Drostan Fletcher sighed. Boyle wasn’t a bad cop. He was smart and tough. But like a lot of cops, he had the imagination of a cabbage. Most of the time, that wasn’t a bad thing. Cops dealt with hard facts, and too much imagination could get in the way. A good cop was methodical, detailed, unwilling to engage in suppositions that did not corroborate with evidence. But sometimes, closing a case took more than that.
“I don’t have a ‘take’ yet,” Drostan replied. “But I’m not happy to see another corpse, and certainly not on the same stretch of riverbank.”
“That why the swells hired you? Bet it makes them nervous, bein’ so close an’ all,” Finian said, with a nod of his head. Even though Drostan couldn’t see the brownstone neighborhoods from here, he knew well enough what Finian meant. Allegheny was a strange mixture of industry and luxury, immigrants and wealth.
Tanneries and soap factories, packing houses, and pickle manufacturers lined the banks of the wide river. So many German immigrants crowded into the cheap rooming houses and inexpensive neighborhoods that folks called the area Deutschtown. But just a few blocks farther on Ridge Avenue and the Mexican War streets, rows of brownstone townhomes and impressive residences were home to some of New Pittsburgh’s wealthiest families, the men who owned the factories and employed the immigrants. Finian didn’t need to know that Drostan’s employer wasn’t from this part of town, and that his real concern didn’t lie with the murdered vagrants.
“How will you make your report?” Drostan asked. Finian was scribbling in his notebook, and took a moment to finish before answering.
Finian grimaced. “Not much I can say except the what and the where of it, now is there? We’ve got no who or why, and there’s little enough of the body left, I’m not even sure of the how.” Finian eyed the uneasy patrolmen waiting a little ways off next to a morgue wagon. “Dr. Sheffield won’t have much to work with.”
Sheffield, the county coroner, already had his hands full, Drostan reflected. The bodies had started showing up a few months before, working their way up the Monongahela River from down near Richeyville until they finally reached the big city, then across the Point and now along the Allegheny River. The bodies were always found on the riverbanks, in deserted areas screened from view by warehouses and factories. Since the dead were vagrants, indentured servants, and poor immigrants, police authorities had taken little notice.
“Fella probably came down here for a smoke or to finish off a bottle of whiskey and got more than he bargained for,” Finian replied, looking at the savaged corpse.
Drostan’s mouth quirked into a mirthless smile. Padraig Finian had a good eye for detail, and a disciplined imagination. If you keep your head down and your mouth shut, you might make captain yourself one day, Drostan thought. Until then, Finian was a good man on the job and an even better man to raise a pint with.
“You got any leads on that last girl that got killed?” Finian asked. He nodded for the other officers to come closer with a stretcher and blankets, though they would be better served with a shovel and bucket. A few moments later, the policemen’s curses suggested the body was disintegrating. Drostan pointedly looked away. He had seen carnage before, too much of it.
“No,” Drostan replied. “And her name was Alice. Alice Hancock.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Finian said. “I just don’t like using her name. Got a niece named Alice. Gives me chills thinkin’ about it.”
“If I hear anything about your murders that might be useful, I’ll let you know,” Drostan said, shutting his own notebook and slipping it into the pocket in the lining of his coat. Finian had helped him out more than once, and Drostan returned the favor whenever he could. Good relationships inside the police department made his job a little easier. But the real reason Drostan was here had to do with a hunch that, for reasons he didn’t dare try to explain, the murder of a business owner over in New Pittsburgh just might have some connection to the string of unsolved murders along the rivers. And Drostan was almost certain the connection had to do with magic.
“Appreciate your help,” Finian replied. “I’ll stay in touch,” he added with a nod. “And until we catch whoever—or whatever—did this, best we were all watching our backs.”
Drostan glanced around. There were bystanders, watching the police silently from a distance. No reason to think any of them was the murderer, but perhaps they had seen something. The police gave them no notice, but Drostan could not escape their watchful gaze, staring at him as if daring him to take down their testimony. “Do you mind if I hang around for a bit?”
Finian looked out over the bleak, garbage-strewn strip of land and the dark, swift river beyond it. “That’s up to you.” He pulled his uniform coat closer around him against the wind. “Personally, I can’t wait to get back to the station and get some hot coffee.”
Drostan watched the police finish up and return to their wagons, waiting until the last of them had pulled away before he walked over to the small cluster of onlookers standing silently off to one side. It grew colder as he approached them, and he wished he had worn a heavier coat.
“If anyone saw anything, now would be a good time to mention it,” Drostan said, looking from face to face. There was an old man, probably a vagrant, with a grizzled beard and sunken eyes, who smelled of whiskey and licorice. Next to him was a teenager, raw boned and pale, and from the Old World cut of his clothes, Drostan guessed he was a day laborer, fairly new to America. A dark-haired woman clutched her shawl around her over her bodice, which still showed more than a proper woman would reveal. Drostan figured she was a tavern waitress, maybe even a prostitute. A peddler stood sullenly off to one side, as if he did not wish to be associated with the others.
“Well? I’m waiting—and I’m cold. Anybody see what happened here?”
“’Twas the Night Hag.” The woman lifted her head defiantly, as if Drostan might question her right to testify. Her accent bore traces of her native Polish. “I’ve seen her.”
“Who is the Night Hag?” Drostan asked, his voice gentle so as not to frighten the woman. The immigrants who crowded Allegheny’s and New Pittsburgh’s working class neighborhoods did not always think well of the police, often for good reason.
“You don’t have to talk to him.” The teenager eyed Drostan warily. “You don’t owe him anything.”
The woman’s eyes were fearful. She’d been through a lot, most of it bad, Drostan guessed.
“Please. It might help keep someone else from getting killed.”
“I didn’t meet the Night Hag myself, you understand,” the woman said finally. “My bad luck was running into a good-for-nothing boyfriend, but that’s an old story now. But I like this place, with the river and all, so I stay here. Only lately, she’s started walking here.” The woman wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t like her.”
“You mean the Night Hag?”
The woman nodded. “Back in my country, we had a name for her. Nocnitsa, we called her,” she said, and moved as if to spit on the ground. “She would come to people in the night and steal their breath, sit on their chests, make them die. Very bad.”
“Strega Cattiva,” the peddler muttered. “Tales to frighten children.”
“Die hexe,” the teenager said. “Such things, bad witches, are real.”
“Did you see her, the Night Hag, with the man who was killed?” Drostan asked.
The woman shuddered. “I saw a man walking alone. He seemed to be waiting for someone. He stepped into the shadows and then there was a scream.”
“And after that?”
“I saw a figure that looked like a bent old woman. She was leaning over him. Then she disappeared.”
Drostan looked at the others. “None of you saw anything?”
“I’ve seen the old woman before.” It was the gray-haired vagrant who spoke. “I’ve seen her hunting. I stay clear of her, even now.”
“Where did she come from?” Drostan asked. “The killings… like this one… they’re new.�
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“There’s strong magic in this city,” the woman said. “Three rivers come together. Caves in the hillsides, and mines underneath the ground, stirring up what’s been buried. Fires burn night and day,” she said, with a nod toward where the smokestack flames of steel mills were visible for miles. “So many people from so many places… they bring their magic with them. I told the witch there’d be more killin’s.”
“Witch?” Drostan asked.
“From the old country, came nosing around a while back. Couldn’t tell him no more than we told you. Haven’t seen him since.”
“I’ll come back,” Drostan promised. “If you see anything, please let me know.”
The young man gave a cynical laugh. “There will always be killings in a place like this. You can’t stop them all.”
“Maybe not,” Drostan said. He looked at each of them in turn. “But this wasn’t an angry lover or a robbery or bad whiskey, or a deal gone wrong,” he said, looking at the peddler. “This was a predator, and she’ll kill again.”
“You know where to find us,” the old man said. “We’ll be here. We’ll always be here.”
One by one, their forms shimmered, like dust in a moonbeam. Gradually, their outlines faded until nothing remained except the faint smell of licorice. Drostan turned and walked back to the road and the cold comfort of the single electric streetlamp.
Even with an eyewitness, it’s nothing I can take to the police, Drostan thought, his mood bleak. And if I turn up knowing too many details without a good explanation… well, we’ve been down that road before. Falling under suspicion of being an accomplice to murder—even if never proven, even if wholly untrue—had finished his career with the Scottish police. New Pittsburgh was supposed to be a fresh start.
It would be so much easier if I could just ask the victim. Drostan sighed. That wasn’t likely to happen soon. It took a while before the dead showed up as ghosts, if they were going to show up at all. So Drostan was on his own.
He walked back to his rented rooms on Second Avenue, not far from East Park, and pulled the collar of his overcoat up to shield his face and neck from the cold rain that had just started to fall. Rain or no rain, the bars on Ohio Street were doing a good business. Music and loud talk spilled into the streets, as did the occasional patron who had exceeded his tab.
German bars, Croat bars, Polish bars—the buildings looked much the same from the outside, but woe to the man who wandered into the wrong place unawares. In the tightly knit communities of Allegheny, as with the other neighborhoods that lined the area’s steep hills, newcomers quickly learned where they belonged.
One of the new electric streetcars rattled by, briefly illuminating the sidewalk. Drostan had chosen his rooming house in part because it was near a trolley stop, and because Ohio Street had been outfitted with electric streetlights. Drostan had had his fill of dark alleys, and had the scars to prove it.
Here and there, you could still see tell-tale reminders of the Conflagration of 1868 and the Great Pittsburgh Flood of 1869, twin disasters that had done enormous damage, both to Allegheny and to the city across the river. Drostan had heard plenty of stories from old-timers about explosions from the severed gas lines and fires burning out of control in the debris floating on the flood waters. The wealthier areas had rebuilt right away. Poorer sections had taken longer, and some of the worst areas had never built up again. Places like where they found the body, down on River Avenue by the suspension bridge, still had blocks that were little more than rubble, where squatters scratched out a meager existence.
Drostan fought the urge to put his head down to duck the rain. It was growing dark, and lower Allegheny was no place to walk without your wits about you. Drostan had a stop to make. He ducked down a side street, counting the doors until he came to a run-down tenement. Under the dubious shelter of a corrugated metal awning, a half dozen young men held court, seated on overturned barrels. A table fashioned from a wide board atop two sawhorses provided ample space for an animated game of dice.
“Yes! Eight the hard way!” A young man with dark blond hair grinned and collected his winnings. A cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the air, trapped by the rain and the awning. The young men grew quiet as they saw Drostan approach.
“It’s just Fletcher,” the blond man said, when Drostan got close enough to identify.
“Still on your winning streak, Ralf?” Drostan asked, eying the small pile of coins in front of the blond man.
Ralf shrugged. “Lucky enough, I guess. You bring something for us?” Drostan eyed the other boys clustered around the table. He would guess they were in their late teens, though hard work and poverty had toughened their bodies and made them jaded. Boys like Ralf took work where they could get it, loading ships and train cars or other odd jobs, and stole or gambled for what they needed when jobs were scarce.
Drostan withdrew a pouch of tobacco and a packet of cigarette papers, showing them just long enough for Ralf and his friends to see what he had before they disappeared into the pocket of his coat. “I brought something for you—if you’ve got something for me.” He leveled his gaze at Ralf, and the young man’s pale blue eyes glinted in acknowledgement.
“Maybe,” Ralf replied.
“Someone got cut up bad down by the river,” Drostan said. “Real bad.”
A dark-haired boy on Ralf’s left glared at Drostan. “We didn’t do it.”
Drostan gave a mirthless chuckle. “No, you didn’t. Whoever did do it had butchering skills.” He described the body in sufficient detail that Ralf and his friends blanched.
“It’s not the first we’ve found,” Drostan added. “But I’d like to make it one of the last.” He paused. “The police worry about murders out in the posh sections long before they make time to look into the bodies people find along the river. I’m not the police. I’d like to make the killing stop—but I need information.”
The boys traded glances, uneasy about volunteering information. “We give you information, you give us the smokes?” Ralf eyed the pocket where Drostan kept the bribe.
In response, Drostan removed the tobacco and rolled himself a cigarette, striking the match against a dry patch of brick beneath the awning. He took a long drag and blew out the smoke. It was good tobacco, better than Ralf and his friends were likely to afford or easily steal.
“People say it’s a geist what’s done the killing,” one of Ralf’s friends ventured. He was the smallest of the group, with short, sandy-colored hair tucked into a cap.
Drostan gave the boy a skeptical look, though his heart beat faster at the comment. “Come on. Do you take me for a fool? There are no such things as ghosts.”
“Don’t know what else to call it,” the boy said defiantly. “And I’m not the only one to get a look at it.”
Grudgingly, Ralf and two of the other boys nodded. “We’ve seen something down by the river,” Ralf said finally. “Sometimes it looks like a shadow, only the light’s not bright enough for a real shadow. Other times, it’s a bent old lady. It walks the riverside, right around dusk.”
“Are you sure it’s not just someone having a prank?”
Ralf shook his head. “That’s what we thought, at first. But then dogs went missing, and some chickens. We thought someone was stealing them, or maybe a fox got loose, but that shadow, it’s bigger than a fox.” He paused. “It’s got so most people won’t go anywhere near the river once the sun is low. They’re scared.” He raised his head, as if to assure Drostan than he was not intimidated.
“When did people start seeing the old woman?” Drostan asked, keeping his excitement out of his voice.
The boys conferred. “A while ago,” Ralf said finally. “After Christmas.” It squared with what few facts Drostan had collected.
“Has anyone actually spoken to the old woman, or gotten close enough to know what she looks like?”
Ralf cursed in German. “No. Hell, no. Any time you see her, there’s a bad feeling, like you should be somewhere else. Peopl
e tried calling the priest to make her go away, but he won’t come anymore. Some of the women wear a saint’s medal, or carry a rosary, as if that would scare it off.” From the look on Ralf’s face, he clearly thought that whatever haunted the riverside was not going to be so easily dismissed.
“You ever seen the shadow—or the old woman—anywhere except down by the river?” Drostan asked, forcing himself to sound casual.
They shook their heads. “I ain’t heard anyone tell of seeing the old woman ’cept by the river,” Ralf said, “but I heard my mother talking with some of the other women. People been having bad nightmares, and a couple of babies died in their sleep, one right after the other. That, and they’ve had a run of bad luck down in the mines.”
Drostan withdrew the tobacco and cigarette papers from his pocket and laid them on the table. “Thanks, boys. Keep your eyes open, and I’ll bring more—if you’ve got good information.”
“We’ve always got our eyes open, and our ears,” Ralf said. “That’s how we stay in one piece.”
“Oh, one more thing,” Drostan said, as if it had nearly slipped his mind to ask. “Have any of you seen a witch poking about recently?”
“A witch? No.” Ralf replied. “We steer clear of hocuses.”
“Let me know if you hear anything.” Drostan made his way back to the street. The smell of sauerkraut wafted on the evening air from a nearby kitchen. Drostan smiled. New Pittsburgh’s immigrants were good cooks. Just on North Avenue, Drostan could sample dishes from across Eastern and Western Europe in the pubs that lined the street, and hear nearly every language from the Continent in the mornings and evenings as workers trudged to and from their jobs. The jumble of accents, languages and cooking smells were a comfortable patchwork, making him feel at home in his adopted city.
Down at the corner, a crowd of men rallied around a man standing on a wooden box. The speaker was a florid-faced man with a strong Irish accent, and he was exhorting anyone in earshot to cast their votes for ‘Dynamite’ Danny Maguire, the construction business owner turned political boss who was the darling of New Pittsburgh’s working men and their unions. Drostan paused to watch from a distance, just for entertainment, and then crossed the street and moved on, eager to be home.
Iron and Blood Page 4