It was surrounded by marshes, which had an evil reputation amongst both the Negro and Irish populations. They said spirits lived up there, selkies and kelpies that drifted up from the sea to hunt for children in the night.

  “They built a kind of compound up there, years ago,” Seamus said.

  “Compound? I thought you said it was a family.”

  “It was, ten years back. A dozen or fifteen of them settled on the meadowland south of the kill. Not anyplace I’d like to live. Swamp and mosquitos in summer and floods and ice in the winter. But they set about draining some of the land and building on it. A lot of buildings. Well made, too. Not your usual Canvas Town kips.”

  “So how many live up there now?”

  “A lot more than a dozen. But there’s no way to find out. The way they’ve built the place, there’s only one way in and out, and there’s always a couple of stout fellows standing about there to help with directions, if you take my meaning.” He gave her a sharp look. “So whatever it is you’re thinking of doing, don’t.”

  Her temper flared. “You can read minds now, can you?”

  “No need, when I can read your face. You look like you’re measuring a man for his coffin.” He tried a smile. “You’d be terrible at cards.�
�

  “Aye, well, I’m not thinking about playing games just now.”

  Seamus Tully nodded slowly. “I can see that.”

  SEVEN

  Justy’s office was a ten-foot cube with a bare wooden floor and a single window, too high in the wall to look into the street. It smelled musty, making him suspect it had been a storeroom, but he appreciated the spare austerity of the space. A table, a chair, a lockable drawer, and the armchair for visitors. Plenty of light and no distractions. Apart from the anti-Catholic tract that someone had placed carefully in the center of the desk for him to find that morning. “A Short and Sure Method for the Extirpation of Popery.” Justy folded it in half and pushed it to the side.

  Gorton sat stiffly in the battered leather armchair opposite him, clicking the nail of his right index finger with his teeth. He saw Justy watching him and put his hands in his lap. The skin around his cuticles was red and raw.

  “That’s a bad habit you have there,” Justy said.

  Gorton gave him a blank look with his wolf’s eyes, and Justy felt himself redden. He felt for his purse in the inside pocket of his coat, pulled out five dollar coins and stacked them on the table. “Here. Two days. Payment in advance.”

  Gorton looked at the coins. His Adam’s apple bobbed and his fingers fluttered in his lap, like a bird preening its feathers. Then he leaned forward, scooped up the money, and sat back in one smooth movement.

  “So how do we start?” he asked.

  “With the shoes.”

  Gorton’s face was blank. Justy smiled. “You said earlier that you thought Miss O’Toole might come to see me. In fact, I went to see her. She told me that when she found the girl, she was missing a shoe. But I saw no shoes in the alley. It’s possible Miss O’Toole was mistaken, of course. But I examined the dead girl’s feet this morning, and saw no cuts or bruises. Which leads me to the conclusion that she was indeed wearing shoes, and to the inevitable question, where are those shoes now?” He gave Gorton a frank look. “Sister Marie-Therese says the girl’s robe was expensive. It stands to reason, then, that her shoes would be, too. They, along with the robe, are the best clues we have as to who this girl was.”

  Gorton thought for a moment, then cleared his throat. “It was muddy down there, after the rain. A small pair of shoes could easily get squashed down the muck.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, Mister Gorton. I should go back to take a second look.”

  Gorton stood up. “No need. I’ll speak to Mister Playfair. Between the two of us, we’ll find them. You can count on it.” Gorton flashed a ragged row of sharp, tobacco-stained teeth, and then he was gone.

  * * *

  “You could have got him for half the price, Justice.”

  Jacob Hays was standing in the doorway. He was a barrel-shaped man, a foot shorter than Justy’s six feet, but broad in the shoulders and stout in the belly. His dark hair was swept back from a high forehead, and it curled over the collar of the long red overcoat that he always wore when he was on duty. He grinned at Justy, then walked across the room and peered down into the street below. “So, what do you make of him?”

  “Gorton? I think he shows potential.”

  “He’s a gambler. His commanding officer in Guadeloupe wrote and told me. Money fairly flows through the man’s fingers, he said. That’s why you could have got him cheap.”

  “I’d prefer to pay a man what he’s worth.”

  “Very commendable.” Hays picked up the tract on Justy’s desk. “Another one?”

  Justy shrugged. “My weekly love letter. I have a whole drawer full.”

  “You keep them?”

  “I don’t like to waste the paper.”

  Hays flopped into the armchair. “I’ve just come from the Tontine.”

  “On a Sunday?”

  The Tontine Coffee House was a gathering place on Wall Street. Brokers and businessmen used its well-appointed rooms to trade anything from a shipload of tobacco to a portfolio of stocks and bonds. There were several such meeting houses, but the Tontine was the most exclusive. Its senior membership included the richest and most powerful businessmen in New York, if not the country, which made it a waypoint on the career path of any politician aiming for a place on the national stage.

  Hays waved his hand. “You know my ambitions extend no further than my current office. I have no desire to be a damned alderman, or anything else. I was feeling them out.”

  “And?”

  “And it turns out that I have considerable support. But there are complications.”

  Hays had fought for years to become both High Constable and Captain of the Watch. The twin appointments gave him oversight of the city during both night and day, but comparatively little power to stop the rising tide of crime in New York. He had lobbied for more constables, both to assist the Marshals in investigations and to break up the increasing number of riotous assemblies. He wanted to do as the French had done and the English were trying to do: create a permanent police force for the city. The previous Mayor, a Federalist, had supported the idea. But the new Mayor, Edward Livingstone, was a Democrat-Republican, a Jeffersonian, which made him a fervent opponent of anything that had the whiff of the English about it.

  Which was why Hays had spent his Sunday morning drinking coffee. Livingstone was a politician, and the lifeblood of any politician was money. In New York City, money meant Wall Street. And, as Justy knew from his own experience, the biggest money dined and traded at the Tontine. Hays had been making the case that the best way for Wall Street to secure its money was with a police force.

  “What complications?” Justy asked.

  “This damned plan for the city’s expansion, of course. It’s become a bargaining chip. Every speculator in the city wants to know where the main roads will run, and where the most valuable plots of land will be. And because my constables guard the door when the Commission meets, they think I have some inside knowledge. They say they’ll support me, if I can tip them. Me! The High Constable! Who the hell do they think I am?”

  “I see the difficulty.”

  “Do you, indeed?” Hays snorted. “Well, talking of difficulty, what’s this about you ordering a watchman away from his post last night? I’ve already had an inquiry from the Council about it.”

  “I needed a guard. A girl was killed, and—”

  “I know all about that.” Hays made a dismissive gesture. “Someone went too far with one of Lew Owens’ stable, I presume.”

  “Why? Because the girl was black?”

  “That, and the clothes she was wearing. Or not wearing. Some kind of exotic robe, wasn’t it? Hardly the sort of thing a respectable young woman would wear.”

  “You’ve been talking to Sister Marie-Therese.”

  “Have I?”

  “Did she mention the markings on the girl’s hands? Moorish girls decorate themselves thus. And one of her nuns thinks the robe was of a Moorish design.”

  “Yes, she told me about the Mohammedan theory. But I find it hard to credit.” Hays leaned back in his chair and examined the ceiling. “Do we even have any Moors in New York?”

  “Not many. A small community of about a dozen settled just south of Hudson’s Kill, ten years ago now. Runaway slaves, the story goes. Led by a fellow who calls himself Umar Salam. They escaped from the Carolinas in a boat and were lucky enough to be picked up by a Quaker schooner, which brought them here.”

  “And you know this … how?”

  “I dropped in to Hughson’s this morning. Seamus Tully told me what he knows. A few of their menfolk do some trading in the market. Fish from the river, eels from the marsh, and some fine cloth, imported from the East. The men keep to themselves, and the women are rarely seen, but Seamus says the community has grown over the years.”

  “Grown how?”

  Justy shrugged. “Mohammedans newly arrived in the city, looking for those that share their beliefs. Other runaways, perhaps.”

  “Hmm.” Hays thought for a moment. “The good siste
r implied she was reluctant to keep the body in the Almshouse. You appear to have convinced her otherwise.”

  “Mohammedan or not, she was a girl, Jake. Barely thirteen, I’d say. The bastard that killed her stabbed her in the belly first, then split her like a goddamned sausage.”

  He let that sink in, but Hays said nothing.

  Justy felt his face flush. “This is bold-faced murder, Jake. Not some waterfront frisk gone too far. A young girl, slaughtered and dumped. No one’s come to claim her, and no one will. Which leaves us. We have to speak for her. We have to act for her. And that means finding her killer. To do that, I need to know who she is, and I can’t find that out if she’s been tossed in a nameless grave by some stiff-necked harridan in an overstarched wimple.”

  There was sweat on his upper lip.

  Hays held up his hands in surrender. “Fair enough. How long did the sister give you?”

  “Until Thursday evening.”

  “And you’re using Gorton?”

  “On his own time. Unless you can spare him from his rounds.”

  “Well, I can’t. We’re damned short-staffed at the moment, as you know.”

  “I do.”

  Hays grasped the lapels of his red coat, like a knight testing the fit of his armor. “Well, I’d ask you to luncheon, but I have a meeting with the Mayor.”

  “Is the police force on the agenda?”

  Hays gave a thin smile. “It’s my only agenda, Justice. As you know.”

  “Go gcuire Dia an t-ádh ort.”

  “I hope that’s not some leprechaun’s curse.”

  “It means may God place His luck upon you.”

  “May he, indeed.” And Hays strode out of the room, the tails of his long coat unfurling behind him.

  Justy watched him go. Jacob Hays had hired him and mentored him, and Justy had come to know the High Constable well in the last few years. He was a conscientious man, the kind who considered every possibility before making a decision. The kind who followed every lead of an investigation, wherever it led, and who kept meticulous files. Born in New York, Hays had watched the city grow as he had grown, and he knew every square inch of its streets. He knew about the Mohammedan community living on the edge of Canvas Town, Justy was sure. So why was he pretending he didn’t?